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Mixed NPs in Spanish-English bilingual speech: Using a corpus-based approach to inform models of sentence processing
Abstract
This volume provides a sample of the most recent studies on Spanish-English codeswitching both in the Caribbean and among bilinguals in the United States. In thirteen chapters, it brings together the work of leading scholars representing diverse disciplinary perspectives within linguistics, including psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, theoretical linguistics, and applied linguistics, as well as various methodological approaches, such as the collection of naturalistic oral and written data, the use of reading comprehension tasks, the elicitation of acceptability judgments, and computational methods. The volume surpasses the limits of different fields in order to enable a rich characterization of the cognitive, linguistic, and socio-pragmatic factors that affect codeswitching, therefore, leading interested students, professors, and researchers to a better understanding of the regularities governing Spanish-English codeswitches, the representation and processing of codeswitches in the bilingual brain, the interaction between bilinguals’ languages and their mutual influence during linguistic expression.
... , the seamless alternation between languages in natural discourse, provides the ideal context for observing bilingual behavior when faced with crosslinguistic barriers (Valdés Kroff 2016). At the morphosyntactic level, there is a growing body of literature on code-switching within mixed noun phrases and the strategies that multilinguals employ when the grammars of their languages diverge (Cisneros et al. 2023). ...
... Morphological characteristics such as grammatical gender are important to account for in code-switching (CS) research because they can highlight how bilinguals confront cross-linguistic barriers (Valdés Kroff 2016). In language dyads like English-Spanish, non-gendered and gendered respectively, inserting words from the former into the latter requires the assignment of grammatical gender. ...
... In a later study, Cruz (2022) corroborated those results through experimental tasks which used vocabulary from the same CESA corpus. Conversely, the results of Valdés Kroff (2016) using the Bangor Miami Corpus found that immediate indication of biological gender only applied to a subset of his data. ...
This study explores how Spanish-English bilinguals in California assign grammatical gender when code-switching between a Spanish determiner and an English noun. In bilingual speech, these moments of cross-linguistic contact offer a window into how speakers navigate competing grammatical systems. Using data from a semi-spontaneous picture description task, the analysis draws on 649 mixed noun phrase tokens to examine whether bilinguals rely on analogical gender, semantic cues, phonological endings, number, or determiner type when choosing between masculine and feminine determiners. While masculine determiners were strongly favored overall, the results show that analogical gender plays a meaningful role—feminine determiners were more likely to appear when the English noun had a grammatically feminine Spanish translation. Other factors did not reach statistical significance. These findings support the view that gender assignment in code-switching reflects structural sensitivity to the grammatical systems of both languages, as well as variability shaped by individual bilingual experience.
... Gutiérrez-Clellen et al. (2009) did not find differences between children with and without DLD in the grammatical category of code-switched words or the tendency to produce atypical switches (e.g., adjective-noun, switches between a pronoun and an inflected verb). Children with and without DLD showed a similar tendency to switch from a Spanish article to an English noun, consistent with other CS literature (e.g., Liceras et al., 2008;Valdés Kroff, 2016). However, children with DLD were more likely to omit determiners and copula "is/es" in code-switched utterances. ...
... For within-utterance CS, both children with DLD and children with TLD were more likely to switch during the Spanish sample or during both samples; children who only switched during the English sample were rare in both groups. These patterns are consistent with previous studies of Spanish-English bilinguals with and without DLD (e.g., Gross & Kaushanskaya, 2022;Gutiérrez-Clellen et al., 2009;Kapantzoglou et al., 2021;Smolak et al., 2019) and with observations of the switching patterns of Spanish-English bilinguals in the United States in general (e.g., Blokzijl et al., 2017;Valdés Kroff, 2016). ...
... The insertion of determiners has been less frequently documented in previous work. Mixed noun phrases with switches between a determiner and a noun have been • • • frequently observed among both children and adults, but at least in the United States, it is more common to see an English noun inserted following a Spanish determiner in a mostly Spanish utterance (e.g., Blokzijl et al., 2017;Liceras et al., 2008;Valdés Kroff, 2016). The insertion of Spanish determiners into a mostly English utterance may reflect language dominance in morphosyntax, as only children with at least a 10-point gap between Spanish and English BESA morphosyntax scores exhibited this behavior. ...
Purpose
This study examined the frequency, direction, and structural characteristics of code-switching (CS) during narratives by Spanish–English bilingual children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) to determine whether children with DLD exhibit unique features in their CS that may inform clinical decision-making.
Method
Spanish–English bilingual children, aged 4;0–6;11 (years;months), with DLD (n = 33) and with typical language development (TLD; n = 33) participated in narrative retell and story generation tasks in Spanish and English. Instances of CS were classified as between utterance or within utterance; within-utterance CS was coded for type of grammatical structure. Children completed the morphosyntax subtests of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment to assist in identifying DLD and to index Spanish and English morphosyntactic proficiency.
Results
In analyses examining the contributions of both DLD status and Spanish and English proficiency, the only significant effect of DLD was on the tendency to engage in between-utterance CS; children with DLD were more likely than TLD peers to produce whole utterances in English during the Spanish narrative task. Within-utterance CS was related to lower morphosyntax scores in the target language, but there was no effect of DLD. Both groups exhibited noun insertions as the most frequent type of within-utterance CS. However, children with DLD tended to exhibit more determiner and verb insertions than TLD peers and increased use of “congruent lexicalization,” that is, CS utterances that integrate content and function words from both languages.
Conclusions
These findings reinforce that use of CS, particularly within-utterance CS, is a typical bilingual behavior even during narrative samples collected in a single-language context. However, language difficulties associated with DLD may emerge in how children code-switch, including use of between-utterance CS and unique patterns during within-utterance CS. Therefore, analyzing CS patterns may contribute to a more complete profile of children's dual-language skills during assessment.
Supplemental Material
https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23479574
... The naturalistic speech of Spanish-English bilinguals from Miami, Florida (U.S.A.), as recorded in the Bangor Miami corpus, has also been examined (Valdés-Kroff 2016). In this sample, 62% of speakers were females, 73% rated their proficiency as high in both languages, and ages ranged from nine to 66 years old. ...
... In this sample, 62% of speakers were females, 73% rated their proficiency as high in both languages, and ages ranged from nine to 66 years old. Valdés- Kroff (2016) found that the preferred gender assignment strategy was overwhelmingly the masculine default. The following table, Table 1, summarizes the main findings, participants and tasks in similar linguistic interactional bilingual contexts to New Mexico in the US. ...
... The following table, Table 1, summarizes the main findings, participants and tasks in similar linguistic interactional bilingual contexts to New Mexico in the US. To conclude this section, it is important to note that previous studies on gender assignment of mixed Spanish-English noun phrases in similar communities to New Mexico focus on production data from naturalistic speech, primarily from corpora (Aaron 2005;Clegg & Waltermire 2009;DuBord 2004;Valdés-Kroff 2016), with the exception of the findings reported by Królikowska et. al (2019) from director-matcher tasks. ...
This study investigated gender assignment strategies in mixed noun phrases containing a Spanish determiner and an English noun among Spanish-English bilinguals (n = 38) in New Mexico (U.S.A.). Previous research has reported different gender assignment strategies based on a preference for a default determiner, the gender of the translation equivalent, or shape-based cues from the other language. The present study consisted of (i) a language background questionnaire, (ii) a two-alternative forced-choice judgment task, and (iii) two director-matcher tasks: a forced-switch task and a spontaneous card game. The results of the judgment task indicate that participants preferred the gender of the translation equivalent, i.e., la window ‘the.FEM window’ following the gender of the Spanish noun la ventana. Results from the production tasks also show that participants produced both gender congruent and incongruent mixed NPs, with Late English bilinguals producing more congruent mixed NPs, similar to the translation equivalent strategy found in the judgment task. These findings differ from those found in naturalistic speech in other New Mexican communities, which display a preference for a masculine default strategy. We suggest that the nature of participants’ bilingual profile and the community norms (urban setting, heterogeneous and diverse language contact profiles) may play a key role in the observed code-switching patterns in mixed noun phrases.
... Importantly, several researchers have also found the overwhelming use of a default gender strategy, where English-origin nouns are assigned to the masculine gender irrespective of the gender of their translation equivalents. This pattern has been attested among Spanish/English bilinguals (Aaron, 2014;Clegg, 2010;Montes-Alcalá & Lapidus Shin, 2011;Otheguy & Lapidus, 2003Smead, 2000;Valdés Kroff, 2016) and L2 learners of Spanish (Franceschina, 2001;Liceras et al., 2008). ...
... For the analysis of semantic domains, tokens were coded using Aaron's (2014) classification system with minor modifications (see section 5.4.2.2). (Clegg, 2010) and gender assignment Jake et al., 2002;Valdés Kroff, 2016) have examined English-only nouns in relation to potential corresponding Spanish equivalents, I do not focus on this aspect. Clegg (2010, p.224) aptly highlights in his study that one of the challenging issues that arises when identifying whether a loanword represents a lexical gap or not is that "there is no reliable way of knowing what words do and do not form part of the lexicon of [a] speech community". ...
... I also analyzed overtly gender-marked DPs in terms of biological gender and animacy (Clegg, 2006;DuBord, 2004;Otheguy & Lapidus, 2003;Montes-Alcalá & Lapidus Shin, 2011;Poplack et al., 1982;Sánchez, 1995;Valdés Kroff, 2016), as these are two factors that have been shown to be operative in the gender assignment process. Researchers like Clegg (2006) postulate that biological sex of the animate referent overrides any other potential factor. ...
... Thus, if speakers' choices to code-switch are driven by information-theoretic and sociopragmatic functions, listeners could statistically learn the pairing between a code-switch and the ensuing less expected information through exposure to the distribution of code-switches produced within the bilingual community. A similar concept has been demonstrated for grammatical patterns and code-switching: more commonly attested code-switches are also easier to process (e.g., more common switches into the progressive vs. past participle in auxiliary-verb phrases, or more common switches after a masculine vs. a feminine gender determiner in Spanish-English code-switching; e.g., Guzzardo Tamargo, Valdés Kroff & Dussias, 2016;Valdés Kroff, 2016;Valdés Kroff, Dussias, Gerfen, Perrotti & Bajo, 2017). Thus, the code-switching patterns, possibly stemming from sociopragmatic functions and/or difficulties in word retrieval, could in turn affect a bilingual listener's prediction while comprehending speech. ...
... Presuming that a similar sociopragmatic function of code-switching to less predictable items exists within the Spanish-English bilingual community in the US, the switch direction would be from Spanish to English, regardless of the language dominance of the individuals. English as the majority language in the US corresponds to the language of power and switches to the language of power are in general more frequent (Bhatt, 2013, as cited in Blokzijl et al., 2017Blokzijl et al., 2017;Myslín & Levy, 2015), including in the Spanish-English bilingual community in the US (Moreno, Federmeier & Kutas, 2002;Herring, Deuchar, Couto & Quintanilla, 2010;Valdés Kroff, 2016;Valdés Kroff, Guzzardo Tamargo & Dussias, 2018;cf. Blokzijl, Deuchar & Parafita Couto, 2017). ...
... Code-switches preceded the name of the target object by three words, one content and two function ones, to avoid any immediate switch costs affecting the results. The code-switch occurred after an article, at the noun, which is a well-documented, frequent code-switch site (Valdés Kroff, 2016). Carrier phrases (Example 2) and target names were recorded by a balanced Puerto Rican Spanish-English speaker, a trained audiologist. ...
Despite its prominent use among bilinguals, psycholinguistic studies reported code-switch processing costs (e.g., Meuter & Allport, 1999). This paradox may partly be due to the focus on the code-switch itself instead of its potential subsequent benefits. Motivated by corpus studies on CS patterns and sociopragmatic functions of CS, we asked whether bilinguals use code-switches as a cue to the lexical characteristics of upcoming speech. We report a visual world study testing whether code-switching facilitates the anticipation of lower-frequency words. Results confirm that US Spanish–English bilinguals (n = 30) use minority (Spanish) to majority (English) language code-switches in real-time language processing as a cue that a less frequent word would ensue, as indexed by increased looks at images representing lower- vs. higher-frequency words in the code-switched condition, prior to the target word onset. These results highlight the need to further integrate sociolinguistic and corpus observations into the experimental study of code-switching.
