Acrisio Pires | University of Michigan (original) (raw)
Papers by Acrisio Pires
E-Aesla, 2017
El conocimiento de expresiones idiomáticas o refranes de una lengua –secuencia de palabras almace... more El conocimiento de expresiones idiomáticas o refranes de una lengua –secuencia de palabras almacenadas como una unidad arbitraria de forma y significado en la memoria (e.g. Wray y Perkins 2000, Nunberg et al. 1994)– es un indicador de competencia lingüística e intercultural (Bucholtz y Hall 2004). Su adquisición, no obstante, es un aspecto difícil de dominar (Carrol y Conklin 2014). Este estudio investiga si el conocimiento de estas fórmulas garantiza su uso adecuado en español como L2 según el contexto, ya que la pragmática es crucial para determinar su aceptabilidad (Glucksberg 2001). Los participantes son hablantes de L1 inglés (n=30) con nivel avanzado de español en contexto de inmersión lingüística, con distinto periodo de residencia en España –mayor (n=15) o menor (n=15) a cinco años– en comparación con un grupo de control de hablantes nativos de español (n=30). Además de un test de nivel en español y una encuesta etnolingüística, los participantes realizaron dos pruebas lingüísticas orientadas a conocer su competencia intercultural en el reconocimiento y uso adecuado de estas expresiones. En la primera prueba, debían identificar su significado, y en la segunda, debían responder, sobre una escala Likert de cinco niveles, si el uso lingüístico era adecuado o no según un contexto de discurso. Los resultados demuestran que su conocimiento lingüístico y semántico no garantiza un uso eficaz y reflejan que la experiencia lingüística innata y el grado de proficiencia son determinantes. Los datos no avalan los resultados de estudios basados en la hipótesis thinking for speaking (Slobin 1996). Consideramos los resultados contrastando los marcos teóricos innatista (e.g. Chomsky 1986) y de acceso de la gramática universal en L2 (e.g. Epstein et al 1996, White 2003) con el cognitivista y el de la relatividad lingüística (Gumperz y Levinson 1996).
In Spanish, some direct objects are preceded by the accusative case marker a, depending on semant... more In Spanish, some direct objects are preceded by the accusative case marker a, depending on semantic properties of the object, subject, and verb. This is an example of a phenomenon known as Differential Object Marking (DOM) (Bossong, 1985; Aissen, 2003). This paper presents a study of the acquisition of Spanish DOM by native English speakers who are advanced second-language (L2) learners of Spanish, in order to shed light on competing theories of L2 acquisition, in particular the Interpretability Hypothesis (Hawkins & Hattori, 2006; Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007) and the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2008, 2009; Hwang & Lardiere, 2013). The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 introduces Spanish DOM, and summarizes previous studies on its acquisition. Section 3 describes the methodology of the study. Section 4 discusses the Interpretability Hypothesis and the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis, and the predictions they make for the results of the study. Section 5 presents...
We present results from a production study of forty-five bilingual Catalan-Spanish speakers (26 w... more We present results from a production study of forty-five bilingual Catalan-Spanish speakers (26 women and 19 men, aged 16 to 65 years old), to determine whether there is transfer or convergence between the two languages in a bilingual setting. The participants are residents of the capital and several villages of Majorca (Spain). We provide evidence that the production of third-person clitics in Majorcan Catalan is clearly affected by bilingualism with Spanish. First, there is a pattern of partial transfer in the use of the neutral clitic ho in Majorcan Catalan, which shows a semantic extension matching Spanish lo. Second, the bilinguals show a pattern of syllabic (CV(C)) forms of pronominal clitics, favored by a similarity with Spanish forms. This provides evidence of both morphophonological and semantic transfer in the knowledge and production of bilinguals who acquired both languages in childhood.
