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In:Code-switching – Experimental Answers to Theoretical Questions: In honor of Kay González-Vilbazo
Edited by Luis López
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 19] 2018
► pp. 15–38

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Gender assignment in Basque/Spanish mixed determiner phrases

A study of simultaneous bilinguals

 | The University of Illinois at Chicago
 | The University of Illinois at Chicago
Published online: 16 November 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.19.02bad
We examine the gender assignment strategies used in Basque/Spanish mixed Determiner Phrases in Gernika Basque. Twenty-one simultaneous bilinguals completed a survey containing an Acceptability Judgment Task, a Forced-choice task, two proficiency tests, and a linguistic background questionnaire. Two Linear Mixed Models revealed that participants use two strategies. First, they assign the Spanish masculine determiner, el, to most Basque nouns. Second, when the Basque noun ends in lexical a, they prefer to assign the Spanish feminine determiner, la, potentially as a result of homophony with the canonical ending for Spanish feminine nouns. Our findings contrast with what Parafita-Couto et al. (2015) found for the same language pair. Yet, they align with what Liceras et al. (2008) found for English/Spanish simultaneous bilinguals.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Gender in Spanish
    • 2.2Gender in Basque
    • 2.3Gender in mixed DPs
    • 2.4Gender in Basque/Spanish mixed DPs
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Experimental stimuli
      • 3.2.1Acceptability judgment task
      • 3.2.2Forced-choice task
    • 3.3Procedure
    • 3.4Analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Results of the AJT
    • 4.2Results of the forced-choice task
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions and limitations
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (20)
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Cited by (8)

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Basterretxea Santiso, Gorka
2024. ‘Aquí toman mucho sopa’: Linguistic variables as predictors of non-standard gender agreement production in Basque Spanish. Open Linguistics 10:1 DOI logo
Basterretxea Santiso, Gorka
2025. “Fallo garrafal y común entre vascoparlantes:” attitudes and salience of grammatical gender agreement in Basque-Spanish contact. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 18:1 ► pp. 37 ff. DOI logo
Bellamy, Kate & M. Carmen Parafita Couto
2022. Gender assignment in mixed noun phrases. In The Acquisition of Gender [Studies in Bilingualism, 63], ► pp. 13 ff. DOI logo
Munarriz-Ibarrola, Amaia, Maria-José Ezeizabarrena, Varun DC Arrazola & M. Carmen Parafita Couto
2022. Gender assignment strategies and L1 effects in the elicited production of mixed Spanish-Basque DPs. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 12:6 ► pp. 778 ff. DOI logo
Greidanus Romaneli, Miriam, Ivo H. G. Boers & M. Carmen Parafita Couto
2021. Gender in Dutch/Portuguesecodeswitching. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 35 ► pp. 131 ff. DOI logo
Vanden Wyngaerd, Emma
2021. Default gender in Belgian Dutch. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 35 ► pp. 104 ff. DOI logo
López, Luis
2020. Bilingual Grammar, DOI logo
López, Luis
2021. Contact phenomena. In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2018 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 357], ► pp. 131 ff. DOI logo

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