Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1985, Side 53

Language Shift in an lcelandic Child 51
appears to play a major role in some of the changes she observed. She
says:
It would seem that the incomplete acquisition histories of the SS
play a major role in some of the changes ... and that certain
general tendencies in linguistic change combine with acquisitional
deficiencies to hasten other changes (for example, the replacement
ofcasemarked nounsby prepositional phrases) (1981:153).
Some of the changes Dorian observed in her study of ESG were for
example: distinctive case structures were replaced by prepositional
structures; analogical leveling reduced the numbers of allomorphs for
some morphemes; separate syntactic structures with a single semantic
function were merged; a native distinction not shared by the speakers of
the second language was given up etc. (1981:151). Some changes were
particularly characteristic of the imperfect speakers (semi-speakers),
regardless of acquisitional history. All the imperfect speakers showed
forexample:
a greater or lesser use of analogically regularized allomorphs, com-
plete loss of morphemes that are already showing weakness in the
fully fluent population’s Gaelic, loss of inventory .. . and also loss
of vocabulary from both open and closed classes (1982:56).
The changes in the language of the imperfect speakers also differed
depending on their acquisitional history. One subject, for example, a
former fully fluent adult, differed from the other imperfective speakers.
This speaker did not show tendency towards analogical regularization,
i.e. did not lose syntactic options and did not show any tendency to
make synthetic structures analytic (1982:56). But compared to the
fluent speakers, she was deficient in morphophonology, morphology
and syntax, but better than the other imperfect speakers in other
respects (1982:52). The language of the imperfect speakers (semi-speak-
ers) is, generally speaking, a reduced system compared with the fluent
speakers. Dorian (1981:155) points out the similarities and differences
of this reduced linguistic system to other reduced linguistic systems like
child language or pidgin. Some of the similarities are for example:
vocabulary is restricted, morphological inflections are to some extent
generalized (plural) or lost (future, conditional), and some transform-
ations are missing (passives). There are also differences. For example,
what seems to be so unusual about the semi-speakers is that there seems