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Introduction
Aurora Bel currently works at the Department of Translation and Language Sciences, University Pompeu Fabra. Aurora does research in Language Acquisition, Bilingualism and Psycholinguistics mainly regarding Morphosyntactic and Pragmatic topics. Her current projects are 'Bidirectional effects and variation in bilingualism, 'Pronominal resolution and DOM in different populations', and 'The effects of instruction on that'-omission' in L2/L3'.
Current institution
Publications
Publications (64)
The aim of the present study is to disentangle the role of syntactic and pragmatic factors on pronominal subject anaphora resolution in a null subject language, Catalan. Through the manipulation of information structure, we assess how and to what extent the syntactic function (subject vs. object), the information status (focus vs. topic), and the s...
This study examines whether Differential Object Marking (DOM) realization and word order in relative clauses (RCs) in Spanish affect processing and interpretation among monolinguals and highly proficient Catalan–Spanish bilinguals. RCs are parallel in Catalan and Spanish, but DOM is much more restricted in Catalan than in Spanish, and, interestingl...
Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions:
The primary goal of this study was to investigate the knowledge of
Russian gender in young heritage speakers through different agreement constructions.
Design/methodology/approach:
Participants were 30 Russian–Spanish–Catalan multilinguals from Spain aged 7–11, divided into two proficiency groups, and...
In research on intra-sentential pronominal anaphora resolution in null subject languages, it has been argued that null pronouns tend to be biased towards subject antecedents, whereas overt pronouns tend to prefer object antecedents, as predicted by Carminati’s ‘Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis’. However, these studies have mainly focused on on...
A number of studies have demonstrated language dominance effects at different linguistic levels, also in Catalan-Spanish early and functional bilinguals (phonetic: Ramírez & Simonet, 2019; lexical: Ferré & Brysbaert, 2017; morphosyntactic: Puig-Mayenco et al., 2018; among others). However, there is not a single definition of language dominance, nor...
This study focuses on the issue of language proficiency attainment among young
heritage speakers of Russian living in Spain and examines factors that have been
claimed to promote heritage language proficiency, namely, age, gender, age of onset
to L2, quantity of exposure and family language use. A group of 30 Russian-Spanish-
Catalan trilingual chi...
This review addresses the question: How are signed languages learned by adult hearing learners? While there has been much research on second language learners of spoken languages, there has been far less work in signed languages. Comparing sign and spoken second language acquisition allows us to investigate whether learning patterns are general (ac...
Differential Object marking (DOM), a linguistic phenomenon in which a direct object is morphologically marked for semantic and pragmatic reasons, has attracted the attention of several subfields of linguistics in the past few years. DOM has evolved diachronically in many languages, whereas it has disappeared from others; it is easily acquired by mo...
Studies on L2 processing of Differential Object Marking (DOM) are scant and
mostly focus on the animacy of the object. We investigated the interaction of
three understudied factors in L1 and L2 processing of DOM: type of animacy
(human vs. non-human animal), gender and number of the object (masculine vs.
feminine, plural vs. singular), and morpholo...
The research presented in this article aims at providing new data on L2 learner knowledge and recognition of the null that in complement clauses. The speech of English native speakers reveals a kind of variation which implies that where that may be present or absent in clauses selected by many common verbs such as say or think there is no preferenc...
Early heritage bilinguals have been repeatedly found to differ from late bilinguals
and from monolinguals (e.g., Montrul, 2008, 2011). In the realm of Spanish
Differential Object Marking (DOM), both early heritage bilinguals (Montrul
et al., 2015) and late bilinguals (e.g., Bowles & Montrul, 2008; Guijarro-Fuentes,
2012) exhibit difficulties. DOM i...
Catalan subject pronoun biases are explored by means of an acceptability judgement task. In adition monolingual and bilingual Spanish in contact with Catalan are compared by means of an acceptability judgement task equivalent to the one in Catalan. Results indicate that Catalan shows an Italian-type division of labor between null and overt pronouns...
http://cilx2018.uvigo.gal/actas/pdf/cilx2018_actas.pdf
The study investigates the knowledge of gender agreement by young speakers of heritage Russian (L1) and Spanish and Catalan (L2s). Research on gender agreement in Russian has documented that this grammatical feature is rather challenging for both L1 and L2 learners because of its low degree of transparency on inanimate nouns (Ceytlin, 2009; Taraban...
