The relationship between synchronic and diachronic linguistic processes: a discussion of language acquisition and language contact ...

The present study investigates the relationship between synchronic processes in Second Language Acquisition and diachronic processes in Language Contact. The focus is on examining laryngeal contrasts in the L2 acquisition of English stops by native speakers of Dutch, and the hypothesized Romance/Germanic contact situation which is argued to have resulted in the Dutch laryngeal system. Using van Coetsem's (1988) framework, the investigation reveals that there are indeed similarities. Furthermore, a re-examination of the acquisition data (originally presented in Simon, 2009, 2011) shows that a m... Mehr ...