Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1985, Page 54

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Bergljót Baldursdóttir
to be evidence of simplification, yet there is a retention of considerable
complexity. That is they keep fairly substantially their allomorphic
variety (plural, gerund), and there is a fair persistence of categories with
marginal or indirect semantic significance (gender). Furthermore em-
bedding is handled readily and word order is virtually unchanged
(1981:55). Why some things are retained and others simplified is not
obvious. Dorian suggests that it is the acquisition history of these semi-
speakers that has „permitted one set of skills to outrun the other“
(1981:155) and furthermore that the properties of the language being
forgotten can give rise to certain type of errors and so can the structure
and the orderof the forgetting process (1982:57).
It is certain that a closer study of language attrition in relation to lan-
guage acquisition will increase our knowledge of language change in
general, and hopefully shed more light to the interdependence of lan-
guage acquisition, language structure and language attrition. This is the
main topic of this paper. It reports on a study of individual language
attrition. It considers the language development of a bilingual child
with his two languages. That is, how, due to lack of use, linguistic fea-
tures of his native language are eroding at the same time as his second
language competence increases. It can be seen simultaneously as a
study of continuing first language acquisition in conditions of limited
exposure, and language attrition. Furthermore, the distinction between
the language attrition of an individual and a community is not known
but is important. It is not known how individual language change com-
pares with that of a whole community or group of speakers. The study
of individual language attrition gives another but valuable perspective
onlanguage change.
This is an initial analysis of data the collection of which started in
February 1982, and has continued ever since, with an average regular-
ity of taperecording once a month. The data shows some changes oc-
curring in the morphology of the Icelandic language, and a great
amount of code-switching or borrowed words. The main theme of this
paper is the morphological complexity of the Icelandic noun phrase. It
is considered in general and in relation to the code-switching. The data
show that changes have occurred in the Icelandic noun phrase. The
most common changes observed are: distinctive case structures have
been replaced by prepositional phrases and there is a great use of ana-
logically regularized allomorphs.