Bilingual Language Acquisitionassets.cambridge.org/97811070/24267/frontmatter/...1.1 Bilingual language acquisition 1 1.2 Theoretical preliminaries 5 1.3 Models and issues in bilingual

Bilingual Language Acquisition

How do children develop bilingual competence? Do bilingual children developlanguage in the same way as monolinguals? Set in the context of findings onlanguage development, this book examines the acquisition of English andSpanish by two brothers in the first six years of their lives. Based on in-depthand meticulous analyses of naturalistic data, it explores how the systems of bothlanguages affect each other as the children develop, and how different levels ofexposure to each language influence the nature of acquisition. The authordemonstrates that the children’s grammars and lexicons follow a developmentalpath similar to that of monolinguals, but that cross-linguistic interactions affect-ing lexical, semantic and discourse-pragmatic aspects arise in Spanish whenexposure to it diminishes around the age of four. The first of its kind, this originalstudy is a must-read for students and researchers of bilingualism, child develop-ment, language acquisition, and language contact.

carmen silva-corvalan is Professor of Spanish in the Department ofSpanish and Portuguese at the University of Southern California.

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Cambridge University Press978-1-107-02426-7 - Bilingual Language Acquisition: Spanish and English in the First Six YearsCarmen Silva-CorvalánFrontmatterMore information

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Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact

General Editor:SALIKOKO S. MUFWENE, University of Chicago

Editorial Board:robert chaudenson, Université d’Aix-en-Provencebraj kachru, University of Illinois at Urbanaraj mesthrie, University of Cape Townlesley milroy, University of Michiganshana poplack, University of Ottawamichael silverstein, University of Chicago

Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact is an interdisciplinary series bringingtogether work on language contact from a diverse range of research areas. The seriesfocuses on key topics in the study of contact between languages or dialects, including thedevelopment of pidgins and creoles, language evolution and change, world Englishes,code-switching and code-mixing, bilingualism and second language acquisition, bor-rowing, interference, and convergence phenomena.

Published titlesSalikoko Mufwene, The Ecology of Language EvolutionMichael Clyne, Dynamics of Language ContactBernd Heine and Tania Kuteva, Language Contact and Grammatical ChangeEdgar W. Schneider, Postcolonial EnglishVirginia Yip and Stephen Matthews, The Bilingual ChildBernd Heine and Derek Nurse (eds.), A Linguistic Geography of AfricaJ. Clancy Clements, The Linguistic Legacy of Spanish and PortugueseUmberto Ansaldo, Contact LanguagesJan Blommaert, The Sociolinguistics of GlobalizationCarmen Silva-Corvalán, Bilingual Language Acquisition

Further titles planned for the seriesLotfi Sayahi, DiglossiaEmanuel J. Drechsel, Language Contact in the Early Colonial PacificRakesh Bhatt, Language Contact and DiasporaEnoch Aboh, Hybrid GrammarsGregory D. S. Anderson, Language ExtinctionBridget Drinka, Language Contact in EuropeFredric Field, Spanish and English in the United StatesBao Zhiming, The Making of Singapore EnglishRalph Ludwig, Steve Pagel, and Peter Mühlhäusler, Linguistic Ecology and LanguageContact

Kingsley Bolton, Samuli Kaislaniemi, and Anna Winterbottom, Language Contact andthe East India Company






Bilingual Language AcquisitionSpanish and English in the First Six Years

Carmen Silva-CorvalánUniversity of Southern California






University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom

Published in the United States of America by CambridgeUniversity Press, NewYork

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit ofeducation, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.orgInformation on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107673151

© Carmen Silva-Corvalán 2014

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exceptionand to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,no reproduction of any part may take place without the writtenpermission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2014

Printing in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow Cornwall

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-107-02426-7 HardbackISBN 978-1-107-67315-1 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy ofURLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,accurate or appropriate.






For Nicolas and Brennan,porque no tomaron el camino más fácil.

And for all bilingual children.











