How frequent are these verbs?

Abstract

In monolingual (L1) acquisition, children produce target-like subject-verb agreement early in development in both Spanish (Grinstead 1998) and English (Guasti 2002). However, in heritage simultaneous bilinguals (2L1) and child second language acquirers (L2), agreement morphology shows variability (Goldin 2020; Herschensohn & Stevenson 2005) due to age of acquisition (AoA) effects. Lexical frequency is another factor that has been shown to play a role in modulating L1 (i.e. Ambridge et al. 2015) and heritage acquisition (i.e. Giancaspro 2017, 2020), but little is known about its effect in child L2. This study explores the extent to which verb lexical frequency plays a role in the acquisition of verb morphology for bilingual children with differing AoA, comparing 42 2L1 heritage children with 46 L2 Spanish learners with AoA of 5;0. They participated in a Spanish fill-in-the-blanks production task. The results of an analysis focused on singular correr and comer (chosen because they differ in only one phoneme) indicated that responses to comer, the more frequent verb, were more target-like for both groups, and that frequency showed a stronger effect for heritage 2L1 children than for L2 children, while also modulating non-target-like responses. We discuss these findings with implications for bilingual development and education.

Infinitive vs. Gerund Use and Interpretation in Heritage Spanish

“…This approach argues that the divergences in heritage grammars can be explained in relation to factors such as patterns of language activation and use, proficiency, and lexical frequency for both production and comprehension purposes. The lack of activation of the heritage language might contribute to morphosyntactic variability and potential restructuring of L1 features (Goldin et al 2023;Hur 2020;Hur et al 2020;López Otero 2022;López Otero et al 2023;Perez-Cortes 2016;Putnam and Sánchez 2013;Putnam et al 2019;Sánchez et al 2023;Thane 2023). Thus, it is possible that some properties of the heritage grammar undergo grammatical reconfiguration or reassembly of their internal representation due to low lexical activation, crucially when difficulties in both production and interpretation seem to converge.…”

Imperatives in Heritage Spanish: Lexical Access and Lexical Frequency Effects

“…Such variability has been linked to patterns of heritage language exposure and use as an operationalization of heritage language activation (e.g., Cuza and Pérez-Tattam 2015;Goldin 2020;López Otero et al 2021;López Otero et al 2023). Other studies have found lexical frequency effects in heritage Spanish (Giancaspro 2017;Goldin et al 2023;Hur 2020;Hur et al 2020;López Otero 2022;Perez-Cortes 2022). These studies operationalized heritage language activation as lexical frequency and hypothesized that heritage speakers activate frequent lexical items more often than infrequent lexical items.…”

“…Following Putnam and Sánchez's (2013) activation approach, the constant activation of the L2, which is the heritage speakers' dominant language, leads to the inhibition of the heritage language for both production and comprehension purposes. Previous studies have found that heritage language activation can be operationalized as lexical frequency and, consequently, the acquisition of (morpho)syntactic properties presents lesser degrees of variability with frequent lexical items than with infrequent lexical items (e.g., Giancaspro 2017;Goldin et al 2023;Hur 2020;Hur et al 2020;López Otero 2022;Perez-Cortes 2022).…”

Being a heritage speaker matters: the role of markedness in subject-verb person agreement in Italian

“…The present study endeavors to move beyond descriptive comparison related to whether/how HSs perform compared to homeland L1-dominant counterparts ( Rothman et al, 2023 ). After all, there is little doubt that there will be aggregate-level differences in terms of accuracy rates and reading times (RTs), likely related, at least in part, to the many co-existing factors that pertain (more) to HL acquisition/processing, including (although not limited to) linguistic proficiency, levels of literacy, age of acquisition effects, the role of lexical frequency, language dominance, frequency of use, type of input, as well as socio-motivational and individual cognitive factors (among others De Houwer, 2011 ; Unsworth, 2016 ; Kupisch and Rothman, 2018 ; Lloyd-Smith et al, 2020 ; Bice and Kroll, 2021 ; Keating, 2022 ; Pereira Soares, 2022 ; Sagarra and Rodriguez, 2022 ; Goldin et al, 2023 ; Jegerski and Keating, 2023 ; Paradis, 2023 ). Rather we examine the extent to which linguistic features come to bear on how HSs process SV person agreement at the group and individual level, probing for and unpacking systematicities that explain the variability we expect HSs to display.…”