Subject position in Greek and Spanish monolingual and bilingual production: Exploring the influence of verb type and definiteness

Abstract

ABSTRACT This research study aims to capture linguistic variation in subject distribution in monolingual and bilingual speakers of an understudied language combination of two null subject languages, following the premises of the Interface Hypothesis (IH). Greek and Chilean Spanish are examined with a focus on subject-verb (SV) inversion in neutral contexts as influenced by two factors: verb type and subject definiteness. Oral semi-structured narratives were elicited from 116 participants: Greek and Spanish monolinguals (N = 40) and Greek-Spanish bilinguals (N = 86), namely immigrants, heritage speakers (HS), and L2 speakers of Greek. The findings show crosslinguistic differences between Greek and Spanish regarding verb-subject(-object) [VS(O)] orders, which are allowed more liberally in Greek than in Spanish. The bilingual groups behaved similarly on subject placement regarding verb type. The effect of definiteness, which was statistically significant in all the other groups, was not obtained in the HS data, indicating a relaxed distinction between definite and indefinite subjects in the heritage grammar. The findings are discussed in the light of the Interface Hypothesis (IH) and provide valuable insights into bilingual language production in relation to vulnerability in heritage and bilingual grammars, involving an insufficiently researched linguistic phenomenon.