Morphological transparency and markedness matter in heritage speaker gender processing: an EEG study.

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Neuroscience
• Second Language Acquisition

Background:

• Heritage speakers (HSs) often exhibit unique linguistic profiles.
• Understanding grammatical gender processing in Spanish HSs is crucial for bilingualism research.
• Previous studies on native speakers provide a baseline for comparison.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the qualitative nature of grammatical gender knowledge and processing in US-based Spanish HSs.
• To compare the neurocognitive processing of grammatical gender in HSs with native Spanish speakers.
• To examine the influence of morphological transparency and markedness on gender processing.

Main Methods:

• Electroencephalography (EEG) and a grammaticality judgment task (GJT) were employed.
• Participants included 44 adult Spanish HS bilinguals.
• Experimental manipulations involved grammatical gender violations on inanimate nouns, varying morphological transparency and markedness.

Main Results:

• Grammatical gender violations elicited a P600 effect, similar to native speakers.
• A biphasic N400 effect accompanied the P600, differing from previous native speaker studies.
• Morphological transparency and markedness significantly influenced grammatical gender processing.

Conclusions:

• Spanish HSs demonstrate qualitatively similar grammatical gender representations and processing to native speakers.
• The bilingual experience of HSs may modulate morphosyntactic processing, increasing reliance on morphology.
• Neurolinguistic methods are vital for understanding HS bilingual competence and processing.