The Project

These data and materials result from my dissertation, "Collective, Distributive, and Referential Interpretations of Possessive Structures in English and in Spanish: L1 and L2 Perspectives," carried out at the University of Georgia. Data were collected in central Mexico, on the US west coast, and in the southeastern US.

Spanish and English traditionally differ with respect to how speakers discuss their belongings. While Spanish speakers might utter, Mis hermanos y yo siempre nos lavábamos la cara antes de irnos a la cama, their English-speaking counterparts would state, My siblings and I would always wash our faces before going to bed. But are these differences in syntax and morphology a given? How do language learners express their ownership of objects, from body parts, to personal belongings? What do learners' and native speakers' use of possessive structures tell us about language acquisition in general? And how might we teach learners about possessive structures? Join me in exploring the fascinating world of possession!

Participants

• 29 adult speakers of L1 Spanish-L2 English residing in Mexico

• Adult speakers of L1 English-L2 Spanish residing in the United States. 

Research Questions

1. Do bilinguals appear to acquire possessive structure syntax? How does this acquisition differ among bilingual groups? Are learners and native speakers more alike in their judgements of syntax as learners become more advanced (Pérez-Leroux, et al. 2002)?

2. Are bilinguals native-like in their mappings of semantics onto syntax? Do learners become more native-like as their proficiency increases (Gorissen 2019; Montrul & Ionin 2012)?

3. Will bilinguals produce similar possessive structure syntax and morphology in writing? Will learners' results be native-like in some contexts, but not in others? Do learners become more native-like as their proficiency increases (Pérez-Leroux, et al. 2002)?

4. Do advanced bilinguals' results support Sorace and colleagues' (2006, 2009) Interface Hypothesis?

5. What are the formal (syntactic and semantic) implications of the native speakers' results?

What must learners acquire?

L1 Spanish-L2 English and L1 English-L2 Spanish learners have three tasks when acquiring possessive structures (Samples 2022b, 2023).

1. They must learn to form possessive structures in the target language (Pérez-Leroux, et al. 2002).

2. They must learn when to use these structures (Solano-Escobar 2021).

3. They must learn to interpret the structures correctly (Montrul & Ionin 2012).

Task 1: target formation of possessive structures (possessor movement from Spec, NP to Spec, DP).  

The below image, captured from Samples (2023) and referencing Pérez-Leroux, et al. (2002:189), shows the two possessive structure types under discussion. We refer to both as DPs (determiner phrases), which are phrases that contain a noun and its modifiers, such as articles, demonstratives, adjectives, etc. 

We see that the internal possessive DP is a phrase like su coche or su cara and their English equivalents his car and his face. The possessor, or owner, is su/his. The possessum, or owned object, is coche/car in the first example and cara/face in the second. Using linguistic sentence diagrams, we can show that the possessor (represented by D, or determiner) is structurally close to the possessum (represented by NP, or noun phrase). This structure type is allowed in both English and Spanish:

• his car √

• his face √

• su coche √

• su cara √

Task 2: target uses of possessive structures (native-like use of syntax).

I include the table below, which has been reproduced from Solano-Escobar (2021:27 [Table 1]), to show the main differences between Spanish and English possessive structures. 

Task 3: target interpretations of possessive structures (interpretations of definite determiners).

The below image, captured from Samples (2022b) and containing illustrations and examples from Montrul & Ionin (2012:81), shows the relationship between the syntax and the semantics of possessive structures.

If you are interested in employing the Grammaticality Judgement Task, Picture-Sentence Matching Task, or Story Narration Task in your research, please contact me at caitlinesamples@gmail.com. Please cite these instruments as:

Samples, C. E. (in prep.). Collective, distributive, and referential interpretations of possessive structures: L1 and L2 perspectives. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Georgia.

References

• Montrul, S., & Ionin, T. (2012). Dominant language transfer in Spanish heritage speakers and second language learners in the interpretation of definite articles. The Modern Language Journal 96(1). 70-94. 

• Pérez-Leroux, A. T., O’Rourke, E., Lord, G., & Centero-Cortes, B. (2002). Inalienable possession in L2 Spanish. In Pérez-Leroux, A. T., & Muñoz Liceras, J. (eds.), The Acquisition of Spanish Morphosyntax, 179-208.

• Samples, C. E. (2022b, October 13-15). Syntax meets semantics: Determiner choice in possessive sentences and its implications in L2 Spanish [Conference presentation]. South Central Modern Language Association 2022, New Orleans, LA, United States.

• Samples, C. E. (2023, May 11-13). Task-Based Activities for the Teaching of Possessive Structures to L1 Spanish-L2 English Learners [Virtual workshop]. II Congreso Internacional Virtual de Investigación en Enseñanza - Aprendizaje de Lenguas y Cultura 2023, Santiago de Querétaro, Qro., Mexico.

• Solano-Escobar, L. (2021). The Interpretation and Production of Inalienable Possession in L2 and Heritage Spanish. [Unpublished MA thesis]. Purdue University.

• Sorace, A., & Filiaci, F. (2006). Anaphora resolution in near-native speakers of Italian. Second Language Research, 22(3). 339-368. 

• Sorace, A., & Serratrice, L. (2009). Internal and external interfaces in bilingual language development: Beyond structural overlap. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13(2). 195-210.

• Tsimpli, I., & Sorace, A. (2006). Differentiating interfaces: L2 performance in syntax-semantics and syntax-discourse phenomena. Proceedings of the 30th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 653-664). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.