The goal of this study is to shed light on how empirical data of discourse constraints of null and overt third person subject pronouns in L1 and bilingual Spanish meet linguistic theory. A (semi)spontaneous production task was administered to 34 Moroccan Arabic (MA)/Spanish early sequential bilinguals and 30 native controls. All 3rd person subject...
This paper examines whether L2 learners of Spanish can attain native-like
interpretive and parsing patterns in intrasentential subject anaphor resolution,
and the extent to which these patterns are modulated by L1 transfer.
Adult advanced L2 learners of Spanish with different L1s (Moroccan Arabic,
a null-subject language, and English, a non-null su...
Early heritage bilinguals have been repeatedly found to differ from late bilinguals and from monolinguals (e.g., Montrul, 2008, 2011). In the realm of Spanish Differential Object Marking (DOM), both early heritage bilinguals (Montrul et al., 2015) and late bilinguals (e.g., Bowles & Montrul, 2008; Guijarro-Fuentes, 2012) exhibit difficulties. DOM i...
The acquisition of language in multilingual contexts is arousing increasing interest and broadening the bilingualism field. The task that confronts a bi- or trilingual child is not the same as that faced by a monolingual child, as the former has to accommodate the similarities and differences between linguistic systems. We analyze the realization o...
Few studies have addressed the acquisition of adverbial clitics (Gavarró et al. 2010, L1; Perpiñán 2016, adult bilinguals) and, to our knowledge, none have tested them in child L2 acquisition (or sequential bilingualism). L2 learners seem to acquire the syntactic properties of clitics (Ivanov 2009), whereas the syntax-pragmatics interface propertie...
This study focuses on the issue of language proficiency attainment among young heritage speakers of Russian living in Spain and examines factors that have been claimed to promote heritage language proficiency, namely, language use, language input, age, gender and age of onset to bilingualism (Gathercole & Thomas, 2005; Albirini, 2014; Unsworth, 201...
Pro-drop languages like Italian have been argued to exhibit an interpretive bias — Carminati’s (2002) Position of the Antecedent Strategy (PAS). The PAS constrains the resolution of intrasentential anaphoras in pro-drop languages by assigning matrix subjects as the antecedents of embedded null subject pronouns as pro in (1a), and matrix objects as...
Recent work suggests that bilingual speakers do not seem to behave native-like
when syntax and pragmatics converge (Sorace, 2011). This study investigates
subject pronouns because they allow observing how speakers integrate morphosyntactic
forms with pragmatic information. Our goal is to determine whether
Moroccan Arabic (MA)/Spanish bilinguals dis...
Late second language learners have difficulty acquiring discourse constraints on the distribution of overt and null subject pronouns in null-subject languages (Tsimpli and Sorace, 2006; Sorace, 2011). In addition to developing the representation of these syntax-discourse properties, they also have to acquire an online parsing bias-- Carminati's (20...
Late second language learners have difficulty acquiring discourse constraints on the distribution of overt and null subject pronouns in null-subject languages (Tsimpli and Sorace, 2006; Sorace, 2011). In addition to developing the representation of these syntax-discourse properties, they also have to acquire an online parsing bias-- Carminati's (20...
Studies on language development in infancy have shown that it takes a long time for children to reach adult-like control over the use of referring expressions since it depends on the efficient coordination of different sources of information such as morphosyntax, discourse-pragmatic information and representation of other people’s mental states, am...
Clitic pronouns represent one of the most idiosyncratic properties of Catalan
due to their polymorphism as well as to their syntactic and discursive functions. The
participants in this study are 4 L1 Portuguese children learning Catalan and a control
group of 6 L1 Catalan children. Both groups are aged between 11 and 12 years and are
attending a Pr...
