Abstract
This study examines verb-adverb word order among heritage speakers of Spanish using an acceptability judgment task and a selection task in affirmative and negative sentences. Heritage speakers of Spanish show reaction patterns to stimuli fundamentally similar to those of the monolingual comparison group, but with several subtle differences. In affirmative sentences, they show a slightly higher preference for the options that are consistent with both the Spanish and the English grammars (in affirmative sentences, adverb-verb-object), and their judgments span a smaller range vis-à-vis native speakers. In negative sentences, heritage speakers of Spanish also generally coincide with monolingual speakers, but their acceptability of the negation-adverb-verb-object option (ungrammatical in monolingual Spanish) is higher than in the monolingual comparison group. We hypothesize that, first, heritage speakers of Spanish maximize bilingual compatibility: they prefer options that are compatible with the structural analysis of both languages. This hypothesis is consistent with previous findings showing that both languages are activated in parallel. Second, we explain the results in negation sentences as lexical indeterminacy: negation can have its lexically specified selectional properties as in English or as in monolingual Spanish, allowing for two alternative analyses. Hence, feature values in the lexicon may be transferred, whereas full functional categories are not. Transfer can be indirect in the form of smaller rating spans, a by-product of being a proficient bilingual: by maximizing compatibility with both languages, speakers extend the range of grammatical options in the language, but at the same time, their less certain judgments reflect this parallel activation.
Highlights
Heritage speakers of Spanish in contact with English face different grammatical analyses for verb-adverb placement in each of their languages
The paper is organized as follows: in Section 2, we review the syntactic analysis of verb-raising in English and Spanish, arguing that the different structures create a potential ambiguity for the processing of the input in Spanish by heritage speakers
Whenever she hears Spanish input with the verb-adverb word order in affirmative sentences, the question is whether the English grammar will in any way influence how that input is represented or parsed
Summary
Heritage speakers of Spanish in contact with English face different grammatical analyses for verb-adverb placement in each of their languages. A heritage Spanish speaker has two grammars that must be consistent with the input she receives in each language Whenever she hears Spanish input (as many do in this context, since they may have monolingual Spanish parents) with the verb-adverb word order in affirmative sentences, the question is whether the English grammar will in any way influence how that input is represented or parsed. Grammaticality judgment tasks, a translation/production one, and another one where participants had to distinguish between finite and non-finite forms and person/number features on verbs Their results confirmed parameter resetting, in the sense that L2 speakers showed evidence of verb-raising with adverbs and questions, but they found significant differences based on proficiency. They found no correlation between recognition of person/number morphology and knowledge of syntax. These studies, with the exception of Guijarro-Fuentes & Larrañaga (2011), have shown that adverb placement is less robust than with monolingual speakers
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