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition, Nov 24, 2017
Linguistics, May 28, 2013
This paper analyzes preverbal overt subjects, comparing Brazilian Portuguese to (other) null-subj... more This paper analyzes preverbal overt subjects, comparing Brazilian Portuguese to (other) null-subject languages, especially within Romance. It explores syntactic and semantic properties, including resumption, ellipsis, quantifiers and scope, variable binding, ordering restrictions, pronominal distinctions, minimality violations, bare nouns and definiteness. It concludes that preverbal subjects in Brazilian Portuguese can be realized both in argumental positions (Specifier of the Inflectional or Tense Phrase) and non-argumental positions (Topic Phrase specifiers), with the possibility that both types of positions are filled by the subject in the same clause, incorporating properties that have been argued not to be found together in other languages.
International Journal of Bilingualism, Mar 5, 2012
This study investigates the extent to which advanced native-English L2 learners of Spanish come t... more This study investigates the extent to which advanced native-English L2 learners of Spanish come to acquire restrictions on Bare Plural (BPs) pre-verbal subjects in L2 Spanish (e.g. gatos "cats" vs. definite plurals such as los gatos "the cats"). It tests L2 knowledge of available semantic readings of BPs and Definite Plurals (DefPs) in Spanish, where [+specific] and [+generic] interpretations are syntactically represented differently from English. Assuming L1 transfer, and in view of a potential subset/superset relationship of the two grammars (e.g., Manzini & Wexler, 1987), the learning task in this domain is not a straightforward one. Target acquisition requires both grammatical expansion and retraction; Spanish DefP subjects require the addition of an L1-unavailable [+generic] reading while at the same time a loss of an L1-available [+generic] reading for preverbal subject BPs is required. The results and analysis show that advanced L2 learners of Spanish (English L1) can circumvent a superficial subset/superset learnability problem by means of feature resetting in line with the Nominal Mapping Parameter (Chierchia, 1998).
Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, Jun 12, 2017
The audiologically deaf members of the American Deaf community display bilingual competence in Am... more The audiologically deaf members of the American Deaf community display bilingual competence in American Sign Language (ASL) and English, although their language acquisition trajectories often involve delayed exposure to one or both languages. There is a great deal of variation in terms of production among these signers, ranging from very ASL-typical to productions that seem to display heavy English influence. The latter, mixed productions, coined "Contact Signing" by Lucas & Valli (1992), could be representative of a type of codeswitching, referred to as 'code-blending' in sign language-spoken language contexts (e.g. Baker & Van den Bogaerde 2008), in which bilinguals invoke knowledge of their two grammars in concert, or these productions could be more like a mixed language, in which a third grammar, distinct from both ASL and English, constrains them. We argue, based on the analysis of our corpus of naturalistic data collected in an all-deaf sociolinguistic environment, that Contact Signing provides evidence for code-blending, given the distribution of English vs. ASL-based language properties in the production data from the participants in our study.
Applied linguistics review, Oct 28, 2017
This paper focuses on consequences for linguistic theory of a set of experiments on the L2 acquis... more This paper focuses on consequences for linguistic theory of a set of experiments on the L2 acquisition of Spanish Differential Object Marking (DOM), with three experimental groups: a native control group, a group of L2 learners whose L1 is English, and a group of L2 learners whose L1 is Brazilian Portuguese (BP). The results of the experiments shed light on two questions of theoretical import: (a) how best to characterize the syntax of Spanish DOM, and (b) whether BP should be classified as a DOM language. We argue that our results support López's (2012, Indefinite objects: Scrambling, choice functions, and differential marking. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) syntactic theory account of DOM over that of Torrego (1998, The dependencies of objects. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), in particular due to the more fine-grained distinctions between non-specific objects made by López (2012) compared to Torrego (1998). We also argue that although BP is a DOM language (as suggested by Schwenter 2014, Two kinds of differential object marking in Portuguese and Spanish. In Patricia Amaral & Ana Maria Carvalho (eds.), Portuguese-Spanish interfaces: Diachrony, synchrony, and contact, 237-260. Amsterdam: John Benjamins), our BP subjects do not show a clear acquisitional advantage over English speakers with regard to Spanish DOM, due to independent reasons that include the morphological realization of DOM in Spanish.