Contents

List of figures page xList of tables xiSeries editor’s foreword xivPreface xviiAcknowledgments xxList of abbreviations xxiv

1 Introduction 11.1 Bilingual language acquisition 11.2 Theoretical preliminaries 51.3 Models and issues in bilingual first language acquisition 81.4 Dominance, proficiency, and the language input 171.5 Conclusion and research questions 241.6 Overview of the book 25

2 Methodology 272.1 Introduction 272.2 A longitudinal case study 282.3 The children and their social context: grandmother’s language

in a two-language home 292.4 The language data 352.5 Determining language dominance and bilingual proficiency 432.6 Qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis 502.7 Summary 52

3 Bilingual development: a linguistic profile of the first six years 543.1 Introduction 543.2 From words to sentences: an overview 543.3 Separate development and crosslinguistic interaction 663.4 Being bilingual 843.5 From sentences to discourse: narrating in Spanish and English 1023.6 Later developments 1173.7 Conclusion 117

4 Subjects in English and Spanish 1204.1 Introduction 1204.2 Subjects in English and Spanish: the adult systems 123

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4.3 Subjects in bilingual acquisition 1304.4 The siblings’ acquisition of subjects from 1;6 to 1;11.30 1354.5 Subjects from 2;0 to 2;11.30 1444.6 Subjects from 3;0 to 5;11 1524.7 Spanish subjects in discourse 1554.8 Summary and conclusions 164

5 The order of constituents: subject position in Englishand Spanish 1705.1 Introduction 1705.2 Factors conditioning subject position in Spanish 1725.3 Subject position in child language 1855.4 Subject position in the speech of English-Spanish bilinguals 1895.5 Summary and conclusions 215

6 The acquisition of ser, estar, and be 2196.1 Why study copulas? 2196.2 Distribution of ser, estar, and be 2226.3 Copulas in the speech of bilingual children: questions raised 2256.4 The siblings’ acquisition of English and Spanish copulas

from 1;6 to 2;11.30 2266.5 Copulas from 3;0 to 5;11 2376.6 Tense and person marking of copulas: from 1;6 to 5;11 2396.7 Selection of ser or estar in various syntactic contexts: from 1;6 to 5;11 2446.8 Comparison with monolinguals 2536.9 Crosslinguistic interaction 2556.10 The extension of estar 2606.11 Summary and conclusions 261

7 The development of verb morphology: learning howto mark tense, aspect, and mood 2657.1 Introduction 2657.2 Tense, mood, and aspect in English and Spanish: complexity in the adult

systems 2667.3 Issues in the acquisition of verb morphology 2777.4 Methodological preliminaries 2807.5 The first verbs in English and Spanish 2817.6 Tense, mood, and aspect development in English: from 2;0 to 2;11.30 3037.7 Tense, mood, and aspect development in English: from 3;0 to 5;11 3127.8 Tense, mood, and aspect development in Spanish: from 2;0 to 2;11.30 3187.9 Tense, mood, and aspect development in Spanish: from 3;0 to 5;11 3267.10 The preterite–imperfect aspectual opposition 3377.11 Summary and conclusions 343

8 Discussion and conclusions 3488.1 Introduction 3488.2 Effect of differential amounts of exposure on the siblings’ bilingual

development 3508.3 Input complexity and frequency 3528.4 Crosslinguistic interaction 354

viii Contents






8.5 Linking developing bilinguals and heritage speakers 3578.6 Brief conclusion 361

Appendices1 Transcription instructions 3622 Calculation of MLUw 3643 Spanish adjectives used with copulas up to age 6;0 3664 The siblings’ early verb lexicon in English and Spanish 3715 Excerpt from an adapted Goldilocks story 379

