Erodierte Sprachstrukturen und Grammatiktheorie: zur Morphosyntax der semi-speakers in der zimbrischen Sprachenklave Lusérn und ihrer Bedeutung für die Sprachtheorie

‘Semi-speakerness’ is a phenomenon quite wide-spread in language islands, especially when (i) in small communities a stronger standard comes to exert a huge pressure on the minority language, and (ii) the process of language death takes place very slowly (DORIAN 1981). It manifests itself through a partly (or even severely) eroded competence in the production of the minority language displaying deviant morphological forms (deficient paradigms and the tendency to eliminate irregularities and marked forms by the process of analogical leveling) and a skewed syntax. The first aim of our paper is to present data from semi-speakers’ Cimbrian offering an analysis that supports the idea that in their language competence some subparts of the CP layer are ‘inactivated’ or inaccessible (focalization and dlinking or familiarity topics) whereas other parts of the CP layer (wh-movement) show a higher capacity to survive. The second aim is to explain the significance of such an investigation for the theory of grammar.