Systematizing the use of the aspectual distinction by level of proficiency: A case of Spanish as a heritage language

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Systematizing the use of the aspectual distinction by level of Systematizing the use of the aspectual distinction by level of

pro=ciency: A case of Spanish as a heritage language pro=ciency: A case of Spanish as a heritage language

Earl K. Brown

Brigham Young University

, [email protected]

Laura Valentin-Rivera

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Original Publication Citation Original Publication Citation

Valentín-Rivera, Laura & Earl K. Brown. "Revisiting the Notion of Linguistic 'Erosion' Among Early

Bilinguals: The case of Aspectual Distinction." Peer-reviwed chapter in volume entitled "Spanish

in the US: Variation, Attitudes, and Pedagogy" edited by Scott Alvord and Gregory Thompson of

Brigham Young University, under contract with Routledge publishing house.

BYU ScholarsArchive Citation BYU ScholarsArchive Citation

Brown, Earl K. and Valentin-Rivera, Laura, "Systematizing the use of the aspectual distinction by level of

pro=ciency: A case of Spanish as a heritage language" (2020).

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https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/6546

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8 Systematizing the use of the

aspectual distinction by level

of prociency

A case of Spanish as a heritage

language

Laura Valentín-Rivera and Earl K. Brown

Introduction

Heritage speakers (HSs)—that is, individuals who are exposed to a minority lan-

guage at home from an early age (Montrul, 2010; Valdés, 2001, 2005)—share a

commonality that makes them conceptually and operationally complex to dene

(Blake & Zyzik, 2003): a varying and an unpredictable degree of linguistic pro-

ciency in the heritage language (HL), whether in production, comprehension,

or both (Valdés, 2001). These differing levels of linguistic prociency may be

accounted for by several factors: diverse cultural backgrounds (Wang & García,

2002), differing age of onset of bilingualism (Pascual y Cabo & Rothman, 2012),

lack of experience with formal instruction in the HL (Mikulski & Elola, 2011),

and the amount and quality of naturalistic input received (Montrul & Polinsky,

2011; Pascual y Cabo & Rothman, 2012). These factors may also explain the well-

documented grammatical deviations between HSs and monolingual speakers of

the HL—for example, between HSs of Spanish and monolingual speakers of Span-

ish (Lipski, 2008; Valdes & Geoffrion-Vinci, 1998; Valenzuela et al., 2012). These

prominent divergences suggest that some grammatical features in Spanish as a HL

could be prone to linguistic “erosion” (Montrul, 2008). Specic examples include

gender agreement (Montrul, Foote, & Perpiñán, 2008; Valenzuela et al., 2012),

verbal aspect (Montrul, 2002; Silva-Corvalán, 1994, 2018), and verbal mood

(Potowski, Jegerski, & Morgan-Short, 2009; Silva-Corvalán, 2018), as well as the

Spanish dative marker “a” (Montrul & Bowles, 2009). The validity of the compar-

ison between HSs and monolingual speakers of Spanish, however, has been ques-

tioned based on the premise that HSs are language users of a linguistic variety that

is simply different from monolingual Spanish (Pascual y Cabo & Rothman, 2012;

Rothman, 2007). Despite the counterargument in favor of recognizing Spanish HL

as an alternative—yet complete—linguistic variety (Sánchez, 2012), the how and

the why of “HS grammatical competence is selectively distinct is puzzling” (Pas-

cual & Cabo & Rothman, 2012, p. 451). For this reason, the current study attempts

to further the understanding of the functionality and systematization of Spanish as

an HL in the United States. To achieve this aim, we surveyed the performance of

beginner-prociency, intermediate-prociency, and advanced-prociency HSs in

164 Laura Valentín-Rivera and Earl K. Brown

regard to a grammatical feature suggested to be inherently complex and to widely

diverge from Spanish as a native language: the aspectual distinction in the past.

Therefore the questions that motivated this study are as follows:

RQ1: What effect, if any, does level of prociency in Spanish have on the

use of the preterite and imperfect verbal tenses among heritage speakers of

Spanish?

RQ2: What effect, if any, does the inherent lexical aspect of actions and events

have on the use of the preterite and imperfect verbal tenses among heritage

speakers of Spanish?

RQ3: What effect, if any, does the age of onset of bilingualism have on the

use of the preterite and imperfect verbal tenses among heritage speakers of

Spanish?

Literature review

The inherent complexity of the aspectual distinction in Spanish

The Spanish past tense, which relates to the situation-external time (cf. Salaberry,

2003), possesses two morphological markers: the preterite [+perfective] tense,

which encodes telicity (i.e., implicit beginning and completion), and the imperfect

[−perfective] tense, which encodes atelicity and conveys progression, or habitual-

ness, depending on the context (Bonilla, 2013) (cf. Table 8.1).

Spanish possesses two morphological markers to refer to the past tense, the

preterite (e.g., compré “I bought”, escribí “I wrote”) and the imperfect (e.g., yo

compraba “I was buying/I used to buy”, escribía “I was writing/I used to write”).

Both markers encode aspect—that is, the “internal temporal constituency of a

situation” (Comrie, 1976, p. 3)—something that is different from tense (e.g.,

present, past, future). Concerning aspect, Vendler (1967) proposes the following

four inherent lexical predicates into which actions or events can be placed: (1)

achievements, (2) accomplishments, (3) activities, and (4) states. Subsequently,

these predicates may or may not possess the three following semantic qualities:

dynamism (active engagement), telicity (inherent end point), and punctuality

(instantaneous completion). According to Bonilla’s (2013) classication, achieve-

ments (e.g., realizing something) possess all three features; accomplishments

(e.g., building a bridge) are dynamic and telic, while activities are only dynamic

Table 8.1 Preterite and imperfect tenses (based on Andersen, 1993)

(1) Preterite (perfective aspect)

Nosotros jugamos

ᴘᴇʀfᴇᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ

un buen partido.