De Gruyter eBooks, Jun 16, 2009
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jun 27, 2002
This chapter analyzes two major instances of morphological change with syntactic effects in the b... more This chapter analyzes two major instances of morphological change with syntactic effects in the behaviour of infinitives in Portuguese, and proposes an account for these changes in terms of a theory of acquisition that emphasizes the interaction between properties of Universal Grammar and the primary linguistic data. First, it discusses the origin of inflected infinitives in Old Portuguese and provides a new argument supporting one of the two major proposals for their origin, which argues that inflected infinitives developed from a previously finite verb form, and not from uninflected infinitives. Second, it analyzes the syntactic effects of the loss of inflected infinitives in contemporary colloquial Brazilian Portuguese, explaining why the loss of verbal inflection blocked the licensing of pro but not of overt subjects.
De Gruyter eBooks, Jun 8, 2009
... For the younger children, the test sentence was uttered by the puppet, Tigger, given that chi... more ... For the younger children, the test sentence was uttered by the puppet, Tigger, given that children were told that Tigger was still learning Portuguese, and sometimes needed help when he made mistakes. ... Por que a escolha delas mudou? 'Daisy and Minnie like sports. ...
International Journal of Bilingualism, Jun 1, 2009
We thank Ana Fernandes Pinto Leite and Aida Cardoso for help with data coding, and Fátima Oliveir... more We thank Ana Fernandes Pinto Leite and Aida Cardoso for help with data coding, and Fátima Oliveira, Nélia Alexandre and the audience at BUCLD 2010 for discussion of some of the questions raised by the current results. All remaining errors are, of course, our own.
UMI Dissertation Services eBooks, 2001
ABSTRACT Thesis research directed by Dept. of Linguistics. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Marylan... more ABSTRACT Thesis research directed by Dept. of Linguistics. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Maryland, College Park, 2001. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-216).
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platfor... more Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platform for original monograph studies into synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Studies in LA confront empirical and theoretical problems as these are currently discussedin syntax, semantics, ...
Languages, May 25, 2022
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
E-Aesla, 2017
El conocimiento de expresiones idiomáticas o refranes de una lengua –secuencia de palabras almace... more El conocimiento de expresiones idiomáticas o refranes de una lengua –secuencia de palabras almacenadas como una unidad arbitraria de forma y significado en la memoria (e.g. Wray y Perkins 2000, Nunberg et al. 1994)– es un indicador de competencia lingüística e intercultural (Bucholtz y Hall 2004). Su adquisición, no obstante, es un aspecto difícil de dominar (Carrol y Conklin 2014). Este estudio investiga si el conocimiento de estas fórmulas garantiza su uso adecuado en español como L2 según el contexto, ya que la pragmática es crucial para determinar su aceptabilidad (Glucksberg 2001). Los participantes son hablantes de L1 inglés (n=30) con nivel avanzado de español en contexto de inmersión lingüística, con distinto periodo de residencia en España –mayor (n=15) o menor (n=15) a cinco años– en comparación con un grupo de control de hablantes nativos de español (n=30). Además de un test de nivel en español y una encuesta etnolingüística, los participantes realizaron dos pruebas lingüísticas orientadas a conocer su competencia intercultural en el reconocimiento y uso adecuado de estas expresiones. En la primera prueba, debían identificar su significado, y en la segunda, debían responder, sobre una escala Likert de cinco niveles, si el uso lingüístico era adecuado o no según un contexto de discurso. Los resultados demuestran que su conocimiento lingüístico y semántico no garantiza un uso eficaz y reflejan que la experiencia lingüística innata y el grado de proficiencia son determinantes. Los datos no avalan los resultados de estudios basados en la hipótesis thinking for speaking (Slobin 1996). Consideramos los resultados contrastando los marcos teóricos innatista (e.g. Chomsky 1986) y de acceso de la gramática universal en L2 (e.g. Epstein et al 1996, White 2003) con el cognitivista y el de la relatividad lingüística (Gumperz y Levinson 1996).