References 380Index of authors 399General index 403

Contents ix






Figures

2.1 Nico’s and Brennan’s English MLUw page 492.2 Nico’s and Brennan’s Spanish MLUw 502.3 Brennan’s MLUw in English and Spanish 502.4 Nico’s MLUw in English and Spanish 51

x






Tables

2.1 Approximate percentages of exposure to English andSpanish (to 6 years) page 34

2.2 Number of utterances containing a verb produced by Nicoin each language by month of age, and number of differentdays when diary notes were made by month of age 36

2.3 Number of utterances containing a verb produced by Nico ineach language by month of age, and number of different dayswhen audio recordings were made by month of age 40

2.4 Number of utterances containing a verb produced by Brennanin each language by month of age, and number of differentdays when audio recordings were made by month of age 41

2.5 Nico’s and Brennan’s mean MLUw values in English andSpanish (1;5–3;7) 47

3.1 Developmental order for English wh-words in bilingual andmonolingual children. Age of first appearance for bilinguals;average age of acquisition for monolinguals 63

3.2 Developmental order of Spanish Q-words. Age of firstappearance in Nico’s and Brennan’s data 65

3.3 Information on the recordings of the frog story 1093.4 Temporal perspective, verb types, and longest sentence in the

frog stories at two times (Nico and Brennan) 1154.1 Percentages of overt subject pronouns in adult speech in Los

Angeles, Madrid, Caracas, and Santiago de Chile 1294.2 Percentage of overt versus null subject pronouns (bilingual

twins and monolinguals) 1314.3 Overall percentage of use of overt subject pronouns by

Manuela and three monolingual children 1334.4 Overt versus null subject use in Spanish and English

(to 1;11.28) 1394.5 Percentage of overt subject pronouns by language and age

(1;7–1;11) 141

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4.6 Overt versus null subjects in Spanish and English(2;0–2;11.30) 145

4.7 Overt versus null subjects in the adult input 1464.8 Percentage of overt subjects by language and age (2;0–2;11) 1474.9 Percentage of overt subject pronouns by person of the subject

(adults) 1494.10 Percentage of overt subject pronouns by person of the subject:

Nico and Brennan (2;0–2;11), and their adult input 1504.11 Percentage of overt subject pronouns with querer ‘to want’

and creer ‘to believe’ (Nico, Brennan, and their adult input) 1514.12 Subject realization in Spanish (3;0–3;11 and 4;0–5;11) 1534.13 Percentage of overt subject pronouns by person of the subject

(3;0–3;11 and 4;0–5;11) – Spanish 1534.14 Percentage of overt subject pronouns with querer ‘to want’

and creer ‘to believe’ (3;0–3;11 and 4;0–5;11) 1554.15 Subject pronoun realization by coreferentiality (4;0–5;11) 1574.16 Native speakers’ judgments on the appropriateness of overt

subject pronouns 1605.1 Subject position in spoken Caracas Spanish 1805.2 Subject position in written Spanish 1805.3 Subject position in spoken adult Spanish 1815.4 Subject position by type of verb in the adult input to the

siblings 1825.5 Subject position by animacy and transitivity of the subject in

the adult input to the siblings 1835.6 Position of subject pronouns in spoken and written Spanish 1845.7 Preverbal pronominal subjects. Siblings (3;0–5;11), adult

input, and monolingual children 1945.8 Overall rates of preverbal nominal subjects in adult and child

Spanish 1965.9 Subject position by type of verb. Siblings (1;7–1;11.30) 2005.10 Subject position by animacy of the subject. Siblings

(1;7–1;11.30) 2005.11 Overall rates of preverbal and postverbal subjects. Siblings

(2;0–2;11.30) 2015.12 Subject position by type of verb. Siblings (2;0–2;11.30) 2015.13 Subject position by animacy of the subject. Siblings

(2;0–2;11.30) 2025.14 Overall rates of preverbal and postverbal subjects. Siblings

