Bilingualism and Developmental Linguistics research group

Speaker: Alexandra Fiéis (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

Title: Comparing the L1 and L2 acquisition of clitic placement and null objects in European Portuguese

Abstract: Recent research has suggested that phenomena acquired late in L1 may be challenging in L2 (e.g., Tsimpli, 2014). Clitic placement and the distribution of overt and null objects in European Portuguese (EP) constitute appropriate testing grounds for this hypothesis since research on monolingual L1 acquisition found that: (i) EP-speaking children begin by generalising enclisis to proclisis contexts (Duarte, Matos & Faria, 1995) and acquire knowledge of some of these contexts late, following a fixed developmental route (Costa, Fiéis & Lobo, 2015); (ii)  children show early sensitivity to the discourse constraints on null objects in EP but become sensitive to animacy constraints late (Flores, Rinke & Sopata, 2020). To establish comparisons between L1 and L2 grammar acquisition, a study on the L2 acquisition of clitic placement and ongoing research on the distribution of overt and null objects in L2 EP will be presented. Participants were 20 L1 EP speakers and 30 L1 Spanish-L2 EP adult learners (10 intermediates, 10 advanced, and 9 near-natives). An elicited oral production task and a speeded acceptability judgement task were used in the study. Based on their results, three questions, that remain open in the literature, will be addressed: 1) Are the developmental routes of clitic placement and null objects in L2 EP like those found in L1 acquisition? 2) Are these phenomena fully acquired at the best attainable endstate in L2 acquisition, i.e., the near-native level, and, if not, which ones exhibit permanent divergence? 3) Are the linguistic phenomena which are hard at near-native and/or advanced stages the same ones that are acquired late in L1 EP?

Short bio: Alexandra Fiéis (PhD, Universidade Nova de Lisboa) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA FCSH), teaching courses in syntax, variation, multilingualism and second language teaching. She is also a researcher at CLUNL, participating in projects in the areas of Portuguese syntax (synchronic and diachronic), acquisition of Portuguese as first and second language, teaching/learning of Portuguese as second language and material development for second language teaching.