La falsificación de documentos

Based on previous research evidence and theoretical accounts, the research questions and the predictions guiding Study 1 are formulated in the following sections.

6.1.1 First research question: Greek and Spanish monolinguals

Is Greek different from Spanish in the distribution of third-person null and overt subjects? If so, in which contexts and what causes divergence?

What is the effect of age at testing on the production of subjects by monolinguals?

Rationale for the predictions

Spanish and Greek are similar but not identical NS languages; therefore they should not be equivalent in the distribution of third-person subjects. Differences are expected in the relative frequency and/or the scope of OSP while the two languages should be similar in the scope of NS.

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There seem to be differences in the scope of third-person OSP in the two languages suggesting the possibility of a more widespread use of OSP in Spanish than in Greek. This hypothesis is based on the following rationale:

(a) In Greek, the third-person OSP is deictically marked because it is the demonstrative which can assume anaphoric function, whereas in Spanish the personal pronoun has not such status. The deictic nature of the Greek pronoun renders its use less frequent as it is more discoursally marked than the Spanish one. (b) Spanish syncretism in the inflectional marking of subject person renders verb morphology ambiguous in certain paradigms, which could lead to use of OSP for person disambiguation purposes regardless of context. In Greek, there is no verb inflectional ambiguity which would trigger OSP use to the same extent (see §2.3.7). (c) Previous research on Greek and Spanish AR indicates that in neutral (non- focused) contexts the Spanish OSP establishes coreference to subjects more often than the Greek OSP. This suggests that in Spanish the OSP is more easily used in TC, hence it is more variable than in Greek; consequently, its scope seems to be wider than in Greek.

Predictions

Monolingual Greek and Spanish performance is expected to be in accordance with accessibility models, which may apply with flexibility because of stylistic choices and presence of contextual, grammatical and semantic cues. Specifically, in oral production, monolingual speakers are expected to produce contextualised sequences of sentences in narratives mainly encoding TC with NS and TS with LS or OSP. The frequency of NS is predicted to be significantly higher than that of LS and OSP. Due to general pragmatic and economy principles, monolingual groups are expected to use non-ambiguous NS in TS contexts, but less so than in contexts of TC.

Differences between the two languages are expected to arise in the use of OSP. The use of NS is expected to be relatively similar, with Greek speakers possibly using more NS in TS contexts. Greek monolinguals are not expected to use OSP in TC except in cases of focus. Spanish monolinguals are expected to use non-focused OSP in TC to a small extent since tolerance of OSP redundancy has been attested in

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previous research. Although distribution of NS and overt subjects would be generally similar in Greek and Spanish, their scope and relative frequency should be to some extent different. In particular, the Greek OSP is expected to be relatively rare compared to its Spanish counterpart manifesting a narrower scope.

With regard to the role of age, in line with Hendriks et al. (2014), older monolingual speakers may be prone to potentially ambiguous referential choices due to age- related decline in cognitive capacity. This entails less sensitivity in tracking the discourse prominence of reference compared to younger adults. Both groups of monolinguals thus could show some instances of under-expliciteness produced by older speakers.

6.1.2 Second research question: Greek-Spanish bilinguals

Is Greek in contact with Spanish different from monolingual Greek in the distribution of third-person null and overt subjects? If so, in which contexts and what causes divergence?

What is the effect of age at testing on the production of subjects by bilinguals?

Rationale for the predictions

Greek in contact with Spanish was expected to be different from monolingual Greek in the distribution of third-person subjects. Differences were expected in the relative frequency and/or the scope of OSP but also, to a lesser degree, in the relative frequency and/or the scope of NS pronouns.

It is assumed that there is some residual activation of the other language in bilinguals at all times (e.g. Grosjean 2008) and crosslinguistic differences are predicted to exist in the two languages. Additionally, subject distribution in both languages is governed by interface conditions. In bilingual Greek, the interface-conditioned use of OSP was expected to be overgeneralised to discourse pragmatically inappropriate contexts due to language contact with Spanish under reduced input conditions. Moreover, overgeneralisation of NS was also possible, as evidenced in previous research (§3.7).

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Overextension of the scope of both OSP and NS in bilingual Greek is predicted to be found on the grounds of the following rationale:

(a) The distribution of pronominal subjects is constrained by discourse-pragmatic factors. The syntax-discourse/pragmatics interface is a vulnerable area in language contact situations because it requires simultaneous integration of syntactic and discourse/contextual information. This causes processing cost in bilinguals, who appear to treat the stronger element, i.e. the OSP, as the default resulting in overuse and/or over-acceptance of OSP regardless of language combination (Sorace et al. 2009; Sorace 2011, 2012; Tsimpli 2011).

