Cover not available
Article published In:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 14:3 (2024) ► pp.340–369

Syntactic outcomes of socially (un)restricted bilingualism in Spain

Word order with unergative and unaccusative verbs across two generations of Basque speakers

ORCID logo | University of Miami
The present study uses the apparent-time construct to analyze cross-generational variability of word order in unergative and unaccusative constructions in Basque (e.g., negar ein ‘to cry’ and heldu ‘to arrive’, respectively). It considers the results of an acceptability judgment as well as elicitation tasks carried out among two generations of Basque native speakers (55–75 years old, and 35–45 years old). Unlike the younger participants, the older participants lack the syntactic focus strategy. It is proposed that this lack among the older participants was conditioned by the socially restricted bilingualism that they experienced during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939–1975), while the younger participants appeared to have acquired (i.e. recovered) the syntactic focus strategy because they experienced the legitimacy and vitality of Basque in public life and in formal education following the Normalization Law of 1982. Studies in Basque sociolinguistics have identified language changes through feature loss, dialectal leveling and contact-induced change, but no studies to date have identified the recovery of a previously lost syntactic structure.
Keywords: word order, intransitive verbs, societal bilingualism, language contact and change, syntax–discourse interface
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Status of Basque in the Basque Autonomous Community: Past and present
  • 3.Review of previous research
  • 4.Unergative and unaccusative verbs
    • 4.1Syntactic distinction
    • 4.2Discursive context
  • 5.The present study
    • 5.1Participants
    • 5.2Acceptability judgment task
      • 5.2.1Materials and procedure
      • 5.2.2Findings
    • 5.3Short-answer task
      • 5.3.1Materials and procedure
      • 5.3.2Findings
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion and further research
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 31 October 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.21042.gon
References (113)
References
Altube, S. (1929). Erderismos. Gaubeka.Google Scholar
Amorrortu, E. (2003). Hizkuntza aldakortasuna eta identitatea. In I. Gaminde, J. L. Goikoetxea, & I. Sarriugarte (Eds.), Ahozkotasuna aztergai (pp 157–167). Mendebalde Kultura Allartea.Google Scholar
Andersen, R. (1982). Determining the linguistic attributes of language attrition. In R. Lambert, & B. Freed (Eds.), The Loss of Language Skills (pp. 83–118). Newbury House.Google Scholar
Ariztimuño, B. (2009). Tolosako eta Ataungo hizkerak: hizkuntz bariazioa eta konbergentzia joerak. Uztaro, 72 1, 79–96.Google Scholar
Arregi, K. (2002). Focus on Basque movements. [Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology]. DSpace@MIT.
(2016). Focus projection theories. In C. Féry, & S. Ishihara (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure (pp. 185–202). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Aurrekoetxea, G. (2008). Bariazio soziolinguistikoa Dimako euskaran. Euskalingua, 12 1, 17–26.Google Scholar
Azurmendi, M. J., Larrañaga, N., & Apalategi, J. (2008). Bilingualism, identity and citizenship in the Basque Country. In M. Niño-Murcia, & J. Rothman (Eds.), Bilingualism and Identity (pp. 35–62). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Birdsong, D., Gertken, L. M., & Amengual, M. (2012). Bilingual language profile: An easy-to-use instrument to assess bilingualism. COERLL, University of Texas at Austin. [URL]
Brunetti, L. (2003). Information focus movement in Italian and contextual constraints on ellipsis. In G. Garding, & M. Tsujimura (Eds.), Proceedings of 22nd West Conference on Formal Linguistics (pp. 95–108). Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Büring, D., & Gutiérrez-Bravo, R. (2001). Focus-related word order variation without the NSR: A prosody-based crosslinguistic analysis. In S. Mac Bloscaidh (Ed.), Syntax at Santa Cruz 3 (pp. 41–58). Google Scholar
Burzio, L. (1986). Italian syntax: A government-binding approach. D. Reidel Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, J. (2003). Phonology and language use (Vol. 941). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(2005). Language change and universals. In R. Mairal, & J. Gil (Eds.), Linguistic universals (pp. 179–194). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Choi, H. W. (2003). Paradigm leveling in American Korean. Language Research, 39 1, 183–204.Google Scholar
Christensen, R. H. B. (2019). Ordinal – Regression Models for Ordinal Data. [R package ordinal version 2019.12–10].Google Scholar
