Lexical Frequency Effects on the Acquisition of Syntactic Properties in Heritage Spanish: A Study on Unaccusative and Unergative Predicates

Abstract

Abstract This study investigates the acquisition of subject placement in unergative and unaccusative predicates among heritage speakers of Spanish by addressing two constraints ruling the distribution of subject placement (i.e., verb type and focus) as well as by examining whether lexical frequency impacts their acquisition. Sixty-three heritage speakers and twenty-five Spanish-dominant bilinguals completed an oral elicited production task and an acceptability judgment task. Results show that verb type constraints in the heritage speakers are shaped by their proficiency and self-reported lexical frequency: more proficient heritage speakers rated VS sentences higher than their lower-proficient counterparts, and more instances of VS sentences were produced with more frequent unaccusative verbs. Focus constraints only impact the heritage speakers’ acceptability: in narrow focus contexts, heritage speakers rate SV higher than VS sentences. Lexical frequency effects in unaccusative predicates are argued to be the result of spell-outs favoring compatible linear orders as a way to reduce computational costs.