Previous research has led to conflicting notions of the representation of L1 and L2 grammatical gender systems in the mental lexicon: under the gender-integrated representation hypothesis the L1 and L2 gender nodes are shared, while these nodes are language-specific in the gender autonomous representation hypothesis. We address this debate, extending this research to L1 and L2 systems mismatched in number of gender values. In this study, Spanish-German bilinguals performed an L2 picture-naming task in which gender congruency (congruent, incongruent and neuter) between L1 and L2 nouns was manipulated. Latencies were shorter for gender-congruent than gender-incongruent nouns, and latencies for the German neuter nouns were also shorter than those for the masculine-feminine incongruent nouns. These gender congruency effects support the gender-integrated representation hypothesis and indicate a unique representation of the gender value not present in the L1 which interferes with the response significantly less than when the incongruency is between gender values present in both languages.
Bringing together lines of research from sentence processing and lexical access, this empirical study investigates the interplay between lexical (grammatical gender) and syntactic (word order) cross-linguistic overlap in L2 German. Eighty-six L1 Spanish-L2 German and thirty-six monolingual German adults completed a German self-paced reading task with noun phrases (NPs) manipulated by L1-L2 gender congruency (congruent, incongruent, neuter) and L1-L2 adjective-noun word order (pre- vs. postnominal adjectives). The study examines the effects of gender congruency, the type of L1-L2 gender mapping (i.e., presence vs. absence of each class in L1 and L2), and L2 proficiency level. Results show that the detection of ungrammatical word order in L2 German interacts with gender congruency, in that L2 speakers are only sensitive to word order violations for sentences with gender-congruent nouns. The detection of ungrammaticality for sentences containing gender-incongruent nouns only emerges at higher L2 proficiency levels. These findings underscore the role of cross-linguistic lexical overlap in syntactic processing.
En español, los afijos flexivos solamente se ligan al núcleo morfológico y semántico de los compuestos de dos sustantivos (N-N), lo cual implica que el plural de casa cuna o de hombre lobo es casaS cuna y hombreS lobo respectivamente mientras que *casa cunaS y *hombre loboS son agramaticales porque el afijo flexivo está ligado al modificador. Sin embargo, en el caso de los sufijos derivativos y, en concreto, del sufijo evaluativo diminutivo-ito, parece existir más flexibilidad ya que, para algunos hablantes, el sufijo puede tener abarque sobre todo el compuesto tanto si está ligado al núcleo (casITA cuna / hombrecITO lobo) como si está ligado al modificador (casa cunITA / hombre lobITO). A partir de una Tarea de Interpretación de Imágenes y de una Tarea de Juicios de Aceptabilidad que se administraron a un grupo de hablantes de español peninsular y de portugués brasileño, se constata que el sufijo derivativo-ito se acepta con un grado significativamente mayor cuando va ligado al núcleo tal como sucede con el sufijo flexivo-s. Palabras clave: compuestos N-N, flexión, derivación, sufijos diminutivos, direccionalidad del núcleo.
ABSTRACT. This study examines bilinguals' gender use strategies in code-switched agreement (e.g. the moon es bonita) and concord (e.g. la moon) structures. Thirtyfive L1 Spanish-L2 English adult bilinguals and 43 L1 English-L2 Spanish adults with an intermediate (N=18) or advanced (N=25) level of proficiency in Spanish completed an acceptability judgment task in which they rated code-switched Adjectival Predicates and Determiner Phrases. The results show that only the L1 Spanish-L2 English bilinguals prefer the Adj (in the case of agreement) or the D (in the case of concord) to be marked for the gender of the Spanish translation equivalent of the English N, but that all groups rate agreement structures higher than concord structures. Both of these findings corroborate previous work on intrasentential code-switching, however, this is the first study to offer an account for the contrast in processing difficulty between agreement and concord structures. We argue that this difference can be explained in terms of the way in which the features are valued in agreement and in concord. Under the double-feature valuation mechanism (Liceras et al., 2008), in agreement both features are valued in a single direction, while in concord the features are valued in two different directions. It is the unidirectionality of the feature valuation mechanism in agreement that makes code-switched agreement structures such as Adjectival Predicates easier to process.Keywords: Spanish-English bilinguals, gender in code-switching, double-feature valuation mechanism, agreement, concord, directionality in feature checking, analogical criterion RESUMEN: En este trabajo se examinan las estrategias de uso de género de los bilingües en estructuras con alternancia de código de concordancia de predicado adjetivo (e.g. the moon es bonita) y en estructuras de acuerdo de determinante y sustantivo (e.g. la moon). Un grupo de 35 adultos bilingües con L1 español y L2 inglés y 42 adultos con L1 inglés y L2 español, con español de nivel intermedio (N=18) y de nivel avanzado (N=25), completaron una tarea de juicios de aceptabilidad en la que tenían que asignar un valor a Predicados Adjetivos y a Sintagmas Determinantes con alternancia de código. Los resultados muestran que solamente los bilingües con L1 español prefieren que el Adj (en el caso de la concordancia de predicados adjetivos) o el Det (en el caso del acuerdo entre determinante y sustantivo) esté marcado con el género de la palabra española con la que se traduce el sustantivo inglés, mientras que todos los grupos dan una puntuación mayor a las estructuras de concordancia de predicado adjetivo que a las de concordancia de determinante y sustantivo. Si bien ambos resultados confirman los que se han obtenido en estudios previos sobre alternancia de código dentro de la oración, este es el primer trabajo que trata de explicar el contraste que se produce a la hora de pro-RACHEL KLASSEN & JUANA M. LICERAS 78 cesar las estructuras de concordancia de predicado adjetivo y las de acuerdo entre determinante y...
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