Un pencil o una pencil? The importance of Spanish gender in switched DPs

Abstract

This MA dissertation explores experimental data involving Spanish-English switched DPs (Spanish Determiner + English Nouns, such as in “lathe house”) from sequential and simultaneous English-Spanish bilinguals with different age ranges. The purpose is two-fold: (i) to explore whether the different gender properties of each language (English has no grammatical gender, while Spanish does) affect the selection of the gender of the Spanish Determiner when judging and producing each structure; and which strategy (analogical criterion as in “lafem housefem”, analogical criterion helped by canonical markers as –o and –a, or masculine as the default gender as in “el masc default house Spanish fem”) is used; and (ii) to determine whether these properties and strategies are produced and judged in the same way by the different participant groups. The study shows that Spanish gender properties have an impact on this selection and that the strategy used depends on the participant’s strong or dominant language. Thus, L1 Spanish participants opt for the analogical criterion due to the influence of their L1; L1 English speakers are helped by canonical markers; and heritage children as well as L1 English speakers favor the masculine as the default option. These results point to the different representation of grammatical gender in the mind of English-Spanish bilingual participants.