Cover not available
Part of
East and West of The Pentacrest: Linguistic studies in honor of Paula Kempchinsky
Edited by Timothy Gupton and Elizabeth Gielau
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 33] 2021
► pp. 189–214

Chapter 9
Dual competence in dual language learners

Gradience and variability of object clitics in Spanish heritage language learners

| University of Michigan

This chapter focuses on grammatical variability in object clitic placement (omission and clitic climbing) and morphology (gender and number) in child heritage Spanish. Implementing Wexler’s (2003) Clitic Acquisition Theory (CAT), original corpus data from 60 U.S. Spanish heritage speakers (SHS), ages 4–7, are analyzed and compared to previous research on adult L1/L2/child L1 and bilingual acquisition on clitic expression and acceptability judgments. Results show SHS at all proficiency levels produce clitics to some degree; however compared to Wexler (2003) and subsequent CAT studies, SHS demonstrate ongoing clitic optionality. A high percentage of this variability is grammatical: for instance, no substantial difference in SHS frequencies for proclisis or enclisis occurs. In the spirit of L2 work by Slabakova, Rothman and Kempchinsky (2011), the Underlying and Surface Competence (Duffield, 2003) is tested as a generative-based account of variability in more mature child grammars, complementing CAT. The dual competence model provides a finer-grained snapshot of ‘adult-like’ Spanish clitic expression in children.

Keywords: Clitic Pronouns, Heritage Languages, Gradience, Child bilingualism
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Direct object clitics
    • 2.1Clitic distribution
    • 2.2Theoretical accounts of clitic acquisition and optionality
  • 3.The present study
    • 3.1Rationale and research hypotheses for the current study
    • 3.2Participants
    • 3.3Data collection
  • 4.Data, analysis and discussion
    • 4.1Clitic production data (simple and complex predicates)
    • 4.2Data interpretation and discussion
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 10 May 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.33.09sat
References
Arredondo, M., Rosado, M., & Satterfield, T.
(2016) Impact of heritage language on ethnic identity and literacy for Latino children. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 16(4), 245–266. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Avram, L.
(1999) Clitic omission in child language and multiple spell-out. Poster presentation at Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition, Potsdam, September 1999.
Babyonyshev, M., & Marin, S.
(2006) Acquisition of pronominal clitics in Romanian. Catalan Journal of Linguistics, 5, 17–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barr, R., Blachowicz, C., Buhle, R., Chaney, J., Ivy, C., & Suárez-Silva, G.
(2004a) A teacher’s guide to the ISEL-K/1Illinois snapshots of early literacy for kindergarten and first grade. Illinois State Board of Education.Google Scholar
Barr, R., Blachowicz, C., Buhle, R., Chaney, J., Ivy, C., Uchtman, A., Pigott, T., & Suárez-Silva, G.
(2004b) Illinois snapshots of early literacy kindergarten/grade technical manual. Illinois State Board of Education.Google Scholar
Bedore, L., & Leonard, L.
(2001) Grammatical morphology deficits in Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 44, 905–924. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E., McBride-Chang, C., & Luk, G.
(2005) Bilingualism, language proficiency, and learning to read in two writing systems. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97(4), 580–590. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bonet, E.
(1995) Feature structure of Romance clitics. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 13, 607–647. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bresnan, J., & Hay, J.
(2008) Gradient grammar: An effect of animacy on the syntax of ‘give’ in varieties of English. Lingua, 118(2), 245–259. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cacoullos, R.
(1999) Construction frequency and reductive change: Diachronic and register variation in Spanish clitic-climbing. Language Variation and Change, 11, 143–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cairns, H., Schlisselberg, G., Waltzman, D., & McDaniel, D.
(2006) Development of a metalinguistic skill: Judging the grammaticality of sentences. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 27(4), 213–220. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carstens, V.
(2000) Concord in minimalist theory. Linguistic Inquiry, 31(2), 319–355. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N.
(1995) The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
(2000) New horizons in the study of language and mind. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2005) Rules and representations. Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Costa, J., Lobo, M., Carmona, J., & Silva, C.
