Are there biological gender differences at the early stages of first language acquisition when producing double object constructions and to/for-datives?

Producción CientíficaThis study examines whether biological gender differences appear in the early stages of acquisition in the case of English dative alternation (DA) structures (double object constructions (DOCs) and to/for-datives). Girls have been found to show faster syntactic development when compared to boys (Lovas, 2011). In the case of the acquisition of DA, an order in the emergence and in the incidence of English DA would entail a syntactic derivational status between DOCs and to/for-datives with one being the original structure and the other the derived one (Gu, 2010). However, analogous ages of onset and fairly similar frequency rates in the production could suggest the construction of two underived structures. We investigate whether biological gender differences appear in the case of DOCs and to/for-datives. We also investigate whether the exposure to English DA (adult input) results in differences between the girls’ output and the boys’ output. We analyze data from eight monolingual English girls and five monolingual English boys, and the adults that interact with them, as available in CHILDES. Our findings reveal that monolingual girls and monolingual boys pattern closely in the acquisition of the syntactic non-derivational relationship between DOCs and to/for-datives, as seen in their similar emergence. Biological gender differences are not seen either in the acquisition of the additional properties of to/for-datives given their later onset and their lower incidence when compared to DOCs. These production patterns also correlate with the frequency with which these structures are heard in the adult input.Junta de Castilla y León (programa de apoyo a proyectos de investigación - Ref. VA009P17)Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (ref. PGC2018-097693-B-I00

An analysis of interlinguistic influence from Chinese into English in Direct Object realization of Chinese-English bilingual children

While null objects are possible and pervasive in Chinese, their occurrence in languages like English and Spanish is rather restricted. In the case of developing grammars, the omission of categories that characterizes the initial stages of acquisition also affects the object category, together with inflection, subjects, determiners, etc. The main goal of this article is to investigate the nature of interlinguistic influence from Chinese into English in a set of Chinese-English (C-E) bilingual children with a focus on bilingual children’s early direct object (DO) realization in English and to provide new empirical evidence for the postulation that the development of the two languages is interdependent. In order to do so, a comparative study has been carried out: the English production of C-E bilinguals is analysed with regard to DOs and, in order to determine whether the possible overproduction of null DOs is due to influence from the other first language (L 1) (i.e. Chinese) or is rather part of the developmental process, a double comparison is established with English monolinguals (E monolinguals) and with Spanish-English bilinguals (S- E bilinguals). The results show that C-E bilinguals’ performance in terms of DO realization in English is significantly different from that of both E monolinguals and S-E bilinguals and that the latter two groups behave similarly. This finding supports the conclusion that, although null DOs occur in the initial stages of child language acquisition regardless of whether the adult grammar allows them (Chinese) or not (English and Spanish), in the case of C-E bilinguals’ English development, interlinguistic influence from Chinese into English has a negative effect as reflected in null DOs being produced at a higher rate and until later in life.La omisión de objetos es una propiedad gramatical muy frecuente en chino, mientras que en inglés y en español su uso está más restringido. En este trabajo analizamos la omisión de los objetos que producen en ingles los siguientes grupos: niños bilingües chino-inglés, español-inglés y mononolingües inglés. Evaluamos hasta qué punto el mecanismo del objeto nulo en chino influye en el desarrollo del inglés de niños bilingües chino-inglés. Para ello, ofrecemos un estudio comparativo doble: por un lado, entre la producción de los niños bilingües chino-inglés y la de los mononolingües inglés, con el fin de determinar si la omisión de objetos caracteriza la adquisición lanío de la gramática monolingüe como de la bilingüe; y, por otro lado, entre dicha producción de los niños bilingües chino-inglés y la de los niños bilingües español-inglés, para establecer si las gramáticas bilingües son paralelas en su desarrollo. Los resultados demuestran que existe una diferencia significativa entre la producción y el desarrollo gramatical de los bilingües chino-inglés y los de los otros dos grupos con respecto al uso de objetos, lo cual respalda la conclusión de que, aunque el mecanismo de objeto nulo es una propiedad de las gramáticas en desarrollo, en el caso del inglés de niños bilingües chino-inglés, se produce una interferencia negativa del chino en el inglés que se manifiesta en un mayor uso de objetos nulos en inglés y hasta etapas posteriores

Where the eye takes you: the processing of gender in codeswitching

Producción CientíficaLa alternancia de códigos posee gran potencial para explorar cómo interactúan dos sistemas lingüísticos en la mente del bilingüe. Exploramos esta situación de lenguas en contacto a través de datos de seguimiento ocular de bilingües de español L1 e inglés L2. Dado que las comunidades bilingües inglés-español muestran una clara tendencia a producir alternancia entre determinante y nombre (la window / the ventana), desde un punto de vista formal analizamos la direccionalidad de la alternancia y el tipo de mecanismo de concordancia de género implícita que se produce en el caso del determinante español (la/el window // el/la book). Los resultados muestran que se tardan más en procesar tanto la alternancia con determinante español como la del determinante español sin género analógico. Interpretamos estos resultados a la luz de propuestas formales de representación del género y argumentamos que la gramaticalidad del género en la L1 de los participantes determina los costes de procesamiento en este tipo de alternancia.Junta de Castilla y León - FEDER (project VA009P17)Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades - FEDER (project PGC2018-097693-B-I00

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Producción CientíficaPeer review is an essential part in the publication process, and ensures that Languages maintains high quality standards for its published papers [...