Aims and Objectives: Learning to control reference in narratives is a major step in becoming
a speaker of a second language, including a signed language. Previous research describes the
pragmatic and cognitive mechanisms that are used for reference control and it is clear that
differences are apparent between first and second language speakers. How...
Whereas in Spanish and Catalan the distinction between individual-level (IL) and stage-level
(SL) predicates (Carlson 1988) is partially lexicalized (copula ‘ser’ roughly corresponding to IL
and ‘estar’ to SL), Hungarian has only one copula, 'van'. Copular verbs are obligatory in all
tense contexts in Spanish and Catalan but Hungarian is governed b...
The goal of this study is to shed light on the conditions that regulate the interpretation of
null and overt third person subject pronouns in ambiguous intra-sentential contexts in
bilingual and L2 Spanish. An acceptability judgment task was administrated to 26
Moroccan Arabic (MA)/Spanish bilinguals, 26 MA learners of L2 Spanish and 34
native cont...
Spanish and Moroccan Arabic (MA) share similar pronoun resolution biases: null pronouns (NPs) for [−Topic Shift] and Overt Pronouns (OPs) for [±Topic Shift] (Filiaci 2011, Bel & García-Alcaraz in press). Research couched in the Interface Hypothesis (IH) suggests that L2 learners and bilinguals overaccept OPs as [−Topic Shift]. We study whether MA s...
This article reflects upon new observations and old concepts related to the acquisition of syntax by examining the strengths and weaknesses of research in acquisitional syntax. Two of the strengths are the interdisciplinary nature of child acquisitional studies and the potential dialogue between research in theoretical syntax and acquisitional synt...
Spanish and Catalan have two copular verbs, ‘ser’ and ‘estar’, to convey what in other languages is expressed via a single copula so that the distinction between individual-level (IL) and stage-level (SL) predicates (Carlson 1988) is partially lexicalized. Becker (2000, 2004) observed that the copula was omitted in child English more frequently in...
This study focuses on the acquisition of clitic pronouns in L2 Catalan learners. The aim of this study is to
observe the acquisition of clitic pronouns in L2 Catalan by Portuguese and French children. The target forms in
this study are accusative, dative and adverbial clitics. All participants, aged between 9 and 11 years old, are
attending a prima...
This corpus consists of 228 spoken and written narrative texts from 88 native speakers of Moroccan Arabic (Darija) and 26 speakers of Berber (Amazigh) living in Catalonia (age range 12-16) of different levels of proficiency in L2 Spanish.
Available at:
https://talkbank.org/access/SLABank/Spanish/BCN.html [Description]
http://talkbank.org/data/SLA...
In this paper, we examine the referential properties of null and overt subject pronouns in Catalan in the semi-spontaneous production of oral and written narrative texts by three groups of speakers/writers: 9–10 year olds, 12–13 year olds, and 16–17 year olds. We aim at determining whether these two types of pronouns play the same role and to what...
Taking the Position of Antecedent Hypothesis, Carminati (2002), and the works of Alonso-Ovalle et al. (2002) regarding the Spanish language as a starting point, this paper investigates third person personal pronouns, null and overt, in non-native discourse. Specifically, we examine whether pronouns show preferences in their selection of antecedents...
In this study, we focus on pronominal anaphora and we investigate the referential properties of null and overt subject pronouns in Catalan, in the semi-spontaneous production of narrative spoken and written texts by three groups of speakers/writers (9-10, 12-13, and 15-16 year olds). We aimed at determining (1) pronoun preferences for a specific ty...
![Table 2 . Development of [FINITE] verbal forms in Spanish. Total...](profile/Aurora-Bel-2/publication/269873037/figure/tbl4/AS:668512733376521@1536397264737/Development-of-FINITE-verbal-forms-in-Spanish-Total-frequencies_Q320.jpg)
This study provides a unified account for the different Number Agreement patterns attested in early Catalan and Spanish. The scarce Person Agreement errors analyzed indicate the existence of a pragmatic rather than a syntactic deficit while, concerning Number, the distribution of plural subjects show that children are sensitive to linear order as i...