(3;0–5;11) 2065.15 Subject position. Monolinguals and bilinguals compared 2065.16 Subject position by child and type of verb (3;0–5;11) 207

xii List of tables






5.17 Subject position by type of verb. Siblings (3;0–5;11) andChilean monolinguals (4;6–4;11) 208

6.1 Frequency of be, ser, and estar in the structural frames studied(1;6–2;11) 229

6.2 Frequent conceptual frames in which ser and estar occur 2296.3 Frequent conceptual frames in which be occurs 2306.4 Appearance of various functions of Spanish copular

constructions with expressed copula by month of age 2366.5 Frequency of zero-copula in three types of structures 2376.6 Frequency of be, ser, and estar by tense (1;6–2;11) 2406.7 Development of person marking of copulas with various

tenses 2416.8 Frequency of copula selection errors with predicate adjectives

(1;6–2;11) 2466.9 Percentage of copula encroachment (1;6–2;11) 2466.10 Proportion of copula selection errors in predicate adjectives,

predicate nominals, and progressives (1;6–2;11) 2506.11 Frequency of copula selection errors (3;0–5;11) 2517.1 Relative hierarchy of tense complexity in Latin American

Spanish and American English 2697.2 English verb tenses 2717.3 Spanish verb tenses 2757.4 Nico’s first English verbs and age of first appearance in the data 2847.5 Brennan’s first English verbs and age of first appearance in

the data 2887.6 Nico’s first Spanish verbs and age of first appearance in the data 2907.7 Brennan’s first Spanish verbs and age of first appearance in

the data 2917.8 Early tense forms used by Nico (English and Spanish to

1;11.30) and Brennan (English to 2;1.11, Spanish to 1;11.30) 3027.9 English tenses added (2;5–2;11.30) 3107.10 English auxiliaries appearing (2;0–2;11.30) 3117.11 English tenses, modals, and auxiliaries used (3;0–5;11) 3177.12 Spanish tenses used (2;0–2;11.30) 3227.13 Tense substitutions in Spanish and age of last occurrence

(1;7–2;11.30) 3237.14 Spanish tense-mood-aspect forms used (3;0–5;11) 3277.15 Tense substitutions in Spanish and age of last occurrence

(3;0–5;11) 3307.16 Spanish tense-mood-aspect usage compared across bilinguals

and (near-)monolingual children (5;0–5;11), and two bilingualadults 332

List of tables xiii






Series editor’s foreword

The series Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact (CALC) was set up topublish outstanding monographs on language contact, especially by authorswho approach their specific subject matter from a diachronic or developmentalperspective. Our goal is to integrate the ever-growing scholarship on languagediversification (including the development of creoles, pidgins, and indigenizedvarieties of colonial European languages), bilingual language development,code-switching, and language endangerment. We hope to provide a selectforum to scholars who contribute insightfully to understanding language evo-lution from an interdisciplinary perspective. We favor approaches that highlightthe role of ecology and draw inspiration both from the authors’ own fields ofspecialization and from related research areas in linguistics or other disciplines.Eclecticism is one of our mottoes, as we endeavor to comprehend the complex-ity of evolutionary processes associated with contact.

We are very proud to add to our list Carmen Silva-Corvalán’s BilingualLanguage Acquisition: Spanish and English in the First Six Years. The authorprovides detailed analyses of language development data collected over severalyears from two siblings who happen to be her own grandchildren. She comparesthe data and her findings with those of other English-Spanish bilingual childrenreported in the literature, and with other interesting cases involving other lan-guages, such as the Cantonese-English bilingual children that were the focus of aprevious publication in the CALC series: The Bilingual Child byVirginia Yip andStephen Matthews (2007). Thus the book provides findings that facilitateinformed comparisons that raise questions about universals of bilingual languagedevelopment and the role of the social environments provided by the home andthe extended family in determining ecology-specific peculiarities. Other interest-ing questions include whether there are learning differences between her childsubjects and how to interpret them. Are there differences that reflect interindivid-ual variation in learning skills and contribute partly to shaping the singularity ofspeakers’ idiolects? Or can one also go as far as to claim that such differences, ifthey obtain, may also reflect the likelihood that humans may not be equally giftedin “social learning?” The question also applies to other cultural domains, assum-ing that language is a cultural phenomenon, although one may still invoke some

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Universal Grammar or “language organ” to account for some of its ontogeneticand architectural properties. On the other hand, are there differences that have todo with one child having benefited, at the same age, from more interactionswith the older population, including the other sibling, than the other? When itcomes to language dominance, are personality differences a factor that shouldnot be ignored? How does one define the ecology of bilingual child languagedevelopment?