(2008) Clitic omission in European Portuguese: Correlation with null objects? In A. Gavarró & M. J. Freitas (Eds.), Language acquisition and development: Proceedings of GALA 2007 (pp. 133–143). Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Cuza, A., Pérez-Leroux, A., & Sánchez, L.
(2013) The role of semantic transfer in clitic drop among simultaneous and sequential Chinese-Spanish bilingual. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 35(1), 93–125. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
D’Alessandro, R., & Roberts, I.
(2008) Movement and agreement in Italian past participles and defective phases. Linguistic Inquiry, 39(3), 477–491. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davies, M.
(1995) Analyzing syntactic variation with computer-based corpora. Hispania, 78, 360–403. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
DeGraff, M.
(2005) Linguists’ most dangerous myth: The fallacy of Creole exceptionalism. Language in Society, 34(4), 533–591. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Demuth, K.
(1996) Collecting spontaneous production data. In D. McDaniel, C. McKee, & H. Smith Cairns (Eds.), Methods for assessing children’s syntax (pp. 3–22). The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Domínguez, L.
(2003) Interpreting reference in the early acquisition of Spanish clitics. In S. Montrul & F. Ordóñez (Eds.), Linguistic theory and language development in Hispanic languages: Papers from the 5th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium and the 4th Conference on the Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese (pp. 212–228). Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Duffield, N., & White, L.
(1999) Assessing L2 knowledge of Spanish clitic placement: Converging methodologies. Second Language Research, 15, 133–160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duffield, N.
(2003) Measures of competent gradience. In R. van Hout, A. Hulk, F. Kuiken, & R. J. Towell (Eds.), The lexicon-syntax interface in second language acquisition (pp. 97–127). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eisenchlas, S.
(2003) Clitics in child Spanish. First Language, 23(68), 193–211. Cascadilla Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Flores, C., & Barbosa, P.
(2014) When reduced input leads to delayed acquisition: a study on the acquisition of clitic placement by Portuguese heritage speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism, 18(3), 304–325. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Flores, C., Rinke, E., & Azevedo, C.
(2017) Object realization across generations. A closer look on the spontaneous speech of Portuguese first and second generation migrants. In E. Domenico (Ed.), Complexity in acquisition (pp. 179–206). Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G.
(2011) Matching books to readers: Using leveled books in guided reading, K-3. Heinemann.Google Scholar
Fujino, H., & Sano, T.
(2002) Aspects of the null object phenomenon in child Spanish. In J. Liceras & A. T. Pérez-Leroux (Eds.), The acquisition of Spanish morphosyntax (pp. 67–88). Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gavarró, A., Torrens, V., & Wexler, K.
(2010) Object clitic omission: Two language types. Language Acquisition, 17(4), 192–219. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grimshaw, J.
(1997) The best clitic: Constraint conflict in morphosyntax. In L. Haegemann (Ed.), Elements of grammar (pp. 169–196). Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guasti, M. T.
(1994) Verb syntax in Italian children grammar: Finite and nonfinite verbs. Language Acquisition, 3, 1–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guijarro-Fuentes, P., & Schmitz, K.
(2015) The nature and nurture of heritage language acquisition. Lingua, 169, 239–250. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ivanov, I.
(2008) L1 acquisition of Bulgarian object clitics: Unique checking constraint or failure to mark referentiality. In H. Chan, H. Jacob, & E. Kapia (Eds.), Proceedings of the 32nd annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 1 (pp. 189–200). Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Jakubowicz, C., Nash, L., Rigaut, C., & Gérard, C.
(1998) Determiners and clitic pronouns in French-speaking children with SLI. Language Acquisition, 7, 113–160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kayne, R.
(1991) Romance clitics, verb movement and PRO. Linguistic Inquiry, 22(4), 647–686.Google Scholar
Lozano, C.
(2002) Knowledge of expletive and pronominal subjects by learners of Spanish. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 135(6), 37–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
MacDonald, J., & Lozares, A.
(2021) Spanish impersonal se in control infinitivals and the ungrammaticality of se se sequences. In T. Gupton & E. Gielau (Eds.), East and West of The Pentacrest: Linguistic Studies in Honor of Paula Kempchinsky. John Benjamins. (This volume) DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marian, V., & Shook, A.
(2012) The cognitive benefits of being bilingual. Cerebrum, Dana Foundation, 1–12. Retrieved on 20 November from [URL]
Masullo, P.