“We played a good game.”

(2) Imperfect (imperfective aspect) (a) Nosotr os jugábamos

ʜᴀʙɪᴜᴀʟ

fútbol después de la

escuela frecuentemente.

“We often played soccer after school.”

(b) El equipo jugaba

ᴘʀᴏɢʀᴇssɪᴠᴇ

mientras llovía.

“The team was playing while it was raining.”

The use of the aspectual distinction 165

(e.g., working out). On the other hand, states (e.g., feeling, being) possess none of

the three semantic qualities (cf. Table 8.2).

Given their inherent telicity, achievements and accomplishments typically

align with perfective aspect, and therefore the preterite tense. The usual lack of

boundedness in activities and states, on the other hand, commonly aligns with

imperfective aspect and the imperfect tense. This, however, does not imply that

states and actions may not reect boundedness in some cases, as in Examples 1

and 2, both taken from Rothman (2008).

1 Siempre que fuimos a la universidad, estudiamos en la biblioteca.

“Whenever we went to the university, we ended up studying in the library.”

2 Siempre que íbamos a la universidad, estudiábamos en la biblioteca.

“Every time we went to the university, we studied in the library.”

It is important to mention that the successful selection of one aspect over the other

is particularly challenging for English-L1, Spanish-L2 learners (Andersen, 1993;

Bonilla, 2013; Rothman, 2008; Salaberry, 1999). This difculty may be explained by

the fact that the morphological marker in English—for example, “ed” in “played”—

“do[es] not explicitly encode aspect” (Andersen, 1993, p. 307) by itself. Rather, it is

the context that determines the inherent temporal constituency of the circumstances.

For example, in Table 8.1, sentence (1) “We played a good game” refers to a single

one-time completed event, while sentence (2a) “We often played soccer after school”

reects a habitual past action whose recurrence is conveyed by the temporal adverb

“often.” Contrastively, the Spanish morphological paradigms of the verb jugar “to

play” in both cases—that is, jugamos and jugábamos—encode telicity and habitual-

ness by themselves. In addition, the complexity for the effective selection of one

morphological marker over the other (preterite vs. imperfect) may arise when trying

to discriminate between specic and generic interpretations, when the circumstances

require making such distinction (Bonilla, 2013; Montrul & Slabakova, 2003), as seen

in Examples (3) and (4) ahead, taken from Montrul and Slabakova (2003):

3 Durante la dictadura, se vivió muy mal en Chile.

“During the dictatorship, we lived very poorly.” (+ specic)

4 Durante la dictadura, se vivía muy mal en Chile.

“During the dictatorship, one (they) lived very poorly.” (+ generic)

Table 8.2 Semantic qualities of Vendler’s (1967) lexical predicates

Lexical predicate Dynamism Telicity Punctuality

Achievements (e.g., realizing something)

  

Accomplishments (e.g., building a bridge)  

Activities are only dynamic (e.g., working out) 

States (e.g., feeling, being)

166 Laura Valentín-Rivera and Earl K. Brown

Some theoretical explanations, such as the aspectual hypothesis (AH) and the

default past tense hypothesis (DPTH), have built on Vendler’s (1967) lexical cat-

egories in order to better comprehend the complex and lengthy (Andersen, 1991)

development of the aspectual distinction in Spanish for L2 learners. Proposed

by Andersen (1986, 1991) and Andersen and Shirai (1994), the AH highlights

language mastery as the key for aspectual distinction development: The greater

Spanish L2 learners’ linguistic abilities, the more sensitive they become to the

inherent lexical semantics of verbs. More specically (as seen in Table 8.3), the

use of perfective markers appears rst and spreads from punctual verbs

(achievements in stage 2) to stative verbs (but not until stage 8), whereas the

use of imperfective markers appear later and spread from stative verbs (stage

3) to punctual verbs (stage 5 onward, starting with accomplishments).

(Montrul & Salaberry, 2003, p. 53)

In comparison to Andersen’s (1991) AH, the DPTH, proposed by Salaberry (1999,

2003, 2008) and Ayoun and Salaberry (2005), states that Spanish learners and

other Romance-language learners “initially, and possibly through later stages, use

perfective past marking as a default tense marker instead of relying on inherent

aspectual distinctions” (Bonilla, 2013, p. 624). In short, Salaberry (1999, p. 151)

asserts that “the effect of lexical aspect is minimal compared to the effect of tense

contrasts.” Thus, the distribution of aspect in accordance with DPTH is observed

only at higher levels of linguistic prociency.

It should be noted that despite the theoretical efforts of the AH and DPTH

to shed light on the acquisition of aspectual distinction, both are specic to L2

learners. Only a few studies, like Van Buren (2012), have explored aspectual dis-

tinction in Spanish as a heritage language. This omission is of relevance, given

Table 8.3 Andersen’s (1991) sequence of development of Spanish verbal morphological

markers (from Labeau, 2005)

Phase States “had” Activities Accomplishments Achievements

“played” “taught X to Y” “broke in two”

tiene juega enseña se parte

2 tiene juega enseña se partió

3 tenía juega enseña se partió

4 tenía jugaba enseñó se partió

5 tenía jugaba enseñó se partió

enseñaba

6 tenía jugaba enseñó se partió

jugó enseñaba

7 tenía jugaba enseñó se partió

jugó enseñaba se partía

8 tenía jugaba enseñó se partió

tuvo jugó enseñaba se partía

The use of the aspectual distinction 167

that there is a lack of systematization to facilitate the understanding of how the

aspectual distinction is approached by home learners of Spanish.

