The Processing of Spanish Article– Noun Gender Agreement by Monolingual and Bilingual Toddlers
Date
2021Author
Molnar, Monika
Alemán Bañón, José
Mancini, Simona
Caffarra, Sendy
Metadata
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Molnar M, Alemán Bañón J, Mancini S, Caffarra S. The Processing of Spanish Article–Noun Gender Agreement by Monolingual and Bilingual Toddlers. Language and Speech. 2021;64(4):980-990. doi:10.1177/0023830920977050
Abstract
We assessed monolingual Spanish and bilingual Spanish-Basque toddlers’ sensitivity to gender
agreement in correct vs. incorrect Spanish noun phrases (definite article + noun), using a
spontaneous preference listening paradigm. Monolingual Spanish-learning toddlers exhibited a
tendency to listen longer to the grammatically correct phrases (e.g., la casa; “the house”), as
opposed to the incorrect ones (e.g., *el casa). This listening preference toward correct phrases
is in line with earlier results obtained from French monolingual 18-month-olds (van Heugten &
Christophe, 2015). Bilingual toddlers in the current study, however, tended to listen longer to
the incorrect phrases. Basque was not a source of interference in the bilingual toddler’s input as
Basque does not instantiate grammatical gender agreement. Overall, our results suggest that both
monolingual and bilingual toddlers can distinguish between the correct and incorrect phrases by
18 months of age; however, monolinguals and bilinguals allocate their attention differently when
processing grammatically incorrect forms.