There are also some traditional questions, such as whether children are reallyperfect language learners. What happens in settings in which some of thespeakers do not speak at least one of the languages in an “uncontaminated”way – that is, unaffected by the influence of the ethnographically dominantlanguage, either Spanish or English in the present case? What factors determinelanguage dominance in the bilingual child? Other than frequency of use, arethere structural reflexes of language dominance? Is there evidence of languagedominance in all aspects of language structure? Bilingual Language Acquisitioncovers many different aspects of the grammars of English and Spanish. Thereare a number of similarities, but there are also quite interesting differencesbetween the two languages, some of them more obvious than others. The readerwill undoubtedly be interested in whether there is consistency system-wise andinterindividually in the kinds of confusions that the children experience. Arethere any similarities between the experiences of the bilingual child and thosereported about adult L2 learners or bilinguals?

There is a great deal to be learned from this book about the mind of a child asan arena of competition not just between the languages in contact, from anethnographic point of view, but also between their structures, from the point ofview of the emergence of the grammars associated with the different languages.Although different readers will certainly be interested in different aspects of thesubject matter, I am also sure that many will share my experience in “witness-ing” the linguistic development of these children through Carmen Silva-Corvalán’s informative narratives that provide the contexts for the productionof several constructions. The data are also presented so adequately that notknowing Spanish is not a factor that should prevent the reader from learningcomparatively about developing native competence in two languages. The bookalso conjures up the question of whether all first-language competences areequal, regardless of whether a speaker is mono- or bilingual.

salikoko s. mufwene, University of Chicago

Series editor’s foreword xv











Preface

This book is written with the joy of a grandmother who feels that the study ofher grandchildren, the focus of this book, can make a contribution to theunderstanding of early bilingual development and the human capacity forlanguage. English and Spanish have always been present in our home. I spokeboth with my children, switching smoothly from one language to the otherdepending on their appropriateness in a given communicative situation.Naturally, when the grandsons were born, their parents and I made the decisionto expose the children to both languages from birth to facilitate their becomingbilinguals. I, the grandmother, was determined to use only Spanish with thechildren to counteract the strong presence of English in the family and the largercommunity. Being a linguist, I also decided to follow closely and record thechildren’s language development in a systematic way. How children acquirelanguage so quickly has interested scholars for thousands of years. Less wellinvestigated is how children learn two languages concurrently. This was theinteresting and challenging question I presented to myself and now address inthis book, where I examine the bilingual development of two of my grandsons,Nico and Brennan, to about age six.

In many cultures and countries around the world (e.g., Wales, Spain,Indonesia, India, Kenya, South Africa), bilingualism is a part of ordinarydaily life and represents the norm as far as language acquisition and use areconcerned. In these regions, the acquisition of two or more languages isconsidered neither a cognitive feat nor a hindrance; it is simply a matter ofcourse. But the children in the present study did not have an easy journey intobilingualism. There were bumps along the way, especially when the vehicleused was Spanish, an unofficial, minority language in the children’s environ-ment. Yet they succeeded, each one to a different level of bilingual profi-ciency, and, thanks to dual-language elementary education, they becameliterate bilinguals in Spanish and English. As was to be expected, the com-munity and official language of California, English, developed into the sib-lings’ dominant language and evidenced only a few features characteristic of alanguage being acquired alongside another one: in particular, the use ofSpanish words in English utterances. Spanish, however, soon showed some

xvii






more obvious effects of the strong presence of English, as the ensuingchapters will show.

