Many simultaneous bilinguals exhibit loss or incomplete acquisition of their heritage language under conditions of exposure and use of the majority language (Silva-Corvalan, 1994, 2003; Polinsky, 1997; Toribio, 2001; Montrul, 2002). Recent work within discourse-functional (Silva-Corvalan 1994) and generative perspectives (Sorace, 2000; Montrul; 2002; Tsimpli, Sorace, Heycock, Filaci and Bouba, 2003, in press) suggests that while syntax proper is impervious to language loss or attrition, syntax-related interfaces like lexical-semantics and discourse-pragmatics are not. This study investigates argument expression in adult simultaneous bilinguals who are heritage speakers of Spanish, because in this language subjects, direct, and indirect objects are regulated by syntactic, pragmatic and semantic factors. It was hypothesized that if language loss affects interface areas of competence more than the purely syntactic domains, then Spanish heritage speakers should display robust knowledge of null subjects as well as object clitics, but variable behavior in the pragmatic distribution of null vs. overt subjects, the a preposition with animate direct objects, and cases of semantically based dative clitic-doubling. Results of an oral production task administered to 24 intermediate and advanced heritage speakers and 20 monolinguals confirmed the hypotheses. With the erosion of pragmatic and semantic features, the grammars of the intermediate proficiency Spanish heritage speakers appear to display morphosyntactic convergence with English in the expression of subject and object arguments.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S1366728904001464

Subject and object expression in Spanish heritage speakers: A case of morphosyntactic convergence

This paper reports on an experiment investigating the acquisition of Spanish, a language that has a gender feature for nouns and gender agreement for determiners and adjectives, by speakers of a first language (L1) that also has gender (French), as well as an L1 that does not (English). Number (present in all three languages) is also investigated. Subjects were adult learners of Spanish, at three levels of proficiency, as well as a control group of native speakers. Oral production data were elicited. Subjects were also tested on an interpretation task, in which the selection of pictures corresponding to particular sentences depends on number and gender contrasts. The results from both tasks show significant effects for proficiency; low proficiency groups differ significantly from native speakers, but advanced and intermediate groups do not. There were no significant effects for L1 or for prior exposure to another second language with gender. The findings are discussed in the context of two different theories as to the possibility of parameter resetting in nonnative acquisition, namely, the failed functional features hypothesis and the full transfer full access hypothesis. The results are consistent with the latter hypothesis.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0142716404001067

Gender and number agreement in nonnative Spanish

This volume collects important recent articles by Richard Kayne, one of the top formal linguists in the world. Although the articles range widely in topic and theme, they hang together in that they illustrate the power of the comparative approach, and that they reinforce Kayne's view that syntax is generally more complex than it first appears. As with other volumes in this series, the audience for the volume will be formal linguists and syntacticians around the world.

Movement and silence

This book provides a pioneering introduction to heritage languages and their speakers, written by one of the founders of this new field Using examples from a wide range of languages, it covers all the main components of grammar, including phonetics and phonology, morphology and morphosyntax, semantics and pragmatics, and shows easy familiarity with approaches ranging from formal grammar to typology, from sociolinguistics to child language acquisition and other relevant aspects of psycholinguistics The book offers analysis of resilient and vulnerable domains in heritage languages, with a special emphasis on recurrent structural properties that occur across multiple heritage languages It is explicit about instances where, based on our current knowledge, we are unable to reach a clear decision on a particular claim or analytical point, and therefore provides a much-needed resource for future research

Heritage Languages and their Speakers

To contribute to a better understanding of second language (L2) sentence processing, the present study examines how L2 learners parse temporarily ambiguous sentences containing relative clauses. Results are reported from both off-line and on-line experiments with three groups of advanced learners of Greek whose native languages (L1s) were Spanish, German, or Russian as well as from corresponding experiments with a control group of adult native speakers of Greek. We found that, despite their nativelike mastery of the construction under investigation, the L2 learners showed relative-clause attachment preferences that were different from those of the native speakers. Moreover, the L2 learners did not exhibit L1-based preferences in their L2 Greek, as might be expected if they were directly influenced by L1 attachment preferences. We suggest that L2 learners integrate information relevant for parsing differently from native speakers, with the L2 learners relying more on lexical cues than the native speakers and less on purely structurally based parsing strategies.

