Vulnerability in Heritage Speakers of Spanish in the Netherlands (original) (raw)
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Language Acquisition, 2014
The present study examines knowledge of the discourse-appropriateness of Clitic Right Dislocation (CLRD) in a population of Heritage (HS) and Spanish-dominant Native Speakers in order to test the predictions of the Interface Hypothesis (IH; Sorace 2011). The IH predicts that speakers in language contact situations will experience difficulties with integrating information involving the interface of syntax and discourse modules. CLRD relates a dislocated constituent to a discourse antecedent, requiring integration of syntax and pragmatics. Results from an acceptability judgment task did not support the predictions of the IH. No statistical differences between the HSs' performance and that of L1-dominant native speakers were evidenced when participants were presented with an offline task. Thus, our study did not find any evidence of "incomplete acquisition" (Montrul 2008) as it pertains to this specific linguistic structure.
Mood Selection in Relative Clauses
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 2014
There is presently a lively debate in second language (L2) acquisition research as to whether (adult) learners can acquire linguistic phenomena located at the interface between syntax and other modules, such as semantics, pragmatics, and lexical semantics, in contrast to phenomena that are purely syntactic in nature. For some researchers, the interface is precisely the place where fossilization occurs and the source of nonconvergence in L2 speakers. In this article we focus on the acquisition of the morphosyntax-semantics interface by examining the acquisition of mood in Spanish relative clauses by native speakers (NSs) of English. In particular, we focus on the contrast illustrated byBusco unas tijeras que corten“I am looking for scissors that cut-subj” versusBusco unas tijeras que cortan“I am looking for scissors that cut-ind.” When the indicative is used, there is a specific pair of scissors that the speaker is looking for. With the subjunctive, any pair of scissors will do, as l...
International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 2016
This study examines the status of discourse-dependent syntactic properties in Spanish heritage grammars. In particular, we focus on pragmatically-driven word order patterns with Spanish psychological predicates (e.g., gustar 'to like'). The responses from 26 Spanish heritage speakers (as well as 8 native controls) to an aural pragmatic felicity task indicate that heritage speakers are sensitive to the nuanced discursive factors that regulate word order in Spanish psych-predicate constructions. These findings contribute to current debates over the status of interfaces in heritage grammars. Specifically, these results shed light on the factors that make certain syntax-discourse properties particularly prone to change while not others. This takes us to propose a finer-grained division of syntax-discourse constructions and their relation to learnability.
A Cognitive Account of Mood in Complements of Causative Predicates in Spanish
Hispania, 2014
Complements of causative predicates such as hacer in Spanish present a problem for analyses of mood that are based on semantic or pragmatic notions of assertion. The problem results from the fact that information expressed by these complements is presented both as true and new, and yet the complement verb appears in the subjunctive mood. This makes these clauses a counterexample to analyses that claim that asserted propositions appear in the indicative. This study proposes an account of the use of mood in these complements that combines the Cognitive Grammar notion of clausal grounding ) with Cristofaro's study of subordination (2003). It will be argued that the complement of causative predicates in Spanish is not independently grounded; that is, its temporal relation to the speech situation is established via the matrix predicate. Not being independently grounded, it does not have an autonomous profile ). Following Langacker (1991) and Cristofaro (2003, the current study claims that for a clause to be asserted, it must have an autonomous profile. This necessary condition is not met in complements of causative predicates and consequently they cannot be asserted.
Ser and estar: The syntax of stage level and individual level predicates in Spanish
… Wöllstein-Leisten & Claudia Maienborn (Hgg …, 2005
Ser and estar: The syntax of stage level and individual level predicates in Spanish * Studying the relevant works concerning the distinction between stage level and individual level predicates (SLP/ILP) in linguistics, one often encounters references to the Spanish copular verbs ser and estar (e.g. . In these copular verbs, the SLP/ILP-distinction seems to find its overt realization. The use of the verb ser is usually connected to ILP-characteristics, the use of estar to the SLP-phenomenon. We propose a minimalist account for the differences in semantic and syntactic behaviour of ser/estar (following Chomsky 1995). Contrary to Kratzer (1995), we assume an implicitly realized event argument for both SLPs and ILPs, which characterizes the spatiotemporal reference of the situation or eventuality expressed by the predicate (cf. Davidson 1967). This event position is localized in the predication phrase PrP as proposed by . The PrP represents an extension of the VP-shell analysis (s. Larson 1988) to non-verbal predication, as found in copulative constructions. We assume that complex interactions between the features of the Pr-head and the features of the minimalist T° (I°) (and probably also the C°) will result in either the SLP or the ILP interpretation. The Spanish data concerning ser and estar allow us to analyse the syntactical conditions which lead to the SLP/ILP-distinction, making the correlation between syntactic and semantic behaviour evident. We propose that both ser and estar are syntactical default strategies (last resort). If the predicate is a SLP and no verb is available in the numeration, then estar will be introduced into the derivation under Pr°. If the predicate is an ILP and no verb is available in the numeration, then ser will be merged under T°. Quantificational approaches to times, especially reference time are also taken into consideration. Where the SLP/ILP-distinction is not expressed syntactically (by ser or estar) we assume that the chosen interpretation results from spatiotemporal knowledge of the world, i.e. it is conditioned by pragmatics (s.
On the Internal Structure of Spanish Verbless Clauses
In this dissertation I discuss several aspects of the syntax, semantics and discourse properties of what I call Spanish verbless clauses -i.e. non-finite utterances with clausal properties: Spanish PredNP muy listo este tío 'very intelligent this guy', Spanish PP complement clause me sorprende lo caro del piso 'it amazes me how expensive this apartment is', and Spanish Qualitative Binominal Noun Phases (QBNPs): comparative QBNP el tonto del alcalde 'the idiot of the mayor' and attributive QBNP un tonto de alcalde 'an idiot of a mayor'. In each of these clauses there is a subject-predicate relationship. The analysis advanced here is that Spanish PredNP, PP complement clauses and comparative QBNP can be analyzed in terms of predicate inversion. Movement of the predicate in each case is due to a strong semantic feature [+X] that needs to be discharged in the course of the syntactic derivation. It is argued that in Spanish PredNP the strong feature evaluativity [+E] is responsible for predicate inversion, while in PP complement clauses and comparative QBNP the strong feature gradability [+G] triggers movement of the predicate over its subject.
Lingua, 2017
This work introduces a subset of informational features (termed core intentional features), different from standard pragmatic features such as topic and focus. Adopting the basic tenets of the Minimalist program, core intentional features are defined as edge features which sit in the relevant phases and are subject to parametric variation. They are assumed to drive the derivation of the sentence so that it constitutes an intentionally-adequate object (i.e. a categorical or a thetic statement) even in the absence of a particular communicative situation. The paper specifically focuses on one of these features, [DI] (discourse intention), and on how it determines the eventual position of the subject in a discourse-prominent language such as Spanish. A preliminary distinction is made between sentences that inaugurate the discourse (d-sentences) and sentences which are integrated in a particular context (context-dependent sentences). It is argued that the SV/VS order in Spanish follows from the conditions of valuation of [DI] in each case; in particular, valuation of [DI] in d-sentences will be a matter of structural and semantic prominence whereas in context-dependent sentences it will depend on pragmatic conditions. The paper also addresses a number of significant contrasts in the much-debated issue of the placement of the subject in Spanish, which receive a principled explanation under the theory of core intentional features proposed here.