Subject omission/production in child bilingual English and child bilingual Spanish: The view from linguistic theory

Producción CientíficaIn bilingual child language acquisition research, a recurrent learnability issue has been to investigate whether and how cross-linguistic influence would interact with the non-adult patterns of omission/production of functional categories. In this paper, we analyze the omission/production of subject pronouns in the earliest stage English grammar and the earliest stage Spanish grammar of two English–Spanish simultaneous bilingual children (FerFuLice corpus in CHILDES). We base this analysis on Holmberg’s (2005, Is there a little pro? Evidence from Finnish. Linguistic Inquiry 36. 533–564) and Sheehan’s (2006, The EPP and null subjects in Romance. Newcastle: Newcastle University PhD dissertation) formulation of the null subject parameter and on Liceras et al.’s (2012, Overt subjects and copula omission in the Spanish and the English grammar of English-Spanish bilinguals: On the locus and directionality of interlinguistic influence. First Language 32(1–2). 88–115) assumptions concerning the role of lexical specialization in cross-linguistic influence. We have conducted a comparative analysis of the patterns of production/omission of English and Spanish overt and null subjects in two bilingual children, on the one hand, versus the patterns of production/omission of one monolingual English child and one monolingual Spanish child, on the other. The results show that while there is no conclusive evidence as to whether or not English influences the higher production of overt subjects in child bilingual Spanish, the presence of null subjects in Spanish has a positive influence in the eradication of non-adult null subjects in bilingual English. We argue that in a bilingual situation, as compared to a monolingual one, lexical specialization in one of the languages of the bilinguals (the availability of an overt and a null realization of the subject in Spanish) facilitates the acquisition of the other language.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades- FEDER (BFF2002-00442 and HUM2007-62213)Junta de Castilla y León (programa de apoyo a proyectos de investigación – Ref. VA046A06)Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC 410-2004-2034

Bilingual and monolingual children's acquisition of Spanish dative alternation structures: order of acquisition and adult input effects

Producción CientíficaThis work investigates the acquisition of Spanish dative alternation (DA) in the production of English-Spanish bilingual and Spanish monolingual children. We explore whether a/para-datives and dative clitic doubled (DCLD) structures are syntactically derived from one another or, whether they are different structures. We also examine whether bilinguals follow similar developmental paths to monolinguals in the acquisition of Spanish DA or whether they differ from their peers given the influence from the syntactic status of English DA in their other language. We conduct an analysis of the spontaneous data from nine English-Spanish bilingual and nine Spanish monolingual children, along with the adults that interact with them, as available in CHILDES database (MacWhinney, B. 2000. The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. 3rd ed. Hillsdale: Erlbaum. Accessed December 10, 2018. http://childes.talkbank.org). Our results reveal that bilinguals begin to produce DCLDs and a/para-datives at an approximately similar age. This suggests a syntactic underived relationship between the two DA structures, akin to that in monolinguals’ data. Nevertheless significant, the bilinguals and the monolinguals show a delay in the onset and a lower incidence in the production of a/para-datives when compared to DCLDs, which seems to be in line with adult input factors. The monolingual-like patterns in the bilinguals’ data point to a lack of crosslinguistic influence from English DA

Is explicit instruction effective? The learning of English noun-noun and adjective-noun structures by L1 Spanish school children (¿Es efectiva la instrucción explícita? El aprendizaje de las estructuras nombre-nombre y adjetivo-nombre del inglés por escolares de L1 español)

Producción CientíficaThe relative order of constituents within determiner phrases (DP) in which the noun is modified by an adjective (AN) has traditionally been taught in English as an L2 subject in the Spanish context. This is not the case for the same type of phrase in which the N-head is modified by another N (NN). This study aims to assess the impact of direct instruction in English NNs as part of the school curriculum. Acceptability judgement data and production have been elicited from two groups of L1 Spanish-L2 English children living in Spain, one receiving explicit NN instruction and the other following the regular only-AN instruction. Results show an advancement of the instruction group not only in NNs but also in ANs. This has a double implication: that NNs and ANs might share a common morphosyntactic underlying structure and that explicit teaching of grammatical properties that are shared by different structures might result in better attainment.En el aula de inglés como lengua extranjera en España se enseña el orden relativo de los elementos en sintagmas determinantes (SDet) en los que un adjetivo modifica a un nombre (AN). No ocurre lo mismo con sintagmas de este tipo en los que el nombre núcleo está modificado por otro nombre (NN). En este estudio se evalúa el impacto de la instrucción directa de los compuestos NN como parte integral del currículum. Se obtuvieron datos a partir de pruebas de juicios de aceptabilidad y de producción de dos grupos de escolares con español como primera lengua (L1), residentes en España, que cursaban estudios de inglés como segunda lengua (L2); uno de ellos con instrucción explícita sobre la estructura NN y el otro con instrucción tradicional únicamente sobre la estructura AN. Los resultados revelan mayor avance del grupo con instrucción explícita, no solo en relación con las estructuras NN sino también con las estructuras AN. La implicación es doble: por un lado, las estructuras NN y AN podrían compartir una estructura morfosintáctica subyacente común y, por otro lado, la enseñanza explícita de las propiedades gramaticales compartidas por estructuras diferentes podría mejorar el rendimiento en todas ellas.Junta de Castilla y León - ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) Ref. VA009P17Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades y FEDER (Ref. PGC2018-097693-B-I00