The inherent complexity of the aspectual distinction, especially when embed-

ded in the so-called alternative contextual meanings, which differ from the afore-

mentioned canonical predicates (cf. Table 8.4), may also complicate the aspectual

selection not only for L2 students but also for HSs (Montrul, 2002). Consequently,

some linguists have conducted research on the aspectual distinction in HS con-

texts, suggesting that this grammatical property is prone to erosion.

On “erosion”

Silva-Corvalán (1994) and Montrul (2002) document US-born Spanish-English

bilinguals from several generations with neutralization of the preterite-imperfect

distinction in both written and oral production. Consequently, it has been sug-

gested that the aspectual distinction in the past tense in Spanish is “a prime can-

didate for simplication and erosion as a result of language loss” (Montrul, 2002,

p. 40) for HSs.

Silva-Corvalán (1994) studies the past-tense verbal system of three genera-

tions of Mexican Americans in Los Angeles: (1) rst generation—Mexicans that

immigrated to the United States after the age of 11 years; (2) second generation—

immigrants who were born in the United States or who had emigrated from Mex-

ico arrived before the age of 11; and (3) third generation—US-born individuals

with at least one second-generation parent. All participants completed (1) an inter-

view and (2) a cloze test that featured both verbal aspects. The results suggest

that the aspectual distinction is problematic for the speakers, although there were

differences between the groups. For instance, rst-generation participants strug-

gled only with states (e.g., ser “to be,” tener “to have,” sentir “to feel’), whereas

second- and third-generation speakers tended to favor the use of preterite with

all four lexical predicates, although the imperfect markers were minimally used

in contexts where they are required in monolingual Spanish. This shows a mor-

phological neutralization, but not complete loss of the distinction between the

preterite and the imperfect. Silva-Corvalán (1994) suggests that this linguistic

simplication is the consequence of reduced Spanish input as well as exposure

Table 8.4 Examples of aspectual contextual meanings (from Montrul, 2002)

(a) Stative in

Emmanuel sabía

sᴛᴀᴛɪᴠᴇ

que Ricardo tiene 25 años. “Emmanuel

imperfect,

knew that Ricardo is 25 years old.” Emmanuel supo

ᴀᴄʜɪᴇᴠᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ

que

achievement in

Ricardo tiene 25 años. “Emmanuel found out that Ricardo is

preterite

25 years old.”

(b) Habitual in Antes estudiaba

ʜᴀʙɪᴛᴜᴀʟ

en la biblioteca tres veces por semana.

imperfect “I used to/would study at the library three times a week.”

ɢᴇɴᴇʀɪᴄ

hojas de los árboles. “Dinosaurs used

imperfect, to/would eat tree leaves.”

specic in El dinosaurio comió

Sᴘᴇᴄɪfɪᴄ

hojas de los árboles. “The dinosaur ate

preterite tree leaves.”

168 Laura Valentín-Rivera and Earl K. Brown

to the simplied morphological system of English. Similarly, Silva-Corvalán

(2018) compares the emerging language system of two simultaneous bilingual

children (corpus 1) to the mature grammatical representation of second- and

third-generation HSs

(corpus 2) to examine the linguistic incompleteness of three

properties pertaining to the Spanish language: subject realization, clitics, and the

verb system (i.e., tense, aspect, and mood). The two children that composed the

rst corpus were siblings that were exposed to Spanish at home through only one

of their caregivers (i.e., the father) for three and a half (oldest child) and three

years (youngest child). Overall, the results show that the interrupted exposure to

Spanish and the limited opportunities to use that language caused both children

in corpus 1 to have incompletely acquired by age 6 the three surveyed grammati-

cal properties. This was also true for the bilingual adults who displayed similar

patterns of grammatical incompleteness that the children did, especially when

compared to the youngest child. More specically, the children and the adults

displayed a high rate of subject pronoun expression, even in situations that reect

continuity of reference (i.e., coreferentiality), which suggests an inuence from

English, a language that favors the use of overt subject pronouns. Comparably, the

children and the bilingual adults displayed some omission of clitics when these

were grammatically required. However, the oldest child omitted far fewer clitics

than his younger sibling, whose discourse showed a pattern closer to that of the

third generation HSs. In spite of observing incomplete acquisition in both sib-

lings’ linguistic systems at a similar age, the lesser exposure to Spanish received

early in life by the youngest child (i.e., three years, as compared to three and a

half) further limited his prociency in Spanish, as previously exemplied. Con-

trastively, the six additional months of exposure to Spanish that the oldest child

received made him somewhat more adept to communicate in a native-like man-

ner. Specically, in terms of the aspectual distinction, by the ages of 5 to 6, both

siblings struggled with the use of the preterite, and tended to use the imperfect

morphology in perfective contexts. It is noteworthy that this inclination was lim-

ited to situations interlinked with the following stative verbs: ser (to be), estar (to

be), tener (to have), haber (there to be), and poder (to be able to). Additionally, the

oldest child presented a solid command of the imperfective aspect, and accurately

used the imperfect morphology in atelic circumstances, while the youngest child

was inclined to use the preterite in the same instances.

