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theses

This dissertation explores heritage speakers' (HSs) production and comprehension of lexically- and contextually-selected subjunctive mood morphology in Spanish. Unlike Spanish-dominant speakers, whose knowledge of subjunctive mood appears to be largely categorical, HSs' subjunctive mood knowledge is characterized by great variability, both in production and comprehension. In production, HSs have been shown to alternate, in expected subjunctive contexts, between target subjunctive and non-target indicative mood morphology (e.g., Bookhamer, 2013; Giancaspro, under revision; Martillo Viner, 2017; Montrul, 2009; van Osch & Sleeman, forthcoming; Perez-Cortes, 2016, Silva-Corvalán, 1994; inter alia). In comprehension, HSs have been shown to exhibit less sensitivity to differences in meaning between subjunctive and indicative mood (e.g., Montrul, 2009; Montrul & Perpiñán, 2011; Perez-Cortes, 2016). Though these and other studies have now documented HSs' variable subjunctive knowledge, the underlying nature of this morphological variability remains unclear. The present study contributes to our understanding of HSs' subjunctive knowledge, and HS variability more generally, by identifying a number of between- and within-group factors that shape HSs' likelihood of producing and understanding subjunctive mood morphology in Spanish. In the present dissertation project, 42 HSs (22 advanced proficiency, 20 intermediate proficiency), 19 late-childhood immigrants (LCIs) and 20 Spanish-dominant controls (SDCs) completed three experimental tasks assessing their knowledge of (a) intensional (lexically-selected) subjunctive mood with para que and (b) polarity (contextually-selected) subjunctive mood in adjectival relative clauses. Results of the three experimental tasks reveal that many HSs, despite making the same grammatical distinctions as the SDCs, exhibit variability in production, comprehension, and preference of subjunctive mood morphology in Spanish. Analyses of between-group factors demonstrated that HSs with lower Spanish proficiency and earlier age of acquisition of English (AofA Eng) are most likely to perform variably with subjunctive mood. Analyses of within-group factors revealed that HSs are most likely to demonstrate subjunctive mood variability with polarity mood selection, as well as with less frequent Spanish verbs. These findings highlight the heritage language lexicon as a primary source of HS variability and challenge the practice of classifying HSs dichotomously, that is to say, as having either acquired or not acquired linguistic properties such as subjunctive mood. Instead, it is argued that many HSs maintain systematic knowledge of the morphosyntactic features that underlie subjunctive mood morphology yet, over time, become less likely to apply and/or recognize these features with less common, lower frequency lexical items.

ETD_8308

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by David Giancaspro

doi:10.7282/T3BG2S3N

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.