(2004) Clitics aren’t climbers! Paper presentation at 34th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Linguistics, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2004.
Mayer, E.
(2017) Spanish clitics on the move: Variation in time and space. Mouton De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, C.
(2008) Morphological variability in second language Spanish (Upublshed doctoral dissertation). McGill University.Google Scholar
Montrul, S.
(2004) Subject and object expression in Spanish heritage speakers: A case of morphosyntactic convergence. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7(2), 125–142. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2010) How similar are L2 learners and heritage speakers? Spanish clitics and word order. Applied Psycholinguistics, 31, 167–207. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015) The acquisition of heritage languages. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Müller, N.
(Ed) (2003) (In)vulnerable domains in multilingualism. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2009) Language development in simultaneous bilingual children. In S. Foster-Cohen (Ed.), Language acquisition (pp. 243–272). Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ordoñez, F.
(2002) Some clitic combinations in the syntax of Romance. Catalan Journal of Linguistics, 1, 201–224. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Penke, M.
(2012) The acquisition of inflectional morphology. Paper presented at the University of Cologne in Köln, Germany.Google Scholar
Pérez-Leroux, A. T., Cuza, A., & Thomas, D.
(2011) Clitic placement in Spanish-English bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 221–232. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pérez-Leroux, A. T., Pirvulescu, M., & Roberges, Y.
(2017) Direct objects and language acquisition. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pinker, S.
(2013 [1989]) Learnability and cognition: The acquisition of argument structure. The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pirvulescu, M., Pérez-Leroux, A. T., Roberge, Y., Strik, N., & Thomas, D.
(2014) Bilingual effects: Exploring object omission in pronominal languages. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17(3), 495–510. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Polinsky, M.
(2016) Structure vs. use in heritage language. Linguistic Vanguard, 2(1), aop. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Polinsky, M., & Kagan, O.
(2007) Heritage languages: In the ‘wild’ and in the classroom. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1(5), 368–395. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pollard-Durodola, S. D., González, J. E., Satterfield, T., Benkí, J., Vaquero, J., & Ungco, C.
(2017) Parent book talk to accelerate Spanish content vocabulary knowledge. The Reading Teacher, 17(3), 345–355. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raposo, E.
(1986) On the null object construction in European Portuguese. In O. Jaegglie & C. Silva-Corvalán (Eds.), Studies in Romance linguistics (pp. 373–390). Foris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raposo, E., & Uriagereka, J.
(2005) Clitic placement in Western Iberian: A minimalist view. In G. Cinque & R. Kayne (Eds.), Handbook of comparative syntax (pp. 639–697). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Reig Alamillo, A., & Schwenter, S. A.
(2007) Null objects and neuter lo: A cross-dialectal variationist analysis. In J. Holmquist, A. Lorenzino, & L. Sayahi (Eds.), Selected proceedings on the Third Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (pp. 113–121). Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Requena, P.
(2015) Direct object clitic placement preferences in Argentine child Spanish (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Requena, P., & Dracos, M.
(2018) Impermeability of L1 syntax: Spanish variable clitic placement in bilingual children. In A. B. Bertolini & M. J. Kaplan (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 2 (pp. 644–658). Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Rizzi, L.
(1978) A restructuring rule in Italian syntax. In S. J. Keyser (Ed.), Recent transformational studies in European languages (pp. 113–158). The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sainzmaza-Lecanda, L., & Schwenter, S. A.
(2017) Null objects with and without bilingualism in the Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking world. In K. Bellami, M. Child, P. González, A. Mutendam, & M. C. Parafita Couto (Eds.), Multidisciplinary approaches to bilingualism in the Hispanic and Lusophone world (pp. 95–121). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Satterfield, T.
(1999a) The shell game: Why children never lose. Syntax 2(1), 28–37. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1999b) Bilingual selection of syntactic knowledge: Extending the principles and parameters approach. Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Satterfield, T., & Barrett, R.
(2004) Generation gap: Explaining new and emerging word-order phenomena in Mayan-Spanish bilinguals. Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Bilingualism in Latin America, 285–300. Buenos Aires: ESSARP.Google Scholar
Satterfield, T., & Saleemi, A. P.
