We examine the gender assignment strategies used in Basque/Spanish mixed Determiner Phrases in Gernika Basque. Twenty-one simultaneous bilinguals completed a survey containing an Acceptability Judgment Task, a Forced-choice task, two proficiency tests, and a linguistic background questionnaire. Two Linear Mixed Models revealed that participants use two strategies. First, they assign the Spanish masculine determiner, el, to most Basque nouns. Second, when the Basque noun ends in lexical a, they prefer to assign the Spanish feminine determiner, la, potentially as a result of homophony with the canonical ending for Spanish feminine nouns. Our findings contrast with what Parafita-Couto et al. (2015) found for the same language pair. Yet, they align with what Liceras et al. (2008) found for English/Spanish simultaneous bilinguals.
This study examines gender assignment in Spanish/English mixed DPs. In these DPs, heritage speakers of Spanish have the choice of using the feminine or masculine determiner with an English noun (e.g., (1) la table or (2) el table). However, there is no gender agreement between the Spanish determiner and English noun. According to Liceras et al. (2008), this is solved by using the masculine determiner, el; it is not specified for gender (Harris, 1991). Other studies (Jake et al., 2002) have shown that heritage speakers do use the feminine determiner in mixed DPs such as (1). I argue that the feminine determiner is used with English nouns that are feminine in Spanish and are part of the familial domain.
The present study examines the relative order of noun-adjective sequences within a code-switched DP among Basque/Spanish bilinguals. Several hypotheses have been considered: is this a property defined by the determiner (Bartlett, 2013), the adjective (Cantone & MacSwan, 2009) or the noun (Arnaus et al., 2012)? We propose a new look at the problem by using code-switching of Basque/Spanish, two languages whose typological properties partially overlap. The Basque adjective is rigidly post nominal, while Spanish adjectives range from obligatory pre-nominal to obligatory post-nominal. We found that neither the N nor the D seem to play a role. Furthermore, the study showed that the adjective is responsible for word order in these contexts. Thus, our results confirm Cantone and MacSwan (2009).
Many languages, including English, exhibit a restriction on subject extraction over complementizers called the that-trace effect. Although extensively studied, this phenomenon remains a puzzle. Not all languages exhibit the effect; Spanish does not. Spanish also allows postverbal subjects, while English does not, which has been linked to the that-trace effect. Because Spanish/English differ in these properties, combining lexical items from both languages in a single derivation, as in code-switching, offers additional insight into the nature of the restriction. Two acceptability judgment tasks of Spanish/English code-switching reveal that a single Spanish functional head is insufficient to license either postverbal subjects or subject extraction. Instead, we argue, the that-trace effect and related properties arise from the interaction of two heads.
Various methodological concerns are specific to code-switching research; however, the modality of experimental stimuli has yet to be thoroughly investigated. This study explicitly tests if the mode of presentation does in fact affect participants’ judgments in Spanish-English code-switching using two different syntactic phenomena: (i) pronouns and lexical DPs, and (ii) wh-movement. The results are parallel, but not identical for the two modalities. We found no difference on a global level, indicating that written code-switched stimuli do not produce depressed ratings. We found a few individual differences when looking at specific structures within the two phenomena. In those cases, the aural condition enhanced the ratings of more acceptable sentences. Crucially, these differences did not affect the interpretation of the results.
A critical question about bilingualism is how two or more languages are processed in the bilingual mind (e.g., Kroll, Bobb, & Hoshino, 2014). Previous research shows that bilinguals’ languages interact, at least at the lexical and phonological levels. Relatively little research has addressed whether this occurs at the syntactic level during sentence processing. One event-related potential study with Welsh-English bilinguals showed co-activation of syntactic properties of one language that affected processing of the other language (Sanoudaki & Thierry, 2014, 2015). The current study replicates Sanoudaki and Thierry with Spanish-English bilinguals, and the results largely reproduce their findings of syntactic co-activation during sentence processing. These converging results have implications for theories about bilingual language processing regarding how syntax may interact in the bilingual mind.
This chapter examines phonological factors of Spanish/English word-internal code-switching. Specifically, we empirically test the claim that a code-switched word cannot contain phonological elements from two languages (Bandi-Rao & den Dikken, 2014; MacSwan & Colina, 2014). In this pilot study we examine production of English /z/ (not part of the Spanish phonological inventory) in morphologically switched nonce verbs with an English root and Spanish affixes. Data from an elicited production task administered in English/Spanish code-switching and monolingual Spanish conditions indicate that the early Spanish/English bilinguals tested do not maintain English phonology ([z]) in the English root of the switched verb. Instead, Spanish phonology is applied to the entire word, which provides preliminary support for the posited ban on word-internal phonological switches.
In this chapter, I argue against the view that Basque complementizers occupy the head of FinP in the left periphery (cf. Ortiz de Urbina, 1999; Artiagoitia and Elordieta, 2016). Based on bilinguals’ acceptability judgments of complement clauses in Spanish/Basque code-switching, I propose that the Basque complementizer -enik is the spell out form of the features [finite], [force] and an interpretable anti-veridical polarity feature in Force 0 . The complementizer -ela, on the other hand, can either spell out the features [finite] and [force] or just the feature [finite]. Furthermore, this chapter provides supporting evidence that the phenomenon of complementizer duplication in Spanish/Basque code-switching can be accounted for by assuming a single system for spelling out syntactic terminals in bilinguals.