In Spanish, some direct objects are preceded by the accusative case marker a, depending on semant... more In Spanish, some direct objects are preceded by the accusative case marker a, depending on semantic properties of the object, subject, and verb. This is an example of a phenomenon known as Differential Object Marking (DOM) (Bossong, 1985; Aissen, 2003). This paper presents a study of the acquisition of Spanish DOM by native English speakers who are advanced second-language (L2) learners of Spanish, in order to shed light on competing theories of L2 acquisition, in particular the Interpretability Hypothesis (Hawkins & Hattori, 2006; Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007) and the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2008, 2009; Hwang & Lardiere, 2013). The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 introduces Spanish DOM, and summarizes previous studies on its acquisition. Section 3 describes the methodology of the study. Section 4 discusses the Interpretability Hypothesis and the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis, and the predictions they make for the results of the study. Section 5 presents...
We present results from a production study of forty-five bilingual Catalan-Spanish speakers (26 w... more We present results from a production study of forty-five bilingual Catalan-Spanish speakers (26 women and 19 men, aged 16 to 65 years old), to determine whether there is transfer or convergence between the two languages in a bilingual setting. The participants are residents of the capital and several villages of Majorca (Spain). We provide evidence that the production of third-person clitics in Majorcan Catalan is clearly affected by bilingualism with Spanish. First, there is a pattern of partial transfer in the use of the neutral clitic ho in Majorcan Catalan, which shows a semantic extension matching Spanish lo. Second, the bilinguals show a pattern of syllabic (CV(C)) forms of pronominal clitics, favored by a similarity with Spanish forms. This provides evidence of both morphophonological and semantic transfer in the knowledge and production of bilinguals who acquired both languages in childhood.
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition, Nov 24, 2017
Linguistics, May 28, 2013
This paper analyzes preverbal overt subjects, comparing Brazilian Portuguese to (other) null-subj... more This paper analyzes preverbal overt subjects, comparing Brazilian Portuguese to (other) null-subject languages, especially within Romance. It explores syntactic and semantic properties, including resumption, ellipsis, quantifiers and scope, variable binding, ordering restrictions, pronominal distinctions, minimality violations, bare nouns and definiteness. It concludes that preverbal subjects in Brazilian Portuguese can be realized both in argumental positions (Specifier of the Inflectional or Tense Phrase) and non-argumental positions (Topic Phrase specifiers), with the possibility that both types of positions are filled by the subject in the same clause, incorporating properties that have been argued not to be found together in other languages.
International Journal of Bilingualism, Mar 5, 2012
This study investigates the extent to which advanced native-English L2 learners of Spanish come t... more This study investigates the extent to which advanced native-English L2 learners of Spanish come to acquire restrictions on Bare Plural (BPs) pre-verbal subjects in L2 Spanish (e.g. gatos "cats" vs. definite plurals such as los gatos "the cats"). It tests L2 knowledge of available semantic readings of BPs and Definite Plurals (DefPs) in Spanish, where [+specific] and [+generic] interpretations are syntactically represented differently from English. Assuming L1 transfer, and in view of a potential subset/superset relationship of the two grammars (e.g., Manzini & Wexler, 1987), the learning task in this domain is not a straightforward one. Target acquisition requires both grammatical expansion and retraction; Spanish DefP subjects require the addition of an L1-unavailable [+generic] reading while at the same time a loss of an L1-available [+generic] reading for preverbal subject BPs is required. The results and analysis show that advanced L2 learners of Spanish (English L1) can circumvent a superficial subset/superset learnability problem by means of feature resetting in line with the Nominal Mapping Parameter (Chierchia, 1998).
Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, Jun 12, 2017
The audiologically deaf members of the American Deaf community display bilingual competence in Am... more The audiologically deaf members of the American Deaf community display bilingual competence in American Sign Language (ASL) and English, although their language acquisition trajectories often involve delayed exposure to one or both languages. There is a great deal of variation in terms of production among these signers, ranging from very ASL-typical to productions that seem to display heavy English influence. The latter, mixed productions, coined "Contact Signing" by Lucas & Valli (1992), could be representative of a type of codeswitching, referred to as 'code-blending' in sign language-spoken language contexts (e.g. Baker & Van den Bogaerde 2008), in which bilinguals invoke knowledge of their two grammars in concert, or these productions could be more like a mixed language, in which a third grammar, distinct from both ASL and English, constrains them. We argue, based on the analysis of our corpus of naturalistic data collected in an all-deaf sociolinguistic environment, that Contact Signing provides evidence for code-blending, given the distribution of English vs. ASL-based language properties in the production data from the participants in our study.
Applied linguistics review, Oct 28, 2017
This paper focuses on consequences for linguistic theory of a set of experiments on the L2 acquis... more This paper focuses on consequences for linguistic theory of a set of experiments on the L2 acquisition of Spanish Differential Object Marking (DOM), with three experimental groups: a native control group, a group of L2 learners whose L1 is English, and a group of L2 learners whose L1 is Brazilian Portuguese (BP). The results of the experiments shed light on two questions of theoretical import: (a) how best to characterize the syntax of Spanish DOM, and (b) whether BP should be classified as a DOM language. We argue that our results support López's (2012, Indefinite objects: Scrambling, choice functions, and differential marking. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) syntactic theory account of DOM over that of Torrego (1998, The dependencies of objects. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), in particular due to the more fine-grained distinctions between non-specific objects made by López (2012) compared to Torrego (1998). We also argue that although BP is a DOM language (as suggested by Schwenter 2014, Two kinds of differential object marking in Portuguese and Spanish. In Patricia Amaral & Ana Maria Carvalho (eds.), Portuguese-Spanish interfaces: Diachrony, synchrony, and contact, 237-260. Amsterdam: John Benjamins), our BP subjects do not show a clear acquisitional advantage over English speakers with regard to Spanish DOM, due to independent reasons that include the morphological realization of DOM in Spanish.
De Gruyter eBooks, Jun 16, 2009
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jun 27, 2002
This chapter analyzes two major instances of morphological change with syntactic effects in the b... more This chapter analyzes two major instances of morphological change with syntactic effects in the behaviour of infinitives in Portuguese, and proposes an account for these changes in terms of a theory of acquisition that emphasizes the interaction between properties of Universal Grammar and the primary linguistic data. First, it discusses the origin of inflected infinitives in Old Portuguese and provides a new argument supporting one of the two major proposals for their origin, which argues that inflected infinitives developed from a previously finite verb form, and not from uninflected infinitives. Second, it analyzes the syntactic effects of the loss of inflected infinitives in contemporary colloquial Brazilian Portuguese, explaining why the loss of verbal inflection blocked the licensing of pro but not of overt subjects.
De Gruyter eBooks, Jun 8, 2009
... For the younger children, the test sentence was uttered by the puppet, Tigger, given that chi... more ... For the younger children, the test sentence was uttered by the puppet, Tigger, given that children were told that Tigger was still learning Portuguese, and sometimes needed help when he made mistakes. ... Por que a escolha delas mudou? 'Daisy and Minnie like sports. ...
International Journal of Bilingualism, Jun 1, 2009
We thank Ana Fernandes Pinto Leite and Aida Cardoso for help with data coding, and Fátima Oliveir... more We thank Ana Fernandes Pinto Leite and Aida Cardoso for help with data coding, and Fátima Oliveira, Nélia Alexandre and the audience at BUCLD 2010 for discussion of some of the questions raised by the current results. All remaining errors are, of course, our own.
UMI Dissertation Services eBooks, 2001
ABSTRACT Thesis research directed by Dept. of Linguistics. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Marylan... more ABSTRACT Thesis research directed by Dept. of Linguistics. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Maryland, College Park, 2001. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-216).
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platfor... more Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platform for original monograph studies into synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Studies in LA confront empirical and theoretical problems as these are currently discussedin syntax, semantics, ...
Languages, May 25, 2022
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY