Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures

Lexical frequency clearly plays a role in shaping the developing grammar, as frequent forms are acquired earlier and processed more easily than infrequent forms (Ellis 2012, Lieven 2010). Nevertheless, little is known about how frequency affects morphosyntactic variation during acquisition. This study examines the influence of frequency of verb forms on subject pronoun expression (e.g. yo canto ~ canto) in sociolinguistic interviews conducted with 12 second language learners of Spanish. Analyses of 980 verb forms indicate that frequency effects are dependent on L2 proficiency. During earlier stages of acquisition, frequency has a direct impact on pronoun expression: learners express pronouns more often with frequent than with infrequent verbs. This finding suggests that, in the face of the heavier cognitive burden presented by infrequent forms, learners with lower levels of proficiency tend to omit linguistic material. During more advanced stages of acquisition, however, frequency plays a more complex role: it activates or amplifies other linguistic variables that influence pronoun expression, such as switch-reference. This mediating role of frequency is similar to what has been found for native speakers of Spanish (Erker & Guy 2012), indicating that the advanced learners in the study produce target-like pronoun expression patterns. In summary, the study shows that lexical frequency influences variable morphosyntax during second language acquisition, and that its role is increasingly complex as learners become more proficient.

As the breadth of the current volume indicates, the (non)expression of verbal subjects in Spanish is of great interest. Such inquiry is not limited to the expression of subjects by native speakers, but also includes research on the expression of subjects by second language (L2) learners. Such investigations take place at the intersection of L2 acquisition research and research on sociolinguistic variation and thus contribute to both fields. One of the central goals of this cross-disciplinary research is to understand the path through which language develops among L2 speakers, using tools from sociolinguistics to describe the changes in rates of occurrence of a given form as well as the changing factors that predict such occurrence across levels of proficiency. This research also provides additional information about those factors to sociolinguists whose primary pursuit is to understand how language is used across geographic, social, and linguistic contexts. The current study contributes to L2 acquisition and sociolinguistic study by providing the first account of how the rates of subject pronoun expression (SPE) and the linguistic factors that predict it change as the L2 proficiency of learners of Spanish increases.