Structure complexity effects in child heritage Spanish: The case of the Spanish personal a

Abstract

Aims and objectives: This study examines the acquisition of Differential Object Marking (DOM) in heritage Spanish children born in the USA and the potential role of structure complexity and chronological age. Design: Bilingual children were compared with monolingual children matched by age and long-term immigrants (children’s parents) via an Elicited Production task. We elicited the distribution of personal a in simple and Clitic Left Dislocated (CLLD) structures. Data and analysis: Results were entered into repeated analyses of variance measure with type of structure and group as dependent variables and chronological age as a covariate. Conclusions: Results show decreased production of personal a among the bilingual children, especially in CLLD contexts. We also found strong correlations between target use and type of structure, but no correlations with developmental age among the bilingual children. Parents and monolingual children behaved at ceiling with matrix questions but showed variable behavior with CLLD structures. We argue for incomplete specification of the animacy and specificity features constraining DOM and structure complexity effects affecting child bilingual grammars. Originality: This study highlights that heritage speakers do not necessarily become less native-like with age and increased exposure to English. The comparison of the bilingual children to both monolingual children and their parents was essential to mitigate the effects of dialect and cognitive development. Implications: Given that age was not the determining factor in bilingual children’s production of DOM in Spanish, it would seem that exposure to and use of the heritage language play a larger role. Additionally, for theories of language acquisition, these findings suggest that an early age of onset of acquisition is not a sufficient condition for native-like attainment, especially when input is lacking.

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