Terminology matters! Why difference is not incompleteness and how early child bilinguals are heritage speakers

This paper integrates research on child simultaneous bilingual (2L1) acquisition more directly into the heritage language (HL) acquisition literature. The 2L1 literature mostly focuses on development in childhood, whereas heritage speakers (HSs) are often tested at an endstate in adulthood. However, insights from child 2L1 acquisition must be considered in HL acquisition theorizing precisely because many HSs are the adult outcomes of child 2L1 acquisition. Data from 2L1 acquisition raises serious questions for the construct of incomplete acquisition, a term broadly used in HL acquisition studies to describe almost any difference HSs display from baseline controls (usually monolinguals). We offer an epistemological discussion related to incomplete acquisition, highlighting the descriptive and theoretical inaccuracy of the term. We focus our discussion on two of several possible causal factors that contribute to variable competence outcomes in adult HSs, input (e.g., Sorace, 2004; Rothman, 2007; Pascual y Cabo & Rothman, 2012) and formal instruction (e.g., Kupisch, 2013; Kupisch et al., 2014) in the HL. We conclude by offering alternative terminology for HS outcomes

Experience-based individual differences modulate language, mind and brain outcomes in multilinguals

Being able to speak and/or understand multiple languages is a ubiquitous human behavior. Over the past decades in particular, an increasing amount of research has investigated the acquisition, processing, and use of multiple languages as well as how variation therein associates with differential cognitive performance, brain functions and structures (see Bialystok, 2016, Bialystok, 2017, De Houwer, 2021, Fricke et al., 2019, Grundy and Timmer, 2017, Kroll and Bialystok, 2013, Li and Dong, 2020, Sulpizio et al., 2020 for reviews). Taken together, this research strongly suggests that these behavioral and neural consequences reflect individual differences in how one adapts to her environment through multilingualism. Paying homage to the reality of language diversities around the world, we have opted to use herein the term multilingualism, as opposed to simply bilingualism, given that linguistic experiences can, and often do, extend beyond managing only two languages on a daily basis. The present special issue presents a collection of 15 papers examining the linguistic, cognitive and neural consequences of multilingualism, using innovative approaches to characterize relevant experiences

The state of the science in generative SLA and its place in modern second language studies.

Manuscript. Published version in press (Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 2017)This article has two main goals. The first is to summarize and comment on the current state-of-affairs of generative approaches to SLA (GenSLA), thirty-five years into its history. This discussion brings the readership of SSLA up-to-date on the questions driving GenSLA agendas and clears up misconceptions about what GenSLA does and does not endeavor to explain. We engage key questions/debates/shifts within GenSLA such as focusing on the deterministic role of input in language acquisition, as well as expanding the inquiry to new populations and empirical methodologies and technologies used. The second goal is to highlight the place of GenSLA in the broader field of SLA. We argue that various theories of SLA are needed, showing that many existing SLA paradigms are much less mutually exclusive than commonly believed (cf. Rothman & VanPatten, 2013; Slabakova et al., 2014, 2015; VanPatten & Rothman, 2014) — especially in light of their different foci and research questions

Além do uso morfológico: o que o conhecimento semântico nos diz sobre o aspecto em português como L2

