The Phonetic and Morphosyntactic Dimensions of Grammatical Gender in Spanish Heritage Language Acquisition

Abstract Previous studies disagree as to whether heritage bilinguals demonstrate loss of knowledge Spanish grammatical gender. As phonetic variability is known affect the acquisition certain markers, we examine bilinguals’ gender difficulties relate bilingual contact-induced variability, namely, reduction in inventory word-final unstressed vowels. We analyzed narratives from children United States (n = 49, ages 4–12). All NP s 1415) were for structure, noun class, and morphology. Word-final vowels sub-selected acoustic analyses. Morpho-syntactically, group results show high accuracy with (95%), but wide individual variation (44%–100%). Speakers also substantive numbers vowel misclassifications (6%–33%) higher /a/ /o/. found effects both domains no association between phonetics accuracy. These findings have implications relationship grammar, morphosyntax