Typological Shift in Bilinguals’ L1: Word Order and Case Marking in Two Varieties of Child Quechua

We compare speech production and find morphosyntactic change among children adolescents speaking two closely related varieties of Quechua in Cuzco, Peru, Chuquisaca, Bolivia. languages traditionally employ Object-Verb (OV) word order main clauses, but robust case marking permits other orders, especially to focalize new information through constituent fronting. In not we that schoolchildren often omit the accusative suffix -ta from direct objects while retaining a prosodic trace -ta. varieties, loss is associated with shift towards Verb-Object (VO) order, as Spanish. However, Chuquisaqueños use more canonical OV possessor-possessed declarative sentences than do Cuzqueños, who wide range orders at sentence level deviate norm for noun phrases. Our finding rigid Chuquisaca highlights complex factors contributing typological morphology: Omission morphology places greater burden on identify grammatical roles. Further, Chuquisaqueño alone have begun huk, “one,” mark indefiniteness, perhaps replace determiner-like functions ascribed obsolescent markers such evidentials.