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Está abriendo, la abrió: Lexical knowledge, verb type, and grammatical aspect shape child heritage speakers’ direct object omission in Spanish

This study investigates the influence of lexical knowledge, progressive aspect, and verb type on bilingual children’s direct object expression in Spanish. Sixty-one child heritage speakers of Spanish, ages 3;3-8;8, and 10 Spanish-speaking adults in the United States completed a task designed to elicit Spanish transitive verbs and direct objects. The children’s comprehension of Spanish vocabulary was measured by a standardized test. The children produced 743 transitive verbs, which were coded for grammatical aspect, comparing progressive and non-progressive forms, and for whether the verbs were “mixed” (verbs that routinely occur with or without a direct object among adults) or “non-mixed” (verbs that generally occur with a direct object among adults). The adults rarely omitted directed objects, whereas the children frequently did. Mixed-effects logistic regression analyses demonstrate that the higher the children’s Spanish vocabulary score, the less they omitted. Furthermore, progressive verb forms and mixed verbs increased the likelihood of omission. The progressive effect is interpreted as a reflection of children’s tendency to associate atelicity with intransitivity. The mixed-verb effect is interpreted as reflecting a lack of understanding of the discourse conditions that render omission infelicitous with mixed verbs. These two verb-level effects dissipated with age, suggesting a loosening of the atelicity–intransitivity association and an increasing awareness of the discourse conditions that guide direct object expression. The study demonstrates that bilingual children’s omission patterns are guided by progressive aspect and verb type, thus revealing an intricate and nuanced developmental pathway. While previous research has shown that bilingual children omit more direct objects than monolingual children, this study reveals important systematicities in bilingual children’s omission patterns. Studying child heritage speakers’ grammars in their own right paves the way for a deeper understanding of the systematic nature of the developing heritage grammar.