Syntactic licensing in heritage Spanish: Psych verbs and the middle voice

Abstract

Aims and objectives: This study examines the licensing pattern and resulting syntactic distribution of the middle voice across object experiencer psych verbs in intermediate and advanced heritage Spanish bilinguals and Spanish-dominant sequential bilinguals. Design: Participants completed a judgment task with aural stimuli containing sentences in the middle voice with contrastive types of object experiencer psych verbs ([±change of state]). Data and analysis: Aggregate results from the judgment task were entered into a mixed-effects linear regression model with fixed effects of group and verb type. Individual results (by verb and participant) are also discussed. Conclusion: Heritage Speakers (HSs) at varying levels of proficiency display consistent knowledge of the licensing pattern that results in the syntactic distribution of the middle voice across object experiencer psych verbs. Variability in the data reflects lexical semantic representational differences for specific verbs in individual grammars. Originality: This study applies a recent lexical semantic account of object experiencer verbs in Spanish to a novel syntactic construction and fills a gap in the Spanish heritage literature by examining a previously unstudied phenomenon—the middle voice. This provides an opportunity to inform (1) questions related to the role of lexical semantics in the heritage grammar and (2) theoretical proposals related to the nature of variability in heritage language grammars. Implications: These data provide additional evidence that licensing patterns at the syntax-lexical semantics interface are an area of stability in the heritage grammar and underscore the role of variability in the input in the resulting adult bilingual grammar.