(2009) Mind the gap: Epistemology and development of natural language. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 12(1), 1–24.Google Scholar
Seabrooks, D.
(2017) Child acquisition of clitic impersonal constructions: An empirical study on the CHILDES corpora (Unpublished MA thesis). University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Shin, N., Requena, P., & Kemp, A.
(2017) Bilingual and monolingual children’s patterns of syntactic variation: Variable clitic placement in Spanish. In A. Auza Benavides & R. G. Schwartz (Eds.), Language disorders and development in bilingual children (pp. 63–88). Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Simons, G. F. & Fennig, C. D.
(Eds) (2018) Ethnologue: Languages of the world, twenty-first edition. SIL International.Google Scholar
Sinnott, S. & Smith, E.
(2007) ¿Subir o no subir? A look at clitic climbing in Spanish (Unpublished manuscript). The Ohio State University and Pikeville College.Google Scholar
Slabakova, R., Rothman, J., & Kempchinsky, P.
(2011) Gradient Competence at the syntax-discourse interface. Eueosla Yearbook, 11, 218–243. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sorace, A.
(2000) Syntactic optionality in non-native grammars. Second Language Research, 16(2), 93–102. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Snyder, W.
(2007) Child language: The parametric approach. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sportiche, D.
(1993) Subject clitics in French and Romance: Complex inversion and clitic doubling (Unpublished manuscript). University of California-Los Angeles.Google Scholar
(1996) Clitic constructions. In J. Rooryck & L. Zaring (Eds.), Phrase structure and the lexicon (pp 213–276). Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Suñer, M.
(1983) proarb . Linguistic Inquiry, 14, 188–191.Google Scholar
(1988) The role of agreement in clitic-doubled constructions. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 6(3), 391–434. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tsakali, V., & Wexler, K.
(2004) Why children omit clitics in some languages, but not in others: New evidence from Greek. In J. van Kampen & S. J. Baauw (Eds.), Proceedings of GALA 2003 (pp. 493–504). LOT.Google Scholar
Thomas, D.
(2012) Grammatical optional and variability in bilingualism: How Spanish-English bilinguals limit clitic-climbing (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Tjunelis, V., Satterfield, T., & Benkí, J.
(2013) Linking service-learning opportunities and domestic immersion experiences in US Latino communities: A case study of the En Nuestra Lengua Project. Hispania, 96(2), 264–282. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Toribio, A. J.
(2000) Setting parametric limits on dialectal variation in Spanish. Lingua, 110(5), 315–341. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Uriagereka, J.
(1995) Aspects of the syntax of clitic placement in western Romance. Linguistic Inquiry, 26(1), 79–123.Google Scholar
Valdés, G.
(2000) Spanish for native speakers: AATSP professional development series handbook for teachers K-16, 1. Harcourt College.Google Scholar
(2005) Bilingualism, heritage language learners, and SLA research: opportunities lost or seized? Modern Language Journal, 89(3), 410–426. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wexler, K.
(1998) Very early parameter-setting and the unique checking constraint: A new explanation of the optional infinitive stage. Lingua, 106, 23–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2003) The unique checking constraint as the explanation of clitic omission in SLI and normal development. In C. Jakubowicz, L. Nash, & K. Wexler (Eds.), Essays on syntax, morphology and phonology in SLI. The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wexler, K., Gavarró, A., & Torrens, V.
(2004) Feature checking and object clitic omission in child Spanish and Catalan. In R. Bok-Bennema, B. Hollebrandse, B. Kampers-Manhe, & P. Sleeman (Eds.), Romance language and linguistic theories 2002 (pp. 253–269). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wexler, K.
(2014) The unique checking constraint as the explanation of clitic omission in normal and SLI development. In K. Grohmann & T. Neokoleus (Eds.), Developments in the acquisition of clitics (pp. 292–349). Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Shin, Naomi
2022. Structured variation in child heritage speakers' grammars. Language and Linguistics Compass 16:12 DOI logo
Shin, Naomi L.
2023. Está abriendo, la abrió: Lexical knowledge, verb type, and grammatical aspect shape child heritage speakers’ direct object omission in Spanish. International Journal of Bilingualism 27:5 ► pp. 842 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 march 2024. 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.