Antonella Sorace

Antonella Sorace

University of Edinburgh

Interface conditions in monolingual and bilingual speakers: language and general cognition

Summary

Recent research on child and adult multilingualism has focused on a range of interface conditions on syntactic realization.  I will discuss two examples. First, pronouns and other referring expressions require efficient integration and updating of context-dependent information: these structures develop late in monolingual children, remain variable in proficient second language speakers, and become unstable in speakers experiencing native language attrition. Second, the selection of perfective auxiliaries avere/haben (‘have’) and essere/sein (‘be’) in Italian and German systematically varies along a gradient hierarchy defined by the aspectual type of the intransitive verb and the context in which the verb appears: the use of auxiliaries with variable verbs is sensitive to the cognitive capacity of individual speakers to integrate linguistic and non-linguistic information outside the verb itself, and presents similar developmental patterns to pronouns in late bilingualism.  I will argue that an account of these facts needs an interdisciplinary approach that considers the interaction of linguistic and general cognitive factors.

Short biography

Antonella Sorace is Professor of Developmental Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. She is a world leading authority in the field of bilingual language development, where she brings together methods from linguistics, experimental psychology, and cognitive science. She is internationally known for her contribution to language typology, especially for her research on variation at the lexicon-syntax interface and her studies of gradience in natural language. She is also committed to public engagement of research and is the founding director of the research and information centre Bilingualism Matters, which has 16 branches all over Europe and in the US.