Costa, J. (2001). The emergence of unmarked word order. G. Legendre, G., Grimshaw, J., & Vikner, S. (Eds.), Optimality-Theoretic Syntax (pp. 171–204). MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dekydtspotter, L., Sprouse, R. A., & Anderson, B. (1997). The interpretive interface in L2 acquisition: The process-result distinction in English-French interlanguage grammars. Language Acquisition, 6 (4), 297–332. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67 (1), 1–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Elordieta, A. (2001). Verb movement and constituent permutation in Basque. Landelijke Onderzoekschool Taalwetenschap (LOT).Google Scholar
Ensunza, A. (2012). Gernika-Lumoko euskararen aldakortasuna: aldagai fonetiko zenbait. Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca “Julio de Urquijo”, 46 (2), 177–244.Google Scholar
(2016). The sociolinguistic variation of palatalization: The case of Gernika-Lumo. Dialectología, 16 1, 71–91.Google Scholar
Etxepare, R. (2015). How does adjacency arise? Grammatical conditions on focus-verb adjacency in Basque. In M. Jocelyne Fernandez-Vest, & R. Van Valin (Eds.), Information structuring of spoken language from a cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 121–148). De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eustat (2016). Datos estadísticos de la C.A. de Euskadi. Vitoria-Gasteiz: Euskal Estatistika Erakundea. [URL]
Ezenarro, A. (2008). Etxebarri eta Bolibarko bariazio linguistikoa. Uztaro: giza eta gizarte-zientzien aldizkaria, (671), 59–84.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. (1971). Absence of copula and the notion of simplicity: a study of normal speech, baby talk, foreigner talk and pidgins. In D. Hymes (Ed.), Pidginization and Creolization of Languages (pp. 141–150). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(1982). Simplified registers and linguistic theory. Exceptional language and linguistics, 49–66.Google Scholar
Gabriel, C. (2010). On focus, prosody, and word order in Argentinean Spanish: A minimalist OT account. Revista virtual de estudos da linguagem, 4 1, 183–222.Google Scholar
Gaminde, I. (2003). Mungialdeko herskarien eta afrikatuen txandaketaz. Euskalingua, 2 1, 10–17.Google Scholar
(2009). Hiztunen generoaren eta adinaren pertzepzioaz. Revista de sociolingüística BAT, 71 1, 151–164.Google Scholar
Garmendia, L. (2008). Hizkuntza aldakortasuna Zaldibiako euskaran: ikuspegi soziolinguistikoa. In Euskalgintza XXI. mendeari buruz. Euskaltzaindiaren nazioarteko XV. biltzarra, 2001 (pp. 101–111). Euskaltzaindia.Google Scholar
Gellon, S. (2015). La adquisición del orden verbo sujeto en español por estudiantes de herencia de español. [Doctoral dissertation, University of Houston]. Published ETD Collection.
Gertken, L. M., Amengual, M., & Birdsong, D. (2014). Assessing language dominance with the Bilingual language profile. In P. Leclercq, A. Edmonds, & H. Hilton (Eds.), Measuring L2 proficiency (pp. 208–225). Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giacalone-Ramat, A. (1983). Language shift and language death. Folia linguistica, 17 1, 495–507.Google Scholar
Gondra, A. (2018). Cross-generational syntactic variation in Mundaka Basque: the influence of the language of instruction. Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca “Julio de Urquijo”, 47 (2), 235–256. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2020). Testing the Interface Hypothesis: Heritage speakers’ perception and production of Spanish subject position with unergative and unaccusative verbs. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 25 (5), 1730–1764, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Groot, C. (2005). The grammars of Hungarian outside Hungary from a linguistic-typological perspective. In A. Fenyvesi (Ed.), Hungarian language contact outside Hungary (pp. 351–370). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guitart, J. M. (1982). On the use of the Spanish subjunctive among Spanish-English bilinguals. Word, 33 (1–2), 59–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haddican, W. (2005). Standardization, functional shift and language change in Basque. Sociolinguistic Studies, 6 (1), 87–11, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haddican, B. (2007). Suburbanization and language change in Basque. Language in Society, 36 (5), 677–706. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hale, K., & Keyser, S. J. (1993). On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations. In K. Hale & S. Keyser (Eds.), The view from Building 20, Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger (pp. 53–109). MIT Press.Google Scholar
Heine, B., & Kuteva, T. (2005). Language contact and grammatical change. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2006). The changing languages of Europe. Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hertel, T. J. (2003). Lexical and discourse factors in the second language acquisition of Spanish word order. Second Language Research, 19 (4), 273–304. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hoot, B. (2012). Presentational focus in heritage and monolingual Spanish [Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Chicago]. ProQuest.