Montrul (2002) also studies aspectual distinction in HL Spanish. In her study,

39 Spanish HSs, mostly of Mexican heritage, were categorized according to their

age at onset of bilingualism: (1) “simultaneous” bilinguals were exposed to both

languages from birth; (2) “sequential” bilinguals were rst exposed to English

between the ages of 4 and 7; and (3) “late” bilinguals were immigrants who

received some schooling in Spanish before moving to the United States. At least

one of the parents of these late bilinguals was a sequential bilingual. To determine

if the bilinguals’ competency was native-like, a fourth group of 20 monolingually

raised Spanish speakers who had lived in the United States between 6 months

and 4 years was included. The four groups completed two activities to measure

written and oral perception and production of the aspectual differences, focusing

The use of the aspectual distinction 169

especially on (a) verbs that represent states in the imperfect but achievements

in the preterite (cf. Table 8.4, row a), (b) the habitual meaning of the imperfect

(cf. Table 8.4, row b), and (c) the generic interpretation of the imperfect and the

specic one of the preterite (cf. Table 8.4, row c). Additionally, a two-meaning

judgment activity examined the aspectual distinction embedded in accomplish-

ments, achievements, and states. It should be noted that activity sentences were

excluded from the task, as they did not t the design. The results of activities 1 and

2 showed that the bilinguals diverged considerably from the monolingually raised

Spanish speakers. In addition, activity 3 suggested that the participants struggled

with stative and achievement predicates. Thus, in line with Silva-Corvalán (1994),

Montrul found that simultaneous bilinguals showed lower rates of accuracy with

states in both perfective and imperfective contexts while the sequential and late

bilinguals displayed problems with states in telic (perfective) situations. Accord-

ing to Montrul, these results suggest that the age of onset of bilingualism plays an

important role in the ultimate attainment in the language, as well as the degree of

deviation from monolingual patterns of usage.

Methods

Participants and setting

In order to further the understanding of the functionality and systematization of

Spanish as an HL in the United States, the speech of 23 participants was recorded

and analyzed. The speakers were HSs enrolled in a fourth-semester intermedi-

ate Spanish course specically designed for heritage learners, in two consecutive

academic semesters (Fall 2015, n = 14; Spring 2016, n = 9) at a large public uni-

versity in the American Midwest. The objectives of the course included improv-

ing reading and writing skills, especially formal and academic Spanish, as well

as speaking in public (in the classroom itself) in Spanish, using a formal register.

For this reason, explicit instruction in writing and practice in orthographic-related

matters were offered. Assignments included weekly journal entries and weekly

newspaper reading, two individual compositions (each with three drafts), and

three short collaborative compositions. Regarding the participants, the majority

of them were born in the United States (n = 20), with only two participants born

in Mexico and one in Guatemala. The parents of the participants are mostly from

Mexico (n = 15), with the rest (n = 8) from a handful of other Hispanic countries:

Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia, Chile, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic.

Following Montrul (2002), the speakers in this study were categorized by the

age of rst exposure to English. Those who were rstly exposed to Spanish and

English from birth to the age of 3 were classied as “simultaneous” bilinguals,

those rstly exposed to English between the ages of 4 and 7 were categorized as

“sequential” speakers, and those whose rst contact with English was at or after

age 8 were considered “late” bilinguals. Based on these classications, the pool

of participants for this study was comprised of 12 sequential bilinguals, 11 simul-

taneous bilinguals, and 1 late bilingual.

170 Laura Valentín-Rivera and Earl K. Brown

Materials and procedures

The participants lled out a questionnaire to determine their ethnic and linguistic

background, such as the age of onset of bilingualism and their parents’ country

of origin (see Appendix A). In order to access the semi-spontaneous production

of the preterite and imperfect forms by the participants, one of two research-

ers conducted a single recording session with each informant. In most cases,

the researcher rst engaged the speaker in spontaneous conversation, mimick-

ing the techniques of the sociolinguistic interview by including questions related

to university life, vacations, jobs, hobbies, and so forth (cf. Labov, 1984). After

approximately 20 minutes, the researcher introduced an interpretation task by

participating in a hypothetical role-play with the informant. The purpose of the

role-play was to elicit the preterite or imperfect tenses of specic verbs that previ-

ously had been categorized into one of the four groups based on lexical aspect,

as proposed by Vendler (1967): state, activity, achievement, and accomplish-

ment. For the interpretation task, the researcher asked the informant questions

in English and the informant responded in Spanish. A copy of possible phrases

written in English to answer the questions was provided to the informants during

the role-play. The participants were encouraged to translate the suggested phrases

while answering the questions in order to promote the use of the targeted verb

types. The reason for using English was to control for any priming effect

from the

researcher; had the researcher asked the questions in Spanish with one of the ver-

bal tenses, whether preterite or imperfect, the informants likely would have been

inclined, albeit subconsciously, to use that same verbal tense in their responses.

The researchers also specically avoided including false cognates (e.g., atender

vs. asistir, “to attend”). Using this methodology, 23 target verbs were elicited,

with 15 test items (nine preterite forms, six imperfect forms) and nine distractors

(three present forms, one present progressive form, one past perfect form, and

four innitive forms). The 15 test items were chosen to try to include a variety of

verbs. The hypothetical situation and the suggested responses in English are given

in Appendix B.

Subsequent to the recording session, the participants’ responses were analyzed

and coded as either “preterite,” “imperfect,” or something else, such as “present”

and “past participle.” Before the quantitative analysis, reported ahead, the tokens

that did not require either the preterite or the imperfect were excluded.

In order to measure the level of the participants’ prociency in Spanish, the

DELE exam published by the National Heritage Language Resource Center at the

University of California, Los Angeles, which is a modied and shorter version of

the DELE made available by the Instituto Cervantes, was administered to each

informant.

It presents the participants with 50 multiple-choice questions within

isolated items as well as within a cloze paragraph task. Admittedly, a multiple-

choice test such as the DELE exam can provide only a rough estimation of the

level of prociency of a speaker of a given language; however, it is important to

account for this variable, as the level of prociency in Spanish can vary widely

among Spanish HSs (cf. Blake & Zyzik, 2003). Additionally, the DELE test was

The use of the aspectual distinction 171

used in order to create consistency across studies, as other scholars have used this

exam to establish prociency among HSs (e.g., Bowles, 2011; Henshaw, 2013;

Pascual y Cabo, 2013).