... Previous work on Spanish-English code-switching has revealed an asymmetry whereby mixed nominal constructions with a Spanish determiner, e.g. el book, are more commonly produced than those with an English determiner, e.g. the libro (Liceras, Fernández Fuertes, Perales, Pérez-Tattam & Spradlin 2008;Moro Quintanilla 2014;Valdés Kroff 2016). Liceras et al. (2008) explain this by suggesting that bilingual speakers favor the determiner with the largest number of uninterpretable features (here, Spanish), labeling this the grammatical features spell-out hypothesis (see also Moro Quintanilla 2001, 2014. ...
... (2 Speakers may adopt one of the gender values and assign it to all other-language nouns, a strategy referred to as the default. Naturalistic production data from Spanish-English bilinguals in the Miami corpus shows that, in mixed determiner-noun constructions with a Spanish determiner, the vast majority of the determiners carry masculine gender (97.4%) compared to just 2.5% with a feminine determiner (Valdés Kroff, 2016). The same pattern was found in the use of gender by 62 Spanish-English bilinguals in northern Belize; almost every mixed construction (99.6%) contained a masculine determiner. ...
... This strongly suggests that the children had successfully acquired the Spanish gender system. As for mixed DPs (n = 220), children used predominantly masculine determiners (in 97.8% of instances), a default pattern similar to that also reported for adult speakers in Miami (e.g., Valdés Kroff, 2016). Therefore, these bilingual children seem to have acquired both the gender system of the gendered language, Spanish, as well as the community patterns for the use of (masculine) gender in code-switching mode, as early as the age of seven (cf. ...
... (13) a. der DOG b. die DOG the.M DOG the.F DOG 'the dog' (German: Hun.M) Another GAS widely reported in the literature on mixed Spanish-English DPs is the use of a gender (masculine) as default. Some bilinguals tend to attribute masculine gender to inserted English nouns, as is the case of bilinguals with English or French as their L1 and/or dominant language (Liceras et al., 2016;Liceras et al., 2008), and some bilingual communities do it extensively (see Balam, 2016;Beatty-Martinez &Dussias, 2019 andValdés Kroff, 2016). Additionally, masculine default was attested in the Basque-Spanish bilingual acceptability judgement task by Badiola and Sande (2018), despite a feminine preference observed with nouns with lexical -a. ...
... Second, the balanced distribution of masculine and feminine articles questions the existence of any default, and the strong predictability of the other strategies considered, single or combined (almost 100% or the data), rules out the default option in these highly proficient Spanish-Basque bilinguals. Such results contrast with the tendency to masculine default found in mixed DPs across Spanish contact situations, methodologies and bilingual profiles (Badiola & Sande, 2018;Balam, 2016;Bellamy et al., 2018;Valdés Kroff, 2016). Moreover, the majority of the lexical insertions of the single (L1B) participant showing preference for feminine were words ending in -a, and consequently, the only case of F default appear as compatible with the canonical gender, illustrated in examples (2-5), and with the phonological GAS, rather than with any default. ...
... Thus, on the one hand the pattern found in the successive or simultaneous L1S bilinguals supports the strength of the analogical strategy attested in L1 Spanish-L2 English bilinguals (Liceras et al., 2008) and in Spanish-dominant Spanish-Basque bilinguals in both oral and written acceptability judgements (Iriondo, 2017;Parafita Couto, Munarriz, et al., 2015). This outcome contrasts with the masculine default widely attested in native (Balam, 2016;Valdés Kroff, 2016) and non-native Spanish speakers (Liceras et al., 2008). On the other hand, the results of the L1B group confirm that these bilinguals are especially sensitive to word ending (either noun or root ending): not only to -a ending, as observed by Parafita , but also to non-a endings, predominantly associated to M and interpreted by Badiola and Sande (2018) as evidence for M default. ...
This paper investigates the strategies involved in gender assignment in Spanish-Basque mixed Determiner Phrases (DPs) with a gendered Spanish determiner ( el M / la F ) and a Basque ungendered noun. Previous studies on Spanish-Basque mixed DPs have revealed conflicting results regarding the determining factor affecting gender assignment, namely, phonological ending vs. analogical gender. We designed a forced-switch elicitation task in order to elicit mixed DPs with a Spanish determiner and a Basque noun (controlled for both phonological vs. analogical cues). Thirty highly proficient Spanish-Basque bilinguals with different profiles and sociolinguistic backgrounds participated in the study. Three cues were significant in the selection of the Spanish M/F determiner: the analogical gender and two phonological cues, the word ending and the root ending of the Basque noun. Further statistical analyses revealed participants’ L1 as a strong factor in the variability attested: bilinguals with Spanish as (one of) their L1(s) rely predominantly on the analogical criterion, whereas speakers with only Basque as L1 follow mainly the phonological criterion. Overall, this study provides an explanation for the previous conflicting results and highlights the fact that bilinguals may use different strategies depending on their bilingual profile and the morpho-phonological properties of the languages in contact.
... Several studies have examined gender assignment of English nouns in Spanish-English CS (Aaron, 2014;Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017;Chaston, 1996;Clegg & Waltermire, 2009;Herring, Deuchar, Parafita Couto, & Quintanilla, 2010;Liceras, Fuertes, Perales, Pérez-Tattam, & Spradlin, 2008;Montes-Alcalá & Shin, 2011;Otheguy & Lapidus, 2003;Poplack, Pousada, & Sankoff, 1982;Smead, 2000;Valdés Kroff, 2016). A goal of these studies has been to observe what strategies Spanish-English bilingual speakers use when assigning gender in CS to nouns that do not have grammatical gender. ...
... Thus, these Spanish bilingual speakers had experience communicating with other bilinguals and, thus, presumedly with CS. All these studies report on data from corpus of spontaneous speech (Aaron, 2014;Valdés-Kroff, 2016) or from sociolinguistic interviews (Clegg & Waltermire, 2009;Montes-Alcalá & Shin, 2011;Otheguy & Lapidus, 2003) and find evidence of the use of a masculine default for English noun switches. Aaron's (2014) results, for instance, showed a strong preference for masculine gender in CS: 42% of Englishorigin nouns were assigned masculine gender while only 7% were feminine (the remaining 51% was unmarked for gender), in contrast with Spanish monolingual mode where only 28% of Spanish nouns were assigned masculine gender. ...
... Previous research has largely reported the use of a masculine default in Spanish-English CS (e.g., Aaron, 2014;Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017;Valdés Kroff, 2016). Given the evidence for the use of a masculine default determiner with English single noun switches in previous research, we ...
Previous studies have observed different gender assignment strategies for English nouns in Spanish-English code-switching (CS). However, these studies have not investigated the role of noun gender canonicity of the Spanish equivalent, they have only examined participants in bilingual speaker mode, and most studies have not explored the role of bilingual language experience. The current study compares gender assignment by heritage speakers of Spanish in a monolingual speaker mode and a bilingual speaker mode, considering the role of noun gender canonicity and CS experience. Results revealed a language mode effect, where participants used significantly more masculine determiners with the same feminine nouns in the CS session than those in the Spanish monolingual session where they used a feminine determiner. Further evidence of a language mode effect was found in the effect of noun canonicity and bilingual language experience. Noun canonicity was only significant in the Spanish monolingual session, where participants used significantly more masculine determiners with non-canonical nouns. Bilingual language experience was only significant in the CS session, where regular codeswitchers used more masculine default determiners than infrequent codeswitchers and non-codeswitchers, while in Spanish-only, all these groups behaved similarly.
... Their production choices provide, in turn, a window on speakers' prior linguistic experience (Beatty-Martínez et al., 2018a). For example, corpus studies on Spanish-English codeswitching have noted that bilinguals are more likely to produce mixed NPs with Spanish determiners and English nouns (e.g., "el dog, " the SPAN dog ENG ) over mixed NPs with the opposite configuration (e.g., "the perro, " the ENG dog SPAN ; Jake et al., 2002;Valdés Kroff, 2016;Beatty-Martínez et al., 2018a;Królikowska et al., 2019;cf. Blokzijl et al., 2017). ...
... Blokzijl et al., 2017). Similarly, many studies have reported a masculine tendency in the assignment of grammatical gender for Spanish-English mixed NPs similar to the sentences in (4a) and (4b) below (Montes-Alcalá and Lapidus Shin, 2011;Valdés Kroff, 2016;cf. Liceras et al., 2008). ...
... Importantly, incongruent mixed NPs with masculine determiners (e.g., "el spoon") did not result in processing difficulties ( Figure 3B). The authors interpreted this result as evidence for bilinguals' sensitivity to distributional codeswitching patterns (i.e., incongruent mixed NPs with feminine determiners are rarely attested in naturalistic codeswitching; Valdés Kroff, 2016;Beatty-Martínez et al., 2018a). Non-codeswitchers, on the other hand, only showed sensitivity to agreement violations for mixed NPs involving feminine translation equivalents: incongruent mixed NPs (e.g., "el spoon") elicited a P600 effect ( Figure 3D). ...
Research on grammatical gender processing has generally assumed that grammatical gender can be treated as a uniform construct, resulting in a body of literature in which different gender classes are collapsed into single analysis. The present work reviews linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic research on grammatical gender from different methodologies and across different profiles of Spanish speakers. Specifically, we examine distributional asymmetries between masculine and feminine grammatical gender, the resulting biases in gender assignment, and the consequences of these assignment strategies on gender expectancy and processing. We discuss the implications of the findings for the design of future gender processing studies and, more broadly, for our understanding of the potential differences in the processing reflexes of grammatical gender classes within and across languages.
... For example, returning to the code-switched phrase in Example (1), the English noun "box" is preceded by the Spanish article "la," which encodes for feminine grammatical gender. In U.S. Spanish-English bilingual communities, it is common to find English nouns preceded by the Spanish article "el" instead (e.g., Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017;Valdés Kroff, 2016). Interestingly, "el" marks for masculine grammatical gender, thus potentially creating cross-linguistic conflict because the Spanish translation equivalent for "box" is the Spanish feminine noun "caja." ...
... Although we recruited participants remotely from many communities and cannot know their specific individualized exposure to code-switch types, we take prior corpora patterns as a reasonable estimate of which types of code-switches Spanish-English bilinguals are regularly exposed to. As can be seen in Figure 1, masculine determiner-noun code-switches like "el soap" are more common than feminine ones like "la box" (Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017;Valdés Kroff, 2016). Progressive tense verb-phrase switches (e.g., "mis amigos están cooking") are more common than perfective ones (e.g., "mis amigos han cooked"); perfective tense verb-phrase switches at the auxiliary location (e.g., "mis amigos have cooked") are more common than perfective tense verbphrase switches at the participle location (e.g., "mis amigos han cooked," Guzzardo Tamargo et al., 2016); and noun phrase code-switches are more common than verb phrase code-switches (Poplack, 1980). ...
Bilinguals experience processing costs when comprehending code-switches, yet the magnitude of the cost fluctuates depending on numerous factors. We tested whether switch costs vary based on the frequency of different types of code-switches, as estimated from natural corpora of bilingual speech and text. Spanish–English bilinguals in the U.S. read single-language and code-switched sentences in a self-paced task. Sentence regions containing code-switches were read more slowly than single-language control regions, consistent with the idea that integrating a code-switch poses a processing challenge. Crucially, more frequent code-switches elicited significantly smaller costs both within and across most classes of switch types (e.g., within verb phrases and when comparing switches at verb-phrase and noun-phrase sites). The results suggest that, in addition to learning distributions of syntactic and semantic patterns, bilinguals develop finely tuned expectations about code-switching behavior – representing one reason why code-switching in naturalistic contexts may not be particularly costly.
... Before discussing the specific factors that have been found to influence gender assignment of noun insertions, it is worth pointing out that the majority of researchers in the literature (see e.g., Prado, 1982(Prado, 1982; Roca, 1989(Roca, 1989; Sánchez, 1995(Sánchez, 1995; Smead, 2000(Smead, 2000; Natalicio, 1983(Natalicio, 1983; Clegg, 2010(Clegg, 2010Valdés Kroff et al., 2016(Valdés Kroff et al., 2016; Balam et al., 2021(Balam et al., 2021) agree that there exists a preference towards masculine gender, by virtue of masculine gender being the 'unmarked' gender. Several studies (e.g., Sánchez, 1995(Sánchez, 1995; Smead, 2000(Smead, 2000) have asserted that in the absence of a competing factor that favors feminine gender assignment, masculine gender will most likely be assigned. ...