Clearly, Nico and Brennan’s two languages were equally activated duringthese early years, but from early on the two language systems were differ-entiated, both structurally and pragmatically. The typical ecology of the bilin-gual mode frequently led to mixed language interactions which the siblingshandled with great dexterity, switching languages to fit that of the interlocutor.Indeed, even though the children knew that all their family members also spokeEnglish, in their earlier years they chose Spanish to communicate with thosewho used this language to communicate with them, and English with the rest ofthe family. Nico and Brennan were the ideal research subjects, talkative, alwaysready to play with Grandma, eager to be told or read stories and to make upstories, and accepting of the tape recorder (at least during their toddler years).

An undeniable characteristic of language acquisition is individual variation.Although Nico and Brennan’s bilingual environment and development is typ-ical of many children around the world, the reader may question how repre-sentative their specific language development may be. Would it be possible togeneralize from a case study? I argue that it is possible, if the study is set in thecontext of other findings on bilingual language development, which this studyis. Furthermore, the present study connects the siblings’ development withsome aspects of the language of second- and third-generation adult Spanish-English bilinguals (heritage speakers), who show similar language contactfeatures and thus support the validity of the observations made on the basis ofthe siblings’ data.

This has been a long but thoroughly enjoyable research journey. Reviewingover and over the many hours of diary notes and audio recordings that form therich database for the studies reported in this book, collected over many years,has given me the opportunity to relive the early years of the siblings’ life: theirfirst words, their realization that they speak differently with different people,their remarkable capacity to develop two language systems, their rich imagi-nation, their stories, their dreams, and their ability to create new words andsentences by blending two languages. While writing this book I have relived thewonder of bilingual development. I hope the reader will share this joy.

xviii Preface






Brennan and Nico with Grandma after a soccer game

Preface xix






Acknowledgments

The two siblings who are the focus of this book, Nico and Brennan, have madethis study possible. Their early bilingual development in a dual-languageenvironment seemed inevitable and effortless. But as they grew older andEnglish became stronger, they could have stopped speaking Spanish, as manychildren in a similar situation do. But they didn’t. So thank you, Nico andBrennan, for contributing to our knowledge of what it means to grow bilingualby “sticking with it” and allowing me to document your language development.I also thank your parents, Rodrigo and Dianna, for their positive attitude towardbilingualism, for letting me invade their privacy with the intimidating taperecorder, and for also making some recordings of your conversations withthem. I feel fortunate to have been able to conduct much of my research whileenjoying family life. I am grateful to your grandpa Scott and your uncles andaunts, Diego and Kathy, Fernando and Cynthia, for creating a caring and diverseenvironment that encouraged your dual-language development. I also thankSamantha, your younger sister, and your cousins, Kristine, Kathryn, andJackson, for bringing much joy to our lives. Samantha was born when I wasengaged in organizing your data, transcribing, editing, and writing papers.Unfortunately, I was unable to include her language development in thisstudy. Samantha’s first five years of age were surrounded by English andSpanish, but she spoke only English until she entered El Marino dual-languageschool. I thank this school for offering bilingual education and thus making itpossible for Samantha and many other children to develop productive bilingualorality and literacy.

I am especially grateful to Salikoko Mufwene for the expert advice andguidance he has given me. Sali deserves special recognition for his intellectualsupport and encouraging remarks during every phase of the writing process.I have done my best to take into account his valuable critical observations andmeticulous editorial suggestions. I may not always have succeeded, so anyremaining errors are my own.

Thanks are also due to Helen Barton for believing in my project and encour-aging me to write the book. Helen, Alison Tickner, Helena Dowson, andChristina Sarigiannidou steered the book skillfully toward publication.

xx






The research reported in this book was carried out over a period of manyyears. It has been financed in part by grants from the University of SouthernCalifornia (Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences2009–2012, Undergraduate Research Associates Program Award 2008–2010),by Del Amo Foundation grants, and by Faculty Development Grants from theDana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences.

