Article published in:
The Acquisition of Spanish in Understudied Language Pairings
Edited by Tiffany Judy and Silvia Perpiñán
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 3] 2015
► pp. 201–232

Subject pronouns in the L2 Spanish of Moroccan Arabic speakers

Evidence from bilingual and second language learners

The goal of this study is to shed light on the conditions that regulate the interpretation of null and overt third person subject pronouns in ambiguous intra-sentential contexts in bilingual and L2 Spanish. An acceptability judgment task was administered to 26 Moroccan Arabic (MA)/Spanish bilinguals, 26 MA learners of L2 Spanish and 34 native controls. Three variables were manipulated: type of pronoun (null vs. overt), antecedent choice (subject vs. object) and clause order (main-subordinate vs. subordinate-main). The results reveal an effect of pronoun and clause order. Overall, both experimental groups show native-like pronominal preferences but L2 learners differ from native speakers specifically in subordinate-main order as they do not seem to benefit from microvariation between languages in the domain of pronoun interpretation. Keywords: subject pronouns; anaphora resolution; cross-linguistic influence; bilingual acquisition; L2 acquisition

Published online: 18 February 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.3.08bel
References
Alhawary, M
(2007) Null subjects use by English and Spanish learners of Arabic as an L2. In E. Benmamoun (Ed.), Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XIX (pp. 217–245). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2009) Arabic Second Language Acquisition of Morphosyntax. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Alonso-Ovalle, L., Fernández-Solera, S., Frazier, L., & Clifton, C
(2002) Null vs. overt pronouns and the topic-focus articulation in Spanish. Rivista di Linguistica, 14, 151–169.Google Scholar
Aoun, J., Benmamoun, E., & Choueiri, L
(2010) The Syntax of Arabic. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ariel, M
(1990) Accessing Noun Phrase Antecedents. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2001) Accessibility Theory: An overview. In T. Sanders, J. Schilperoord & W. Spooren (Eds.), Text Representation: Linguistic and Psycholinguistic Aspects (pp. 29–87). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arnold, J., Brown-Schmidt, S., & Trueswell, J
(2007) Children’s use of gender and order-of-mention during pronoun comprehension. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22(4), 527–565. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arnold, J., Eisenband, J., Brown-Schmidt, S., & Trueswell, J
(2000) The rapid use of gender information: Evidence of the time course of pronoun resolution from eyetracking. Cognition, 76(1), B13-B26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bel, A., Perera, J., & Salas, N
(2010) Anaphoric devices in written and spoken narrative discourse: Data from Catalan. Written Language and Literacy, 13(2), 236–259. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Belletti, A., Bennati, E., & Sorace, A
(2007) Theoretical and developmental issues in the syntax of subjects: Evidence from near-native Italian. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 25, 657–689. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benmamoun, E
(2000) The Feature Structure of Functional Categories. A Comparative Study of Arabic Dialects. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bever, T., & Townsend, D
(1979) Perceptual mechanisms and formal properties of main and subordinate clauses. In W. Cooper & E.C.T. Walker (Eds.), Sentence Processing: Psycholinguistic Studies Presented to Merrill Garrett (pp. 159–226). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E
(2001) Bilingualism in Development: Language, Literacy and Cognition. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carminati, M.N
(2002) The Processing of Italian Subject Pronouns. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C
(2006) Grammatical processing in language learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 3–42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Prada Pérez, A
(2009) Subject Expression in Minorcan Spanish: Consequences of Contact with Catalan. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Pennsylvania State University.
Farghaly, A
(1982) Subject pronoun deletion rule in Egyptian Arabic. In S. Gamal & R. Bowers (Eds.), Discourse Analysis: Theory and Application Proceedings of the Second National Symposium on Linguistics and English Language Teaching (pp. 60–69). Cairo: Center for Developing English Language Teaching, Ain Shams University.Google Scholar
Filiaci, F
(2011) Anaphoric Preferences of Null and Overt Subjects in Italian and Spanish: a Cross-linguistic Comparison. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Edinburgh. DOI logo
Garnham, A., Oakhill J., & Cain K
(1998) Selective retention of information about the superficial form of text: Ellipses with antecedents in main and subordinate clauses. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 51(1), 19–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garvey, C., Caramazza, A., & Yates, J
(1975) Factors influencing assignment of pronouns and antecedents. Cognition, 3, 227–243. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Givón, T
(1984) Syntax: A Functional-Typological Introduction, Vol. I. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goikoetxea, E., Pascual, G., & Acha, J
(2008) Normative study of the implicit causality of 100 interpersonal verbs in Spanish. Behavior Research Methods, 40(3), 760–772. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gordon, P., Grosz, B., & Gilliom, L
(1993) Pronouns, Names, and the Centering of Attention in Discourse. Cognitive Science, 17(3), 311–347. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haznedar, B
(2006) Cross-linguistic interference in the bilingual acquisition of Turkish and English: The overuse of subjects in bilingual Turkish. Paper presented at GALANA 2, Montreal.
Hulk, A., & Müller, N
(2000) Bilingual first language acquisition at the interface between syntax and pragmatics. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3(3), 227–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jegerski, J., VanPatten, B., & Keating, G
(2011) Cross-linguistic variation and the acquisition of pronominal reference in L2 Spanish. Second Language Research, 27(4), 481–507. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keating, G., VanPatten, B., & Jegerski, J
(2011) Who was walking on the beach? Anaphora resolution in Spanish heritage speakers and adult second language learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33, 193–221. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kortobi, I
(2002) Gapping and VP-deletion in Moroccan Arabic. In J. Ouhalla & U. Shlonsky (Eds.), Themes in Arabic and Hebrew Syntax (pp. 217–240). Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lafond, L., Hayes, R., & Bhatt, R
