Indirectstructural crosslinguistic influence in early Catalan–Spanish bilinguals in adulthood: Predicate selection in Catalan existential constructions

Abstract

This study reports an oral production experiment investigating the expression of existentiality in the Catalan of adult Catalan–Spanish early bilinguals (N = 58) with comparable proficiencies but different language dominance. The results show qualitative differences among the bilinguals in existential predicate selection and in their supply of partitive pronouns, modulated by language dominance. Balanced Bilinguals as well as Spanish-dominant bilinguals significantly produced more estar (in detriment of ser-hi and haver-hi) not only in locative contexts, where Catalan already presents optionality regulated by semantic differences, but also in existential constructions, where this optionality does not exist. We argue for indirect crosslinguistic influence (CLI), when the bilingual perceives certain structural overlap within constructions, mediating the influence from one structure to another one and expanding the limits of CLI. The qualitative differences found among bilinguals challenge the idea of a bilingualism continuum in Catalan–Spanish bilingualism with an identical mental representation.

Bilingualism with minority languages: Why searching for unicorn language users does not move us forward

“…Even more importantly, not having a monolingual comparison group does not entail a lack of comparative data across a continuum of bilingualism. In fact, replacing a categorical view of bilingualism as a “yes/no” variable with a nuanced approach that views it as a mosaic of different factors (e.g., degree of use, contexts of use, proficiency, and context of acquisition) is likely to reveal patterns of variation that may be meaningful in terms of understanding how being bilingual affects language knowledge, language development, and cognition (Leivada et al, 2021; Perpiñán & Soto-Corominas, 2021; Soto-Corominas, 2021). In other words, if it is true that there is not one bilingualism, but many (Hodge et al, 2018; Ooi et al, 2018), we need to zoom in on different bilingual experiences in order to understand their similarities and differences and appreciate the individual characteristics of different sociolinguistic ecologies of speakers (Rodríguez-Ordóñez et al, 2022).…”

Differential Object Marking in Structurally Complex Contexts in Spanish: Evidence from Bilingual and Monolingual Processing

“…The latter option is possible if bilinguals are influenced by their non-DOM L1 (or by their optional L1 DOM system), suggesting that if CLI is amplified by coactivation, which has been posited as impacting balanced bilingual individuals showing bidirectional effects (Putnam and Sánchez 2013;Putnam et al 2018), this influence is only discernible under specific DOM conditions. 5 In short, from our findings, it can be inferred that CLI is not a uniform phenomenon that applies across the board but rather manifests overtly in some instances, covertly in others, and indirectly in still others (Perpiñán and Soto-Corominas 2021).…”