... Before discussing the specific factors that have been found to influence gender assignment of noun insertions, it is worth pointing out that the majority of researchers in the literature (see e.g., Prado, 1982(Prado, 1982; Roca, 1989(Roca, 1989; Sánchez, 1995(Sánchez, 1995; Smead, 2000(Smead, 2000; Natalicio, 1983(Natalicio, 1983; Clegg, 2010(Clegg, 2010Valdés Kroff et al., 2016(Valdés Kroff et al., 2016; Balam et al., 2021(Balam et al., 2021) agree that there exists a preference towards masculine gender, by virtue of masculine gender being the 'unmarked' gender. Several studies (e.g., Sánchez, 1995(Sánchez, 1995; Smead, 2000(Smead, 2000) have asserted that in the absence of a competing factor that favors feminine gender assignment, masculine gender will most likely be assigned. ...
... In other words, these linguistic and extra-linguistic cues probabilistically signal an increased likelihood of a codeswitch, but the utterance may continue in the same language. Additionally, bilingual speakers may vary in their scope of planning an upcoming codeswitch, thus leading to moments when codeswitches are planned in advance or occur on the fly and at later stages of speech planning (Vald es Kroff, 2016;Johns & Steuck, 2021). Therefore, a second component to the Adaptive Predictability hypothesis is the upregulation of cognitive control to aid rapid integration of codeswitches in online processing. ...
... Our descriptions will summarize overall findings and provide a brief discussion on how these studies illustrate the two central premises of the et al. (2017) investigated how the purported asymmetry in mixed noun phrase production in east coast US and Puerto Rican Spanish-English bilingual communities affects online processing. Aside from the greater preference for mixed noun phrases to surface with a Spanish determiner and an English noun phrase (el house v. the casa), these bilinguals overwhelmingly produce Spanish masculine gender-marked determiners in mixed noun phrases (i.e., preferring el house v. la house, Sp. la casa, feminine; Beatty-Martínez & Otheguy & Lapidus, 2003;Vald es Kroff, 2016). Infrequently, feminine-marked mixed noun phrases also are produced but are prohibitively restricted to English nouns whose Spanish translation equivalents are feminine (i.e., la house but *la juice, Sp. jugo/ zumo, masculine). ...
... In the review in Parafita an emphasis is placed on further examining the role that external factors, such as community norms, play in the asymmetries reported in previous CS literature. This paper examines a different structure, mood selection in relative clauses, as Raymond (2012) and Prada Pérez et al. (2021) have reported an indicative default (parallel to the masculine default) in Spanish HSs in the U.S. Nonetheless, the indicative default is a trend that would not be derived from knowledge of the two grammars, in a similar vein as the argument for the masculine default in Valdés Kroff (2016). Thus, in this paper, we seek to explore CS effects on mood selection in L2ers to test this hypothesis. ...
... HSs in Raymond (2012) and Prada Pérez et al. (2021), on the other hand, could have approached the task where they were evaluating the sentence as a whole, where an English noun in the antecedent does not necessarily select for a subjunctive or an indicative verb form in the embedded clause. This is a similar argument to the one offered for the use of the analogical criterion vs. the masculine default in Determiner-Noun CS (e.g., Denbaum and Prada Pérez 2020;Valdés Kroff 2016). Thus, it seems reasonable that our participants were evaluating mood choice in the relative clause against their Spanish grammar, independently of language mode. ...
An increasing amount of research shows that bilinguals that engage in codeswitching (CS) may show different patterns of usage and sensitivity to particular linguistic structures depending on community norms. Additionally, proficiency may play a different role in sensitivity to code-switched utterances depending on speaker background, as well as the structure investigated. In this study, we aim to examine how bilinguals not exposed to CS in the community rate CS vs. unilingual sentences involving mood selection in Spanish. In an online acceptability judgment task (AJT), 20 Spanish L2ers rated sentences containing verbs in the indicative and subjunctive mood in restrictive relative clauses manipulated for the specificity of the antecedent in two separate sessions: a Spanish monolingual mode and a CS session. The L2ers did not show evidence of a CS effect and maintained a mood distinction according to the specificity of the antecedent both in unilingual and codeswitched sentences. These results are in contrast with the results previously reported for Spanish heritage speakers (HSs), where a CS effect is attested in the loss of preference for the subjunctive in nonspecific relative clauses in the CS vs. the monolingual Spanish condition. Additionally, this distinction is found at both lower and higher proficiency levels. The differences between these speakers and HSs are consistent with data from previous research on CS effects on phonology and Det–N switches. We argue that exposure to community norms is necessary for the acquisition of patterns not related exclusively to the grammaticality of switch junctures (I-language).
... Similarly, community differences in the preferred pattern of use in code-switching can and should arise because the specific structure that a community adopts may be influenced by a host of linguistic and extra-linguistic variables. Valdés Kroff (2016) found that Spanish-English bilinguals in Miami use predominantly masculine gender in mixed nominal constructions, and recent research indicates that Spanish-Basque code-switching has settled on the use of feminine-marked mixed nominal constructions as the dominant pattern (Parafita Couto et al., 2015b). Subsequently, Valdés Kroff (2016) argues that the predictions for online processing of gender should be different between Spanish-Basque and Spanish-English bilinguals. ...
... It is possible, as Åfarli et al. (2013) point out, that each situation is unique, exhibiting its own particular features, which would lead to different switching types. If that is the case, then our grammatical and processing models should accommodate the outcomes of the different types of contact situations (Ålfarli et al., 2013;Kootstra, 2015;Muysken, 2013;Valdés Kroff, 2016). The (future) evaluation of similar studies may help showing which methodologies are most effective as well as provide valuable insight into the inner workings of the bilingual brain, which in turn can shed light on how to interpret the results from studies like this one. ...
How do production and comprehension processes interact in the bilingual brain during language interaction? Most experimental and theoretical research in psycholinguistics to date has focused on investigating the mechanisms that underlie language production and language comprehension separately. Only recently have researchers started emphasizing the importance of reconciling the two modalities into a unified account through the investigation of possible connections between the two systems. Authored by key researchers in psycholinguistics, neuroscience, and language development, this volume encompasses state of the art research on the relation between production and comprehension processes in bilingual children and adults. Articles highlight the most recent methodological approaches, as well as a variety of language pairs and linguistic structures. Indispensable for students and researchers working in the areas of language acquisition and processing, neurolinguistics, and experimental linguistics, this volume will also appeal to educators and clinicians focusing on language development and processing in multilingual children and adults. Originally published as special issue of Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 9:4/5 (2019).
... This gives rise to the question of whether exposure to asymmetries in the directionality of CS in a given community determines how speakers handle switches. Parafita Couto and Stadthagen-González (2017) explored whether speakers' explicit judgements reflected a preference for the asymmetries observed in production, with a focus on determiner-noun switches in Spanish-English bilinguals in the USA, where Spanish determiners tend to occur more frequently than English determiners (Herring et al., 2010;Valdés Kroff, 2016;Blokzijl et al., 2017). Their results indicated that in mixed nominal constructions English determiners were accepted at a similar rate to Spanish determiners, as long as the determiner was from the same language as the matrix language. ...
... Key to this venture will be a better grasp of distributional usage patterns across different communities in production, and converging evidence from different methodological approaches tapping into both production and comprehension. Bilinguals' experiences clearly matter (e.g., Lipski, 2014;Valdés Kroff, 2016;Beatty-Martínez and Dussias, 2017;Beatty-Martínez et al., 2018;Toribio, 2018;Adamou and Shen, 2019;Balam et al., 2020), but they are not easy to take into account. It is not always clear which aspects of bilinguals' sociolinguistic and cultural experiences matter (and they may differ across communities), and the lack of production corpora add to the methodological challenges in the study of CS. ...
Despite a wealth of studies on effects of switch locations in code-switching (CS), we know relatively little about how structural factors such as switch location and extralinguistic factors such as directionality preferences may jointly modulate CS (cf., Stell and Yapko, 2015). Previous findings in the nominal domain suggest that within-constituent switching (within the noun phrase) may be easier to process than between-constituent switching (a structural effect), and that there may also be directionality effects with switches preferred only in one language direction (an extra-linguistic effect). In this study we examine a different domain, namely how VP-external (preverbal) vs. VP-internal (postverbal) switch location and switch directionality affects the processing of Papiamentu–Dutch mixed subject-verb-object (SVO) sentences. We manipulated switch location (preverbal/postverbal), and directionality of switch (PD/DP) and tested 50 Papiamentu–Dutch bilinguals on an auditory sentence matching task. The results from the mixed conditions showed no effect of switch location. Instead, we found only an effect of directionality and in an unexpected direction for this population, with switches from Dutch to Papiamentu being processed faster than switches from Papiamentu to Dutch regardless of switch location. The results highlight the importance of taking extralinguistic factors into account, but also the challenges of studying CS, particularly in lesser studied speech communities, and the need for a data-driven, cross-disciplinary approach to the study of CS.
... This finding is congenial to past studies showing that codeswitched utterances constitute a small proportion of corpus data, even in communities where codeswitching is a regular communicative practice (Beatty-Martínez andDussias, 2017, 2019;Green, 2019). For simple mixed NPs, all but three tokens ("la balloon, " "la guitar, " "the rueda"; English ballon, guitar, and wheel, respectively) were comprised of a Spanish masculine determiner and an English noun, replicating the well-documented asymmetry with respect to grammatical gender and switching direction (Poplack, 1980;Valdés Kroff, 2016;Beatty-Martínez et al., 2018;Casielles-Suárez, 2018;cf. Blokzijl et al., 2017). ...
... Our hope is that the proposal put forth here will inform and shape future research directions. For mixed NPs, all but three tokens ("la balloon," "la guitar," "the rueda" English: ballon, guitar, and wheel, respectively) were comprised of a Spanish masculine determiner and an English noun, replicating the well-documented asymmetry with respect to grammatical gender and switching direction (Poplack, 1980;Valdés Kroff, 2016;Beatty-Martínez et al., 2018;Casielles-Suárez, 2018;cf. Blokzijl et al., 2017). ...
The ability to engage in fluent codeswitching is a hallmark of the flexibility and creativity of bilingual language use. Recent discoveries have changed the way we think about codeswitching and its implications for language processing and language control. One is that codeswitching is not haphazard, but subject to unique linguistic and cognitive constraints. Another is that not all bilinguals codeswitch, but those who do, exhibit usage patterns conforming to community-based norms. However, less is known about the cognitive processes that regulate and promote the likelihood of codeswitched speech. We review recent empirical studies and provide corpus evidence that highlight how codeswitching serves as an opportunistic strategy for optimizing performance in cooperative communication. From this perspective, codeswitching is part and parcel of a toolkit available to bilingual codeswitching speakers to assist in language production by allowing both languages to remain active and accessible, and therefore providing an alternative means to convey meaning, with implications for bilingual speech planning and language control more generally.
... Here, the speaker switches from a Spanish determiner to an English noun. Although this is a highly typical switch site in Spanish-English code-switched speech (Jake, Myers-Scotton, & Gross, 2002;Poplack, 1980;Valdés Kroff, 2016), Example 1 illustrates how cross-linguistic conflict between representations from the two languages arises. Specifically, unlike English, Spanish nouns have grammatical gender and most determiners must agree in gender with the noun. ...
... We generated 192 sentence "frames," which were translated to suit each of three language presentation modes: English only, Spanish only, and code-switched. For the code-switched materials, all sentences began in Spanish and ended in English because of the preponderance of highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals in the United States who code-switch in this language direction (Herring, Deuchar, Parafita Couto, & Moro Quintanilla, 2010;Moreno et al., 2002;Valdés Kroff, 2016;Valdés Kroff et al., 2018;cf. Blokzijl, Deuchar, & Parafita Couto, 2017). ...