Esse estudo investiga a aquisição do aspecto [±perfeito] em português L2, mediante conhecimento da distinção [± acidental] que ocorre entre o pretérito perfeito e imperfeito em frases com quantificação adverbial (LENCI; BERTINETTO, 2000; MENÉNDEZ-BENITO, 2002). Mostramos que os aprendizes L2 intermediários demonstram conhecimento da semântica sintagmática, que conforme argumentamos é acessível por meio da aquisição de novos traços da L2. Como resultado, propomos que os dados dão suporte a teorias de continuidade da GU (DUFFIELD; WHITE, 1999; SCHWARTZ; SPROUSE, 1996) e oferecem evidência contra as assim chamadas propostas de Traços Malsucedidos (FAILED FEATURES; BECK, 1998; HAWKINS; CHAN, 1997) para ASL (aquisição de segunda língua). Além disso, discutimos tais dados considerando abordagens probabilísticas para ASL, que interpretam erros de uso morfológico nesse nível como evidência de déficits subjacentes das representações mentais de L2. Em consonância com outros autores, argumentamos que o desempenho morfológico não é por si só uma medida direta ou exata da competência linguística (PRÉVOST; WHITE, 2000; LARDIERE, 1998, 2006).PALAVRAS-CHAVES: Aquisição de L2. Aspecto em português como L2. Teorias de continuidade da GU.This study investigates the acquisition of [±perfective] aspect in L2 Portuguese via knowledge of the [± accidental] distinction that obtains between the Preterit and Imperfect in adverbially quantified sentences (LENCI; BERTINETTO, 2000; MENÉNDEZ-BENITO, 2002). Crucially, we show that intermediate L2 learners demonstrate phrasal semantic knowledge that we argue is accessed via the acquisition of new L2 features. As a result, we contend that the data support theories of adult UG-continuity (DUFFIELD; WHITE, 1999; SCHWARTZ; SPROUSE, 1996) and provide evidence in contra so-called Failed Features accounts of SLA (BECK, 1998; HAWKINS; CHAN, 1997). Furthermore, we discuss these data in light of probabilistic approaches to SLA, which interpret errors in morphological use at this level as evidence of underlying deficits in L2 mental representations. With others, we argue that morphological performance alone is neither a direct nor an exact measure of linguistic competence (PRÉVOST; WHITE, 2000; LARDIERE, 1998, 2006).KEYWORDSS: L2 acquisition. Aspect in L2 portuguese. Theories of adult UG-continuity. RESUMO Esse estudo investiga a aquisição do aspecto [±perfeito] em português L2, mediante conhecimento da distinção [± acidental] que ocorre entre o pretérito perfeito e imperfeito em frases com quantificação adverbial (LENCI; BERTINETTO, 2000; MENÉNDEZ-BENITO, 2002). Mostramos que os aprendizes L2 intermediários demonstram conhecimento da semântica sintagmática, que conforme argumentamos é acessível por meio da aquisição de novos traços da L2. Como resultado, propomos que os dados dão suporte a teorias de continuidade da GU (DUFFIELD; WHITE, 1999; SCHWARTZ; SPROUSE, 1996) e oferecem evidência contra as assim chamadas propostas de Traços Malsucedidos (FAILED FEATURES; BECK, 1998; HAWKINS; CHAN, 1997) para ASL (aquisição de segunda língua). Além disso, discutimos tais dados considerando abordagens probabilísticas para ASL, que interpretam erros de uso morfológico nesse nível como evidência de déficits subjacentes das representações mentais de L2. Em consonância com outros autores, argumentamos que o desempenho morfológico não é por si só uma medida direta ou exata da competência linguística (PRÉVOST; WHITE, 2000; LARDIERE, 1998, 2006).PALAVRAS-CHAVES: Aquisição de L2. Aspecto em português como L2. Teorias de continuidade da GU

The internal structure of Spanish–German verbalizations and the sophistication of bilinguals’ linguistic knowledge

The present article reassesses some available data regarding word-internal language mixing (Spanish–German) involving verbs and nouns. The empirical generalization is that Spanish roots can be combined with German verbalizers, but not vice versa. Data of this type highlight the sophisticated knowledge of the underlying representations that code-switching bilinguals must have of both contributing grammars and, in turn, how these contribute to the formation of the grammar that underlies their rule-governed systems for amalgamating them. Despite agreeing with the general conclusions of González-Vilbazo and López’s 2011 study regarding what the data tell us about code-switching more generally, we refine their analysis to better capture the patterns. Our proposal is that these mixtures are the only instances where the structural and lexical properties of verbal exponents used in both languages overlap, parting ways with previous analyses based on the possible zero nature of Spanish verbalizers or the absence of conjugation classes in German

Being a participant matters: Event-related potentials show that markedness modulates person agreement in Spanish

Source at https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00746. The present study uses event-related potentials to examine subject–verb person agreement in Spanish, with a focus on how markedness with respect to the speech participant status of the subject modulates processing. Morphological theory proposes a markedness distinction between first and second person, on the one hand, and third person on the other. The claim is that both the first and second persons are participants in the speech act, since they play the speaker and addressee roles, respectively. In contrast, third person refers to whomever is neither the speaker nor the addressee (i.e., it is unmarked for person). We manipulated speech participant by probing person agreement with both first-person singular subjects (e.g., yo…lloro “I…cry-1ST PERSON-SG”) and third-person singular ones (e.g., la viuda…llora “the widow…cry-3RD PERSON-SG”). We also manipulated agreement by crossing first-person singular subjects with third-person singular verbs (e.g., yo…∗llora “I…cry-3RD PERSON-SG”) and vice versa (e.g., la viuda…∗lloro “the widow…cry-1ST PERSON-SG”). Results from 28 native speakers of Spanish revealed robust positivities for both types of person violations, relative to their grammatical counterparts between 500 and 1000 ms, an effect that shows a central-posterior distribution, with a right hemisphere bias. This positivity is consistent with the P600, a component associated with a number of morphosyntactic operations (and reanalysis processes more generally). No negativities emerged before the P600 (between 250 and 450 ms), although both error types yielded an anterior negativity in the P600 time window, an effect that has been argued to reflect the memory costs associated with keeping the errors in working memory to provide a sentence-final judgment. Crucially, person violations with a marked subject (e.g., yo…∗llora “I…cry-3RD PERSON-SG”) yielded a larger P600 than the opposite error type between 700 and 900 ms. This effect is consistent with the possibility that, upon encountering a subject with marked features, feature activation allows the parser to generate a stronger prediction regarding the upcoming verb. The larger P600 for person violations with a marked subject might index the reanalysis process that the parser initiates when there is a conflict between a highly expected verbal form (i.e., more so than in the conditions with an unmarked subject) and the form that is actually encountered

Terminology matters II!: early bilinguals show cross-linguistic influence but they are not attriters

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