Abstract
Languages often use different constructions to convey the same meaning. For example, the meaning of a causative construction in English (Jen had her computer fixed) is conveyed using an active structure in Korean (Jen-NOM her computer-ACC fixed), and yet little is known about how bilinguals represent and process such constructions. The present study investigated whether late bilinguals develop shared or language-specific representations for crosslinguistically different (causatives) and similar (transitives) constructions. Using between-language structural priming, Experiment 1 showed that proficient Korean-English bilinguals exhibited a stronger priming effect for transitives than did less proficient bilinguals. Using a picture–sentence verification task, Experiment 2 showed that proficient bilinguals were more likely to apply the rules of Korean causatives to the processing of English causatives than were less proficient bilinguals. Our results suggest that Korean-English bilinguals share syntactic representations for both similar and different constructions, indicating that the bilingual system is highly integrated.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 177-205 |
Number of pages | 29 |
Journal | Language Learning |
Volume | 68 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 2018 |
Keywords
- bilinguals
- causatives
- crosslinguistic similarity
- English
- Korean
- shared syntax
- syntactic representation