Autor
Palavras-chave
Abstrato
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>The present study analyzes the effect of age and amount of input in the acquisition of European Portuguese as a heritage language. An elicited production task centred on mood choice in complement clauses was applied to a group of fifty bilingual children (six- to sixteen-year-olds) who are acquiring Portuguese as a minority language in a German dominant environment. The results show a significant effect of the age at testing and the amount of input in the acquisition of the subjunctive. In general, acquisition is delayed with respect to monolinguals, even though higher convergence with the monolingual grammar is observed after twelve years of age. Results also reveal that children with more exposure to the heritage language at home show faster acquisition than children from mixed households: the eight- to nine-year-old age boundary seems relevant for those speakers with more exposure, and the twelve- to thirteen-year-old age boundary for those with less exposure.</jats:p>
Year of Publication
2017
Journal
Journal of Child Language
Volume
44
Questão
4
Number of Pages
795-828
ISSN Number
0305-0009, 1469-7602
DOI
10.1017/s0305000916000222