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Article published In: Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 32:1 (2019) ► pp.185–219

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The acquisition of differential object marking in Spanish by Romanian speakers

 | University of Illinois
Published online: 24 July 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/resla.17040.mon
Abstract
The obligatory use of the preposition ‘a’ with animate, specific direct objects in Spanish (Juan conoce a María “Juan knows Maria”) is a well-known instance of Differential Object Marking (dom). This study investigates the acquisition of dom by native speakers of Romanian learning Spanish. Spanish and Romanian have dom lexicalized in the prepositions ‘a’ (Spanish) and in ‘pe’ (Romanian). In the two languages dom is regulated by animacy and specificity. Thirty-two native speakers of Spanish and 36 Romanian-speaking learners of Spanish with advanced proficiency completed a written production, a written comprehension, and an acceptability judgment task. The results show that, in general, and unlike what has been found for English-speaking learners of Spanish, advanced Romanian learners of Spanish are successful at acquiring the feature specification and distribution of dom in Spanish. The findings are discussed with respect to the nature of ultimate attainment as a function of language transfer.
Resumen
El uso obligatorio de la preposición ‘a’ con objetos directos animados y específicos en español (Juan conoce a María) es un ejemplo bien conocido del marcado diferencial de objeto (MDO). Este estudio investiga la adquisición del MDO por hablantes nativos de rumano que son aprendices de español. Tanto el español como el rumano lexicalizan el MDO en las preposiciones ‘a’ (español) y ‘pe’ (rumano). En ambas lenguas el MDO está regido por la animacidad y la especificidad. Treinta y dos hablantes nativos de español y 36 aprendices de español de nivel avanzado de lengua materna rumano completaron tres pruebas escritas: una de producción, una de comprensión y una de juicios de gramaticalidad. Los resultados muestran que, en general, y a diferencia de lo que se ha encontrado con aprendices de español cuya lengua materna es el inglés, los aprendices de español con nivel avanzado y primera lengua rumano adquieren con éxito los rasgos característicos y la distribución del MDO en español. Los resultados se discuten en torno a la naturaleza del logro final de una lengua segunda y en función de la posible transferencia de la lengua materna.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Differential Object Marking (DOM)
  • 3.The study
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Tasks
      • 3.2.1Written production
      • 3.2.2Written comprehension
      • 3.2.3Acceptability judgments
  • 4.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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