Abstract
AbstractThis study reports an oral production experiment investigating the expression of existentiality in the Catalan of adult Catalan–Spanish early bilinguals (N= 58) with comparable proficiencies but different language dominance. The results show qualitative differences among the bilinguals in existential predicate selection and in their supply of partitive pronouns, modulated by language dominance. Balanced Bilinguals as well as Spanish-dominant bilinguals significantly produced moreestar(in detriment ofser-hiandhaver-hi) not only in locative contexts, where Catalan already presents optionality regulated by semantic differences, but also in existential constructions, where this optionality does not exist. We argue forindirectcrosslinguistic influence (CLI), when the bilingualperceivescertain structural overlap within constructions, mediating the influence from one structure to another one and expanding the limits of CLI. The qualitative differences found among bilinguals challenge the idea of a bilingualism continuum in Catalan–Spanish bilingualism with an identical mental representation.
Highlights
The interaction between the two linguistic systems of the bilingual has been the object of much research, both in terms of its psycholinguistic consequences for the speaker (e.g., Müller & Hulk, 2001; Serratrice, 2013; Blom et al, 2017) and in terms of its long-term impact to the given languages in the shape of language change (e.g., Silva-Corvalán, 2002; Thomason & Kaufman, 1988; Meisel et al, 2013)
These results do not include cases of HI in the verb haver-hi since the clitic is grammaticalized as part of the verb and we did not find a single omission with haver
This study set out to examine the effects of language dominance on the grammar of early Catalan–Spanish bilinguals in adulthood with respect to Catalan existential constructions
Summary
The interaction between the two linguistic systems of the bilingual has been the object of much research, both in terms of its psycholinguistic consequences for the speaker (e.g., Müller & Hulk, 2001; Serratrice, 2013; Blom et al, 2017) and in terms of its long-term impact to the given languages in the shape of language change (e.g., Silva-Corvalán, 2002; Thomason & Kaufman, 1988; Meisel et al, 2013). When AOA is compared to measurements of current use, as we do in this study, it is shown that AOA would not reliably predict a finegrained classification of bilinguals Another way of typically classifying bilinguals is according to their proficiency (Luk & Bialystok, 2013; Treffers-Daller, 2019), that is, according to their knowledge or competence of the two languages. This is an external measurement of the performance of the individual in certain tests or language assessments. We purposefully excluded proficiency as a measurement in the overall calculation of bilingual dominance and we demonstrate that self-rated proficiency fails to reliably distinguish among significant types of Catalan–Spanish bilinguals
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