On the nature of crosslinguistic influence: root infinitives revisited

Producción CientíficaRoot Infinitives (RI) in Spanish have an infinitival marker, while in English they are bare forms. For languages like English, the RI stage has been said to be longer and to have a higher incidence than in Spanish. Within Liceras, Bel, and Perales’ (2006) typology of an RI universal stage, Spanish is a [+Person (P), +Infinitival marker (R)] language while English is [−P, −R]. Our analysis of the English and Spanish RIs produced by English-Spanish bilingual children and English and Spanish monolingual children reveals no interfering influence from English into Spanish and no positive influence from Spanish into English, which suggests that the degree of lexical transparency of the [+P, +R] features of Spanish is not strong enough to trigger acceleration in overcoming the bilingual English RI stage.Junta de Castilla y León y ERDF (European Regional Development Fund), (programa de apoyo a proyectos de investigación - Ref.VA009P17)Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades y ERDF (European Regional Development Fund), (ref. PGC2018-097693-B-I00)Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (HUM2007-62213) and ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) (BFF2002-00442)

The syntactic status of English dative alternation structures in bilingual and in monolingual acquisition data

Producción CientíficaThis study deals with the syntactic (non-)derivational relationship of English dative alternation (DA) –double object constructions (DOCs) and to/for-datives–, as seen in the spontaneous production of English-Spanish bilinguals when compared to English monolinguals. While a chronological progression and a difference in use between the two English DA constructions could suggest a syntactic-derivational relationship between DOCs and to/for-datives, a fairly similar emergence and a possibly similar rate of use could point to the two constructions not displaying a syntactic-derivational status. We also explore whether English-Spanish bilinguals show divergent developmental paths when compared to English monolinguals. To address these issues, we analyze data from nine English-Spanish bilingual children and twelve English monolingual children, along with the adults interacting with them. The analysis shows that both DA structures emerge at a similar age, which suggests they are not syntactically derived from one another. Despite these differences, the later onset and the lower incidence of to/for-datives could be associated with the case and theta role mediated properties of prepositions as well as with the frequency of exposure to DA in the adults’ speech. As no differences appear between bilinguals and monolinguals, transfer from Spanish does not seem to be an issue

The acquisition of English active and passive monotransitive constructions by English–Spanish simultaneous bilingual children

Producción CientíficaAims and objectives/purpose/research questions: We examine the acquisition of English active and passive monotransitives by English–Spanish bilingual children. These data are compared to English monolinguals from previous studies. We explore whether bi- and monolinguals show similar onset patterns given the shared grammatical properties of actives in the bilinguals’ two languages, and whether they differ in the onset of passives given the grammatical properties in English (canonical determiner phrase [DP]-movement) and Spanish (canonical DP-movement and se-passives). We also investigate the role played by adult input in child output. Design/methodology/approach: We analyze the spontaneous production data from eight English–Spanish bilinguals (ages: 1;01–6;11), and the adults who interact with them. Data and analysis: We perform a double analysis: (1) the onset of these structures in the spontaneous production of bilinguals to determine whether emergence patterns differ from those of monolinguals and (2) their incidence through language development to focus on production frequency. Findings/conclusions: Bilinguals start producing passives at the age of 3, later than actives that emerge at the age of 2, akin to English monolinguals. This acquisition order effect is also seen in the lower incidence of passives when compared to actives in the two child groups. The distributional properties of the two passive types do not seem to have interfered in the bilinguals’ acquisition of the English passive type, causing delay. These data suggest that the emergence and the incidence of the two constructions in bi- and monolinguals could be explained by the DP-movement maturation and/or adult input effects given the adults’ lower frequency of exposure to passives with respect to actives. Originality: This is the first study that addresses bilingual acquisition data and compares child output to adult input. Significance/implications: It contributes to elucidate how the bilinguals’ two languages interact in the acquisition and incidence of English actives and passives.Junta de Castilla y León y FEDER (programa de apoyo a proyectos de investigación - Ref.VA009P17)Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (ref. PGC2018-097693-B-I00