Bilingual Alignments

Abstract

The issue of how to distinguish bilingual syntactic representations from processing preferences or strategies is addressed by postulating the concept of permeable bilingual alignments as memory storage devices that include information from different language components. Supporting evidence from phenomena such as the emergence of innovative mappings across different components (phonology, morphology, syntax, the lexicon, and information structure), bidirectional transfer, and frequency effects is presented, and some possible consequences of adopting this proposal are discussed.

<i>Me, mi, my</i>: Innovation and variability in heritage speakers’ knowledge of inalienable possession

“…In Romanian, referential stability is the most highly ranked feature triggering the presence of DOM. What happens when Spanish-Romanian bilinguals juggle these two different DOM systems offers a revealing example of how patterns of bilingual variability can be consistent with Sánchez's (2019) alignments proposal. López-Otero (2019) reports that Spanish-Romanian bilinguals produce more DOM with inanimate demonstratives than Spanish monolinguals, apparently due to Romanian to Spanish influence.…”

“…For this reason, we begin Section 2 by reflecting upon one account of bilingual variability-transfer/ cross-linguistic influence-that has been proposed not just for HSs, but also other bilinguals, too. In describing the notion of transfer/cross-linguistic influence, our goal is simply to provide a theoretical background against which to compare the alternative account of bilingual alignments (Sánchez 2019) that we will focus on throughout the remainder of the paper.…”

“…One recent account of bilingual variability is Sánchez's (2019) hypothesis of bilingual alignments, a proposal we will reference throughout the remainder of this paper. Sánchez (2019) defines alignments as non-representational units composed of features from different language components (phonological form, morphology, syntax, and semantics) that are linked and stored in speakers' minds in order to facilitate their production and comprehension of language. While Sánchez proposes that all speakers-both monolingual and multilingualrely upon alignments, the idea of alignments becomes particularly useful for researchers when seeking to understand bilingual variability-especially in societal language contact situations.…”

“…Curiously though, despite exhibiting Romanian to Spanish influence in Spanish production, these bilinguals also displayed evidence of Spanish to Romanian influence in Romanian comprehension, where they were more likely to accept non-DOM marked demonstratives in Romanian, presumably because referential stability is not a factor that triggers DOM in Spanish. Sánchez (2019) argues that these patterns of bilingual variability are directly attributable to these speakers' bilingual alignments.…”

“…As noted above, Sánchez (2019) posits that bilingual alignments in a Language A are both permeable, in the sense that they allow for features from Language B to "bleed into" them, and transient, in the sense that this permeability is a temporary linking that does not necessarily imply anything about a bilingual's underlying representation of the relevant features at play. If we grant these assumptions, then it becomes easier to see what might be happening in the minds of the Spanish-Romanian bilinguals reported in López-Otero (2019).…”