Disentangling sources of incomplete acquisition: An explanation for competence divergence across heritage grammars

Abstract

This article brings to light an important variable involved in explaining a type of competence divergence in an instance of bilingual acquisition: heritage speaker (HS) bilingualism. We present results of experiments with European Portuguese (EP) heritage speakers (HSs), showing that they have full morpho-syntactic and semantic competence of inflected infinitives, similar to EP monolinguals. We show this constitutes clear evidence of competence mismatches between heritage speakers of European and Brazilian Portuguese, comparing our results to Rothman’s (2007) experimental evidence that Brazilian Portuguese (BP) heritage speakers lack knowledge of inflected infinitives. These comparative results are especially relevant because inflected infinitives were argued (Pires, 2002, 2006) to have been lost in colloquial BP dialects, although educated monolinguals demonstrate target competence. Neither incomplete acquisition nor attrition hinders the acquisition of inflected infinitives by European Portuguese HSs, raising questions regarding

Silence is difficult: On missing elements in bilingual grammars

“…Other factors that may affect bilinguals' mastery of constraints on omissions include dominant language transfer (Serratrice et al 2004;Sorace 2004;Tsimpli et al 2004), non-target-like mastery of pragmatic rules (Pérez-Leroux and Glass 1999;Rothman 2009, Ivanova-Sullivan 2014, and (for HL speakers) idiosyncratic properties of the baseline input grammar (Laleko 2010;Pires and Rothman 2009). While further studies are necessary to evaluate each of these factors experimentally, our data suggest some preliminary considerations.…”

Differences in use without deficiencies in competence: passives in the Turkish and German of Turkish heritage speakers in Germany

“…More recent work has challenged this assumption (e.g., Kupisch 2013; Kupisch and Rothman 2016;Pascual y Cabo 2013; Pascual y Cabo and Rothman 2012; Pires and Rothman 2009;Putnam and Sánchez 2013;Rothman 2007;Scontras, Fuchs and Polinsky 2015). These newer approaches argue that differential ultimate attainment in the HL is not a case of incomplete acquisition, but rather reflects alternative developmental paths that arise because of the variation HSs confront related to key factors that contribute to monolingual conformity.…”

“…Barton 2015;Kupisch, Lein, Barton, Schröder, Stangen and Stoehr, 2014;Montrul and Sánchez Walker 2013;Pascual y Cabo 2013;Pires and Rothman 2009;Polinsky 2011;Rothman 2007). Rothman (2007), Pires and Rothman (2009) and Montrul and Sánchez Walker (2013) each investigate the role that qualitative differences in the input to which HS versus monolingual children are exposed (e.g., as a consequence of grammatical change/L1 attrition effects in the input) might better explain the path and ultimate attainment of particular grammatical properties. Kupisch and colleagues (see Kupisch and Rothman, 2016, for a review of studies) have compared HSs who have had the HS as a medium of instruction at school to those who have not.…”

Stability in Chinese and Malay heritage languages as a source of divergence

“…For example, limited access to the heritage language at an early age is the main cause of incomplete knowledge of differential object marking in Spanish heritage speakers in the U.S. ( . Pires andRothman (2009) andTorres Cacoullos (2000) illustrate that some changes occur faster in heritage speakers due to the fact that the input of heritage speakers is restricted to informal registers. For example, Brazilian heritage speakers do not use inflected infinitives because inflected infinitives are part of a more formal register to which heritage speakers usually do not have access (Pires and Rothman 2009).…”