Bilingual acquisition data: Subject Overtness_SO-L2 dataset

Abstract

This investigation is focused on the contact between [+null subject] and [-null subject] languages. More specifically, it aims at characterizing the nature of crosslinguistic influence from the L1 into the L2 in the specific case of sentential subjects. The target language is L2 English (a [-null subject] language) and three different L1s are considered (i.e., Bosnian and Spanish as [+null subject] languages; and Danish as a [-null subject] language). The study addresses three issues: (i) the role of typology in terms of whether subjects in the L2 share the same parametric option as that in each participant’s L1; (ii) the role of the amount of L2 English exposure in institutional contexts (i.e., 2 and 4 years); and (iii) the role of modality in the data collection process (i.e., oral and written production data). A total of 78 sequential bilingual children with different language pairs have participated: 26 L1 Spanish-L2 English, 26 L1 Bosnian-L2 English and 26 L1 Danish-L2 English. Also 13 L1 English children participated as a control group. Both oral and written production data have been elicited via a free production task and a story telling task, respectively.