We investigated whether bilinguals' integration of a code-switch during real-time comprehension, which involves resolving among conflicting linguistic representations, modulates the deployment of cognitive-control mechanisms. In the current experiment, Spanish-English bilinguals (N = 48) completed a cross-task conflict-adaptation paradigm that tested whether reading code-switched sentences triggers cognitive-control engagement that immediately influences performance on an ensuing Flanker trial. We observed that, while incrementally processing sentences, detecting a code-switch (as opposed to reading sentences that did not contain a code-switch) assisted subsequent conflict resolution. Such temporal interdependence between confronting cross-linguistic conflict and ensuing adjustments in behavior indicates that integrating a code-switch during online comprehension may recruit domain-general cognitive-control procedures. We propose that such control mechanisms mobilize to resolve among competing representations that arise across languages during real-time parsing of code-switched input. Overall, the findings provide novel insight into what language-processing demands of bilingualism regulate cognitive-control performance moment by moment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
... Similarly, community differences in the preferred pattern of use in code-switching can and should arise because the specific structure that a community adopts may be influenced by a host of linguistic and extra-linguistic variables. Valdés Kroff (2016) found that Spanish-English bilinguals in Miami use predominantly masculine gender in mixed nominal constructions, and recent research indicates that Spanish-Basque code-switching has settled on the use of feminine-marked mixed nominal constructions as the dominant pattern (Parafita Couto et al., 2015b). Subsequently, Valdés Kroff (2016) argues that the predictions for online processing of gender should be different between Spanish-Basque and Spanish-English bilinguals. ...
... It is possible, as Åfarli et al. (2013) point out, that each situation is unique, exhibiting its own particular features, which would lead to different switching types. If that is the case, then our grammatical and processing models should accommodate the outcomes of the different types of contact situations (Ålfarli et al., 2013;Kootstra, 2015;Muysken, 2013;Valdés Kroff, 2016). The (future) evaluation of similar studies may help showing which methodologies are most effective as well as provide valuable insight into the inner workings of the bilingual brain, which in turn can shed light on how to interpret the results from studies like this one. ...
In Papiamento-Dutch bilingual speech, the nominal construction is a potential 'conflict site' if there is an adjective from one language and a noun from the other. Adjective position is pre-nominal in Dutch (cf. rode wijn 'red wine') but post-nominal in Papiamento (cf. biña kòrá 'wine red'). We test predictions concerning the mechanisms underpinning word order in noun-adjective switches derived from three accounts: (i) the adjective determines word order (Cantone & MacSwan, 2009), (ii) the matrix language determines word order (Myers-Scotton, 1993, 2002), and (iii) either order is possible (Di Sciullo, 2014). An analysis of spontaneous Papiamento-Dutch code-switching production (Parafita Couto & Gullberg, 2017) could not distinguish between these predictions. We used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to measure online comprehension of code-switched utterances. We discuss how our results inform the three theoretical accounts and we relate them to syntactic coactivation and the production-comprehension link.
... In particular, research on Spanish-English codeswitching has revealed a gender asymmetry whereby masculine gender is overwhelmingly preferred in Spanish determiner-English noun switches, whereas feminine gender is limited to a small set of English nouns whose Spanish translation equivalents are feminine (i.e. la cookie > la galleta) (Cruz, 2021;Delgado, 2018;Valdés Kroff, 2016). Drawing on spontaneous data from Spanish-English bilinguals who engage in codeswitching practices, Cruz (2021) showed that this gender asymmetry provides strong support for López's (2020) proposal of a single lexicon in the bilingual architecture, although Cruz's analysis of gender features involved in the bilingual architecture differs from that of López's. ...
The present study investigates how English learners of Spanish compute gender agreement in Spanish–English asymmetrical switches (i.e. el key vs. la key ‘the.masc/fem key’). Twenty-six English learners of Spanish at intermediate-to-advanced second language (L2) proficiency completed a forced-choice elicitation task involving two codeswitching environments: Spanish determiner–English noun switches (Task 1) and English–Spanish switched copula constructions (Task 2). English nouns occurring in these codeswitching environments are controlled for semantic gender in the case of human nouns and for the grammatical gender of the Spanish translation equivalent in the case of inanimate nouns. The study also explores whether L2 proficiency and codeswitching experience influence L2 learners’ gender decisions in codeswitching. Gender agreement was almost categorical with human nouns whereby female nouns are feminine and male nouns are masculine. A mixed-effects logistic regression analysis further revealed that participants were more likely to apply masculine gender to inanimate nouns in both tasks, while the majority of the participants performed below chance with feminine gender. We stress the importance of separating animate from inanimate nouns in experimental L2 research. We argue that L2 learners’ preference for masculine gender in codeswitching is a reflex of a probabilistic default gender driven by the L2 grammar, rather than evidence for the retrieval of the grammatical gender of the translation equivalent.
... The bilingual practices of this bilingual community are welldocumented in the literature (Fricke and Kootstra, 2016;Valdés Kroff, 2016;Vanhaverbeke and Enghels, 2021). In an analysis of Spanish and English diminutives in this corpus, Vanhaverbeke and Enghels (2021) found that, in their Spanish-discourse, Spanish-English bilinguals produced the morphological strategy (i.e., -ito/a) at an 88.57% (527/595) rate compared to a 11.43% (68/595) rate for its analytic counterpart (i.e., pequeño "small'). ...
Introduction
This paper studies the pragmatic force that heritage speakers may convey through the use of the diminutive in everyday speech. In particular, I analyze the use of the Spanish diminutive in 49 sociolinguistic interviews from a Spanish–English bilingual community in Southern Arizona, U.S. where Spanish is the heritage language. I compare the use of the diminutive in heritage Spanish to the distribution of the diminutive in the speech of a Spanish monolingual community (18 sociolinguistic interviews) from the same dialectal region. Although Spanish and English employ different morphosyntactic strategies to express diminutive meaning, the analysis reveals that the diminutive morpheme -ito/a is a productive morphological device in the Spanish-discourse of heritage speakers from Southern Arizona (i.e., similar diminutive distributions to their monolingual counterparts). While heritage speakers employed the diminutive -ito/a to express the notion of “smallness” in their Spanish-discourse, the analysis indicates that these language users are more likely to invoke a subjective evaluation through the diminutive -ito/a when talking about their family members and/or childhood experiences. This particular finding suggests that the concept “child” is the semantic/pragmatic driving force of the diminutive in heritage Spanish as a marker of speech by, about, to, or with some relation to children. The analysis further suggests that examining the pragmatic dimensions of the diminutive in everyday speech can provide important insights into how heritage speakers encode and create cultural meaning in their heritage languages.
Methods
In this study, I analyze the use of Spanish diminutives in two U.S.-Mexico border regions. The first data set is representative of a Spanish–English bilingual community in Southern Arizona, U.S., provided in the Corpus del Español en el Sur de Arizona (The CESA Corpus). The CESA Corpus comprises 49 sociolinguistic interviews of ~1 h each for a total of ~305,542 words. The second data set comprises 18 sociolinguistic interviews of predominantly monolingual Spanish speakers from the city of Mexicali, Baja California in Mexico, provided in the Proyecto Para el Estudio Sociolingü í stico del Español de España y de América (PRESEEA). The Mexicali data set consists of ~119,162 words.
Results
The analysis revealed that the Spanish diminutive morpheme -ito/a is a productive morphological device in the Spanish-discourse of heritage speakers from Southern Arizona. In addition to its prototypical meaning (i.e., the notion of “smallness”), the diminutive morpheme -ito/a conveyed an array of pragmatic functions in the everyday speech of Spanish heritage speakers and their monolingual counterparts from the same dialectal region. Importantly, these pragmatic functions are mediated by speakers' subjective perceptions of the entity in question. Unlike their monolingual counterparts, heritage speakers are more likely to invoke a subjective evaluation through the diminutive -ito/a when talking about their family members and/or childhood experiences. Altogether, the study suggests that the concept “child” is the semantic/pragmatic driving force of the diminutive in heritage Spanish as a marker of speech by, about, to, or with some relation to children.
Discussion
In this study, I followed Reynoso's framework to study the pragmatic dimensions of the diminutive in everyday speech, that is, speakers' publicly conveyed meaning. The analysis revealed that heritage speakers applied most of the pragmatic functions and their respective values observed in Reynoso's cross-dialectal study of Spanish diminutives, and hence providing further support for her framework. Similarly, the study provides further evidence to Jurafsky's proposal that morphological diminutives arise from semantic or pragmatic links with children. Finally, the analysis indicated that examining the semantic/pragmatic dimensions of the diminutive in everyday speech can provide important insights into how heritage speakers encode and create cultural meaning in their heritage languages, which can in turn have further ramifications for heritage language learning and teaching.
... Given that Spanish-English bilingual communities have been shown to exhibit an overwhelming tendency to produce DP switches (e.g., Fernández Fuertes and Liceras, 2018;Herring et al., 2010;Liceras et al., 2008;Valdés Kroff, 2016;Valenzuela et al., 2012), we formally explore the directionality of the switch and the type of implicit gender agreement mechanism in the case of Spanish DET switches. Our aim is to shed light on the interplay between activation and local inhibition of the formal features that intervene in English-Spanish DP switches in the processing of two groups of bilingual children being born and brought up in Spain who are learning English as their L2. ...
Codeswitching has been used as a tool to investigate how the properties of the two language systems interact in the bilingual mind with relatively few studies investigating bilingual children. We target two groups of L1-Spanish–L2-English children in Spain to address language activation and language inhibition in the processing of codeswitching between a determiner (DET) and a noun (N). We investigate how the mental representation of the formal features involved is responsible for the sensitivity to grammatical gender, which in turn affects how bilinguals’ language activation and inhibition processes are at play and shape processing. We target both the directionality of the switch (English-DET–Spanish-N vs. Spanish-DET–English-N) and the type of implicit gender agreement mechanism (in the case of Spanish-DET–English-N switches) by using offline acceptability judgment data and eyetracking during reading data. Results suggest lower processing costs of English DET switches and higher ones of non-congruent Spanish DET switches. We interpret the preference for classifying the non-gendered Ns along the lines of the gendered Ns in the gendered language as evidence for the integrated representation hypothesis which states that both Ns depicting the same concept are connected in the mind of the bilingual.
... Por exemplu, delles investigaciones sobre la concordancia nominal nos contestos billingües indiquen que'l xéneru ye un trazu afeutáu pol billingüismu. Nos Estaos Xuníos, los falantes de castellanu como llingua d'herencia suelen xeneralizar les formes masculines en contestos onde s'esperen formes femenines pola influyencia del inglés, que nun tien xéneru gramatical (Montrul et al., 2008;Valdés Kroff, 2016). Asina, l'usu de la forma masculina ye como si nun marcara'l xéneru de nengún mou. ...
El billingüismu produz efeutos d’influyencia crosllingüística na interpretación y producción de les dos llingües en contautu. Nesta investigación esaminamos la perceición de dos trazos llingüísticos asturianos na fala castellana per parte de dos grupos de participantes: (i) falantes de castellanu y (ii) falantes billingües d’asturianu/castellanu. La enclisis pronominal n’oraciones como ‘Vila ayer’ ye un rasgu asturianu que forma parte del continuum lectal de contautu que d’Andrés (2002) noma Asturianu Mínimu Urbanu (AMU), que se fala nes zones urbanes más habitaes n’Asturies y tien mayor contautu col castellanu. El neutru de materia, que ye la concordancia axetival en -o con dellos sustantivos non cuntables, ye un rasgu que s’atopa nel denomáu asturianu total (AT), el sistema menos castellanizáu de la llingua asturiana, y tien una estensión xeográfica menor que la enclisis. Fiximos un esperimentu consistente nun cuestionariu sobre les práutiques y usos llingüísticos de los participantes, un xuiciu de naturalidá y una téunica de pares ocultos. Los resultaos suxeren que los falantes de dambos grupos tienen una perceición de la enclisis (d’AMU) de mayor naturalidá que’l neutru de materia (d’AT), y atopamos qu’inclusive los falantes monollingües de castellanu aceuten la enclisis como un rasgu natural del castellanu d’Asturies. Sicasí, na perceición del usu d’estos dos trazos, entrambos grupos señalen el so usu como poco profesional. Darréu, analizamos los resultaos considerando les consecuencies sociales d’estes perceiciones y les ideoloxíes llingüístiques sobre’l billingüismu.
... In contrast, the two groups were similar in their intrasentential switching (χ 2 = 2.76, simulated p = .47). The dominant pattern in both groups was switches from Spanish to English (i.e., insertion of English words to create mixed-language utterances when describing pictures to a Spanish speaker), which tends to be the more common direction for intrasentential switches in the literature (e.g., Gutierrez-Clellen et al., 2009;Kapantzoglou et al., 2021;Smolak et al., 2019;Valdés Kroff, 2016;Zentella, 1981). ...
Purpose
The current study examined language control and code-switching in bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD) compared to bilingual peers with typical language development (TLD). In addition, proficiency in each language and cognitive control skills were examined as predictors of children's tendency to engage in cross-speaker and intrasentential code-switching.