(b) OSP in NS languages, such as Greek and Spanish, are said to be pre-eminently problematic in language contact conditions due to their location at the syntax- discourse/pragmatics interface (e.g. Sorace 2011). In addition, NS can also be referentially complex involving the syntax-discourse/pragmatics interface, which may result in misuse and/or misinterpretation of NS (Clements & Domínguez 2016). (c) Despite the fact that Greek and Spanish are consistent NS languages, there seem to be crosslinguistic differences in the distribution of subject pronouns, which may trigger crosslinguistic influence. The scope of OSP in Spanish is wider than in Greek by hypothesis. In addition, Spanish is the dominant language in the context of the current study. Since the direction of crosslinguistic influence may also depend on language dominance (e.g. Argyri & Sorace 2007), crosslinguistic effects may surface in some overgeneralisation of OSP in Greek due to influence from Spanish. In other words, if the answer to the first research question will be positive, i.e. if OSP in Spanish were not constrained by exactly the same discourse/pragmatic restrictions as in Greek, crosslinguistic influence could be a possible source of variation in bilingual Greek. On the other hand, no systematic differences were expected on the scope of NS between the two languages; consequently, it cannot be assumed that there is chance of crosslinguistic influence at the level of NS. If differences appear in the scope of NS in the bilingual performance, as in other studies (§3.7), these could be attributed to interface conditions/processing factors corroborating the referential complexity of NS (Clements & Domínguez 2016).

(d) In sum, overgeneralisation of both OSP and NS was predicted in bilinguals due to more taxed processing resources stemming from interface conditions. This

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could be reinforced by crosslinguistic influence from Spanish to Greek in the case of OSP. Therefore, bilingual Greek was expected to differ from monolingual Greek. (e) Differences initiate in first-generation immigrant speakers (immigrants) with stronger effects in HS and L2ers. In line with Kaltsa et al. (2015: 269), ‘a change from what was once a monolingual grammar as is the case of L1 attrition should show less divergence than a bilingual grammar that has followed a different developmental path and a different endstate than that of a monolingual grammar’.

Predictions

In oral production, Greek-Spanish bilinguals were expected to produce connected speech in narratives and to generally use referring expressions in the same way as monolinguals, i.e. using NS mostly in TC and overt subjects (LS, OSP) mostly in TS. It has been reported that HS tend to avoid embedded structures (Polinsky & Kagan 2007; Polinsky 2008; Benmamoun et al. 2013). This may be also the case for lower proficiency L2ers due to fluency constraints. In the HS’ production, the number of embedded clauses could be lower than in monolingual production, possibly depending on language proficiency. Low use of embeddings may affect the relative frequency of NS and overt subjects. Embedded clauses favour the use of NS, whereas matrix clauses do not favour either form (Silva-Corvalán 1994; Margaza & Bel 2006; Prada Pérez 2009). Fewer embedded clauses imply higher numbers of overt subjects and lower numbers of NS compared to monolingual/native discourse. Additionally, since it has been consistently found that L2ers are more explicit (over-explicit) in reference maintenance than monolinguals (Hendriks 2003), overproduction of overt subjects was anticipated in the L2 performance compared to the other groups. Overall, in Greek in contact with Spanish, overuse of overt subjects was expected in contexts of TC by HS and L2ers compared to monolinguals. Moreover, overuse of OSP was expected to some extent in the bilingual performance in both TC and TS due to interface conditions, as in previous studies in pairs of two NS languages (§3.4), but possibly also due to crosslinguistic influence. Overuse of NS in contexts of TS might also obtain, with ambiguous NS constructions being possible (§3.7, §3.8).

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In line with Hendriks et al. (2014) and Kaltsa et al. (2015), age may play a significant role in the linguistic behaviour of bilinguals with respect to reference. In particular, the older bilingual speakers may be more susceptible to producing ambiguous reference due to age effects on general cognitive skills, which could be enhanced by bilingualism. This suggests that in the groups of bilinguals the older speakers would produce instances of ambiguity to a greater extent than monolinguals and younger bilinguals. The potential age effect in the participants’ production of subjects is examined through logistic regression analyses.