The Overt Pronoun Constraint through the Spanish (Heritage) Lens

Abstract

The Overt Pronoun Constraint (OPC) has been studied on numerous occasions, addressing, in particular, the capabilities and limitations of the second language learner (Gürel, 2003; Kanno, 1997; Pérez-Leroux & Glass, 1997; Rothman & Iverson, 2007). However, studies are increasingly showing that the OPC may not be an unyielding restriction on grammar, as previously proposed by Montalbetti (1984) (Alonso-Ovalle, Fernández Solera, Frazier & Clifton, 2002; Gelormini Lezama, Huepe, Herrera, Melloni, Manes, García & Ibáñez, 2016; Keating, Jegerski, & VanPatten, 2016; Lipski, 1996). This study looks at the interpretation restrictions of the OPC by 20 Spanish heritage and 20 monolingual speakers in two experimental tasks: a sentence selection task and a picture-matching task. Results reveal that while participants show a preference towards the interpretation restrictions of the OPC, they do not respond at ceiling, which allows for variability. Additionally, the heritage speaker group varies from the monolinguals, indicating further divergence. This work provides a descriptive analysis of the findings and contributes to the dialogue on the flexibility of the OPC on language.