Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 7:1 (2017), 63–95. doi 10.1075/lab.14021.hoo
issn 1879–9264 / e-issn 1879–9272 © John Benjamins Publishing Company
Narrow presentational focus in heritage
Spanish and the syntax‒discourse interface
Bradley Hoot
DePaul University
Te grammars of bilinguals have been found to difer from those of monolin-
guals especially with regard to phenomena that involve the interface of syntax
and discourse/pragmatics. Tis paper examines one syntax‒discourse interface
phenomenon – presentational focus – in the grammars of heritage speakers of
Spanish. Te results of a contextualized acceptability judgment task indicate that
lower profciency heritage speakers show some variability in the structures they
accept to realize focus, whereas higher profciency heritage bilinguals pattern
with monolinguals. Tese results suggest that some explanations of domain-
specifc vulnerability in bilingual grammars, including the Interface Hypothesis
(Sorace, 2011), may need to be revised.
Keywords: focus, heritage speakers, Interface Hypothesis, syntax‒discourse
interface, Spanish
Heritage Spanish and the syntax‒discourse interface
Heritage speakers are “asymmetrical bilinguals who learned language X – the
‘heritage language’ – as an L1 in childhood, but who, as adults, are dominant in
a diferent language” (Benmamoun, Montrul, & Polinsky, 2013a, p. 260). In other
words, they are simultaneous or early sequential bilinguals whose frst language
(L1), which they acquired naturalistically, is not their dominant language. Heritage
speakers generally retain some competence in their heritage language, but this can
vary widely, depending on several factors (Montrul, 2008; Rothman, 2009b). In
the United States, the heritage language is usually an immigrant or minority lan-
guage that heritage speakers grow up with at home, and the dominant language is
English. In the case of Spanish in the United States, heritage speakers are Spanish/
English bilinguals who grew up learning Spanish at home as an L1 and who are
dominant in English but retain some competence in Spanish.