Method
The participants were 62 Spanish/English bilingual children, ages 4;0–6;11 (years;months), including 15 children with DLD and 47 children with TLD. In a scripted confederate dialogue task to measure language control, children took turns describing picture scenes with video partners who were monolingual speakers of English or Spanish. The Dimensional Change Card Sort indexed cognitive control, the Bilingual English Spanish Assessment assisted in identifying DLD, and parent ratings from the Inventory to Assess Language Knowledge indexed proficiency in Spanish and English.
Results
Children with DLD were more likely to engage in cross-speaker code-switching from Spanish to English (i.e., responding in English when addressed in Spanish) than children with TLD, even when controlling for proficiency in each language. Intrasentential code-switching (i.e., integrating both languages within an utterance) did not differ between groups. Cognitive control was more associated with cross-speaker than with intrasentential code-switching.
Conclusions
These findings highlight the need to consider cross-speaker and intrasentential code-switching separately when seeking distinguishing features of code-switching in bilingual children with DLD. The use of increased cross-speaker code-switching by children with DLD especially with Spanish speakers highlights the need for increased support of home language use.
... The findings of the present study can be summarized as follows. With respect to RQ1, the CESA corpus provides support for biological gender as a reliable predictor for gender assignment in codeswitched speech; this is consistent with all previously reported evidence (Poplack et al. 1982 communities (Balam 2016;Valdés Kroff 2016). As for RQ2, we found no strong evidence for analogical gender, contrary to the few studies that found some evidence for analogical gender in other bilingual communities (Poplack et al. 1982;Jake et al. 2002). ...
This paper examines gender assignment in Spanish–English bilingual speech and develops a theoretical account of gender features in the bilingual grammar on the basis of the linguistic properties that correlate with gender assignment. An analysis of 76 sociolinguistic interviews from an autonomous bilingual community in Southern Arizona, U.S. (Carvalho 2012) reveals three key findings in terms of gender assignment in Spanish Det–English Noun switched DPs (i.e., el industry ‘the.M.SG’): (i) biological sex categorically determines gender assignment with human-denoting nouns; (ii) frequent inanimate nouns that have Spanish feminine counterparts are feminine in bilingual speech; (iii) masculine is a prevailing default gender. Following Kramer’s (2015) proposal of gender features, it is argued that an interpretable [+/-FEM] feature encodes biological sex in the grammar whereby a category-neutral √ combines with a n hosting an interpretable [+/-FEM] feature and triggers feminine (i.e., la coach ‘the.F.SG’) or masculine (i.e., el stepson ‘the.M.SG’) agreement. Inanimate feminine nouns are associated with an uninterpretable [+FEM] feature as the result of bilingualism (i.e., la school ‘the.F.SG’), and masculine default gender is viewed as an effect of Preminger’ (2009) failed Agree. On the basis of these findings, this paper rejects the distinct-lexicons view of the bilingual language faculty (MacSwan 2000 et seq.) and attempts to substantiate a single-lexicon approach compatible with a realizational (Late Insertion) view of the morphosyntactic model (Halle and Marantz 1993).
... The two camps coincide in the observation that in mixed NPs there tends to be a preferred language for the determiner, even if they do not agree on the reason. For generative syntacticians it is linguistic, an idea that is supported by the preference for Spanish determiners in Spanish-English mixed NPs (e.g., Herring et al., 2010, p. 564;Liceras et al., 2008;Liceras, Spradlin & Fernández Fuertes, 2005;Moro Quintanilla, 2014;Ramírez Urbaneja, 2019;Valdés Kroff, 2016), German determiners in German-English combinations (Eppler, Duescher & Deuchar, 2017) or Welsh determiners in Welsh-English ones (Herring et al., 2010, p. 564). But these facts are also compatible with the ML position (provided that the language of the determiner matches that of the Matrix language). ...
The widespread occurrence of nouns in one language with a determiner in the other, often referred to as mixed NPs, has generated much theorizing. Since both a formal syntactic account based on abstract features of the determiner and an account highlighting the notion of a Matrix language yield largely the same predictions, we assess how the tenets of each play out in speaker choices. The data derive from a massive corpus of spontaneous nominal mixes, produced by bilinguals in New Mexico, where bidirectional code-switching is the norm. Bilinguals’ choices concern (1) NP status (mixed vs. unmixed); (2) mixing type (limited-item vs. multi-word); and (3) noun language (here, English vs. Spanish). Results show that the community preference is for mixed NPs, independent of the theoretical felicity dictated by determiner language properties. These NPs are mostly constituted of limited-item lone nouns, again regardless of noun language, such that the language of the determiner and any associated verb is perforce that of the local discourse. Finally, the overwhelming choice is for English lone nouns incorporated into Spanish, and hence for a Spanish determiner. The language of the determiner proceeds, not from abstract linguistic properties, but from adherence to bilingual speech community conventions.
... ( (Eddington & Hualde, 2008, p. 4) Finally, evidence from bilingual speakers also sheds light on the asymmetrical relationship between masculine and feminine. That is, a number of studies have shown that Spanish-English bilinguals tend to use masculine-marked determiners when code-switching Montes-Alcalá and Lapidus Shin, 2011;Valdés Kroff, 2016), leading to the production of mixed noun phrases with a masculine-marked determiner and an English noun (e.g., el purse, "the MASC purse FEM "), even in instances when English nouns have a clear Spanish translation equivalent that would encourage the use of a Spanish feminine determiner (e.g., la cartera, "the FEM purse FEM "). Against this backdrop, we argue that the distributional asymmetry between masculine and feminine gender reflects underlying differences in the representation of the two genders, with implications for gender expectancy and processing more generally. ...
Studies of Spanish grammatical gender have shown that native speakers exploit gender cues in determiners to facilitate speech processing and are sensitive to gender mismatches. However, past research has not considered attested distributional asymmetries between masculine and feminine gender, collapsing performance on trials with one or the other gender into a single analysis. We use event‐related potentials to investigate whether masculine and feminine grammatical gender elicit qualitatively different brain responses. Forty monolingual Spanish speakers read sentences that were well‐formed or contained determiner‐noun gender violations. Half of the nouns were masculine and the other half were feminine. Consistent with previous research, brain responses varied along a continuum between LAN‐ and P600‐dominant effects for both gender categories. However, results showed that individuals’ ERP response dominance (LAN/P600) systematically differed across the two genders: participants who showed a LAN‐dominant response to masculine‐noun violations were more likely to show a P600 effect in response to feminine‐noun violations. Correlations with individual difference measures further revealed that responses to masculine‐noun violations were modulated by performance on the AX‐CPT, a measure of cognitive control, whereas responses to feminine‐noun violations were modulated by lexical knowledge, as indexed by verbal fluency. Together, the results demonstrate that even when processing features of language that belong to the same “natural class,” native speakers can exhibit patterns of brain activity attuned to distributional patterns of language use. The inherent variability in native speaker processing is, therefore, an important factor when explaining purported deviations from the “native norm” reported in other types of populations.
... Experimental approaches where informants are systematically sampled and compared is needed in order to provide answers to acceptability of specific patterns by different groups of informants. However, some of the patterns could just be relatively arbitrary conventionalised routines used by a subgroup of speakers, and these are not necessarily the same in another subgroup (Muysken 1990;Valdés Kroff 2016 that occupies the first position in the utterance, while others add a German adverb to the Turkish adverbial clause before switching to German. In this paper, I have argued that in the latter case it is probably the German adverb which triggers Verb Second, and not the Turkish adverbial clause, which is attached to the left periphery of the utterance. ...
This paper offers a review of what we know about Turkish-German code-switching patterns as found in naturalistic conversations, based on the typology of code-switching offered by Muysken (2000; 2013). Providing information about code-switching patterns that are commonly found in naturalistic data is important as it can be used to inform research into language switching, that is, externally induced switching between languages in experimental settings (Gullberg, Indefrey & Muysken 2009). Such experimental evidence on language switching is needed to supplement the evidence that is available from naturalistic data, but researchers using experimental approaches are not always aware of the range of intrasentential code-switching patterns which occur naturalistically, nor of the ways in which this variability has been captured in Muysken’s typology, although this typology is highly relevant for theories of processing and cognitive control in bilinguals (Treffers-Daller 2009; Green & Wei 2014; Hofweber, Marinis & Treffers-Daller 2016; in press). This paper aims to bridge the gap between researchers working on naturalistic code-switching and those working on language switching by summarizing what naturalistic data can tell us and which questions can only be answered with experimental approaches.
... We investigated whether the present pattern of codeswitching is consistent with previous work. Specifically, prior work has found an asymmetry in determiner usage, such that participants often use the masculine determiner before nouns that have either masculine or feminine translation equivalents in Spanish but use the feminine determiner only with nouns whose translation equivalent in Spanish is feminine (Valdés Kroff, 2016). When eliminating the three utterances that contained determiners in both English 1 To ensure that a few items were not disproportionally driving the observed effect, we checked for high-influence items using the influence.ME (version 0.9-9) R package (Nieuwenhuis, Manfred, & Pelzer, 2012). ...
Bilingual speakers sometimes codeswitch, or alternate between languages, in a single utterance. We investigated the effect of lexical accessibility of words, defined as the ease with which a speaker retrieves and produces a word, on codeswitching in Spanish-English bilinguals. We first developed a novel sentence-production paradigm to elicit naturalistic codeswitches in the lab. We then predicted items on which speakers were more or less likely to codeswitch as a consequence of the relative lexical accessibility of those items’ labels across a speaker’s two languages. In a Spanish sentence-production task, greater lexical accessibility in English was associated with an increased rate of codeswitching and longer speaking durations on trials on which speakers codeswitched, as well as on trials on which speakers did not codeswitch. Codeswitches were more frequent on trials where speakers likely experienced more competition from the other-language label, suggesting that codeswitching may be a tool that bilingual speakers use to alleviate difficulty associated with cross-language lexical competition. Given findings that comprehenders are able to learn lexical distributions and subtle acoustic cues to predict upcoming codeswitches, the present work suggests that demands on speakers during language production may play a role in explaining how those patterns come to exist in the language environment.
... More specifically, we focus on codeswitching between a determiner and a noun (1), given that Spanish-English bilingual communities have been shown to exhibit an overwhelming tendency to produce codeswitching at this grammatical point as the most common type of intra-sentential codeswitching (e.g. Pfaff, 1979;Poplack, 1980;Liceras, Fernández Fuertes, Perales, Pérez-Tattam & Spradlin, 2008;Herring, Deuchar, Parafita Couto & Moro Quintanilla, 2010;Valenzuela, Faure, Ramírez Trujillo, Barski, Pangtay & Diez, 2012;Valdés Kroff, 2016;Johns, Valdés Kroff & Dussias, 2018). We formally explore the directionality of the switch, as in (2), and the type of implicit gender agreement mechanism in the case of Spanish determiner -English noun codeswitching, as in (3) and (4). ...
Codeswitching is a powerful phenomenon to explore how the properties of the two language systems interact in the bilingual mind. This study focuses on this language contact situation by analyzing eye-tracking data recorded from a group of L1 Spanish – L2 English bilinguals. More specifically, and given that Spanish-English bilingual communities have been shown to exhibit an overwhelming tendency to produce determiner-noun switches (la window / the ventana), we formally explore the directionality of the switch and the type of implicit gender agreement mechanism in the case of Spanish determiner switches (la/el window // el/la book). Our results show that Spanish determiner switches as well as gender non-congruent Spanish determiner switches take significantly longer to process. We interpret these results in the light of formal proposals on gender representation and of previous empirical studies and argue that the strength of grammatical gender in the participants’ L1 determines the switching processing costs.
... At the same time, certain bilingual communities may also settle on specific code-switching patterns. For example, Valdés Kroff (2016) observed that Spanish-English bilinguals in Miami tend to use masculine as default, and Królikowska et al. (2019) compared the gender assignment patterns of four Spanish-English bilingual populations and observed that the more the bilinguals engaged in code-switching, the greater the tendency to assign the default masculine gender to mixed nominal constructions. Thus, the observed differences in gender assignment strategies across communities and language pairs may be due to a combination of proficiency and environmental factors, which we believe are factors that also play a greater role in the current study and should more explicitly be addressed in future studies. ...
