The production of the subjunctive in child heritage Spanish: an examination of early acquired contexts

Abstract

The present study examined the production of the subjunctive among 30 child heritage speakers, 30 monolingual children, 15 immigrant parents and 15 monolingual parents in two early acquired deontic predicates that differ in selection type (predicates of volition and reported commands, including querer “to want” and decir “to say/tell”). Additionally, it explored the role of chronological age, proficiency, language exposure and language use on the production of the subjunctive. The results obtained via a sentence completion task showed high rates of subjunctive use among the heritage children. Nonetheless, the heritage children differed from the other groups in the production of alternative responses. Results also showed a significant role of chronological age and proficiency in the probability of subjunctive use. The more proficient and the older the children were, the more they produced the subjunctive. Individual results showed variability in the children’s performance with some children exhibiting categorical use of the subjunctive and others showing variable use of it. The study argues for protracted development stemming from the interaction between age and proficiency. It also highlights the importance of considering individual variability in morphosyntactic acquisition, as such variability reflects the dynamic and individualized nature of bilingual development.