The mean DELE score among our 23 participants was 36.7 (median = 39,

SD = 7.8). The DELE test is accompanied by a tripartite rubric offered by the

National Heritage Language Resource Center. The rubric is based on 50 points,

1 point per item, and proposes categories based on score. Subjects are placed at

the “beginning” level if they score 1–29 points, at the “intermediate” level with a

score of 30–39 points, and at the “advanced” level with 40–50 points. The number

of participants falling into each of these categories and their mean DELE score are

reported in Table 8.5.

In order to establish how the production of aspect by the HSs differs from Span-

ish as a majority language, nine monolingually raised native speakers of Spanish

from Mexico (referred to ahead as MNSs) were required to complete the same

interpretation task under the same conditions. These speakers were procient

learners of English. Their responses to the interview prompts were used to create

a native consensus for each test item. The level of consensus was high among

these nine MNSs for each test item; for 13 of the 15 test items, all nine MNSs used

the same verbal tense, while for 1 test item, eight of the nine MNSs used the same

verbal tense, and for another test item, seven of the nine MNSs produced the same

verbal tense (cf. Table 8.6).

As reported ahead, in order to ascertain whether any differences in produc-

tion of the HSs and the MNSs are meaningful, one-way ANOVA is employed.

Table 8.5 DELE scores among the 23 participants

Category n Mean DELE score SD

Beginning (1–29) 4 23 5

Intermediate (30–39) 9 36 2.9

Advanced (40–50) 10 42.9 2.2

Table 8.6 Native speaker (NS) control group: average deviation from consensus = 2.23%

Speaker n with consensus Percentage (%) of divergence

NS 1 15 0

NS 2 15 0

NS 3 15 0

NS 4 14 6.7

NS 5 14 6.7

NS 6 14 6.7

NS 7 15 0

NS 8 15 0

NS 9 15 0

172 Laura Valentín-Rivera and Earl K. Brown

Subsequently, Tukey pairwise comparisons are performed in order to determine

the signicant differences among the various groupings of HSs. It is important

to mention that this study focuses only on shedding light on how the use of the

aspectual distinction, as a whole, varies among HSs and native speakers of Span-

ish, as opposed to establishing the degree of linguistic accuracy.

Results

RQ1: Level of prociency in Spanish and the use of the preterite and imperfect

verbal tenses among heritage speakers of Spanish

The results of the DELE test are telling in terms of the correlation between pro-

ciency level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and the degree of linguistic diver-

gence from the monolingually raised native speakers (MNS) consensus (one-way

ANOVA: F = 14.15; df = 3; p ≤ 0.001). The lower the level of linguistic pro-

ciency (as measured by the DELE), the higher the percentage of divergence

with respect to the native-speaker consensus. More specically, beginners’ per-

formance, on average, was different from that of MNSs 31.65% of the time (rang-

ing from 13.3% to 53.3%), while intermediates’ responses were 26.66% different

(uctuating from 13.3% to 40%). Advanced bilinguals showed only 15.56% of

difference (oscillating from 6.7% to 26.7%). Table 8.7 presents the number of

responses in the role-play that conform to what can be considered prescriptive

grammar, with 15 responses being the maximum.

Tukey pairwise comparisons return signicant differences between MNSs and

all HS groupings (i.e., beginner, intermediate, advanced), as well as a signicant

difference between beginning HSs and advanced HSs. The comparison between

intermediate HSs and advanced HSs and intermediate HSs and beginner HSs

proved irrelevant (cf. Table 8.8).

It is noteworthy to point out that, as expected, there is individual variation

among the participants, and that two advanced HSs (HS 8 and HS 18), or 22.22%

of the participants, exhibited a native-like performance, given their very low per-

centage (6.7%) of linguistic divergence from the MNS consensus. It is safe to

argue that their performance is native-like given that this same percentage of dis-

crepancy (6.7%) was produced by three MNSs (MNS 4, MNS 5, and MNS 6), as

seen in Table 8.6. Four additional advanced bilinguals (HS 1, HS 6, HS 23, and

Table 8.7 Descriptive statistics by level of prociency based on DELE (for nonnative

speakers)

Prociency Mean Median SD Minimum Maximum

Native 14.7 15.0 0.5 14 15

Advanced 12.8 13.0 1.3 11 15

Intermediate 11.0 11.0 1.7 9 13

Beginning 10.3 10.5 2.5 7 13

The use of the aspectual distinction 173

HS 24), or 44.44% of the participants in this group, also showed a low degree of

dissention (13.3%), thus exhibiting a close-to-native-like performance in at least

13 out of the 15 items of the translation task.

Despite nding an overall relationship between the level of prociency and the

amount of variance from the MNS consensus, the degree of linguistic prociency

in Spanish, as determined by the DELE test, was not always a predictor of per-

formance. This is illustrated with the responses of four non-advanced bilinguals,

specically, three intermediate HSs (HS 2, HS 5, and HS 20) and one beginner HS

(HS 13). These four speakers also displayed a high level of “native” functionality

by exhibiting only 13.3% of linguistic variance from the MNS consensus.

RQ2: The inherent lexical aspect of actions and the use of the preterite and

imperfect verbal tenses among heritage speakers of Spanish

In an attempt to understand how and why aspectual distinction in HS Spanish

and MNS Spanish varies, an analysis of the percentage of each test item was per-

formed (cf. Table 8.9). Given that in this study 13.3% of divergence is considered

to display a “close-to-native-like” performance, any items that revealed this or a

lower ratio (i.e., items 5b and 8a) were excluded from the analysis (Table 8.10).