The view that a bilingual speaker, or a speaker acquiring more than one language, is the sum of two –or more– monolinguals is proving to be a myth rather than a reality. Accordingly, this book provides a new profile of children and young people becoming bilingual or multilingual in today’s multicultural Spain. The chapters present studies on the ac...
The chapter deals with the acquisition of the
aspectual contrasts conveyed by Spanish preterite and imperfect in relation to
four types of predicates: states, activities, accomplishments, and
achievements”. After describing the different aspectual systems in the L1s
under investigation, and presenting a Minimalist Program view of aspect (where
the...
One of the aspects of child language that has attired the attention of numerous
researchers concerns the production of non-finite forms in contexts where a finite
form would be required, i.e., what have come to be known as root infinitives (RIs).
Depending on the language, these non-finite forms may be actual infinitives (as in
French, German or Du...
One of the aspects of child language that has attired the attention of numerous researchers concerns the production of non-finite forms in contexts where a finite form would be required, i.e., what have come to be known as root infinitives (RIs). Depending on the language, these non-finite forms may be actual infinitives (as in French, German or Du...
In this paper we adopt Hyams’ (2001) proposal that RIs in child language fall out of the attempt to establish a realis/irrealis opposition. More specifically, we argue that the Root Infinitive stage or, in other words, the way in which children mark the realis/irrealis opposition, is manifested across languages depending on the (un)availability of...
This paper studies the initial development of certain language components. More precisely, we analyse the relation between three aspects that are closely involved in the grammar of the verb: morphological productivity, syntactic complexity, and verb vocabulary learning. The study is based on data about the relationship between lexical development a...
This paper studies the initial development of certain language components. More precisely, we analyse the relation between three aspects that are closely involved in the grammar of the verb: morphological productivity, syntactic complexity, and verb vocabulary learning. The study is based on data about the relationship between lexical development a...
Se plantea una discusión entre la teoría y los datos en el campo de la investigación sobre la adquisición del lenguaje. Tras situarse en el modelo generativista de Principios y Parámetros y su posterior evolución, se plantea cómo es el ideal de adecuación explicativa que persigue dicho modelo el que guía el análisis de los datos. Se aboga por el us...
This paper discusses the tension between theory and data in the field of language acquisition. The discussion is couched in from the Principles and Parameters framework, especially its later evolution. The suggestion is that what guides data analysis is the idealistic aim of reaching the explanatory adequacy advocated by this theory. In order to un...
In the acquisition literature, the phenomenon of early null subjects has received
a lot of attention over the past two decades, especially in the case of non null
subject languages. A number of different proposals have been advanced by
Hyams (1986, 1994, 1996), Valian (1991) and Rizzi (1994), among others.
Based on longitudinal data from three Span...
The acquisition of tense by young children is a controversial topic within the field of language acquisition. Some authors argue for the initial absence of this category in early grammar (Radford 1990, Tsimpli 1992, Meisel 1994); others consider it optional (Wexler 1994, Rizzi 1994) although for different reasons. Still others propose that this cat...
Uno de los temas más abordados por la investigación sobre la adquisi-ción del lenguaje en el marco de la gramática generativa es el del llamado parámetro del sujeto nulo. Como se sabe, dicho parámetro divide las len-guas entre aquellas que pueden omitir el sujeto gramatical y aquellas que no permiten tal opción. Los trabajos más recientes sobre la...
It is well known that children acquiring languages such as English, German or
French go through an early stage at which they produce main declarative clauses
with verbs in the infinitive form (Rizzi, 1994; Wexler, 1994; Hyams, 1996). The
aim of this paper is to raise the question of whether the Root Infinitive (RI) option
is available in child Cata...
The article analyzes the results of the immersion program in Catalonia from the Linguistic Normalization Law (1983) comparing different studies and shows that some objectives for the development of children’s basic linguistics skills have been achieved albeit language skills, both in Catalan and Spanish, should be enlarged extending immersion progr...
The paper analyzes immersion program results in Catalonia from the Linguistic Normalization Law (1983) showing that some objectives for the development of the basic linguistic and academic skills have been achieved but that language development must be covered extending immersion programs beyond the first years of primary school. Regarding academic...
