COPULA - Comparing L1 and L2 Paths: a Crosslinguistic Study of the Semantics of Copular Systems (PID2024-157397NB-I00) PIs: Aurora Bel & Sílvia Perpiñán

This interdisciplinary research analyzes the acquisition and cognitive development of eventivity, a key aspectual distinction between dynamic events and states encoded in the copulative system of Spanish (and Catalan) (ser and estar). We integrate linguistics, language acquisition, developmental psychology, formal semantics, and psycholinguistics to study how the two copulas are acquired in different contexts.

In L1 acquisition, we investigate how children acquiring Spanish and Catalan master the copulative system to identify when ser and estar emerge and stabilize. We analyze whether their development aligns with linguistic or cognitive milestones and whether the patterns are comparable in both languages. In L2 acquisition, we examine learners of L2 Spanish, considering whether their L1 copulative system is more or less similar to Spanish (Catalan, Portuguese, French, Mandarin Chinese). To do so, we analyze semantic complexity, grammatical correspondences, and typological differences, and how these factors may influence acquisition patterns.

We focus on three copulative contexts: 1. Ser and estar with adjectives in individual-level and stage-level predicates (María es inteligente vs. María está enferma), representing states; 2. Ser and estar in locative structures (La fiesta es en la playa vs. La sombrilla está en la playa), distinguishing eventive and individual locations; 3. Ser and estar in eventive and stative passives (La niña es vestida por su madre vs. La niña está vestida), contrasting dynamic and static properties. These structures allow us to comprehensively trace acquisition sequences in L1 and L2 learners. Our working hypothesis is that aspect will guide the

acquisition trajectory of these structures, and we propose that copulas are acquired earlier with states than in predicates where eventivity plays an important role.

Building on recent theoretical proposals (Fábregas et al., 2023; Perpiñán et al., 2020), this interdisciplinary project connects grammatical and semantic theory, ontological classification, and language acquisition.

One of the objectives is to compare L1 and L2 acquisition to determine whether they follow similar developmental trajectories or whether differences emerge due to cognitive, linguistic, or maturational factors. Additionally, we examine how the distance between language systems (the distinctions in Catalan and Portuguese vs. their absence in French and Mandarin) affects L2 acquisition, evaluating hypotheses on transparency, semantic complexity, and transfer effects.

We employ combined experimental methods, including comprehension, production, and processing tasks, with a primary focus on eye-tracking measures. This approach reveals real-time processing patterns and identifies how semantic and grammatical distinctions between ser and estar are resolved. The triangulated methodology ensures a solid empirical foundation and provides complementary perspectives on difficulty patterns and meaning resolution across different age groups and L1 backgrounds.

 

PREVIOUS PROJECTS (COMPLETED)

BIBA - Bidirectional Effects of Bilingualism Across Ages  PID2020-114276GB-I00 (PIs: Aurora Bel & Sílvia Perpiñan)

The BIBA project investigates Catalan-Spanish bilingualism from a linguistic and psycholinguistic point of view, taking as the main objects of study the bilingual speaker and the two languages that cohabit his/her mind from a very early age. Through a series of linguistic and psycholinguistic methods and tests, and focusing on several morphosyntactic structures, this cross-sectional study addresses the acquisition, development, maintenance, and interaction of both languages, Catalan and Spanish, in sustained societal bilingualism. By taking into account language dominance as measured by relevant factors such as the quantity and quality of input, age of onset of acquisition, proficiency, language identity, and place of residence, we aim to determine the principal predictors that modulate language acquisition, language development, and cross-linguistic influence in bilinguals across different ages. Indeed, an indirect result of this project would be to grant the Catalan-Spanish context the place it deserves in the study of bilingualism at large. That is, we want to transcend the local circumstance and investigate this context of bilingualism as any other bilingualism context, in a way that our study will reveal general, --i.e.: universal--, processes and outcomes of early bilingualism.
The originality of our project lays in two key factors: on the one hand, we propose to investigate Catalan-Spanish bilingualism bidirectionally. That is, we will test both of our participants' languages focusing on the same morphosyntactic structures, which all present microparametric differences: 1- Differential Object Marking (DOM), 2- the distribution of copular verbs, and 3- existential constructions. On the other hand, we propose a cross-sectional study in which typically neglected ages in the study of the development of bilingualism (ages 7-15) will be included and later compared to adult speakers, their input providers.

 

CONTACT - Processing and representation of multilevel constructions: Effects of linguistic contact on heritage speakers and functional bilinguals -  FFI2016-75082-P (PI- Aurora Bel)

Our main goal is to investigate how specific linguistic issues which are characterized by being complex and non-categorical are acquired and processed by native bilingual and non-native speakers (who are also bilingual). We aim to do this by making use of the combination of theoretical linguistics and the experimental methods that psycholinguistics has developed in the study of the acquisition of language and its behavior. Starting from our own findings (FFI2012-35058 VARIAD and FFI2009-09349 PERIFERIES; PI: Aurora Bel) and also other recent ones, we intend to go beyond the study of the restrictions that account for properties such as the choice of grammatical pronominal subjects, the type and order of words in relative clauses,  or case-marking of direct objects (Differential Object Marking). These constructions are good examples of the multiple interaction of factors whose realization involves relations at different levels: syntax, discourse and the lexicon. Bilingual individuals provide an excellent testing field to check how interactions between syntax and other levels take place since these speakers show variable mastery in different modules (Benmamoun, Montrul and Polinsky 2013; Meisel 2011; Slabakova 2013), something which is in principle impossible to test in monolingual speakers.

Our working hypothesis is that although interface elements and structures are unstable (a proposal which follows from the Interface Hypothesis, Sorace 2005, 2011) the simultaneous activation of information of different levels makes them complex. As such, they become a potential space of linguistic divergence between native and non-native speakers while they are also complex for native speakers (Hopp 2010, 2014). Speakers with more than one linguistic system can, making it simple, turn to two sources in order to solve this complexity: one of individual scope (solutions of another language, or crosslinguistic influence) and another one of general scope (general linguistic and processing principles). The underlying idea is that the variability triggered by unstable knowledge is persistent and systematic but it is constrained.

The populations which are more sensitive to this type of phenomena are highly functional bilingual speakers. We distinguish three subgroups: bilingual speakers of contact varieties in a bilingual social context (that is, speakers of bilingual communities), bilingual speakers in a non-bilingual social context (that is, heritage speakers) and bilingual L2 learners with advanced or almost native levels of proficiency. The study of this type of constructions in highly functional bilingual speakers by means of offline and online techniques (reaction times-E prime; eye-tracking-Tobii T120) provides evidence of the importance of external factors such as context to the extent that bilingual speakers with different levels of exposure and mastery show variability. This also provides evidence of factors that are internal to the linguistic systems and of individual factors related with processing limitations which are inherent to speakers in general, but which affect bilingual speakers in a higher degree, such as working memory and inhibition control