Liliana Sánchez

Functional convergence in the tense, evidentiality and aspectual systems of Quechua Spanish bilinguals

In this paper, I present an exploratory study on cross-linguistic interference among Quechua-Spanish bilingual children living in a language contact situation. The study focuses on convergence in the tense, aspectual and evidentiality systems of the two languages. While in Quechua past tense features are strongly linked to evidentiality in the matrix of features associated with the functional category Tense, in Spanish, past tense features are linked to aspectual features. The study presents evidence that supports the Functional Convergence Hypothesis according to which syntactic convergence among bilingual speakers is favored when the matrix of features associated with a functional category is partially divergent, as is the case for Tense in Spanish and Quechua. The Spanish results indicate that among bilinguals past tense is associated with evidentiality features and contrast sharply with the results of the monolingual comparison group. Bilingual Quechua results exhibit an incipient emergence of discourse-oriented background and foreground distinctions, similar to those found in Spanish in association with aspectual morphology.

Contact and contracting Spanish

This investigation is inspired by an interest in the contact/contracting grammars of heritage speakers of Spanish who have experienced prolonged exposure to English in the United States and, in particular, what their linguistic performance reveals of their knowledge of lexical subclasses and discursive properties associated with ordering of sentential constituents in the Spanish language. Analysis of data obtained for 24 participants on diverse measures of interpretation and production of unergative and unaccusative predicates and Topicalization and Clitic Left Dislocation constructions indicate that while properties of the core syntax (e.g., properties of TP, AgrS, and AgrO) remain robust, properties of the lexico- and discursive-semantic interface may be vulnerable to attrition or respecification.

THE ROLE OF SEMANTIC TRANSFER IN CLITIC DROP AMONG SIMULTANEOUS AND SEQUENTIAL CHINESE-SPANISH BILINGUALS

This study examines the acquisition of the featural constraints on clitic and null distribution in Spanish among simultaneous and sequential Chinese-Spanish bilinguals from Peru. A truth value judgment task targeted the referential meaning of null objects in a negation context. Objects were elicited via two clitic elicitation tasks that targeted anaphoric contexts and left-dislocated topics. An acceptability task tested sensitivity to left-dislocated object drop. Although simultaneous bilinguals were mostly undistinguishable from monolinguals, the late learners differed from both of these groups across tasks. Age of arrival led to different outcomes, with late learners showing more deficits than the child learners. Late learners avoided using clitics and relied on lexical and null objects. Residual transfer effects were observed among the child learners in the form of insensitivity to the features that serve as the basis for null argument identification and clitic deficits in production. It is also argued that transfer persists despite early and intense exposure to the second language in a natural environment because of the existence of an unmarked argument identification option in the first language.

The Morphology and Syntax of Topic and Focus: Minimalist inquiries in the Quechua periphery

This book presents an innovative analysis that relates informational structure, syntax and morphology in Quechua. It provides a minimalist account of the relationship between focus, topic, evidentiality and other left-peripheral features and sentence-internal constituents marked with suffixes that have been previously considered of a pragmatic nature. Intervention effects show that these relationships are also of a syntactic nature. The analysis is extended to morphological markers that appear on polarity sensitive items and wh-words. The book also provides a brief overview of the main characteristics of Quechua syntax as well as additional bibliographical information.

Kechwa and Spanish Bilingual Grammars: Testing Hypotheses on Functional Interference and Convergence

This paper presents an exploratory study on cross-linguistic interference among indigenous Kechwa1–Spanish bilingual children (n=30) living in a language contact situation. Its preliminary findings show evidence of cross-linguistic interference between Kechwa desiderative progressive forms such as miku-naya-yka-n (eat-desprog-3) ‘S/he wants to/is about to eat’ and bilingual Spanish modal progressive structures such as está queriendo comer ‘wants to/is about to eat’. The latter convey a desiderative/imminent aspectual meaning absent in the narratives of a comparison group of Spanish-dominant children (n=25). The paper focuses on showing how interference and convergence in functional features such as modal and aspect features are possible despite striking differences in the morphology of two languages spoken by a bilingual individual. It is argued that, as predicted by the Functional Interference Hypothesis and the Functional Convergence Hypothesis, functional features are the locus of language change, and that activation of functional features from language A in language B, under specific discourse conditions, may lead to convergence in some bilingual individuals. These preliminary findings underscore the need to study the relationship between knowledge of syntax and knowledge of discourse conditions in bilinguals as well as the ability displayed by some bilingual individuals to dissociate syntax from morphology.

