Indirect structural crosslinguistic influence in early Catalan–Spanish bilinguals in adulthood: Predicate selection in Catalan existential constructions

This study reports an oral production experiment investigating the expression of existentiality in the Catalan of adult Catalan–Spanish early bilinguals (N = 58) with comparable proficiencies but different language dominance. The results show qualitative differences among the bilinguals in existenti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied psycholinguistics 2021-11, Vol.42 (6), p.1463-1502
Main Authors: Perpiñán, Silvia, Soto-Corominas, Adriana
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adults
Bilingualism
Catalan language
Classification
Existential constructions
Explicit knowledge
Grammatical case
Language
Language Acquisition
Language dominance
Language proficiency
Linguistics
Mental representation
Original Article
Predicate
Questionnaires
Semantics
Spanish language
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Summary:This study reports an oral production experiment investigating the expression of existentiality in the Catalan of adult Catalan–Spanish early bilinguals (N = 58) with comparable proficiencies but different language dominance. The results show qualitative differences among the bilinguals in existential predicate selection and in their supply of partitive pronouns, modulated by language dominance. Balanced Bilinguals as well as Spanish-dominant bilinguals significantly produced more estar (in detriment of ser-hi and haver-hi) not only in locative contexts, where Catalan already presents optionality regulated by semantic differences, but also in existential constructions, where this optionality does not exist. We argue for indirect crosslinguistic influence (CLI), when the bilingual perceives certain structural overlap within constructions, mediating the influence from one structure to another one and expanding the limits of CLI. The qualitative differences found among bilinguals challenge the idea of a bilingualism continuum in Catalan–Spanish bilingualism with an identical mental representation.
ISSN:0142-7164
1469-1817
DOI:10.1017/S0142716421000308