The aim of this study is to determine whether Spanish-like gender agreement causes interference in speakers of Papiamentu (a Western Romance-lexified creole language) who also speak Spanish. Papiamentu and Spanish are highly cognate languages in terms of their lexicons. However, Papiamentu lacks grammatical gender assignment and agreement, leading to cognate words with major morpho-syntactic differences. A total of 41 participants with different linguistic profiles (Papiamentu-dominant, Dutch-dominant, Spanish-dominant, and Spanish heritage speaker-Papiamentu bilinguals) listened to 82 Papiamentu sentences, of which 40 contained a Spanish-like gender-agreeing element on the Determiner, Adjective, or Determiner + Adjective and with half of the experimental items marked with overtly masculine (i.e., -o) or feminine (i.e., -a) gender morphology. Participants performed a forced-choice acceptability task and were asked to repeat each sentence. Results showed that Spanish-dominant speakers experienced the greatest interference of Spanish gender features in Papiamentu. This suggests that in cases where speakers must suppress gender in their second language (L2), this is not easy to do. This is especially the case in highly cognate languages that differ in whether they realize gender features.
... Recent studies have also shown that these costs are reduced when bilinguals are immersed in code-switching environments (e.g., Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017;Guzzardo Tamargo et al., 2016). For example, Beatty-Martínez and Dussias (2017) examined whether bilinguals' electrophysiological responses to a well-documented grammatical gender asymmetry in Spanish-English mixed-noun phrases (Otheguy & Lapidus, 2003;Valdés Kroff, 2016) differed as a function of code-switching immersion experience. ...
Bilingualism is a complex life experience. Second language (L2) learning and bilingualism take place in many different contexts. To develop a comprehensive account of dual-language experience requires research that examines individuals who are learning and using two languages in both the first language (L1) and second language (L2) environments. In this article, we review studies that exploit the presence of an international research network on bilingualism to investigate the role of the environment and some the unique characteristics of L2 learning and bilingual language usage in different locations. We ask how the context of learning affects the acquisition of the L2 and the ability to control the use of each language, how language processing is changed by the patterns of language usage in different places (e.g., whether bilinguals have been immersed in the L2 environment for an extended period of time or whether they code-switch), and how the bilingualism of the community itself influences learning and language use.
... This result supports H1 from our initial predictions (see Section 1.4). It also mirrors the results of other code-switching studies of Spanish-English bilinguals in the USA, where a default masculine gender was preferred in mixed nominal constructions (e.g., Otheguy and Lapidus 2003;Valdés Kroff 2016; see also Valenzuela et al. 2012 for a similar effect in Spanish-English simultaneous bilinguals in Canada). The small to non-existent role of Purepecha phonology on the noun in the choice of assignment strategy is perhaps surprising, especially given the prevalence of ma 'a(n), one' suffixed to both Purepecha nouns and Spanish adjectives (cf. ...
Purepecha has no grammatical gender, whereas Spanish has a binary masculine–feminine system. In this paper we investigate how early sequential Purepecha–Spanish bilinguals assign gender to Purepecha nouns inserted into an otherwise Spanish utterance, using a director-matcher production task and an online forced-choice acceptability judgement task. The results of the production task indicate a strong preference for masculine gender, irrespective of the gender of the noun’s translation equivalent, the so-called “masculine default” option. Participants in the comprehension task were influenced by the orthography of the Purepecha noun in the -a ending condition, leading them to assign feminine gender agreement to nouns that are masculine in Spanish, but preferred the masculine default strategy again in the -i/-u ending condition. The absence of the “analogical criterion” in both tasks contrasts with the results of some previous studies, underlining the need for more comparable data in terms of task type. Our results also highlight how task type can influence the choices speakers make, in this context, in terms of the choice of grammatical gender agreement strategy. Task type should therefore be carefully controlled in future studies.
In our increasingly multilingual modern world, understanding how languages beyond the first are acquired and processed at a brain level is essential to design evidence-based teaching, clinical interventions and language policy. Written by a team of world-leading experts in a wide range of disciplines within cognitive science, this Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the study of third (and more) language acquisition and processing. It features 30 approachable chapters covering topics such as multilingual language acquisition, education, language maintenance and language loss, multilingual code-switching, ageing in the multilingual brain, and many more. Each chapter provides an accessible overview of the state of the art in its topic, while offering comprehensive access to the specialized literature, through carefully curated citations. It also serves as a methodological resource for researchers in the field, offering chapters on methods such as case studies, corpora, artificial language systems or statistical modelling of multilingual data.
In our increasingly multilingual modern world, understanding how languages beyond the first are acquired and processed at a brain level is essential to design evidence-based teaching, clinical interventions and language policy. Written by a team of world-leading experts in a wide range of disciplines within cognitive science, this Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the study of third (and more) language acquisition and processing. It features 30 approachable chapters covering topics such as multilingual language acquisition, education, language maintenance and language loss, multilingual code-switching, ageing in the multilingual brain, and many more. Each chapter provides an accessible overview of the state of the art in its topic, while offering comprehensive access to the specialized literature, through carefully curated citations. It also serves as a methodological resource for researchers in the field, offering chapters on methods such as case studies, corpora, artificial language systems or statistical modelling of multilingual data.
How do bilinguals mix adjectives and nouns from two languages with a word order conflict at the boundary between them? Prominently competing theories of code-switching (CS) that appeal to abstract features or to a matrix language remain in a stalemate, since their predictions have been reported to mostly coincide. Here, we contribute data from northern New Mexico bilingual community members who switch between Spanish and English in both directions. Beyond the NP-internal mixes within the purview of the theories, the widened data set encompasses all relevant mixes and positions: every adjective or associated noun at the boundary with the other language. We thus assess lone-item and multi-word mixing types, distinguishing also between multi-word CS at different points of the NP. Multi-word CS at the adjective-noun boundary is indeed rare. These bilinguals choose CS after the determiner with prenominal modifiers in English adjective-noun pairs, as previously observed, and at the external NP boundary. Furthermore, they disproportionately prefer the shared predicative position. Accounting for all adjective mixes, the Variable Equivalence hypothesis proposes that, where cross-language equivalence is not consistent due to language-internal variability, bilinguals prefer CS at alternative syntactic boundaries that are consistently equivalent and more frequent in their combined linguistic experience.
Drawing on naturally-occurring bilingual speech from a well-defined codeswitching community in Southern Arizona, this study examined the influence of semantic gender (a.k.a. biological gender), analogical gender, and other-language phonemic cues in modulating gender assignment in Spanish–English codeswitched speech. Thirty-four Spanish–English early bilinguals completed a forced-choice elicitation task involving two codeswitching environments: Spanish determiner–English noun switches (Task 1) and English–Spanish switched copula constructions (Task 2). The results revealed that for human-denoting nouns, bilinguals assigned grammatical gender based on the presupposed sex of a noun's referent in both syntactic environments tested. As for inanimate nouns, bilinguals were more likely to assign masculine over feminine gender to such nouns in determiner–noun switches, but not in switched copula constructions. Other-language phonemic cues did not influence the assignment mechanism. A methodological implication is that the study replicated the codeswitching patterns observed in naturally-occurring bilingual speech from the same bilingual community.
Prominent sociolinguistic theories of language mixing have posited that single-word insertions of one language into the other are the result of a distinct process than multi-word alternations between two languages given that the former overwhelmingly surface morphosyntactically integrated into the surrounding language. To date, this distinction has not been tested in comprehension. The present study makes use of pupillometry to examine the online processing of single-word insertions and multi-word alternations by highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals in Puerto Rico. Participants heard sentences containing target noun/adjective pairs (1) in unilingual Spanish, (2) where the Spanish noun was replaced with its English translation equivalent, followed by a Spanish post-nominal adjective, and (3) where both the noun and adjective appeared in English with the adjective occurring in the English pre-nominal position. Both types of language mixing elicit larger pupillary responses when compared to unilingual Spanish speech, though the magnitude of this difference depends on the grammatical gender of the target noun. Importantly, single-word insertions and multi-word alternations did not differ from one another. Taken together, these findings suggest that morphosyntactic integration is not the defining feature of single-word insertions, at least in comprehension, and that the comprehension system is tuned to the distributional properties of bilingual speech.
Gender as a morphosyntactic feature is arguably “an endlessly fascinating linguistic category” (Corbett 2014: 1). One may even say it is among “the most puzzling of the grammatical categories” (Corbett 1991: 1) that has raised probing questions from various theoretical and applied perspectives. Most languages display semantic and/or formal gender systems with various degrees of opacity and complexity, and even closely related languages present distinct differences, creating difficulties for second language learners. The first three chapters of this volume present critical reviews in three different areas – gender assignment in mixed noun phrases, subtle gentle biases and the gender acquisition in child and adult heritage speakers of Spanish – while the next six chapters present new empirical evidence in the acquisition of gender by bilingual children, adult L2/L3 learners and heritage speakers of various languages such as Italian, German, Dutch or Mandarin-Italian.
The diminutive construction is formed and used differently in Spanish and English, which leads us to the question how this construction with different morphosyntactic and semantic-pragmatic characteristics in the input languages is governed in Spanish-English bilingual and codeswitching speech. Through the analysis of a dataset of diminutive constructions extracted from the Bangor Miami corpus, this paper contributes to a better understanding of how one and the same construction differently represented in the input languages is administered in bilingual contexts. As this is a first approach to studying diminutives in codeswitching, three well known structural codeswitching models serve as a primary theoretical tool against which the diminutive is tested. These are Poplack’s (1980) Universal Constraints, Myers-Scotton’s (2002) Matrix Language Frame Model, and Blom and Gumperz’ (1972) Metaphorical Codeswitching Framework. The results show that Miami bilinguals prefer the prototypical markers of each language, -ito and little (e.g. un partimecito, un little estante). Furthermore, while the data largely confirm Poplack’s Constraints, they refute our hypothesis based on Myers-Scotton’s MLF model. Regarding Gumperz’ theory, the use of diminutive markers in a particular language correlates with a certain meaning the speaker wants to communicate (i.e. quantitative or qualitative), which again provides support to the framework.
Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions
This paper investigates the gender assignment strategies employed when genderless Georgian nouns are inserted into gendered Tsova-Tush utterances. We explore the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors motivating the strategies, and compare how these code-switches behave in relation to loans.
Design/methodology/approach
Taking a broadly usage-based approach, we collected three types of data: (a) naturalistic corpus data; (b) semi-naturalistic production data from a forced-switch director–matcher (DM) task; and (c) a three-response forced-choice acceptability judgement task (AJT).
Data and analysis
The responses from the DM task ( n = 12) and AJT acceptability ( n = 12) were analysed using descriptive (Chi-square) and inferential (log-linear) statistics. The corpus data are described qualitatively.
Findings/conclusions
Both the gender of the Tsova-Tush translation equivalent (TE) and the Georgian phonology of the code-switched noun were significantly related to the response, with the TE being the stronger determinant of the two. Only marginal evidence for a default strategy was found. Production responses were found to be more consistent than comprehension responses, with more frequent lexemes displaying higher inter-participant consistency in production.
Originality
Tsova-Tush, an endangered Nakh–Daghestanian language with five genders marked by prefixes, offers much-needed diversification within the code-switching literature concerning grammatical gender. This complexity also raises new questions regarding the notion of default in mixed nominal constructions.
Significance/implications
Our findings support the prediction that first language speakers of a gendered language prefer a TE strategy, but contradict a relationship between default strategy and language dominance. Phonological criteria display a stronger role in gender assignment than previously found. Frequency and entrenchment of gender–noun pairings partially explain inter-speaker and inter-stimulus variation and consistency, providing a plausible pathway from code-switches to borrowings.
Limitations
An unavoidable limitation is the sample size, reflecting the small speaker population. We strongly advocate for similar research in other language pairs in the Caucasus where gender systems feature prominently.
This study examines sensitivity to putative grammatical constraints on intra-sentential code-switching, viewed as a relative measure of attainment in heritage bilingual grammars. This is exemplified by a series of interactive tasks carried out with heritage Portuguese speakers in Misiones Province, Argentina. The results demonstrate the viability of deploying a range of experimental techniques in field settings with heritage speakers who do not engage in habitual code switching.
Aims and objectives
This study explores the well-researched topic of gender assignment to English nouns in Spanish discourse through a usage-based framework. The goal is to elucidate the relative impact of both previously studied and novel constraints on the variable application of feminine determiners.
Methodology
A variationist analysis of English nouns surrounded by Spanish discourse in the spontaneous speech of bilinguals.
