Anaphora resolution and age effects in Greek-Spanish bilingualism: Evidence from first-generation immigrants, heritage speakers, and L2 speakers

Abstract

The present study compares anaphora resolution (AR) data from Greek and Spanish monolinguals and Greek-Spanish bilinguals who live in Chile to identify differences in resolving third-person null subjects (NSs) and overt pronominal subjects (OSPs) in ambiguous non-focused linguistic contexts. Overextension of the scope of OSPs in contexts where NSs are discursively expected has been consistently observed in different language contact situations, including pairs of null subject languages. According to the Interface Hypothesis, this is a compensatory strategy that occurs on account of bilingualism itself (inefficiency in syntax-pragmatic mappings). The study evaluates the Interface Hypothesis, focusing on the understudied combination of Greek and Spanish, by comparing three types of bilinguals: first-generation immigrants, heritage speakers, and L2 speakers, together with monolingual baseline groups. In addition, the study examines the age effects on speakers’ performance. Five groups of speakers (N = 115; age range 16–87; mean: 50.13, SD = 19.33) performed a self-paced auditory AR task. No overextension of the scope of OSPs was found in any of the bilingual groups, against the predictions stemming from the Interface Hypothesis. Significant age effects were found in the interpretation of NSs by both monolingual and bilingual speakers of Greek.