/pdf/parsing-strategies-in-l1-and-l2-sentence-processing-a-study-z4nr2fntpv.pdf

Parsing Strategies in L1 and L2 Sentence Processing: A study of relative clause attachment in Greek *

In this paper, we report on an experiment investigating adult second language (L2) acquisition of Spanish object clitic placement by native speakers of English (which lacks clitics) and French (where clitics contrast in certain respects with Spanish). Two different experimental methodologies are compared: an on-line sentence matching (SM) task and an off-line grammaticality judgement (GJ) task. Subjects were advanced and intermediate level English-speaking and French-speaking learners of Spanish, together with a native-speaker control group. A variety of constructions involving Spanish clitic placement were tested. The results from the two tasks complement each other: all groups show significant effects for grammaticality on the SM task and considerable accuracy on the GJ task, suggesting that L2 clitic placement can successfully be acquired even when the first language (L1) lacks clitics. However, both tasks reveal that L2 learners have difficulties in restructuring and causative contexts, which we attri...

Assessing L2 knowledge of Spanish clitic placement: converging methodologies

1: Theoretical Issues.- 1.1 Explaining Syntactic Universals and Syntactic Variation.- 1.1.1 Lexical and Functional Projections: A Retrospective.- 1.1.2 Projections, Particles and Initial Consonant Mutation.- 1.2 Constraints on Phrase-Structure.- 1.2.1 X'-theory.- 1.2.2 Deriving X'-theory: Kayne (1993).- 1.3 Conditions on Movement: Deriving Locality.- 1.4 Motivating Syntactic Movement.- 1.4.1 Motivating NP-movement.- 1.4.2 Motivating Head Movement.- 1.4.3 A Note on Terminology.- 1.5 Summary.- 2: Movement and Mutation Processes In Modern Irish.- 2.0 Introduction.- 2.0.1 Initial Consonant Mutation.- 2.0.2 On Deriving VSOX Word-Order: Preliminaries.- 2.1 The Scope of Verb-Movement in Irish.- 2.1.1 Adverb Placement (I).- 2.1.2 'Pronoun-Postposing'.- 2.1.2.1 Diachronic Changes.- 2.1.2.2 Adverb Placement (II).- 2.1.2.3 Restrictions on 'Postposing.- 2.2 Unpacking INFL: The Preverbal Particle System.- 2.2.1 Deriving [C ].- 2.2.2 Deriving [T ].- 2.2.3 Deriving [Neg ].- 2.2.4 Deriving [Agr ].- 2.3 Mutation in Copular Constructions.- 2.4 Summary.- 3: Conspicuous Absences: Mutation & Extraction In Negated Contexts.- 3.0 Introduction.- 3.1 The Problem of Gan: Mutation And Extraction.- 3.1.1 Small Clauses and Infinitival Clauses.- 3.1.2 Gan: Mutation and Subject Extraction.- 3.2 Relative Clauses, Narrative Fronting and Topicalization in Irish.- 3.2.1 Indirect vs. Direct Relatives: aNvs. aL.- 3.2.1.1 Dialectal & Historical Factors.- 3.2.1.2 Past Tense Contexts.- 3.2.1.3 Independent & Dependent Forms.- 3.2.2 Negative Relatives: The Dog that Didn't Bark.- 3.2.3 Topicalization and WH-movement in Celtic and Germanic.- 3.2.3.1 Muller & Sternefeld (1993).- 3.2.3.2 Direct Relatives as Topic-Phrases.- 3.2.3.3 Topicalization vs. Narrative-Fronting.- 3.2.3.4 Negative Polarity Licensing.- 3.3 Conclusion.- 4: Visible Arguments: Theta-Government And Case In Ulster Irish.- 4.0 Introduction.- 4.1 Deriving SOVX word order.- 4.1.1.1 Thematic Constraints.- 4.1.1.2 Lexical Subjects.- 4.1.1.3 The Particle aL.- 4.1.2 A Previous Analysis: McCloskey & Sells (1988).- 4.1.3 An Alternative Analysis: aL and 'Object Agreement'.- 4.2 Theta-marking and Extraction in Progressive Contexts.- 4.2.1.1 Ag and tareis: Structural Differences.- 4.2.1.2 Ag and aL: Structural Parallels.- 4.2.2 Extraction from Progressives: the ag ? aL Rule.- 4.2.3 AL and the Distribution of Resumptive Pronouns.- 4.2.4 Towards a Unified Account of Object Licensing.- 4.2.5 Genitive Complements: Noun-Phrase Incorporation.- 4.3 Non-Finite Word-Order and Object Agreement in Southern Dialects.- 4.4 Summary.- 5: Irish Noun Phrases.- 5.0 Introduction.- 5.0.1 fish Nominal Paradigms.- 5.0.2 Prepositional Phrases: Two Types of Mutation Context.- 5.1 Construct State Nominals and DP Projections.- 5.1.1 Rightward Specifiers.- 5.1.2 Adjective Placement.- 5.1.3 Possessive Particles.- 5.1.4 Demonstrative Licensing and Interpretation.- 5.1.5 Head-movement and ICM Effects.- 5.2 Summary.- References.- Index of Names and Subjects.