Syntactic Development in the L1 of Spanish-English Bilingual Children

In this exploratory study of subtractive bilingualism in Spanish-English bilingual children, we present evidence that crosslinguistic influence has a selective effect on heritage first language loss. Differences in feature strength between English and Spanish in interrogative and negative polarity item (NPI) sentences seem to affect the development of these structures in Spanish more than that of negative sentences. While the children in this study exhibit instability in the production of target-like sentences involving weak features in functional categories (interrogative sentences and NPI sentences) in Spanish, their heritage language, we did not find strong evidence of convergence of their L1 towards the strong feature specification of the corresponding functional categories in English, the socially dominant L2. The results indicate that the heritage language of these bilingual children is affected by cross-linguistic influence from English, which is sensitive to feature strength. In contrast, their second language shows strong development.

Shipibo-Spanish: Differences in Residual Transfer at the Syntax-Morphology and the Syntax-Pragmatics Interfaces.

In this article, we present a study that tests the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace and Filiaci, 2006) at the syntax—pragmatics interface and its possible extension to the syntax—morphology interface in two groups of first language (L1) speakers of Shipibo with different levels of formal instruction in Spanish as a second language (L2). Shipibo is a mixed null subject language that only allows third person null subjects and has no person morphology on the verb. Spanish is a null subject language with rich person morphology on the verb. Evidence of acquisition of a core syntactic property (the extension of null subject licensing from third to first person subjects) was found in the speech of both groups of Shipibo speakers. No significant evidence of residual non-native patterns at the syntax—morphology interface was found (subject—verb mismatches in person) in the group with higher levels of formal instruction. At the syntax—pragmatics interface, we found non-native distribution of first person null subjects in both groups of Shipibo speakers that indicates residual transfer of discourse organization properties concerning topics from Shipibo into Spanish.

The genitive clitic and the genitive construction in Andean Spanish

This paper discusses inalienable possession constructions in a variety of Spanish interlanguage (Southern Andean Spanish) spoken by native Speakers of Southern Quechua. We argue for the existence of genitive clitics in this dialect, which license a genitive phrase in the specifier position of a Predicative Phrase. This PredP constitutes the syntactic expression ofthe inalienable possession relationship. Additionally, we analyze the different word Orders in possessor-possessed constructions in different languages in contact (Spanish, Quechua and Southern Andean Spanish) äs a consequence of a more general difference between the languages: the order possessed-possessor correlates with the existence of overt DP s, which trigger movement ofthe possessed element to a higher specifier.

Information structure in indigenous languages of the Americas : syntactic approaches

This collection of articles explores how the grammar of several native languages of The Americas presents new and old information, question-formation and other functions related to the broader discourse. The concepts addressed in the collection are explained in an introduction to the volume. Included languages are Karaja, Kuikuro, Lushootseed, Southern Quechua, Shipbo, Tariana, Yaqui and Yucatec Maya.

The influence of conversational context and the developing lexicon on the calculation of scalar implicatures: Insights from Spanish-English bilingual children

Although monolingual children do not generally calculate the upper-bounded scalar implicature (SI) associated with ‘some’ without additional support, monolingual Spanish-speaking children have been reported to do so with algunos (‘some’), and further distinguish algunos from unos. Given documented cross-linguistic influence in interface phenomena in bilinguals, we asked whether young Spanish-English bilinguals calculate SIs with algunos, or if there is an effect of acquiring languages with overlapping but diverging lexical entries. Two experiments reveal that not only do bilinguals inconsistently calculate SIs, Spanish monolinguals do not always either. In Experiment 1 , bilinguals did not calculate the SI associated with algunos. However, in Experiment 2 , which calls upon their awareness of speaker-hearer dynamics, they did. This research highlights the challenges arising from interpreting linguistic phenomena where lexical, semantic, and pragmatic information intersect, and is a call for further investigation with bilinguals in a rapidly growing area where bilingual research is lacking.