Language· 2026Q1
Crosslinguistic effects in the priming of novel grammatical structures and the psycholinguistic mechanisms of language change
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- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
Bilingual speakers, through crosslinguistic priming, can accelerate the adoption of novel grammatical structures in English, particularly when their native language co-activates high-frequency structural options.
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Key points
- Crosslinguistic priming affects the adoption of novel grammatical structures in English.
- Bilingual speakers (L1 German/Swedish speakers of English) showed direct and indirect priming effects for new structures.
- Co-activation of high-frequency native language structures encourages the production of grammatical innovations.
- These findings suggest bilingual speakers may accelerate language change.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Abstract To identify potential psycholinguistic mechanisms by which structural innovations are reproduced across different types of speakers, this study systematically investigates crosslinguistic effects in the structural priming of novel grammatical structures among first-language (L1) German and L1 Swedish speakers of English compared to L1 English speakers. For novel uses of the double object (DO) structure with English nonalternating verbs (e.g. donate the woman the book ), three experiments find direct and indirect crosslinguistic effects in the within-language and cross-language priming of structural innovations. Co-activation of a high-frequency structural option in the first language promotes the production of structural innovations. We relate these findings to language change and argue that crosslinguistic activation may render bilingual speakers accelerators of language change.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Language, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Language and Linguistics
Language and LinguisticsArts and Humanities