Particles and Projections in Irish Syntax

In this paper, we argue in favour of the NO IMPAIRMENT HYPOTHESIS, whereby L2 functional categories, features and feature values are attainable, and against the NO PARAMETER RESETTING HYPOTHESIS, according to which L2 learners are restricted to L1 categories and features, as well as against the LOCAL IMPAIRMENT HYPOTHESIS, which claims that the interlanguage grammar is characterized by inert feature values. An online experiment was conducted, investigating adult learners' knowledge of properties relating to clitic projections. Advanced learners of French (L1s English and Spanish), together with a native speaker control group, were tested on a variety of constructions involving clitics by means of the SENTENCE MATCHING procedure (Freedman & Forster 1985). L2 learners distinguished in their response times between certain kinds of grammatical and ungrammatical clitic placement, as did the native-speaker controls, suggesting the attainability of L2 properties distinct from the L1.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022226702001688

Clitic placement in L2 French: Evidence from sentence matching

This article presents some data from Vietnamese that provide significant empirical support for the theoretical claims articulated in Klein (1998, 2006): first, that finiteness should be understood as a composite of tense and assertion, and that assertion may be realized independently of tense marking; second, that the assertion operator so realized has only partial scope over elements of the clause, so that fronted elements may evade this scopal influence. Vietnamese is of special interest because - as claimed here - it expresses assertion independently of Tense or Aspect: in this regard Vietnamese contrasts with most Indo-European languages, as well as with other isolating East Asian languages. The formal analysis of these data involves two further theoretical claims. The first is that assertion is syntactically projected in a comparatively low functional projection, immediately above vP: this claim is thus opposed to recent proposals that would place these type of functional category higher (on the left periphery of the clause). The second claim developed here is that in Vietnamese the displacement of certain underspecified constituents is explained by their requirement to come within - alternatively, to evade - the scope of this assertion operator. That is, syntactic movement may be driven by considerations other than purely formal feature checking.

Aspects of Vietnamese clausal structure: separating tense from assertion

In this article, we report on experiments investigating children's knowledge of the constraints on ellipsis constructions in English, focusing on subtle contrasts between verb phrase-ellipsis (VPE) and VP-anaphora (VPA). These contrasts are of theoretical interest insofar as they present an apparent learnability paradox: On one hand, the negative constraints on these constructions are underdetermined by the positive evidence available to the learner (Crain (1991)); on the other hand, languages systematically vary in the availability of VPE. Hence, it seems as if the constraints cannot be directly encoded in Universal Grammar. Our results-from 2 parallel experiments employing the same stimuli but with different methodologies-show that young children can correctly distinguish VPE from VPA, respecting the constraints on each.

Nigel Duffield

Papers

Assessing L2 knowledge of Spanish clitic placement: converging methodologies

Particles and Projections in Irish Syntax

Clitic placement in L2 French: Evidence from sentence matching

Aspects of Vietnamese clausal structure: separating tense from assertion

VP-Ellipsis and Anaphora in Child Language Acquisition