(2014). Narrow presentational focus in Mexican Spanish: Experimental evidence. Probus, 28 (2), 335–365.Google Scholar
(2017). Narrow presentational focus in heritage Spanish and the syntax-discourse interface. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 7 (1), 63–95. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hualde, J. I., Elordieta, G., & Elordieta, A. (1994). The Basque dialect of Lekeitio. Bilbo: Universidad del País Vasco; Donostia: Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa.Google Scholar
Hualde, J. I., & Zuazo, K. (2007). The standardization of the Basque language. Language Problems and Language Planning, 31 (2), 143–168. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hualde, J. I., & Ortiz de Urbina, J. (2011). A grammar of Basque. Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kadmon, N. (2001). Formal pragmatics semantics, pragmatics, presupposition, and focus. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kennard, H. J. (2013). Breton morphosyntax in two generations of speakers: evidence from word order and mutation [Doctoral dissertation, Oxford University, UK]. Oxford University Research Archive (ORA).
Kusters, W. (2003). Linguistic complexity: The influence of social change on verbal inflection [Doctoral dissertation, Universiteit Leiden, Netherlands). Landelijke Onderzoekschool Taalwetenschap (LOT).
Labov, W. (1963). The social motivation of a sound change. Word, 19 (3), 273–309. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Landa, A., & Elordui, A. (2001). Sobre las gramáticas bilingües y la permeabilidad estructural. Estudios de Lingüística Inglesa Aplicada, 2 1, 143–157.Google Scholar
Langacker, R. W. (2000). A dynamic usage-based model. In M. Barlow, & K. Kemmer (Eds.), Usage-based models of language (pp. 1–64). CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Laka, I. (1993). Unergatives that assign ergative, unaccusatives that assign accusative. MIT working papers in linguistics, 18 1, 149–172.Google Scholar
Leal Méndez, T., Rothman, J., & Slabakova, R. (2015). Discourse-sensitive clitic-doubled dislocations in heritage Spanish. Lingua, 155 1, 85–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leal, T., Destruel, E., & Hoot, B. (2018). The realization of information focus in monolingual and bilingual native Spanish. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 8 (2), 217–251. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levin, B. (1983). On the Nature of Ergativity. [Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology]. DSpace@MIT.
Lujanbio, L. (2016). Hizkuntza-aldakortasuna euskaran. Nafarroa ipar-mendebaldeko bi udalerritan egindako azterketa [Doctoral dissertation, Universidad del País Vasco-Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea]. Dialnet.
Mahajan, G. (2009). Heritage-Schmeritage: It’s their language. Paper presented at the Second Language Acquisition Conference , San Diego, April 2009.
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). Current issues in heritage language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 30 1, 3–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2012). Is the heritage language like a second language? Eurosla Yearbook, 12 (1), 1–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015). The acquisition of heritage languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. & Polinsky, M. (2011). Why not HL Speakers? Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1 (1), 58–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mougeon, R., Nadasdi, T., & Rehner, K. (2005). Contact-induced linguistic innovations on the continuum of language use: The case of French in Ontario. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 8 (2), 99–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2010). The Sociolinguistic Competence of Immersion Students. Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Myers-Scotton, C. (1997). Duelling languages: Grammatical structure in codeswitching. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Muxika-Loitzate, O. (2017). Sibilant merger in the variety of Basque spoken in Amorebieta-Etxano. Languages, 2 (4), 25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nance, C. (2022). Sound change or community change? The speech community in sound change studies: A case study of Scottish Gaelic. Linguistics Vangua. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ormaetxea, J. L. (2008). Otxandioko hizkera: Adinaren araberako bariazioa [Age-based variation in Otxandio Basque]. Fontes Linguae Vasconum, 40 1, 249–262.Google Scholar
(2011). Apparent time variation in Basque: Variation in Aramaio and Otxandio. Dialectología, 6 1, 25–44.Google Scholar
Ortiz de Urbina, J. (2019). Parameters in the Grammar of Basque. De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Perlmutter, D. M. (1978). Impersonal passives and the unaccusative hypothesis. Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 4 1, 157–190. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Polinsky, M. (1995). Cross-linguistic parallels in language loss. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 14 (1–2), 88–123.Google Scholar
(2006). Incomplete acquisition: American Russian. Journal of Slavic linguistics, 14 1, 191–262.Google Scholar
(2018). Heritage languages and their speakers. Cambridge University Press. 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
de Prada Pérez, A., & Pascual y Cabo, D. (2012). Interface heritage speech across proficiencies: unaccusativity, focus, and subject position in Spanish. In K. Geeslin, & M. Díaz-Campos (Eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 308–318). Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Preminger, O. (2012). The absence of an implicit object in unergatives: New and old evidence from Basque. Lingua, 122 (3), 278–288. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
R Core Team (2021). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.Google Scholar
Rinke, E., & Flores, C. (2014). Morphosyntactic knowledge of clitics by Portuguese heritage bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17 (4), 681–699. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rodríguez-Ordóñez, I. (2016). Differential object marking in Basque: Grammaticalization, attitudes and ideological representations. [Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign]. ProQuest.
