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.

过往针对跨语言结构启动（cross-linguistic structural priming）中格标记（case marking）与词序（word order）作用的相关研究，大多在双语语境以及类型学相似度较高的语言对之间开展，却得到了不一致的实验结果。本研究将该研究范畴拓展至多语语境以及类型学差异显著的语言对之间，以藏-汉-英三语者为被试，考察双及物结构（ditransitive structures）的跨语言启动效应。该群体的三种语言在格标记与词序方面均存在差异：藏语属于格标记语言，其余两种语言无格标记；藏语采用SOV语序，其余两种语言采用SVO语序。研究结果显示，启动效应在三种语言间均得以显现，表明格标记与词序并未阻碍三语者的跨语言结构启动。此外，研究发现语言熟练度（language proficiency）对启动过程并无调节作用。本研究结果同时表明，藏-汉-英三语者对双及物结构拥有共享的心理表征。