(2001) Constraint demotion and null subjects in Spanish L2 acquisition. In J. Camps & C. Wiltshire (Eds.), Romance Syntax, Semantics and L2 Acquisition (pp. 121–135). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liceras, J.M
(1988) Syntax and stylistics: More on the pro-drop parameter. In J. Pankhurst, M. Sharwood Smith & P. Van Buren (Eds.), Learnability and Second Languages: A Book of Readings (pp. 71–93). Dordrecht: Foris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lozano, C
(2006) Focus and split intransitivity: The acquisition of word order alternations in non-native Spanish. Second Language Research, 22, 1–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Margaza, P., & Bel, A
(2006) Null subjects at the syntax-pragmatics interface: Evidence from Spanish interlanguage of Greek speakers. In M. Graham O’Brien, C. Shea & J. Archibald (Eds.), Proceedings of the 8th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (GASLA 2006) (pp. 88–97). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Mayol, L., & Clark, R
(2010) Pronouns in Catalan: Games of partial information and the use of linguistic resources. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 781–799. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S
(2004) Subject and object expression in Spanish heritage speakers: A case of morpho-syntactic convergence. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7(2), 125–142. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008) Incomplete Acquisition in Bilingualism: Re-examining the Age Factor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S., & Rodríguez Louro, C
(2006) Beyond the syntax of the null subject parameter: A look at the discourse-pragmatic distribution of null and overt subjects by L2 learners of Spanish. In V. Torrens & L. Escobar (Eds.), The Acquisition of Syntax in Romance Languages (pp. 401–418). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Müller, N., Kupisch, T., Schmitz, K., & Cantone, K
(2006) Einführung in die Mehrsprachigkeitsforschung. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paradis, J., & Navarro, S
(2003) Subject realization and cross-linguistic interference in the bilingual acquisition of Spanish and English: what is the role of input? Journal of Child Language, 30, 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pérez-Leroux, A.T., & Glass, W.R
(1999) Null anaphora in Spanish second language acquisition: Probabilistic versus generative approaches. Second Language Research, 15, 220–249. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pinto, M
(2006) Subject pronouns in bilinguals: Interference or maturation. In L. Escobar & V. Torrens (Eds.), The Acquisition of Syntax in Romance languages (pp. 331–352). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pires, A., & Rothman, J
(2009) Acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese in late childhood: Implications for syntactic theory and language change. In A. Pires & J. Rothman (Eds.), Minimalist Inquiries into Child and Adult Language Acquisition: Case Studies Across Portuguese (pp. 129–154). Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, L., Gullberg, M., & Indefrey, P
(2008) Online pronoun resolution in L2 discourse: L1 influence and general learner effects. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30(3), 333–357. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rothman, J
(2009) Pragmatic deficits with syntactic consequences? L2 pronominal subjects and the syntax-pragmatics interface. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, 951–973. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schulte-Nafeh, M
(2004) Overt Subject Pronouns in Cairene Arabic: Pragmatic and Syntactic Functions. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. The University of Arizona.
Serratrice, L
(2007) Cross-linguistic influence in the interpretation of anaphoric and cataphoric pronouns in English-Italian bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 10, 225–238. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Serratrice, L., Sorace, A., & Paoli, S
(2004) Subjects and objects in Italian-English bilingual and monolingual acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7, 183–206. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shin, N.L., & Cairns, H.S
(2012) The development of NP selection in school-age children: reference and Spanish subject pronouns. Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 19(1), 3–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sorace, A
(2004) Native language attrition and developmental instability at the syntax-discourse interface: Data, interpretations and methods. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7, 143–145. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2011) Pinning down the concept of “interface” in bilingualism. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1, 1–33. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sorace, A., & Filiaci, F
(2006) Anaphora resolution in near-native speakers of Italian. Second Language Research, 22, 339–368. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sorace, A., Serratrice, L., Filiaci, F., & Baldo, M
(2009) Discourse conditions on subject pronoun realization: Testing the linguistic intuitions of older bilingual children. Lingua, 119, 460–477. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trueswell, J., Papafragou, A., & Choi, Y
(2011) Syntactic and referential processes: What develops? In E. Gibson & N. Pearlmutter (Eds.), The Processing and Acquisition of Reference (pp. 65–108). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Unsworth, S
(2013) Assessing the role of current and cumulative exposure in simultaneous bilingual acquisition: The case of Dutch gender.’ Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16, 86–110. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 5 other publications

Castro, Tammer, Jason Rothman & Marit Westergaard
2016. Comparing anaphora resolution in early and late Brazilian Portuguese-European Portuguese bidialectal bilinguals. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics 29:2 ► pp. 429 ff. DOI logo
de Rocafiguera, Núria & Aurora Bel
2022. On the impact of clause order on pronoun resolution: evidence from Spanish. Folia Linguistica 56:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Feng, Shuo
2022. L2 tolerance of pragmatic violations of informativeness. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism DOI logo
García-Alcaraz, Estela & Aurora Bel
2019. Does empirical data from bilingual and native Spanish corpora meet linguistic theory? The role of discourse context in variation of subject expression . Applied Linguistics Review 10:4 ► pp. 491 ff. DOI logo
Romano, Francesco Bryan
2019. Remarks on research of anaphora resolution in situations of language contact: Cross-linguistic influence and the PAS. International Journal of Bilingualism 23:1 ► pp. 3 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 08 february 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.