First language attrition / edited by Herbert W. Seliger and Robert M. Vago.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The study of first language attrition : an overview / Herbert W. Seliger and Robert M. Vago -- First language attrition and the parameter setting model / Michael Sharwood Smith and Paul Van Buren -- Recapitulation, regression, and language loss / Kees de Bot and Bert Weltens -- First language loss in bilingual and polyglot aphasics / Loraine K. Obler and Nancy R. Mahecha -- A crosslinguistic study of language contact and language attrition / Julianne Maher -- L1 loss in an L2 environment : Dutch immigrants in France / Kees de Bot, Paul Gommans, and Carola Rossing -- The sociolinguistic and patholinguistic attrition of Breton phonology, morphology, and morphonology / Wolfgang U. Dressler -- Language attrition in Boumaa Fijian and Dyirbal / Annette Schmidt --

Pennsylvania German : convergence and change as strategies of discourse / Marion Lois Hiffines -- Lexical retrieval difficulties in adult language attrition / Elite Olshtain and Margaret Barzilay -- Spanish language attrition in a contact situation with English / Carman Silva-Corvalán -- Morphological disintegration and reconstruction in first language attrition / Dorit Kaufman and Mark Aronoff -- Assessing first language vulnerability to attrition / Evelyn P. Altenberg -- Compensatory strategies of child first language attrition / Donna Turian and Evelyn P. Altenberg -- Language attrition, reduced redundancy, and creativity / Herbert W. Seliger -- Paradigmatic regularity in first language attrition / Robert M. Vago.

"This book examines linguistic aspects of the attrition or loss of first language abilities in bilinguals through a collection of studies in various language groups. The phenomena of attrition are examined at both the individual bilingual and societal levels. This volume is divided onto three sections: Part I surveys different aspects of existing empirical evidence to arrive at theoretical generalizations about language attrition. Part II is comprised of group studies examining attrition in societal bilingualism or in groups of bilingual individuals. Part III contains individual case studies of bilingual children and adults. The research reported investigates first language attrition in a variety of linguistic areas such as syntax, morphology, semantics, phonology and lexicon with the following first languages: Spanish, German, Hebrew, Dyirbal, English, Breton, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, French and Pennsylvania German. Although there is growing interest in bilingualism, this is the first work to examine the effects of the acquisition of a second language on linguistic abilities in the first language."--Publisher description.

Machine converted from AACR2 source record.