Data and analysis
Data come from the New Mexico Spanish–English Bilingual Corpus. Tokens ( N = 707) were coded for independent variables and submitted to a logistic regression. The goodness of fit was determined via the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve method.
Findings
All independent variables were selected as significant by the logistic regression model. Based on factor weight ranges, the hierarchy of constraints is the following, from the most to the least impactful: Analogical Gender, Phonological Shape, Syntactic Role, and Determiner Definiteness. These results suggest that bilinguals utilize a variety of constraints in gender assignment, as opposed to a single default strategy.
Originality
While previous studies have tested and found similar results for constraints such as analogical gender and phonological shape, none have offered a unified analysis explaining findings from a usage-based approach. The originality and utility of this approach is most apparent in the discussions of prototypicality and schematicity.
Significance/implications
A corpus-based approach and usage-based theory is shown to bring new insight to a topic of interest in many other linguistic sub-fields. The discussion reinterprets previous conclusions about gender assignment using a framework not proposed in previous research, despite similar overall results.
In this paper, we propose the implementation of a full-fledged feature-based lexicalist syntactic theory as a way to represent the possible configurations of features in the learner’s interlanguage and formalize a theory of acquisition based in feature reassembly. We describe gender agreement pronominal coindexation in Spanish using Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) and use it to analyze the results of a self-paced reading test with L1 and L2 speakers. We find that the specification of the gender feature value at the syntactic level in epicene antecedents facilitates pronominal resolution in L1 Spanish speakers. Conversely, there is a cognitive cost when the gender feature is underspecified at the syntactic level in common gender antecedents; this cost is not found among L2 speakers. The detailed descriptions in terms of feature specification in the HPSG framework allow us to observe differences between the L1 and L2 grammars in fine-grained detail and represent optionality at the lexical level.
Gender as a morphosyntactic feature is arguably “an endlessly fascinating linguistic category” (Corbett 2014: 1). One may even say it is among “the most puzzling of the grammatical categories” (Corbett 1991: 1) that has raised probing questions from various theoretical and applied perspectives. Most languages display semantic and/or formal gender systems with various degrees of opacity and complexity, and even closely related languages present distinct differences, creating difficulties for second language learners. The first three chapters of this volume present critical reviews in three different areas – gender assignment in mixed noun phrases, subtle gentle biases and the gender acquisition in child and adult heritage speakers of Spanish – while the next six chapters present new empirical evidence in the acquisition of gender by bilingual children, adult L2/L3 learners and heritage speakers of various languages such as Italian, German, Dutch or Mandarin-Italian.
Here, we used event-related potentials to test the predictions of two prominent accounts of code-switching in bilinguals: The Matrix Language Framework (MLF; Myers-Scotton, 1993) and an application of the Minimalist Programme (MP; Cantone and MacSwan, 2009). We focused on the relative order of the noun with respect to the adjective in mixed Welsh–English nominal constructions given the clear contrast between pre- and post-nominal adjective position between Welsh and English. MP would predict that the language of the adjective should determine felicitous word order (i.e., English adjectives should appear pre-nominally and Welsh adjectives post-nominally). In contrast, MLF contends that it is the language of the finite verb inflexion rather than that of a particular word that governs felicitous word order. To assess the predictions of the two models, we constructed sentences featuring a code-switch between the adjective and the noun, that complied with either English or Welsh word-order. Highly proficient Welsh–English bilinguals made semantic acceptability judgements upon reading the last word of sentences which could violate MP assumptions, MLF assumptions, both assumptions, or neither. Behaviourally, MP violations had no significant effect, whereas MLF violations induced an average drop of 11% in acceptability judgements. Neurophysiologically, MP violations elicited a significant Left Anterior Negativity (LAN) modulation, whereas MLF violations modulated both P600 and LAN mean amplitudes. In addition, there was a significant interaction between MP and MLF status in the P600 range: When MP was violated, MLF status did not matter, and when MP criteria were met, MLF violations resulted in a P600 modulation. This interaction possibly reflects a general preference for noun over adjective insertions, and may provide support for MLF over MP at a global sentence processing level. Model predictions also manifested differently in each of the matrix languages (MLs): When the ML was Welsh, MP and MLF violations elicited greater P600 mean amplitudes than MP and MLF adherences, however, this pattern was not observed when the ML was English. We discuss methodological considerations relating to the neuroscientific study of code-switching, and the extent to which our results shed light on adjective-noun code-switching beyond findings from production and experimental-behavioural studies.
We examined gender assignment patterns in the speech of Spanish/English bilingual children, paying particular attention to the influence of three gender assignment strategies (i.e., analogical gender, masculine default gender, phonological gender) that have been proposed to constrain the gender assignment process in Spanish/English bilingual speech. Our analysis was based on monolingual Spanish nominals (n = 1,774), which served as a comparative baseline, and Spanish/English mixed nominal constructions (n = 220) extracted from oral narratives produced by 40 child bilinguals of different grade levels (2nd graders vs. 5th graders) and instructional programs (English immersion vs. two-way bilingual) from Miami Dade, Florida. The narratives, available in the CHILDES database (MacWhinney 2000), were collected by Pearson (2002). Results revealed that in Spanish nominal constructions, children across both instructional programs and grade levels evinced native-like acquisition of grammatical gender. In mixed nominals, children overwhelmingly assigned the masculine gender to English nouns. Notably, irrespective of schooling background, simultaneous Spanish/English bilingual children used the masculine default gender strategy when assigning gender to English nouns with feminine translation equivalents. This suggests that from age seven, simultaneous Spanish/English child bilingual acquisition of grammatical gender is characterized by a predisposition towards the employment of the masculine default gender strategy in bilingual speech.
Glosas es una revista digital dedicada al estudio del español en y de los Estados Unidos, y a los temas relacionados con ello, sin olvidar los problemas de la traducción.
Objectives
This study investigates the switching of a noun or a determiner in mixed noun phrases, such as “ una little pumpkin,” to test predictions from two theoretical frameworks, the Matrix Language Frame model (MLF) and the Minimalist Approach (MA) and examines whether there is a difference between child and adult code-switching (CS) patterns in order to understand children’s acquisition of grammatical patterns in general.
Methodology
All tokens of mixed noun phrases (NPs) were extracted from three bilingual child corpora and one bilingual adult corpus. The finite verb (matrix language) of each utterance was also analyzed to test predictions.
Data and analysis
Four hundred sixty-one mixed NPs were extracted from 15 Spanish-English bilingual children and 14 Spanish-English bilingual adults.
Findings
Results support both the MLF and the MA since in more than 80% of our data, the language of the determiner matched the language of the finite verb morphology and the language with the most phi features.
Originality
This is the first study to compare children’s and adults’ mixed NPs, testing predictions from the MLF and MA theories. It also provides new evidence for the acquisition of CS constraints in early bilingual language development.
Implications
This study demonstrates that, like adults, children’s mixed NPs are subject to grammatical constraints. Some examples show that children produce mixed NPs immediately after hearing their caregivers produce the same NP, but in one language only. This supports the conclusion that children’s mixed NP patterns follow generalized constraints and are not item-based imitations of what they hear.
Limitations
Future research should more carefully examine the CS patterns of caregivers and members of the community with whom children interact to decipher the role of input. This would help answer the question of how children acquire CS patterns.
Previous studies on gender assignment to Spanish-English mixed Determiner Phrases (DPs) have noticed a tendency to default to the masculine gender (e.g. el store). However, some studies have revealed that other factors such as the gender of the Spanish translation equivalent (analogical criterion) are also relevant, particularly in written discourse (e.g. la conference). Further, it has been hypothesized that feminine-marked mixed DPs in oral discourse, which are viewed as exceptions to the default gender strategy, should be highly restricted to singleton switches (Valdés Kroff 2016). This paper investigates if feminine-marked mixed DPs are restricted to singleton switches in written discourse by analyzing a mixed-language text, which contains both types of switches (singleton and multiword). The results confirm the importance of the analogical criterion in written discourse and show that feminine-marked DPs are not restricted to singleton switches, and that the analogical criterion is relevant to both singleton and multiword switches.
Variation in the ways by which an individual processes codeswitched language may reveal fundamental dynamics of the language system that are otherwise obscured under unilingual conditions. Despite this, an important aspect that has been largely neglected in the field is the role of the bilingual experience in language processing. Drawing on corpus-driven and experimental research, the corpus-to-cognition approach to codeswitching integrates field- and laboratory-based work to examine how the bilingual experience may influence language processing. In this review, we elaborate on the best practices for investigating codeswitching, with converging evidence from different methodologies across different bilingual populations.
Mixture of Spanish and English, whether in isolated loan words or in code-switching of clauses and sentences, while socially motivated, is subject to clear linguistic constraints. Quantitative analysis of mixing in conversations of Mexican-Americans suggests specific functional constraints to express tense/aspect/mood and subject/object relationships, as well as structural constraints which permit only surface structures which are grammatical in both languages. Resolution of structural conflict plays a key role, so that lexical cores trigger longer phrasal switches if they govern rules which create non-shared surface structures. The relative frequency of mixes without structural conflict is constrained by discourse function.
This study analyzes gender assignment in Spanish–Basque mixed nominal constructions with nouns in Basque (a language that lacks gender) and determiners in Spanish (a language that marks gender) by using a multi-task approach: (i) naturalistic data, (ii) an elicitation task, and (iii) an auditory judgment task. Naturalistic data suggest cross-language effects under which a morphological marker of Basque (-a determiner) is interpreted as a morphophonological expression of gender marking in Spanish. A preference for feminine determiners was observed in the judgment task, which differs from the masculine default trend observed in Spanish–English bilinguals (Jake, Myers-Scotton & Gross, 2002). Our results point to feminine gender as default in Spanish–Basque mixed DPs, indicating that the resources that bilinguals use for gender assignment can be different from those of monolinguals. We argue that this is an outcome of interacting processes which take place at the interfaces (lexicon, phonology, morphosyntax) of both languages, resulting in cross-language effects.
Twenty-one articles from the 31st LSRL investigate cutting-edge issues and interfaces across phonology, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, semantics, and syntax in multiple dialects of such Romance languages as Catalan, French, Creole French, and Spanish, both old and modern. Research in Romance phonology moves from the quantitative and synchronic to cover issues of diachrony and Optimality theory. Work within pragmatics and sociolinguistics also explores the synchronic/diachronic link while topicalizing such issues as change of non-pro-drop Swiss French toward pro-drop status, scalar implicatures, speech acts, word order, and simplification in contexts of language contact. Finally, debates in linguistic theory are resumed in the work on syntax and semantics within both a Minimalist perspective and an Optimality framework. How do Catalan and French children acquire AGR and TNS? Can Basque Spanish be compared to topic-oriented Chinese? If Spanish preverbal subjects occur in an A-position, can Spanish no longer be compared to Greek?
The occurrence of codeswitching, or the seemingly random alternation of two languages both between and within sentences, has been shown (Gumperz, 1976; Pfaff, 1975; Wentz, 1977) to be governed not only by extralinguistic but also linguistic factors. For the balanced bilingual, codeswitching appears to be subject to an ‘equivalence constraint’ (Poplack, 1978): i.e. it tends to occur at points in discourse where juxtaposition of L1 and L2 elements does not violate a surface syntactic rule of either language. If correct, the equivalence constraint on codeswitching may be used to measure degree of bilingual ability. It was hypothesized that equivalence would either be violated by non-fluent bilinguals, or that switch points which are ‘risky’ in terms of syntactic well-formedness (i.e. those which occur within a sentence) would tend to be avoided altogether. To test this hypothesis, I analysed the speech of 20 Puerto Rican residents of a stable bilingual community, exhibiting varying degrees of bilingual ability. Quantitative analysis of their switches revealed that both fluent and non-fluent bilinguals were able to code-switch frequently and still maintain grammaticality in both Lx and L2. While fluent bilinguals tended to switch at various syntactic boundaries within the sentence, non-fluent bilinguals favoured switching between sentences, allowing them to participate in the codeswitching mode, without fear of violating a grammatical rule of either of the languages involved. These results suggest that the codeswitching mode proceeds from that area of the bilingual's grammar where the surface structures of Lx and L2 overlap, and that codeswitching, rather than representing debasement of linguistic skill, is actually a sensitive indicator of bilingual ability.