Part of the research and writing was carried out while holding a grant as aVisiting Researcher at the Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory andPractice at the University of Bangor, Wales, in 2009. I thank the Centre, itsdirector, Professor Margaret Deuchar, and its co-director, Professor VirginiaC. Mueller Gathercole (“Ginny”), for this generous award and for their warmhospitality. I benefited greatly from stimulating discussions about bilingualismand language acquisition with Ginny and the members of the Experimental-Developmental Research Group she heads: María Carmen Parafita Couto,Rocío Pérez Tattam, Hans Stadthagen-González, Enlli Thomas. I also thankother visiting researchers at the Centre from whom I learned and continue tolearn much: Paola Giuli Dussias, Barbara Zurer Pearson, Elena Nicoladis. Theweekly seminar series at the Centre was an enriching experience for which I amalso thankful.

I am deeply indebted to Annick De Houwer and Ludovica Serratrice, whogenerously gave much of their time to read most of the chapters in this book.Their thought-provoking questions, illuminating feedback, and constructivecriticism have been invaluable in improving the content and organization ofthis book. I also thank Annick and Ludo for making this book possible throughtheir own inspiring work in the field of bilingual language acquisition. I givethanks to Virginia Yip and Stephen Matthews for writing a motivating bookabout their children’s bilingual development, and to Suzanne Romaine, whosework has stimulated my interest in bilingualism. I extend my thanks as well toJürgen Meisel, Silvina Montrul, and Cecilia Rojas Nieto for having been aconstant fertile source of new and inspiring ideas about (bilingual) languageacquisition.

For their probing questions, helpful comments and advice about individualchapters, I give thanks to Richard Cameron, Alejandro Cuza, Nancy Dorian,Pilar Larrañaga, Natascha Müller, Elena Nicoladis, Ricardo Otheguy, and BenjiWald. I have also benefited greatly from insightful comments and helpfulinformation from child language experts in Spanish-speaking countries: PaulaAlonqueo, Rebeca Barriga, Carolina Holtheuer, Donna Jackson-Maldonado,Xóchitl Ponce, Cecilia Rojas Nieto, and Martha Shiro.

Special thanks are due to my colleagues in Spanish linguistics on bothsides of the Atlantic who shared with me their knowledge of Spanish, madetheir work available to me, and/or challenged some of my analyses: MiguelÁngel Aijón Oliva, Asier Alcázar, Laia Arnaus, Paola Bentivoglio, Eugenia

Acknowledgments xxi






Casielles-Suárez, Yolanda Congosto, Manuel Díaz Campos, Paola GiuliDussias, Andrés Enrique Arias, Manuel Gutiérrez, Flora Klein-Andreu,Roberto Mayoral Hernández, Isabel Molina Martos, Alicia Ocampo,Francisco Ocampo, Luis Ortiz López, Vanessa Pérez Brabandere, SergioRobles-Puente, Magdalena Romera, Ana Sánchez-Muñoz, MercedesSedano, María José Serrano, and Victoria Vásquez.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to present my work at variousinstitutions and international conferences at which I have benefited from ques-tions and feedback. I thank colleagues who invitedme to speak about my researchon bilingual acquisition at their institutions, notably Ana M. Carvalho and SaraBeaudrie (University of Arizona), Jonathan Holmquist (Temple University), EricHolt (University of South Carolina), Devin Jenkins (University of Colorado,Denver), Jürgen Meisel (Hamburg University), Silvina Montrul (University ofIllinois, Urbana-Champaign), Natascha Müller (University of Wuppertal,Germany), Rosa María Ortiz Ciscomani (University of Sonora, Mexico), AnaTeresa Pérez-Leroux (University of Toronto, Canada), Rafael Salaberry (RiceUniversity), Abelardo San Martín (University of Chile, Santiago), and AlmeidaJacqueline Toribio (Pennsylvania State University).

