This cross-sectional study examines the production of tense and aspect morphology in child and adult heritage Spanish, with the view of informing the development of pedagogical interventions in Spanish language for child and adult heritage Spanish speakers. We compare natural production data from Spanish/English bilingual speakers with monolingual children and adults matched by age. Results show a preference for the production of the preterite as opposed to the imperfect among the older bilingual children, compared to younger children and adults, suggesting L1 attrition in the life span. We argue that the overproduction of preterite tense might be due to semantic transfer from English and morphosemantic restructuring of the aspectual system. The imperfect tense remains underdeveloped across all age groups in the bilingual population, and competes with present tense in adulthood, suggesting incomplete development. Based on these results, we discuss important pedagogical implications for the teaching of aspectual distinctions in heritage Spanish. Finally, we conclude that both L1 attrition and incomplete acquisition play a fundamental role in heritage language development, depending on the type of linguistic knowledge, which has an impact on the Spanish language teaching practices to be adopted for child and adult heritage speakers.
Bayram, Fatih, Josh Prada, Diego Pascual y Cabo & Jason Rothman
2016. Why Should Formal Linguistic Approaches to Heritage Language Acquisition Be Linked to Heritage Language Pedagogies?. In Handbook of Comparative Studies on Community Colleges and Global Counterparts [Springer International Handbooks of Education, ], ► pp. 1 ff.
Bayram, Fatih, Josh Prada, Diego Pascual y Cabo & Jason Rothman
2018. Why Should Formal Linguistic Approaches to Heritage Language Acquisition Be Linked to Heritage Language Pedagogies?. In Handbook of Comparative Studies on Community Colleges and Global Counterparts [Springer International Handbooks of Education, ], ► pp. 1 ff.
Bayram, Fatih, Josh Prada, Diego Pascual y Cabo & Jason Rothman
2018. Why Should Formal Linguistic Approaches to Heritage Language Acquisition Be Linked to Heritage Language Pedagogies?. In Handbook of Research and Practice in Heritage Language Education [Springer International Handbooks of Education, ], ► pp. 187 ff.
2019. Structure complexity effects in child heritage Spanish: The case of the Spanish personala. International Journal of Bilingualism 23:6 ► pp. 1333 ff.
CUZA, ALEJANDRO & ROCÍO PÉREZ-TATTAM
2016. Grammatical gender selection and phrasal word order in child heritage Spanish: A feature re-assembly approach. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 19:1 ► pp. 50 ff.
Dosi, Ifigeneia & Despina Papadopoulou
2020. The role of educational setting in the development of verbal aspect and executive functions: evidence from Greek-German bilingual children. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 23:8 ► pp. 964 ff.
Dosi, Ifigeneia, Despina Papadopoulou & Ianthi Maria Tsimpli
2023. Frequency matters in second language acquisition too! Frequency effects in the production of preterit morphology with state verbs in Spanish second language learners and heritage speakers. Lingua 295 ► pp. 103611 ff.
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