Differential Object Marking (DOM) is vulnerable to change in heritage speakers of Spanish and heritage speakers of Hindi. DOM is also vulnerable to L1 attrition in Spanish-speaking first-generation immigrants but not in Hindi immigrants. This chapter examines DOM vulnerability in Romanian. The chapter describes the sociolinguistic characteristics of the Romanian-speaking population in the United, followed by a summary of the overall results of the linguistic background questionnaire and the linguistic tasks. The overall results show that, compared to the Spanish and Hindi-speaking populations, the Romanian-speaking population in the United States is far less numerous, yet their Romanian language skills remain relatively strong compared to the other two groups. The accuracy with DOM of the first-generation Romanian immigrants on all linguistic measures did not differ from those of the Romanian speakers in Romania. Just like in the Hindi study, there appears to be no evidence of language change in the homeland nor signs of attrition of this phenomenon in the first-generation adult immigrants sampled in this study. Yet, DOM and accusative clitic doubling (CD) were found to be somewhat vulnerable to omission in heritage speakers, especially in those exposed to English since birth or very early in life (the simultaneous bilinguals).

This chapter presents the motivation and methodology of a cross-linguistic and cross-generational study of DOM in Spanish, Hindi and Romanian as heritage languages. Innovative aspects of this project are the comparison of the same linguistic phenomenon cross-linguistically and in heritage languages that share the same majority language context and the inclusion of adult first generation immigrants to examine the cross-generational component. By including heritage speakers and first-generation immigrants as well as two generations of native speakers in the homeland, we examine whether changes with DOM are observed in both diaspora and homeland contexts, or only in the diaspora context. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the linguistic and situational factors that contribute to DOM erosion within and across languages. The rest of this chapter presents the research questions, more specific hypotheses and the overall methodology.

The results of this study have implications for our theoretical linguistic models of native speaker knowledge, and to understanding the mechanisms of language acquisition, transmission, and diachronic language change. Implications for language policies and the education of minority language speakers in the United States are discussed.

Native Speakers, Interrupted aims to advance our understanding of heritage language development and change. It is argued that heritage language speakers also qualify as potential agents of diachronic language change of the diasporic variety of their language in the language contact situation. Heritage speakers are early bilinguals born with the cognitive ability to learn two or more languages fully and indeed retain native ability in specific grammatical areas of the heritage language due to their early exposure to the language. They are native speakers because exposed to their home language from birth implicitly in a naturalistic setting, in a family environment where the language was spoken. However, insufficient input and infrequent use of the heritage language during late childhood and adolescence interrupts the healthy development of the heritage language, profoundly affecting heritage speakers’ command of specific aspects of their grammar, such as vocabulary, morphosyntax and other linguistic interfaces. What is interrupted in this case is not the language as a whole, as several have proposed, but the individual language acquisition process itself, so that specific aspects of the heritage language, in some individuals, in some languages, and under some circumstances, show significant synchronic variability.

The study presented in this book focuses on the acquisition, maintenance and change of Differential Object Marking (DOM) in Spanish, English and Romanian in contact with English in the United States. Differential Object Marking (DOM) is the overt marking of some direct objects and is a widespread among languages of the world. DOM is an iconic procedure because the arguments that are overtly marked morphologically are more salient/prominent semantically or pragmatically than unmarked objects. This chapter describes how DOM is manifested in Spanish, Romanian and Hindi and presents current syntactic synchronic analyses of the phenomenon in these languages. The diachronic evolution of DOM in language contact situations is also discussed.

This chapter brings together the findings from the three studies, which confirmed that Differential Object Marking (DOM) is a vulnerable grammatical area not only in Spanish, but also in Hindi and Romanian as heritage languages, subject to erosion under pressure from, English in this case. This chapter goes deeper into these overall trends, by comparing the three heritage speaker groups, on the one hand, and the three first-generation immigrant groups, on the other, on several background variables related to patterns of language use. A follow-up replication study with Spanish heritage speakers and immigrants from other countries in Latin America is reported, which confirm the attrition effects in the two generations of Mexican immigrants. It is claimed that his finding is strong evidence that while DOM omission may have started as a developmental outcome of heritage language acquisition, it may be on its way to becoming a stable dialectal feature of Spanish in the United States, suggesting language change with respect to DOM in Spanish. The roles of language internal and language external factors are discussed.

