Chapter published 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

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
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.
Keywords: code-switching, gender assignment, mixed DPs, Basque/Spanish simultaneous bilinguals
Published online: 16 November 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.19.02bad
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López, Luis
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