Abstract
Adjectives appear predominantly postnominally in Spanish, and when prenominal, cannot be interpreted as restrictive. We explore whether heritage speakers of Spanish have the same interpretive and ordering restriction as monolinguals. Twenty-two US college-age heritage speakers and 17 college-age monolinguals from Peru completed a rating task that manipulated word order and interpretation. Items varied in word order (Adj-N/N-Adj) and interpretation (restrictive-only, color and nationality adjectives, and ambiguous adjectives, restrictive and non-restrictive), all framed within a context that favored a restrictive interpretation. Both groups judged Adj-N orders lower than N-Adj orders, and restrictive adjectives lower in prenominal position than ambiguous adjectives. Consequently, we argue that heritage speakers (HS) have the relevant knowledge regarding word order and interpretation, and the interactions among the two properties. We propose a syntactic representation involving NP-raising for both groups, and suggest that in some cases, the higher copy of the NP is deleted, resulting in the linear order Adj-N. We also argue that this analysis may explain the range of individual variation across heritage speakers.
Subject
Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics
Reference45 articles.
1. La position de l’adjectif épithète en français: Le poids des mots;Abeillé;Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes,1999
2. Adjective Syntax and Noun Raising: Word Order Asymmetries in the DP as the Result of Adjective Distribution
3. The syntax of adjectives;Alexiadou,2014
4. Adjective position and interpretation in L2 French;Anderson,2001
5. The Fundamental Equivalence of Native and Interlanguage Grammars: Evidence from Argument Licensing and Adjective Position in L2 French;Anderson,2002
Cited by
2 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献