Contact and contracting Spanish

• Published in: The international journal of bilingualism : cross-disciplinary, cross-linguistic studies of language behavior Vol. 9; no. 3-4; pp. 377 - 395
• Main Authors: Zapata, Gabriela C., Sánchez, Liliana, Toribio, Almeida Jacqueline
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.09.2005; Sage Publications Ltd. (UK)
• Subjects: Convergence (Social sciences); English as a Second Language Learning; English language; Grammar, Comparative and general; Heritage Language; Language Attrition; Language Contact; Lexical Access; Lexicology; Linguistic analysis (Linguistics); Semantic Processing; Sentence Structure; Spanish; Spanish language; Syntactic Processing; Syntax; United States; convergence; syntax; attrition
• ISSN: 1367-0069; 1756-6878
• DOI: 10.1177/13670069050090030501

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