Abstract
The present study explores two morphological differences in direct object expression between Spanish and Catalan: Differential Object Marking (DOM), and the accusative clitics el /l/ vs. ho /u/. Both phenomena are regulated by semantic features, such as animacy and specificity/definiteness. The study experimentally tested 57 Catalan–Spanish bilinguals with different degrees of language dominance in their comprehension and production of these Catalan constructions in order to explore the degree of structural convergence. The results show that with respect to DOM, bilinguals systematically accept ample optionality, creating a new language variety, the bilingual variety, with properties similar and different from both Spanish and Catalan. With respect to the accusative clitics, a certain degree of functional interference in the grammar of Spanish-dominant bilinguals is found. These results illustrate, on the one hand, structural convergence in DOM, culminating in an internal language change accelerated by language contact, and, on the other hand, incipient language transfer from the dominant language in the expression of accusative clitics.
Highlights
Catalan and Spanish languages have been in contact for centuries, but the linguistic contact has never been as intense as in the last half of the 20th century–beginning of 21st century, where, as a result of large waves of migration as well as linguistic and educational policies, practically everybody born and raised in Catalonia in the last 40 years has become bilingual to some degree
We focus on the feature definiteness/specificity and how it is expressed in Catalan direct objects by speakers whose dominant/native language is Spanish, Catalan, or both
The sentences elicited in the oral task were coded according to the structure produced, and in the case of the Differential Object Marking (DOM) contexts, participants could produce or leave out the preposition a; as for the the case of the DOM contexts, participants could produce or leave out the preposition a; as for the accusative clitics, sentences were coded according to the position of the clitic, whether the clitic was accusative clitics, sentences were coded according to the position of the clitic, whether the clitic was produced or omitted, and by the clitic produced
Summary
Catalan and Spanish languages have been in contact for centuries, but the linguistic contact has never been as intense as in the last half of the 20th century–beginning of 21st century, where, as a result of large waves of migration as well as linguistic and educational policies, practically everybody born and raised in Catalonia in the last 40 years has become bilingual to some degree. This has created a bilingualism continuum (Perpiñán 2017) that ranges from strong dominance in one of the languages and passive use of the other, to a more balanced bilingualism; in this gradation of bilingualism, I include certain types of second language acquisition, child L2 acquisition. The goal of the present paper is to examine functional interference/convergence in bilingual grammar related to grammatical complexity and its possible outcomes, such as simplification, convergence, and potential language change
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