Some noteworthy patterns were observed when exploring each of the 11 items

that reected some degree of divergence across the three levels of HS prociency

(advanced, intermediate, and beginner).

All HS prociency groupings show at least some divergence from the MNS

consensus with four test items (Table 8.9). These items are 5a (estar “to be”), 9

(querer “to want”), 12 (darse cuenta “to realize”), and 13 (ser “to be”). Curiously,

these four test items are not equally complex, nor do they display a clear pattern

of divergence among the HS groupings, with the exception, perhaps, of items 12

and 13, which may suggest that a higher level of prociency among HSs causes

less divergence. With item 12, HSs diverged from the MNS consensus as follows:

advanced HSs = 20%; intermediate HSs = 22.2%; beginner HSs = 25%. Addition-

ally, with item 13 we see the following rates of divergence: advanced HSs = 60%;

intermediate HSs = 67%; beginner HSs = 100%. On the other hand, items 5a and

Table 8.8 Tukey honest signicant differences post-hoc test among HS groupings and NSs

Comparison Estimate Conf. low Conf. high Adjusted Signicant

p-value

Beginning—Advanced −2.550 −4.882 −0.218 0.028 yes

Intermediate— −1.800 −3.611 0.011 0.052 no

Advanced

Native—Advanced 1.867 0.056 3.678 0.041 yes

Intermediate— 0.750 −1.619 3.119 0.823 no

Beginning

Native—Beginning 4.417 2.048 6.785 0.000 yes

Native—Intermediate 3.667 1.809 5.525 0.000 yes

174 Laura Valentín-Rivera and Earl K. Brown

Table 8.9 Deviancy from NS consensus by test item and by HS group

Item NS consensus Advanced HS Intermediate HS Beginning HS

consensus consensus consensus

03a 100% 90% 77.8% 50%

03b 100% 100% 100% 75%

04a 100% 100% 100% 100%

04b 77.8% 80% 100% 75%

05a 88.9% 30% 0% 25%

05b 100% 100% 88.9% 100%

6 100% 100% 77.8% 75%

7 100% 90% 55.6% 50%

08a 100% 90% 88.9% 100%

08b 100% 90% 55.6% 50%

9 100% 80% 66.7% 75%

10 100% 90% 77.8% 50%

11 100% 100% 100% 100%

12 100% 80% 77.8% 75%

13 100% 40% 33.3% 0%

Table 8.10

Most frequent divergence by prociency level and by item

Most frequent items Lex. aspect Level

Advanced Intermediate Beginner

5a (estar “to be”)*

state 70% 100% 75%

9 (querer “to want”)* state 20% 34% 25%

12 (darse cuenta “to realize”) achievement 20% 22.2% 25%

13 (ser “to be”) state 60% 67% 100%

3a (fumar “to smoke”) activity 22.2% 50%

6 (saber “to know”) state 22.2% 25%

7 (conocer “to know”) state 44.4% 50%

8b (tomar “to take”) activity 44.4% 50%

10 (poder “can”) state 22.2% 50%

4b (desarrollar “to develop”) achievement 20% 25%

3b (tomar “to take”) activity 25%

9, both marked by an asterisk (*) in Table 8.10, lacked predictability when deter-

mining a pattern of deviance. Item 5 depicted the following trend of divergence:

advanced HSs = 70%; intermediate HSs = 100%; beginner HSs = 75%. Item 9 is

similar: advanced HSs = 20%; intermediate HSs = 34%; beginner HSs = 25%.

Similarly, ve items—3a (fumar “to smoke”), 6 (saber “to know”), 7 (conocer “to

know”), 8b (tomar “to take”), and 10 (poder “can, be able”)—showed deviation,

but only among intermediate and beginner HSs (see Table 8.10). That said, it is

important to remember that the pairwise comparison between these two pro-

ciency levels (i.e., intermediate and beginner) proved statistically insignicant in

a Tukey test, as reported in Table 8.8. However, descriptively, the results among

The use of the aspectual distinction 175

intermediate HSs and beginner HSs of the ve test items 3a, 6, 7, 8b, and 10

display a pattern: the higher the level of prociency (as measured by the DELE

exam), the lower the rate of divergence. The degree of divergence per item is

shown as follows, where the rst and second percentages show the performance

related to intermediate HSs and beginner HSs, respectively: item 3a = 22.2%,

50%; item 6 = 22.2%, 25%; item 7 = 44.4%, 50%; item 8b = 44.4%, 50%; item

10 = 22.2%, 50%. Two more test items support the pattern, this time between

advanced HSs and beginner HSs: item 4b (desarrollar “to develop”), where the

level of divergence was 20% and 25%, respectively; and one test item, speci-

cally 3b (tener “to have”), in which 25% of the beginner HSs deviated from the

MNS consensus while no advanced HS nor intermediate HS did. It is important to

remember that the comparison among advanced and beginner bilinguals proved

to be statistically signicant (see Table 8.8).

It is notable to point out that two of the items that showed divergent responses

among HSs (items 5a and 4b) also showed variance among MNSs’ responses.

With item 5a, 11.1% of the MNSs’ responses diverge from the MNS consensus,

while the following rates of divergence among HSs are seen: advanced = 70%,

intermediate = 100%, beginners = 75%. With item 4b, 22.2% of the MNSs’

responses diverge, with advanced HSs diverging 20% of the time, intermediate

HSs not diverging at all, and beginner HSs diverging 25% of the time.

