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This study considers the use of adnominal restrictive relative clauses based on data from an acceptability rating task. We asked non-migrant native speakers (n = 24) of English and migrant native speakers (n = 28) of English to judge three different types of relative clauses. Results indicated that these speakers rate the relative markers that and zero more positively in line with the current situation in Present-day English.1 The similar behaviour in the rating shows that major driving forces of language variation such as colloquialisation and Americanisation are stronger than other forces such as language contact. The similarities in the usage of relativisation strategies observed between contemporary Englishes and language competences of migrant and non-migrant speakers support the emergence of a new variety of English similar to other documented varieties that emerged in comparable contexts.2 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated three key issues in heritage language (HL) research. Previous research shows HL speakers have an advantage on oral production tasks compared to L2 speakers who instead perform better on written tasks. Furthermore, both L2 and HL speakers are claimed to have a yes-bias towards retaining ungrammaticality in GJTs. Finally, the morphological domain has been shown to be as problematic for HL as L2 speakers but research in lesser-known languages is needed. Adult L1, L2, and HL speakers of Italian were compared on an oral priming task and timed GJT. Accuracy and response times were elicited from the latter test. The forms investigated were object and si-passive pronouns which lack corresponding forms in Swedish, the dominant language of the bilingual groups. Mixed effect regression was modelled to accuracy on the priming and GJT and response time data from the GJT. In contrast, a d-prime analysis was used to measure the degree of sensitivity to grammaticality and bias towards correct and incorrect answers in the GJT. Overall, the two bilingual groups performed quite similarly across the measures tested. All three groups show high sensitivity to grammaticality and a very similar bias for yes-answers on both grammatical and ungrammatical items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to build bridges between different varieties of English. It reports the findings of two independent studies on the expression of perfect meaning in varieties of English world-wide. The first is a corpus-based, comparative study of native English vs institutionalised L2 varieties of English. Study 2 is a grammaticality judgement task involving first-generation immigrant speakers of English living in Mallorca in Spain. It is found that L2 speakers produce more variant forms for expressing present perfect meaning. L2 speakers are also similar to long-immersed immigrants in that both show greater variability in their choice of verb forms in recent past contexts. The paper insightfully combines research on World Englishes and on language attrition, arguing that language variation in both World Englishes and in long-immersed immigrant speakers can be analysed and interpreted as a possible sign of an emerging new variety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most intriguing questions in the investigation of second-language acquisition concerns the role of learners' first language (L1). Comparing learners of different backgrounds (L1 German vs. L1 Romance languages), we aim to explore the acquisition of tense and aspect features in Spanish as a second language (L2). Findings show that the L1 indeed has an undeniable effect also visible in language interpretation. These results are discussed in the light of the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis and a version of the microparametric approach to cross-linguistic differences. Different from the participants with a Romance language who can rely on the great similarities between Spanish and their L1, the German learners show a learning strategy clearly based on their L1. In German, aspect is not expressed by verbal morphology but by lexical means such as adverbs. This fact leads to an adverb-based learning strategy that (different from what has been found among learners of L2 Spanish in previous studies) not only blurs an underlying competence but prevents the complete acquisition of the underlying features. Other external variables, such as immersion, do not change the outcome considerably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a brief overview of some of the main issues concerning the acquisition of spatial language as a first or second language. We first consider spatial language variation and the challenges cross-linguistic language differences present for language learners. We then discuss similarities and differences in first and second language acquisition, concluding with a brief précis of the contributions in this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study seeks to test the general assumption made by recent studies on the acquisition of Spanish as a second language in relation to the morphological category Tense/Aspect that once non-native Spanish-speakers have overcome the initial developmental stages, both the distribution and interpretation of the Imperfect and Preterite are represented in their mental grammar according to the target language. A group of advanced non-native speakers of Spanish (whose mother tongue is English) was compared to a group of native speakers using two different tasks: a grammaticality judgement task which required all participants to judge items designed to measure the semantic-aspectual interpretation of the two verbal forms; and a morphological recognition task in which all participants had to recognize different verbal forms corresponding to both tenses. The results of both tasks suggest that there was no effect of persistent parametric differences that exist between Spanish and English. That is to say, although these parametric properties are not activated in their L1, they are available and present in the grammatical representation of Asp category (Aspect) in their L2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the knowledge of bilingual speakers of Catalan and Spanish regarding the production of object pronominal clitics (excluding non-reflexive third-person clitics), with a focus on: (i) their morphology, considering the variants that coexist for each form, and (ii) their syntactic placement (proclitic or enclitic) with respect to the verb. We present results from a study of thirty-nine simultaneous bilingual Catalan-Spanish speakers, residents of several geographic areas of Majorca, Spain, including the capital, Palma, and several villages. The speaker data came from a spontaneous oral production task carried out separately in each one of the two languages. We also analyze historical data from a diachronic corpus of Catalan to evaluate whether clitic properties of the Catalan produced by bilinguals constitute grammatical innovations in the language. The results indicate that bilingual speakers of Majorcan Catalan mostly acquire archaic forms for clitics (proclitics and enclitics) that also match the corresponding form of Majorcan Spanish clitics. We interpret these results as showing an effect of bilingualism with Spanish that has contributed to the preservation of archaic forms in the grammar of bilingual speakers of Catalan in Majorca because these forms partially match the ones found in Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the acquisition of past tense uses by L2 Spanish advanced learners with closely related L1s (French, Portuguese), this study attempts to identify factors associated with variability, such as negative transfer or interface integration. We report data on the acquisition, by adult L1 French and Portuguese learners at B2 and C1 CEFR levels, of Spanish tense-aspect morphology: simple and compound past (SP, CP), imperfect (IMP), progressive (PROG), and pluperfect (PLP) forms, and from a control group of European Spanish speakers' use and interpretation of these tenses. Data were collected through a film oral retell and two written interpretation tasks; the second written task (a follow-up task), was performed only by L1 French speakers. In the oral task, comparing both L1 backgrounds, negative transfer is more pervasive for the Portuguese groups. However, in the interpretation tasks, the French speakers showed greater difficulties, linked not only to L1 transfer but also to nonprototypical tense/aspect associations and pragmatically based temporal reference. The data suggest, in relation to Lardiere's (2008, 2009) Feature Reassembly Hypothesis, that both feature reassembly and interface integration are sources of variability in the acquisition of L2 interpretable features that are also present in the L1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]