Language Mixing and Diachronic Change: American Norwegian Noun Phrases Then and Now

Abstract

This article investigates the diachronic development of language mixing within noun phrases in the heritage language American Norwegian. By comparing data collected in the 1930s and 1940s with recently collected data, I present and discuss patterns showing systematic changes, specifically concerning the categories number and definiteness. Moreover, I propose two potential analyses of these patterns based on an exoskeletal approach to grammar. This theoretical framework crucially separates the abstract syntactic structure from its phonological exponents, and the analyses that are discussed consider both the structure and the exponents as the origins of the change.