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Obviating the Mood, but Mostly under Control: Spanish Heritage Speakers' Acquisition of the Binding Constraints of Desiderative Complements
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Silvia Perez-Cortes – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2025
Verbal morphology has been identified as a particularly vulnerable domain for adult heritage speakers (HSs) of Spanish, especially when it involves the selection of subjunctive mood. A minimal amount is known, however, about the potential effects of the variability associated with these forms on the acquisition of related epiphenomena, such as the…
Descriptors: Spanish, Phonemes, Native Language, Second Language Learning
The Study of Children with Developmental Language Disorder beyond English: A Tutorial
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Laurence B. Leonard; Mariel L. Schroeder – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2024
The main goal of this tutorial is to promote the study of children with developmental language disorder (DLD) across different languages of the world. The cumulative effect of these efforts is likely to be a set of more compelling and comprehensive theories of language learning difficulties and, possibly, of language acquisition in general.…
Descriptors: English, Language Acquisition, Developmental Delays, Morphology (Languages)
L2 Representation and Processing of Spanish Focus
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Leal, Tania; Hoot, Bradley – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2022
Research on second-language (L2) acquisition has identified linguistic domains that appear to be especially difficult to learn--one such sticking point being syntactic structures that depend on the surrounding discourse. The Interface Hypothesis (IH) explains what makes such constructions problematic by appealing to a modular view of language,…
Descriptors: Spanish, Language Processing, Second Language Learning, Language Research
Clitic-Doubled Left Dislocation in L2 Spanish: The Effect of Processing Load at the Syntax-Discourse Interface
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Sequeros-Valle, Jose; Hoot, Bradley; Cabrelli, Jennifer – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2020
This project examines whether second-language (L2) learners can converge on a native-like pattern at the interface between syntax and discourse under low and high processing pressure, using Spanish clitic-doubled left dislocation (CLLD) as a test case. The original version of the Interface Hypothesis (IH) predicts that L2 competence on…
Descriptors: Language Processing, Syntax, Second Language Learning, Linguistic Theory
Child Heritage Speakers' Acquisition of the Spanish Subjunctive in Volitional and Adverbial Clauses
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Dracos, Melisa; Requena, Pablo E. – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2023
The Spanish subjunctive mood (SUBJ) is said to be highly vulnerable in heritage language (HL) acquisition. However, there is little controlled research on HL-speaking children acquiring the various Spanish SUBJ contexts, so we do not have a clear picture of when, how, or why heritage speakers (HSs) develop in the SUBJ as they do. This study tests…
Descriptors: Spanish, Verbs, Form Classes (Languages), Monolingualism
Acquisition of Mood Selection in Spanish-Speaking Children
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Dracos, Melisa; Requena, Pablo; Miller, Karen – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2019
Previous research indicates that the development of mood selection in Spanish spans several years and ends in the mastery of mood selection with sentential complements to express complex semantic meanings. The present study investigates this underexplored late stage by examining how Spanish-speaking children acquire adultlike mood selection in…
Descriptors: Spanish, Language Acquisition, Verbs, Semantics
The Role of Phonological Working Memory in Children with SLI
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Torrens, Vicenç; Yagüe, Esther – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2018
This article studies three measures of phonological working memory as tools to identify SLI children: word repetition, nonce word repetition, and digit memory. We propose that a deficit in the phonological loop causes a delay in the acquisition of lexicon, morphosyntax, and discourse. In this research we try to find out whether the scores in these…
Descriptors: Language Impairments, Speech Impairments, Short Term Memory, Phonology
A Cross-Linguistic Study of the Acquisition of Clitic and Pronoun Production
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Varlokosta, Spyridoula; Belletti, Adriana; Costa, João; Friedmann, Naama; Gavarró, Anna; Grohmann, Kleanthes K.; Guasti, Maria Teresa; Tuller, Laurice; Lobo, Maria; Andelkovic, Darinka; Argemí, Núria; Avram, Larisa; Berends, Sanne; Brunetto, Valentina; Delage, Hélène; Ezeizabarrena, María-José; Fattal, Iris; Haman, Ewa; van Hout, Angeliek; de López, Kristine Jensen; Katsos, Napoleon; Kologranic, Lana; Krstic, Nadezda; Kraljevic, Jelena Kuvac; Miekisz, Aneta; Nerantzini, Michaela; Queraltó, Clara; Radic, Zeljana; Ruiz, Sílvia; Sauerland, Uli; Sevcenco, Anca; Smoczynska, Magdalena; Theodorou, Eleni; van der Lely, Heather; Veenstra, Alma; Weston, John; Yachini, Maya; Yatsushiro, Kazuko – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2016
This study develops a single elicitation method to test the acquisition of third-person pronominal objects in 5-year-olds for 16 languages. This methodology allows us to compare the acquisition of pronominals in languages that lack object clitics ("pronoun languages") with languages that employ clitics in the relevant context…
Descriptors: Language Research, Contrastive Linguistics, Form Classes (Languages), Morphology (Languages)
Omissions and Substitutions in Spanish Object Clitics: Developmental Optionality as a Property of the Representational System
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Castilla, Anny P.; Perez-Leroux, Ana T. – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2010
This study examined the existence of an object omission stage and the interaction between object omissions and substitution errors in the early stages of the development of Spanish syntax. One hundred and three Spanish-speaking children from Colombia completed an elicitation task evaluating the production of direct object pronouns. Results…
Descriptors: Speech Communication, Syntax, Spanish Speaking, Spanish
Morphosyntactic Learning and the Development of Tense
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Legate, Julie Anne; Yang, Charles – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2007
In this article, we propose that the Root Infinitive (RI) phenomenon in child language is best viewed and explained as the interaction between morphological learning and syntactic development. We make the following specific suggestions: The optionality in RI reflects the presence of a grammar such as Chinese which does not manifest tense marking.…
Descriptors: Linguistic Theory, French, Child Language, Language Acquisition