Overall, beginner- and intermediate-prociency bilinguals showed deviation

when conveying the aspectual distinction interlinked with verbs of the follow-

ing levels of complexity, according to the DPTH (Andersen, 1991): one case of

phase 5 (accomplishments), two cases of phase 6 (actions), three cases of phase

7 (achievements), and three cases of phase 8 (states). More specically, out of

the 11 items (5a, 9, 12, 13, 3a, 6, 7, 8, 10, 4b, 3b) that presented variance across

all three levels of prociency of the HSs in this study, in regard to the consensus

achieved by most of the MNSs, states constituted the type of lexical predicate

with most instances of divergence (4 out of 11).

RQ3: The onset of bilingualism and the use of the preterite and imperfect ver-

bal tenses among heritage speakers of Spanish

Despite nding a meaningful relationship between level of prociency and the

degree of divergence, in addition to observing some patterns of systematic vari-

ation among the test items by prociency, no connection was found between the

age of onset of bilingualism and the results in the DELE test. It seems logical to

assume that the later in life our participants were rst exposed to the majority

societal language (i.e., English), the higher the prociency in the heritage lan-

guage (i.e., Spanish) would be. Consequently, it was anticipated that the sequen-

tial bilinguals—that is, HSs whose English exposure occurred between the ages

of 4 and 7—would make up the group of speakers who would display the high-

est degrees of prociency in Spanish (as measured on the DELE exam). For the

most part, this intuition turned out to be the case, as seven of the nine (or 77%)

of the advanced HSs were in fact sequential bilinguals. However, curiously, the

176 Laura Valentín-Rivera and Earl K. Brown

remaining two advanced HSs were simultaneous bilinguals—that is, individu-

als exposed to both English and Spanish from birth, who were also the only HS

speakers to achieve a native-like performance by diverging only 6.7% from the

NS consensus. To add to this puzzling result, some HSs who shared similar ages

of onset of bilingualism and achieved similar levels of prociency on the DELE

exam displayed very different rates of divergence from the MNS consensus. This

was the case of HS 5 and HS 25: both simultaneous bilinguals with a score on the

DELE exam of 35 and 36 points, respectively, and therefore placed in the interme-

diate-prociency grouping. Oddly, HS 5 uctuated 13.3% from the MNSs, while

HS 25 showed 40% of divergence.

Discussion

According to Andersen’s (1991) chart on the sequence of progression of Span-

ish verbal morphological markers (see Table 8.3), the development of the four

lexical predicates (accomplishments, achievements, activities, states) proposed

by Vendler (1967) varies in complexity. This can be observed throughout the

eight phases identied by Andersen, where the eighth phase displays the highest

level of inherent complexity (i.e., states). As such, achievements are positioned

as the rst type of predicate to convey the past tense (phase 2). That is, early

in the acquisition process, Spanish L2 learners rst express the notion of the

past tense—which relates to the situation-external time (cf. Salaberry, 2003), not

the aspectual distinction—by embedding the preterite in verbs of achievements

(e.g., darse cuenta “to realize”). These are followed by states (e.g., tener “to

have”), which tend to be noticeable in phase 3. However, different from achieve-

ments, states are often interlinked with imperfective morphological markers. The

acquisition of the past tense happens the latest with activities and accomplish-

ments, phase 4, with the imperfect as the default for activities and the preterite

the default for accomplishments. Additionally, Andersen’s sequence suggests

that the development of the aspectual differentiation—that is, “internal temporal

constituency of a situation” (Comrie, 1976, p. 3)—is also convoluted, although

at different levels. As such, the correspondence between the highest to the lowest

levels of inherent complexity is as follows: states (phase 8), achievements (phase

7), activities (phase 6), and accomplishments (phase 5). It is worth pointing out

that the results observed in the present study match this cline. Achievements

and activities comprised the second-highest occurrences of deviation (with three

cases each), while only one instance of variance interlinked with accomplish-

ments is observed. In this sense, the results of this study suggest a correspond-

ence between Andersen’s (1991) hypothesis, concerning the development of the

Spanish aspectual distinction in L2 learners and the performance of HSs when

making this differentiation.

The systematization observed in this study can be seen as an additional factor

that supports the relationship between L2 learners and HSs of Spanish when it

comes to the development of the Spanish aspectual distinction, given that the per-

formance of HSs, when seen by level, reveals a pattern anticipated by Andersen

The use of the aspectual distinction 177

(1991). More specically, Andersen’s hypothesis presupposes that the greater the

degree of linguistic prociency in Spanish, the greater the sensibility to convey

the aspectual distinction. As such, it is not surprising that the only four items

that presented a degree of divergence among advanced HSs were states (item 5a

estar “to be,” item 9 querer “to want,” and item 13 ser “to be”) and achievements

(item 12 darse cuenta “to realize”), especially given the high level of inherent

complexity of both types of lexical predicates. In fact, Andersen’s hypothesis sug-

gests that the aspectual distinction in states is fully developed by phase 8, with

achievements developed by phase 7. Following this logic, it is expected that, in

addition to displaying divergence with highly convoluted lexical predicates, like

item 6 (saber “to know” in phase 7) and item 7 (conocer “to know” in phase

7), and to the items mentioned earlier—that is, 5a, 9, 12, and 13—intermediate

and beginner HSs’ performance would show deviance from the MNS consensus

with lexical predicates with lower levels of complexity. This can be observed

in items 3a (fumar “to smoke”) and 8b (tomar “to take”), which are classied

as activities (phase 6), in addition to item 10 (poder “can”), categorized as an

accomplishment (phase 5). It is worth mentioning that items 6 (saber “to know”)

and 7 (conocer “to know”), both achievements that share a complexity at phase 7,

may have shown divergence only among intermediate and beginner learners given

that these two verbs are candidates for a change of meaning, depending on the

aspectual context they convey. For example, when conocer “to know someone/

to be familiar with a place” carries imperfective morphology, as in conocía, the

meaning conveyed is “used to know,” as in “formerly knowing someone,” thus

being cataloged as an activity due to its dynamism but lack of telicity and punc-

tuality. However, when used with the perfective morphology, as in conocí, this

same verb carries the sense of “met,” as in “getting to know someone for the rst

time,” thus qualifying as an achievement, given its dynamism, telicity, and punc-

tuality. Based on this observation, lexical predicates that change lexical predicate

categories with different aspects (i.e., preterite and imperfect) do not seem to be

complex for advanced HSs.

