Will Differences in Case Marking and Word Order affect cross-linguistic structure priming

Previous studies examining the role of case marking and word order in cross-linguistic structural priming obtained inconsistent results mostly in bilingual context and between languages with typologically close similarity. The present study extended the research into a trilingual context and between languages that are typologically different by examining cross-linguistic priming of ditransitive structures among Tibetan-Chinese-English trilinguals whose three languages are different in case marking (Tibetan is a case marking language while the other two are not) and word order (Tibetan is SOV but the other two are SVO). The results showed that the priming effect occurred across the three languages, indicating case marking and word order did not hind cross-linguistic priming among the trilinguals. Besides, language proficiency was found to have no moderating effect on the priming process. The results also suggest shared representation of ditransitive structure among Tibetan-Chinese-English trilinguals.

以往研究探讨格标记（case marking）与语序（word order）在跨语言结构启动（cross-linguistic structural priming）中的作用时，多聚焦于双语语境及类型学相近的语言间，所得结果存在不一致性。本研究将该领域拓展至三语语境及类型学差异显著的语言间：通过考察藏汉英三语者的双及物结构（ditransitive structures）跨语言启动效应——其三种语言在格标记（藏语为格标记语言，另两种则否）与语序（藏语为主宾谓SOV，另两种为主谓宾SVO）上均存在差异。结果显示，三种语言间均存在启动效应，表明格标记与语序并未阻碍三语者的跨语言启动；此外，语言熟练度对启动过程无调节效应，结果亦提示藏汉英三语者的双及物结构具有共享表征（shared representation）。