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The acquisition of copular constructions in European Portuguese by Chinese native speakers

A nanoparameter effect

ORCiD logo with link | University of Lisbon, Portugal
ORCiD logo with link | University of Lisbon, Portugal
ORCiD logo with link | University of Lisbon, Portugal
Published online: 20 January 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jsls.00061.san
Abstract
This research targets the acquisition of copular constructions by Chinese learners of European Portuguese (EP), evaluating the impact of the potential absence of the copular verb in Chinese in the acquisition of EP and determining whether L2 learners associate the copular verbs ser and estar in EP with their [+/−stage-level] semantic values. Moreover, it intends to assess whether non-native speakers acquire non-default features of ser when it combines with a PP predicate locating events. 102 participants completed an acceptability judgment task including APs and PPs. The results demonstrate that learners readily acquire the features that configure the presence of the verb in EP and associate ser and estar with the adequate semantic values, but show greater difficulty in acquiring non-default features of ser ([+s−level, +dynamic]). We relate this progression in the acquisition path to the hierarchy of meso-, micro- and nanoparameters proposed by the updated Bottleneck Hypothesis ( (2019). The bottleneck hypothesis updated. In Ionin, T. and Rispoli, M. (eds.), Three streams of generative language acquisition research: selected papers from the 7th meeting of generative approaches to language acquisition — North America, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, volume 63 of Language Acquisition Disorders, pp. 319–345. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.L2 acquisition: The bottleneck hypothesis
  • 3.Copular constructions in European Portuguese and in Mandarin Chinese
    • 3.1A comparative description
    • 3.2Copular sentences and the configuration of predicative domains
  • 4.The acquisition problem: Research questions and hypotheses
    • 4.1Learnability problem
    • 4.2Research questions and hypotheses
  • 5.Methods
    • 5.1Participants
    • 5.2Self-Paced reading acceptability judgment task
      • 5.2.1Conditions and items
  • 6.Results
  • 7.Discussion and final remarks
  • Declaration of Conflicting Interests
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (48)
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