Bilingual alignments

Abstract

The issue of how to distinguish bilingual syntactic representations from processing preferences or strategies is addressed by postulating the concept of permeable bilingual alignments as memory storage devices that include information from different language components. Supporting evidence from phenomena such as the emergence of innovative mappings across different components (phonology, morphology, syntax, the lexicon, and information structure), bidirectional transfer, and frequency effects is presented, and some possible consequences of adopting this proposal are discussed.