Heritage Spanish-English Bilingual’s Intuitions on Inanimate Noun Subjecthood
Document Type
Paper Presentation
Presenter Language
English
Research Area
Bilingualism
Location
MBSC Council Room 306
Start Date
17-10-2024 1:00 PM
End Date
17-10-2024 1:30 PM
Abstract
In simple transitive sentences, much of the meaning can be derived from the lexical semantics of the content words. Syntactic cues, such as word order and verb agreement, are largely redundant and provide clarity in case of ambiguity or non-prototypical sentences. Mahowald and colleagues (2023) demonstrated this by presenting native English speakers with the lemma form of a verb and two nouns and asking participants to indicate which noun was the subject of the verb. Across the animacy pairings, they found native English speakers were able to accurately indicate the original subject 89%. They found inanimate-inanimate (IA-IA) noun pairings to be less reversible than the other animacy pairings, often causing violations in semantic plausibility. In our study, we seek to replicate the findings of Mahowald and colleagues (2023) in a bilingual population. We asked heritage Spanish-English participants (n=45) to indicate which noun belonged in the subject position and which noun belonged in the object position when presented with the lemma form of a verb and two IA nouns in both English and Spanish. Participants were significantly more likely to choose the original subject for both languages. However, there was not a significant difference in accuracy between the languages (English = 86.8%, Spanish = 86%). Additionally, we looked at what factors lead participants to be more accurate in choosing the original subject. Increases in English dominance as measured by the BLP, significantly decreased chances that participants would respond accurately on the English block. Larger English vocabulary size, as measured by the LexTALE, decreases accuracy on the Spanish block, but Spanish vocabulary size, via the LexTALE-ESP, increases accuracy. Overall, these results suggest that heritage bilinguals also have high levels of accuracy in choosing the subject of IA-IA sentences, similar to that of native English speakers in Mahowald et al. (2023), and do not have differing levels of accuracy between their languages. Heritage bilinguals are able to utilize their semantic knowledge when syntactic cues are unavailable and accurately assign subjecthood. Further analyses based on semantic reversibility, frequency, and demographic factors are forthcoming.
Heritage Spanish-English Bilingual’s Intuitions on Inanimate Noun Subjecthood
MBSC Council Room 306
In simple transitive sentences, much of the meaning can be derived from the lexical semantics of the content words. Syntactic cues, such as word order and verb agreement, are largely redundant and provide clarity in case of ambiguity or non-prototypical sentences. Mahowald and colleagues (2023) demonstrated this by presenting native English speakers with the lemma form of a verb and two nouns and asking participants to indicate which noun was the subject of the verb. Across the animacy pairings, they found native English speakers were able to accurately indicate the original subject 89%. They found inanimate-inanimate (IA-IA) noun pairings to be less reversible than the other animacy pairings, often causing violations in semantic plausibility. In our study, we seek to replicate the findings of Mahowald and colleagues (2023) in a bilingual population. We asked heritage Spanish-English participants (n=45) to indicate which noun belonged in the subject position and which noun belonged in the object position when presented with the lemma form of a verb and two IA nouns in both English and Spanish. Participants were significantly more likely to choose the original subject for both languages. However, there was not a significant difference in accuracy between the languages (English = 86.8%, Spanish = 86%). Additionally, we looked at what factors lead participants to be more accurate in choosing the original subject. Increases in English dominance as measured by the BLP, significantly decreased chances that participants would respond accurately on the English block. Larger English vocabulary size, as measured by the LexTALE, decreases accuracy on the Spanish block, but Spanish vocabulary size, via the LexTALE-ESP, increases accuracy. Overall, these results suggest that heritage bilinguals also have high levels of accuracy in choosing the subject of IA-IA sentences, similar to that of native English speakers in Mahowald et al. (2023), and do not have differing levels of accuracy between their languages. Heritage bilinguals are able to utilize their semantic knowledge when syntactic cues are unavailable and accurately assign subjecthood. Further analyses based on semantic reversibility, frequency, and demographic factors are forthcoming.