Spanish copula selection with adjectives in school-aged bilingual children

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dc.contributor.authorRequena, Pablo E.
dc.contributor.authorDracos, Melisa
dc.creator.orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-9011-9755en_US
dc.date.accessioned2023-06-29T17:15:48Z
dc.date.available2023-06-29T17:15:48Z
dc.date.issued2020-09-28
dc.description.abstractAims and objectives/purpose/research questions: This study examined whether school-aged second-generation heritage speakers exhibit knowledge of the semantic and pragmatic constraints on Spanish copula selection with adjectives, and whether experiential factors affect copula interpretation. Design/methodology/approach: Following a between-subjects design, we administered 2 Picture Selection Tasks to 50 second-generation bilingual children (ages 5;1–14;10) and 21 first-generation adults living in the same community in central Texas. Task 1 included real adjectives and Task 2 novel adjectives. We administered a morphosyntactic proficiency test in English and Spanish (BESA/BESA-ME) to the children and obtained language exposure and use data. Data and analysis: Using generalized linear mixed models, analyses compared bilingual children to first-generation adults in their selection of the temporary picture with each copula (ser vs. estar), and also examined the role of age, language exposure/use, and morphosyntactic proficiency. Findings/conclusions: Only children with high Spanish morphosyntactic proficiency approached adult-like sensitivity to the semantic and pragmatic distinctions between ser and estar with adjectives. Age, Spanish exposure and use, and English proficiency did not significantly influence performance on the tasks. Originality: This study provides the first detailed examination of the acquisition of copula selection with adjectives in Spanish-English school-aged heritage speakers living in the US. Significance/implications: This study offers evidence of the vulnerability of aspect, as instantiated in Spanish copula selection, among school-aged bilingual children. It also suggests low-proficiency children might be a catalyzing locus of the accelerated changes in copula use.en_US
dc.description.departmentModern Languages and Literaturesen_US
dc.description.sponsorshipUniversity of Montana; Baylor Universityen_US
dc.identifier.citationRequena, P. E., & Dracos, M. (2021). Spanish copula selection with adjectives in school-aged bilingual children. International Journal of Bilingualism, 25(3), 548–567. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006920960796en_US
dc.identifier.issn1756-6878
dc.identifier.otherhttps://doi.org/10.1177/1367006920960796
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12588/1965
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherSAGE Publicationsen_US
dc.relation.ispartofseriesInternational Journal of Bilingualism;Volume 25, Issue 3
dc.subjectchild language acquisitionen_US
dc.subjectbilingual childrenen_US
dc.subjectheritage speakersen_US
dc.subjectbilingual first language acquisitionen_US
dc.subjectSpanishen_US
dc.subjectEnglishen_US
dc.subjectcopulaen_US
dc.subjectseren_US
dc.subjectestaren_US
dc.subjectsemanticsen_US
dc.subjectpragmaticsen_US
dc.subjectproficiencyen_US
dc.titleSpanish copula selection with adjectives in school-aged bilingual childrenen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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