This article is a précis of a Minimalist Approach to Intrasentential Code Switching (MacSwan, 1999). Like any précis, it promises nothing new beyond the presentation of a concise summary of the work. I may, however, occasionally falter in this task and reference work and controversies which have emerged since the publication of MacSwan (1999). Making the simplest assumption, we might suppose that the principles which govern bilingual code switching are all and only the principles which govern monolingual language, with no special mechanisms specific to code switching itself. I will pursue this proposal below, as in MacSwan (1999), exploring some important consequences of Chomsky's (1995a) Minimalist Program for the data of language mixture. First, however, sketch some I will previous approaches to code switch-ing,. I will review these approaches below, arguing that each has undesirable empirical and concep-tual characteristics.
This paper proposes that different experimental contexts (single or dual language contexts) permit different neural loci at which words in the target language can be selected. However, in order to develop a fuller understanding of the neural circuit mediating language control we need to consider the community context in which bilingual speakers typically use their two languages (the behavioral ecology of bilingual speakers). The contrast between speakers from code-switching and non-code-switching communities offers a way to increase our understanding of the cortical, subcortical and, in particular, cerebellar structures involved in language control. It will also help us identify the non-verbal behavioral correlates associated with these control processes
A key assumption in language comprehension is that biases in behavioral data, such as the tendency to interpret John said that Mary left yesterday to mean that yesterday modifies the syntactically local verb left, not the distant verb said, reflect inherent biases in the language comprehension system. In the present article, an alternative production-distribution-comprehension (PDC) account is pursued; this account states that comprehension biases emerge from different interpretation frequencies in the language, which themselves emerge from pressures on the language production system to produce some structures more than others. In two corpus analyses and two self-paced reading experiments, we investigated these claims for verb modification ambiguities, for which phrase length is hypothesized to shape production. The results support claims that tendencies to produce short phrases before long ones create distributional regularities for modification ambiguities in the language and that learning over these regularities shapes comprehenders' interpretations of modification ambiguities. Implications for the PDC and other accounts are discussed.
It is quite commonplace for bilingual speakers to use two or more languages, dialects or varieties in the same conversation, without any apparent effort. The phenomenon, known as code-switching, has become a major focus of attention in linguistics. This concise and original study explores how, when and where code-switching occurs. Drawing on a diverse range of examples from medieval manuscripts to rap music, novels to advertisements, emails to political speeches, and above all everyday conversation, it argues that code-switching can only be properly understood if we study it from a variety of perspectives. It shows how sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, grammatical and developmental aspects of code-switching are all interdependent, and findings in each area are crucial to others. Breaking down barriers across the discipline of linguistics, this pioneering book confronts fundamental questions about what a & #x2018;native language & #x2019; is, and whether languages can be meaningfully studied outside of the individuals who use them. © Penelope Gardner-Chloros 2009 and Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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Preface. Acknowledgments. 1. Language, Class and Community. 2. Obtaining Data in the Speech Community: Major Principles. 3. Studying Language in teh Community: The Fieldworker and the Social Network. 4. The Social Context of Speech Events. 5. The Quantitative Analysis of Linguistic Data. 6. The Language of the Individual Speaker: Patterns of Variation and Network Structure. 7. Conclusions and Theoretical Implications. Appendix. References. Index.
In this paper we review recent research on experimental psycholinguistic approaches to the bilingual lexicon. The focus in this work is to understand how it is that lexical access in both comprehension and production is fundamentally nonselective with respective to language, yet bilinguals are able to control the use of their two languages with relatively high accuracy. We first illustrate the nature of the data that support the claims of nonselectivity and then consider some of the factors that may modulate the resulting cross-language competition. These include differences in lexical parsing strategies across languages, in lexical cues that signal one language rather than another, in the ability to allocate cognitive resources, and in the nature of the tasks that initiate spoken production. We argue that the competitive nature of processing across the two languages of the bilingual provides an exquisite model to examine cognitive activity and its control.
Previous work on intrasentential codeswitching has noted that switches between determiners and their noun complements are frequent in both Spanish–English and Welsh–English data. Two major recent theories of codeswitching, the Matrix Language Frame model and a Minimalist Program approach, make potentially competing predictions regarding the source language of the determiner in these mixed nominal constructions.In this paper we evaluate the predictions of each theory with reference to comparable sets of Spanish–English and Welsh–English codeswitching data. Mixed nominal constructions are extracted to test the compatibility of these data with the predictions, taking into account coverage and accuracy.We find that the data are broadly consistent with each set of predictions but do not find statistically significant differences between the accuracy of the predictions of the two theories. We examine in detail the counterexamples to the predictions of each theory to see what further factors may influence codeswitching patterns between determiners and their nouns, and also discuss the differences in observed patterns in the data from each language pair.
Ferreira and Clifton (1986, Experiment 1) found that readers experienced equal difficulty with temporarily ambiguous reduced relatives clauses when the first noun was animate (e.g., "The defendant examined by the lawyer was . . .") and when it was inanimate and thus an unlikely Agent (e.g., "The evidence examined . . ."). This data pattern suggested that a verb′s semantic constraints do not affect initial syntactic ambiguity resolution. We repeated the experiment using: (1) inanimate noun/verb combinations that did not easily permit a main clause continuation, (2) a baseline condition with morphologically unambiguous verbs (e.g., "stolen"), (3) a homogeneous set of disambiguating prepositional phrases, and (4) a display in which all of the critical regions were presented on the same line of text. In two eye-movement experiments, animacy had immediate effects on ambiguity resolution: only animate nouns showed clear signs of difficulty. Post-hoc regression analyses revealed that what little processing difficulty readers had with the inanimate nouns varied with the semantic fit of individual noun/verb combinations: items with strong semantic fit showed no processing difficulty compared to unambiguous controls, whereas items with weak semantic fit showed a pattern of processing difficulty which was similar to Ferreira and Clifton (1986). The results are interpreted within the framework of an evidential (constraint-based) approach to ambiguity resolution. Analyses of reading times also suggested that the millisecond per character correction for region length is problematic, especially for small scoring regions. An alternative transformation is suggested.
In this article, the author addresses the question of how the mind represents two languages in simultaneous bilingualism. Some linguistic theories of intrasentential code switching are reviewed, with a focus on the Minimalist approach of MacSwan (1999b); the author concludes that evidence from code switching suggests that bilinguals have discrete and separate Lexicons for the languages they speak, each with its own internal principles of word formation, as well as separate phonological systems. However, the author argues that computational resources common to the two languages generate monolingual and bilingual syntactic derivations alike. Advantages of the Minimalist Program for the analysis of code switching data are discussed at some length.
The aim of this paper is to argue that the process of code-mixing is constrained by the government relation that holds between the constituents of a sentence. The government constraint replaces a number of specific constraints that have been proposed in the literature to account for apparently ‘impossible’, ‘ungrammatical’ or ‘non-occurring’ types of intra-sentential switches. Code-mixing is a form of linguistic behaviour which produces utterances consisting of elements taken from the lexicons of different languages. Some examples are given in (1).(Received January 26 1985)
In this paper, we show how some proposals within the Minimalist Program are compatible with a model of codeswitching that recognizes an asymmetry between the participating languages, the Matrix Language Frame model. Through our discussion of an analysis of NPs in a Spanish–English corpus, we illustrate this compatibility and show how recent minimalist proposals can explain the distribution of nouns and determiners in this data set if they adopt the notion of Matrix Language as the bilingual instantiation of structural uniformity in a CP. We outline the central premises of the Matrix Language Frame model, and introduce the Uniform Structure Principle which requires that the structure of constituents be uniform at an abstract level. We then review previous applications of the Minimalist Program to codeswitching.
Eyetracking and the self-paced moving-window reading paradigm were used in two experiments examining the contributions of both frequency-based verb biases and the plausibility of particular word combinations to the comprehension of temporarily ambiguous sentences. The temporary ambiguity concerned whether a noun following a verb was its direct object (The senator regretted the decision immediately.), or instead the subject of an embedded clause (The senator regretted the decision had been made public.). The experiments crossed the plausibility of the temporarily ambiguous noun as a direct object (e.g.,The senator regretted the decision . . .vsThe senator regretted the reporter . . .) with verb bias, eliminating a confound present in earlier research and allowing an examination of interactions between the two factors. Unbiased verbs were included as well to evaluate the role of plausibility in the absence of verb bias. The results generally replicated Trueswell, Tanenhaus, and Kello's (1993) finding that verb bias has rapid effects on ambiguity resolution, and showed in addition that verb bias and plausibility interact during comprehension. The results are most consistent with parallel interactive models of language comprehension such as constraint satisfaction models.
In languages which have a nominal classification system such as grammatical gender, it is often problematic why a given word is assigned one gender rather than another. Factors which may act in concern or compete in influencing assignment include the phonological shape of the word, sex of the (animate) referent, and placement of the word within a semantic class.Evidence from loanwords can help evaluate these and other influences on gender assignment. In contrast with the previous literature, we analyze here the simultaneous contributions of a series of quantitative constraints on the assignment of gender to English nouns borrowed into Puerto Rican Spanish, constraints which may all be active at the time of introduction of the loanword. We also examine intergenerational and interlinguistic patterns by (1) comparing the behavior of adults with that of their children, and (2) comparing Puerto Rican patterns with Montreal French, a language which is typologically similar to Spanish and which has coexisted with English even longer than Puerto Rican Spanish.We show that, although the gender of loanwords once assigned is not variable, it is the factors involved in its initial assignment which are. A variationist approach to gender assignment further reveals that constraints on this process are not universal, but language-specific.
Six studies investigated the relationship between production and comprehension by examining how relative clause production mechanisms influence the probabilistic information used by comprehenders to understand these structures. Two production experiments show that accessibility-based mechanisms that are influenced by noun animacy and verb type shape relative clause production. Two corpus studies confirm these production mechanisms in naturally occurring productions. Two comprehension studies found that nouns and verb types occurring in structures that speakers do not produce are difficult to comprehend. Specifically, the probability of producing a passive structure for a verb type in a given animacy configuration, as measured in the production and corpus studies, predicts comprehension difficulty in active structures. Results suggest that the way in which the verb roles are typically mapped onto syntactic arguments in production plays a role in comprehension. Implications for the relationship between production, comprehension and language learning are discussed.
Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of New Mexico, 2006. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-233).
The time course of lexical access in fluent Portuguese-English bilinguals and in English speaking monolinguals was examined
during the on-line processing of spoken sentences using the phoneme-triggered lexical decision task (Blank, 1980). The bilinguals
were tested in two distinct speech modes: a monolingual, English or Portuguese, speech mode, and a bilingual, code-switching,
speech mode. Although the bilingual’s lexical decision response times to word targets in the monolingual speech modes were
identical to those of the monolingual subjects, their response times to code-switched word targets in the bilingual mode were
significantly slower. In addition, the bilinguals took longer to detect nonwords in both the monolingual and bilingual modes.
These results confirm that bilinguals cannot totally deactivate their other language when in a monolingual speech mode. It
is hypothesized that bilinguals search both lexicons when confronted with nonwords, even when in a totally monolingual mode,
and that they search the base-language lexicon before the other lexicon when in a bilingual, code-switching, speech mode.
Using a self-paced moving window reading paradigm, we examine the degree to which structural commitments made while 60 Spanish-English L2 speakers read syntactically ambiguous sentences in their second language (L2) are constrained by the verb's lexical entry about its preferred structural environment (i.e., subcategorization bias). The ambiguity under investigation arises because a noun phrase immediately following a verb can be parsed as either the direct object of the verb 'The CIA director confirmed the rumor when he testified before Congress', or as the subject of an embedded complement 'The CIA director confirmed the rumor could mean a security leak'. In an experiment with 59 monolingual English participants, we replicate the findings reported in the previous literature demonstrating that native speakers are guided by subcategorization bias information during sentence interpretation. In a bilingual experiment, we then show that L2 subcategorization biases influence L2 sentence interpretation. The results indicate that L2 speakers keep track of the relative frequencies of verb-subcategorization alternatives and use this information when building structure in the L2.
Cross-language asymmetries in code-switching patterns: Implications for bilingual language production
- C M Myers-Scotton
- J Jake
Myers-Scotton, C. M., & Jake, J. (2015). Cross-language asymmetries in code-switching patterns: Implications for bilingual language production. In J. Schwieter (Ed.), The Cambridge
handbook of bilingual processing (pp. 416-458). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
doi: 10.1017/CBO9781107447257.019
Building bilingual corpora: Welsh-English, Spanish-English and Spanish-Welsh
- Deuchar