Word Order Transfer in Simultaneously Bilingual Dutch-Greek Young Children

Abstract

According to previous research crosslinguistic influence can occur in bilinguals of languages that partly overlap in their grammatical rules at least in early stages of development ( Jansen & Lalleman, 1980). As the interface between different language domains such as syntax-pragmatics is a possible locus of transfer for young and older child bilinguals( Hulk & Müller, 2000; Argyri & Sorace, 2007) this paper attemps to find out what happens to the Greek basic word order of three simultaneously bilingual Dutch-Greek young children by analysing their spontaneous speech. Since Greek, albeit registered as an SVO language, presents great flexibility of word order depending on pragmatic factors, it was expected that the word order structure of main and subordinate clauses and interrogatives will undergo influence from Dutch, an SOV language with Verb second position for the main clause and V final for the subordinate. The findings showed a negligible occurrence in the two younger bilinguals with a clearer manifestation in the older one, albeit still small.