Chapter published in:
Hispanic Contact Linguistics: Theoretical, methodological and empirical perspectives
Edited by Luis A. Ortiz López, Rosa E. Guzzardo Tamargo and Melvin González-Rivera
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 22] 2020
► pp. 216–233

The distribution and use of present and past progressive forms in Spanish-English and Spanish-Brazilian Portuguese bilinguals

| Rutgers University
| Purdue University
This study examines the distribution and use of simple and progressive forms in two groups: English-speaking heritage speakers of Spanish in the U.S. (n = 9) and Brazilian Portuguese-speaking heritage speakers of Spanish in Brazil (n = 15). We hypothesized that the groups would show different crosslinguistic influence from their dominant languages in their choice of verb forms. We collected semi-spontaneous production data via oral narratives and analyzed group differences in verb form, either simple or progressive, in activity and accomplishment verbs (Vendler, 1967). The results show a main effect for group, confirming that English-Spanish bilinguals favor progressive verb forms in such contexts, while Brazilian Portuguese-Spanish bilinguals opt for simple verb forms. We discuss our findings following previous work by Jiang (2000) and Putnam & Sánchez (2013).
Keywords: heritage language, verb morphology, progressive verb form
Published online: 14 February 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.22.09lop
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