While Hulk and Muller (2000) predict that the direction of cross-linguistic syntactic influence is unidirectional when the construction involves syntax-pragmatics interface and surface overlap between two languages, they explicitly rule out language dominance as a factor involved. This study questions their latter claim and argues that the syntax…

Can transfer occur in child bilingual syntax when surface overlap does not involve the syntax-pragmatics interface? Twenty-three Spanish/English bilingual children participated in an elicited imitation study of clitic placement in Spanish restructuring contexts, where variable word order is not associated with pragmatic or semantic factors.…

The apparent optionality in the use of null and overt pronominal subjects and the apparently free word order or distribution of preverbal and postverbal subjects in Spanish obey a number of discourse-pragmatic constraints which play an important role in Spanish L2 subject development. Although research on subject properties at the syntax-discourse…

This study reports on the use of (c)overt subjects and subject-verb agreement in Hebrew in the spontaneous speech of a child, EK, acquiring Hebrew and English simultaneously from birth and of five slightly younger Hebrew monolingual controls. Analysis shows that EK's production of pragmatically inappropriate overt subjects is more than three times…

Suggests that in acquiring two languages from birth, bilingual children separate their grammars from very early on. Focuses on the acquisition of syntax in a generative framework. Argues that cross-linguistic influence can occur if an interface level between two modules of grammar is involved, and the two languages overlap at the surface level…

The point of departure of this study is the well-known hypothesis according to which structures that involve the syntax-pragmatics interface and instantiate a surface overlap between two languages are more vulnerable to crosslinguistic influence than purely syntactic domains (e.g. Muller and Hulk, 2001). In exploring the validity of this…

The present article examines one property of bilingual speech--convergence--and strives towards explanatory depth by attending to the insights of the antecedent research in formal linguistics, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics. In particular, the paper adopts as a point of departure (and further substantiates) the argument that convergence…

The findings from a number of recent studies indicate that, even in cases of successful bilingual first language acquisition, the possibility remains of a certain degree of crosslinguistic influence when the choice between syntactic options is affected by discourse pragmatics. In this study we focussed on the use of referring expressions, prime…

Many simultaneous bilinguals exhibit loss or incomplete acquisition of their heritage language under conditions of exposure and use of the majority language (Silva-Corvalan, 1994, 2003; Polinsky, 1997; Toribio, 2001; Montrul, 2002). Recent work within discourse-functional (Silva-Corvalan 1994) and generative perspectives (Sorace, 2000; Montrul;…