This chapter presents a more fine-grained analysis of why and how DOM vulnerability may have become more prevalent in Spanish than in Hindi and Romanian at the individual level. Specifically, linking language acquisition, language attrition and diachronic language change, it addresses the question of the potential relationship between the I-language of the heritage speakers and the E-language of the first-generation immigrants, who are often the heritage speakers’ main source of input. It presents follow-up studies of DOM in Spanish-speaking bilingual children and adults and their mothers and the results are not consistent with direct transmission of DOM omission from the first to the second-generation (the heritage speakers). It is suggested that that second-generation heritage speakers, who have as much difficulty mastering the morphology of their heritage language as typical L2 learners, can also change the grammars of the parental generation and be the innovators in the Spanish variety spoken in the United States.

Compared to second language speakers who acquired the language later in life, heritage speakers often show native patterns in many areas of their grammar. Nevertheless, heritage speakers’ ultimate attainment in early adulthood is characterized by significant variability in their overall linguistic proficiency of the heritage language, which often falls outside the range of variation seen in monolingually-raised native speakers. Their native language abilities are dissociated by receptive and productive linguistic skills and within the language modules themselves. This chapter provide examples of the structural changes and differences commonly found in heritage language grammars, compared to the grammars of first-generation immigrants, who speak the same variety as the heritage speakers and who are the most comparable baseline. Heritage grammars are characterized by structural simplification, influence of the dominant language and slow and labored language processing during comprehension and production. Quantity and quality of input may drive processes of language change across generations. Although it has been suggested that changes observed in first-generation immigrants due to attrition are directly transmitted to heritage speakers it is argued that direct transmission from first to second generation is unlikely when considering the interaction of the intensity of the exposure and age of acquisition.

This chapter explores the relationship between language acquisition at the individual level and language change at the macro linguistic level. Given the semantic and pragmatic complexity of DOM cross-linguistically, the question arises as to how DOM is acquired by young children growing up in a monolingual environment. To what extent the semantic and pragmatic principles that guided diachronic developments constrain language development at the individual level? Language contact and bilingualism are often cited as critical factors in linguistic change at the macro-sociolinguistic level. Considering how DOM is acquired by different types of bilinguals and in different bilingual situations is critical to understand the link between language acquisition and language change. How language acquisition at the psycholinguistic level contributes to language change at the sociolinguistic and diachronic level, and the roles that both language internal (individual, cognitive factors) and language external (situational) factors play in the process and outcome of change are considered. Existing studies of DOM in L1 acquisition are discussed, followed by a critical review of studies in L2 and bilingual acquisition and in language change at the sociohistorical level. Monolingual children faithfully replicate the language they hear in the input while bilinguals are affected by dominant language transfer.

This chapter asks whether DOM—which is a vulnerable grammatical area in Spanish in the United States—is also vulnerable in Hindi as a heritage language. The results of the study presented in this chapter show that some Hindi heritage speakers also display omission of DOM in all tasks. But unlike what was found for the Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants in the Spanish study discussed in the previous chapter, there is no indication of ongoing language change in the Hindi spoken in the homeland nor apparent signs of attrition of DOM in the Hindi-speaking adult immigrant group. The sociolinguistic characteristics of the Hindi/Urdu-speaking population in the United States is discussed. The results of the linguistic background questionnaire and the linguistic tasks (oral narrative task, elicited production task, written task, bimodal acceptability judgment task, auditory/written comprehension task) are presented and discussed.

This chapter discusses core assumptions in linguistics and language acquisition regarding monolingual and bilingual linguistic knowledge and presents a typology of native speakers that includes heritage speakers. Both layman and academic definitions of a native speaker are discussed, as well as recent research on individual differences in monolingually-raised native speakers related to level of education and other variables that are also relevant for an understanding of heritage speakers. The second introduces the concepts of bilingual and multilingual native speakers and balanced bilingualism, addressing the specific cultural, attitudinal, affective, and sociopolitical factors that affect the acquisition of a heritage language. Heritage speakers’ shift in language dominance with the onset of schooling in the majority language, if not earlier, contributes significantly to reduction in heritage language input and opportunities to use the language at a critical time for language development in childhood. Despite showing obvious changes in some aspects of their grammars, heritage speakers retain native-like abilities in several other aspects, compared to second language learners. The focus of this chapter, and of this book, is more on similarities and differences between heritage speakers and monolingually-raised native speakers than on what heritage speakers and second language learners tend to share.