We examine the gender assignment strategies used in Basque/Spanish mixed Determiner Phrases in Gernika Basque. Twenty-one simultaneous bilinguals completed a survey containing an Acceptability Judgment Task, a Forced-choice task, two proficiency tests, and a linguistic background questionnaire. Two Linear Mixed Models revealed that participants use two strategies. First, they assign the Spanish masculine determiner, el, to most Basque nouns. Second, when the Basque noun ends in lexical a, they prefer to assign the Spanish feminine determiner, la, potentially as a result of homophony with the canonical ending for Spanish feminine nouns. Our findings contrast with what Parafita-Couto et al. (2015) found for the same language pair. Yet, they align with what Liceras et al. (2008) found for English/Spanish simultaneous bilinguals.
This study examines gender assignment in Spanish/English mixed DPs. In these DPs, heritage speakers of Spanish have the choice of using the feminine or masculine determiner with an English noun (e.g., (1) la table or (2) el table). However, there is no gender agreement between the Spanish determiner and English noun. According to Liceras et al. (2008), this is solved by using the masculine determiner, el; it is not specified for gender (Harris, 1991). Other studies (Jake et al., 2002) have shown that heritage speakers do use the feminine determiner in mixed DPs such as (1). I argue that the feminine determiner is used with English nouns that are feminine in Spanish and are part of the familial domain.
The present study examines the relative order of noun-adjective sequences within a code-switched DP among Basque/Spanish bilinguals. Several hypotheses have been considered: is this a property defined by the determiner (Bartlett, 2013), the adjective (Cantone & MacSwan, 2009) or the noun (Arnaus et al., 2012)? We propose a new look at the problem by using code-switching of Basque/Spanish, two languages whose typological properties partially overlap. The Basque adjective is rigidly post nominal, while Spanish adjectives range from obligatory pre-nominal to obligatory post-nominal. We found that neither the N nor the D seem to play a role. Furthermore, the study showed that the adjective is responsible for word order in these contexts. Thus, our results confirm Cantone and MacSwan (2009).
Many languages, including English, exhibit a restriction on subject extraction over complementizers called the that-trace effect. Although extensively studied, this phenomenon remains a puzzle. Not all languages exhibit the effect; Spanish does not. Spanish also allows postverbal subjects, while English does not, which has been linked to the that-trace effect. Because Spanish/English differ in these properties, combining lexical items from both languages in a single derivation, as in code-switching, offers additional insight into the nature of the restriction. Two acceptability judgment tasks of Spanish/English code-switching reveal that a single Spanish functional head is insufficient to license either postverbal subjects or subject extraction. Instead, we argue, the that-trace effect and related properties arise from the interaction of two heads.
Various methodological concerns are specific to code-switching research; however, the modality of experimental stimuli has yet to be thoroughly investigated. This study explicitly tests if the mode of presentation does in fact affect participants’ judgments in Spanish-English code-switching using two different syntactic phenomena: (i) pronouns and lexical DPs, and (ii) wh-movement. The results are parallel, but not identical for the two modalities. We found no difference on a global level, indicating that written code-switched stimuli do not produce depressed ratings. We found a few individual differences when looking at specific structures within the two phenomena. In those cases, the aural condition enhanced the ratings of more acceptable sentences. Crucially, these differences did not affect the interpretation of the results.
A critical question about bilingualism is how two or more languages are processed in the bilingual mind (e.g., Kroll, Bobb, & Hoshino, 2014). Previous research shows that bilinguals’ languages interact, at least at the lexical and phonological levels. Relatively little research has addressed whether this occurs at the syntactic level during sentence processing. One event-related potential study with Welsh-English bilinguals showed co-activation of syntactic properties of one language that affected processing of the other language (Sanoudaki & Thierry, 2014, 2015). The current study replicates Sanoudaki and Thierry with Spanish-English bilinguals, and the results largely reproduce their findings of syntactic co-activation during sentence processing. These converging results have implications for theories about bilingual language processing regarding how syntax may interact in the bilingual mind.
This chapter examines phonological factors of Spanish/English word-internal code-switching. Specifically, we empirically test the claim that a code-switched word cannot contain phonological elements from two languages (Bandi-Rao & den Dikken, 2014; MacSwan & Colina, 2014). In this pilot study we examine production of English /z/ (not part of the Spanish phonological inventory) in morphologically switched nonce verbs with an English root and Spanish affixes. Data from an elicited production task administered in English/Spanish code-switching and monolingual Spanish conditions indicate that the early Spanish/English bilinguals tested do not maintain English phonology ([z]) in the English root of the switched verb. Instead, Spanish phonology is applied to the entire word, which provides preliminary support for the posited ban on word-internal phonological switches.
In this chapter, I argue against the view that Basque complementizers occupy the head of FinP in the left periphery (cf. Ortiz de Urbina, 1999; Artiagoitia and Elordieta, 2016). Based on bilinguals’ acceptability judgments of complement clauses in Spanish/Basque code-switching, I propose that the Basque complementizer -enik is the spell out form of the features [finite], [force] and an interpretable anti-veridical polarity feature in Force 0 . The complementizer -ela, on the other hand, can either spell out the features [finite] and [force] or just the feature [finite]. Furthermore, this chapter provides supporting evidence that the phenomenon of complementizer duplication in Spanish/Basque code-switching can be accounted for by assuming a single system for spelling out syntactic terminals in bilinguals.