Also, given the results presented here, in a sense, this study partially resembles

that of Silva-Corvalán (1994, 2018), as our participants’ performance suggests

that stative verbs are complex when conveying aspectual distinction. However,

there was a noteworthy difference. Contrary to Silva-Corvalán (1994), our results

do not support the neutralization of the aspectual distinction as a whole, as the

higher the level of linguistic prociency, the lower the percentage of variance

with respect to the MNS consensus. Based on this observation, it could be argued

that only intermediate and beginner HSs of Spanish display a greater degree

of variance than the native speakers. In addition, the results presented here are

not in line with Montrul (2002), as the study presented here does not suggest

that the onset of bilingualism affects linguistic production of the preterite and

imperfect. Rather, it was the level of prociency that best accounted for the par-

ticipants’ performance. It is noteworthy to point out, however, that what remains

unanswered is identifying the factors that determine the level of prociency in

the heritage language, given that age of onset of bilingualism does not seem to

178 Laura Valentín-Rivera and Earl K. Brown

be a contributing factor in these data. What is also questionable is whether the

comparison among HSs, L2 learners, and MNSs of Spanish is appropriate. Both

issues go beyond the scope of the present study. However, the results presented

here shed some light on the understanding of how HSs approach the aspectual

distinction.

Limitations

Future research on the construct studied in this study would do well to seek a

larger participant pool. The pool of participants here is relatively small, especially

among speakers who were classied as beginner-prociency HSs on the pro-

ciency scale. A larger number of participants may unveil different results. Also,

the translation activity might include the same number of items that require both

the perfective and imperfective morphology, in addition to incorporating the same

amount of each of the four lexical predicates (accomplishments, achievements,

actions, and states). Additionally, given that two of the items that showed very

high levels of divergence across all levels of prociency were embedded into ser/

estar (to be), classied as states, it would be of interest to add more items that pro-

mote the use of these verbs. This might shed more light on whether the complexi-

ties of this type of verb go beyond aspectual distinction among HSs’ perceptions,

and possibly are classied as candidates of discursive variation.

Conclusion

The novelty of this study resides on its attempt to better understand the com-

plexity of the development and employment of the Spanish aspectual distinction

among HSs, as opposed to being limited to allege erosion or the lack thereof

of said grammatical feature. Based on the systematic patterns observed in this

study and on Andersen’s (1991) observations, a relationship between the per-

formance of L2 learners and HSs of Spanish when conveying the aspectual dis-

tinction can be proposed. In other words, the prociency level in Spanish of

HSs seems to relate to their quality of performance (i.e., more or less native-

like). More specically, the higher the prociency level, the closer to the MNS.

A secondary overall parallel of this study in regard to Andersen (1991) is found

between the level of prociency and the inherent complexity of the four lexi-

cal predicates (accomplishments, achievements, actions, and states). That is, the

lower the level of prociency among HSs, the more likely the divergence from

the MNS consensus, across a wider number of lexical predicates. On the other

hand, advanced HSs’ performance mostly displayed divergence when dealing

with states (phase 8): three out of the four cases of divergence were embedded

in said lexical predicate.

What remains unanswered is which elements account for the degree of mastery

in the heritage language. Further research to shed light on this matter, as well as

establish whether the results shown here are applicable across linguistic subelds,

however, is paramount.

The use of the aspectual distinction 179

Notes

1 The corpus constituted by the 50 bilingual adults followed the same categorization pro-

cedures as those in Silva-Corvalán (1994).

2 As pointed out by an anonymous reviewer, there still might be priming given that some

verbal forms in English explicitly denote imperfective aspect, such as “-ing” and “used

to __.”

3 As pointed out by an anonymous reviewer, caution is warranted when using the DELE

exam with group participants (cf. Carreira & Potowski, 2011) and when comparing

HLLs to L2 learners (cf. Van Osch, Hulk, Aalberse, & Sleeman, 2018).

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Garcia%202002.pdf

Date: _____________

Name: ____________________________________________

Gender: ________Age: ___________

Major: _____________________

Native Language(s):______________ Foreign language(s): ______________

You are a ______ A. Freshman B. Sophomore C. Junior D. Senior

E. Graduate student F. Other___________

Language background

1 Were you born in the U.S.? YES NO—please specify where you were born:

2 If you were not born in the U.S., how old were you when you moved to the

U.S.?___________.

3 If you were not born in the U.S., how often do you go back to your country of

origin?

Never Once every few years Once a year A few times a year

4 Where are your parents/caregivers from? (if not applicable, please write N/A)

Mother: __________ Father: _____________

5 What languages do your parents/caregivers speak? (if not applicable, please

write N/A)

Mother: __________ Father: _____________

6 What do your parents do for a living? (if not applicable, please write N/A)

Mother: __________ Father: _____________

7 What is your parents’ highest level of schooling?

Mother:

Father:

• At what age did you begin to learn English? Since birth When I was

______

Appendix A

Background questionnaire

The use of the aspectual distinction 183

• At what age did you begin to learn Spanish? Since birth When I was

______

8 As a child . . .

. . . what language/s did you hear in your home?