I would also like to thank the undergraduate and graduate students whoassisted me with the transcription of the audio recordings, editing the tran-scriptions, establishing inter-rater reliability, data coding, and much else.Among the undergraduate students, I thank most particularly Rebekah Sick,Daisy Villar Delmar, Christopher Johnson, Marissa Montes, Susan Lee, KristenSteach, Gemma Morales, and Manpreet Sadhal. Three graduate studentsdeserve special thanks: Magdalena Pire-Schmidt, Héctor Velázquez, andSergio Robles-Puente. I am grateful for their help with various aspects of theresearch as the book took shape. I also acknowledge with gratitude the helpprovided by Noelia Sánchez-Walker, who did a wonderful job of organizingmy diary notes and coding for subject expression in the utterances recorded inthese notes. She and I co-authored an article on subject realization in Nico’searly years. Most of all, I thank Simona Montanari. Her enthusiasm andintellectual interest in bilingual first language acquisition when I was her advisorin graduate school encouraged my own interest in this area of research. Simonaco-authored an article on copula acquisition with me, later published a book ontrilingual acquisition, and is now an associate professor and a respected scholarof multilingual language acquisition.

I wish to thank some of my ex-graduate students, now colleagues in thedepartment of Spanish and Portuguese at USC, whose cheerfulness and helpwith teaching technology made my work smoother and my time on campuspleasurable: Marianna Chodorowska, Ana Teresa Martínez, ConsueloSigüenza, and David Zarazúa. I also thank my colleague Mario Saltarelli forkeeping linguistics alive in the department.

xxii Acknowledgments






The biggest thanks of all goes to Scott Dahlberg, my husband and best friend,for his unfailing support, for making excellent editorial suggestions, and forthose long walks during which I clarified my ideas by sharing them with him.Although not a linguist, his insightful questioning of my analyses and hypoth-eses were fundamental for improving many aspects of my work. I thank him foreverything he has done to ease the journey of this book.

Finally, I wish to recognize my indebtedness to my parents, Fernando andFelisa, whose memory is with me always, for what I am I owe to them.

March 2013, Pacific Palisades, California

Acknowledgments xxiii






Abbreviations

2L1 two first languagesAdj adjectiveAdvP adverbial phraseAux auxiliaryBFLA bilingual first language acquisitionCL clitic pronounCond conditionalCondPerf conditional perfectCop copulaFem feminine genderFut futureIdent identificationILP individual-level predicateImp imperfectImprPol polite imperativeImpProg imperfect progressiveImpr imperativeImpSub imperfect subjunctiveInd indicativeInf infinitiveL1 first languageL2 second languageLINF low informativenessLOLI lone other-language itemMasc masculine genderMLU mean length of utteranceMLUm mean length of utterance in morphemesMLUw mean length of utterance in wordsNeg negationNoms nominal subjectsNP noun phraseNS null or non-overt subject

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OSV object subject verbOVS object verb subjectPart participlePastPerFut past periphrastic futurePastProg past progressivePER personPerFut periphrastic futurePL pluralPluperf pluperfectPluSub pluperfect subjunctivePP prepositional phrasePPL person pluralPres presentPresPart present participlePresPerf present perfectPresProg present progressivePresSub present subjunctivePret preteritePretProg preterite progressivePros pronominal subjectsPSG person singularQ-word Spanish interrogative wordS subjectSDM separate development modelSG singularSLP stage-level predicateSOV subject object verbSub subjunctiveSV subject verbSVO subject verb objectSVX subject verb any constituentTMA tense, mood, and aspectTNS tenseTrans transitiveUG Universal GrammarULS unitary language systemUnerg unergativeVOS verb object subjectVS verb subjectVSO verb subject object

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Bilingual Language Acquisitionassets.cambridge.org/97811070/24267/frontmatter/...1.1 Bilingual language acquisition 1 1.2 Theoretical preliminaries 5 1.3 Models and issues in bilingual