Use, omission and interpretation of the definite article in heritage Spanish speakers

Rosalva Angélica Alamillo Olivas

Abstract


Why do heritage Spanish speakers exhibit variability in the use of the Spanish definite article? Previous studies have shown that definite nouns (Las mesas grandes) and bare nouns (Mesas grandes) differ in their interpretation and distribution in both English and Spanish (Chierchia, 1998; Gelman & Raman, 2003; Dayal, 2004; Montrul & Ionin, 2010, 2012; among others). This study aims to examine the transfer of syntactic (definite vs. bare nous) and semantic aspects (specific interpretation vs generic interpretation) in nominal phrases in the writing of heritage Spanish speakers. One hundred and sixty-six texts including count plurals and mass singulars were analyzed. Transfer from English into Spanish was observed at all four language proficiency levels, although it decreases as proficiency in the heritage language increases. Finally, the susceptibility of these two properties (syntactic and semantic) to cross-linguistic transfer is also discussed.


Keywords


definite nouns; bare nouns; semantic transfer; syntactic transfer; Spanish as a heritage language

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.22201/enallt.01852647p.2018.67.714

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