(2017). Reexamining differential object marking as a linguistic contact-phenomenon in Gernika Basque. Journal of Language Contact, 10 (2), 318–352. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2019). Changes in the pitch-accent system of Gernika Basque. Fontes Linguae Vasconum, 127 (1), 123–151. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2020). The acquisition of Differential Object Marking in Basque as a sociolinguistic variable. In A. Mardale, & S. Montrul (Eds.), The acquisition of differential object marking (pp. 105–131). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rodríguez-Ordóñez, I., & Sainzmaza-Lecanda, L. (2018). Bilingualism effects in Basque subject pronoun expression: Evidence from L2 Basque. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 8 (5), 523–560. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ross, M. (2013). Diagnosing contact processes from their outcomes: The importance of life stages. Journal of Language Contact, 6(1), 5–47. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rothman, J. (2009). Understanding the nature and outcomes of early bilingualism: Romance languages as heritage languages. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13 (2), 155–163. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Russell, L. (2022). Emmeans: estimated marginal means, aka least-squares means. R package version 1.7.2.Google Scholar
Santazilia, E. (2009). Luzaideko hizkuntz bariazioa. Fontes Linguae Vasconum: Studia et documenta, 41 (111), 219–248.Google Scholar
Shin, N. L. (2014). Grammatical complexification in Spanish in New York: 3sg pronoun expression and verbal ambiguity. Language Variation and Change, 26 (3), 303–330. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, C. (1994). Language contact and change: Spanish in Los Angeles. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sorace, A. (2006). Gradience and optionality in mature and developing grammars. In G. Fanselow, C. Féry, M. Schlesewsky, & R. Vogel (Eds.), Gradience in Grammar: Generative Perspective (pp. 106–123). Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2011). Pinning down the concept of “interface” in bilingualism. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1 (1), 1–33. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sorace, A., & Filiaci, F. (2006). Anaphora resolution in near-native speakers of Italian. Second Language Research, 22 (3), 339–368. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thomason, S. G., & Kaufman, T. (1988). Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. University of California Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thomas, E. M., Williams, N., Jones, L. A., Davies, S., & Binks, H. (2014). Acquiring complex structures under minority language conditions: Bilingual acquisition of plural morphology in Welsh. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17 (3), 478–494. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2008). Origins of human communication. Institute of Technology Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Trudgill, P. (2011). Sociolinguistic typology: Social determinants of linguistic complexity. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I., & Sorace, A. (2006). Differentiating interfaces: L2 performance in syntax–semantics and syntax–discourse phenomena. In D. Bamman, T. Magnitskaia, & C. Zaller (Eds.) BUCLD Proceedings, 30 1 (pp. 653–664). Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Unamuno, L., & Aurrekoetxea, G. (2013). Dialect levelling in the Basque Country. Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics, 19 (1), 152–167.Google Scholar
Urla, J. (2012). Reclaiming Basque: Language, nation, and cultural activism. University of Nevada Press.Google Scholar
Urla, J., Amorrortu, E., Ortega, A., & Goirigolzarri, J. (2018). Basque standardization and the new speaker: Political praxis and the shifting dynamics of authority and value. In Lane, P., Costa, J., & De Korne, H. (Eds.), Standardizing minority languages (pp. 24–46). Routledge.Google Scholar
Viswanath, A. (2013). Heritage English in Israeli children. [Undergraduate Honors thesis, Harvard University]. Harvard Dataverse.
Zalbide, M., & Cenoz, J. (2008). Bilingual education in the Basque Autonomous Community: Achievements and challenges. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 21 (1), 5–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zapata, G. C., Sánchez, L., & Toribio, A. J. (2005). Contact and contracting Spanish. International Journal of Bilingualism, 9 (3–4), 377–395. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zubizarreta, M. L. (1998). Prosody, focus, and word order. MIT Press.Google Scholar