CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 4Spanish Linguistics and Language StudiesLanguage Development and DisordersSyntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

Toward explaining variability in heritage varieties: Systematic patterns of differential object marking in adult heritage speakers of Spanish

Open access
Callen, M. Cole·2025·Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
DOI 10.1017/s1366728924000555
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Recent approaches to heritage languages have sought to identify explanations for variability in heritage grammars. The present study explores variable patterns of Spanish differential object marking (DOM) in 40 heritage Spanish speakers (HSs) from the United States and 28 Spanish-dominant bilingual speakers (SDSs) from Mexico. Participants completed a picture description task including human, animal and inanimate direct objects. Both groups exhibited patterns of DOM following the Animacy Scale. However, HSs showed lower DOM rates and greater individual variability with human referents compared to SDSs, even when individual differences in language dominance were considered. Conversely, SDSs produced lower rates of DOM with inanimate objects than HSs. DOM use was constrained by verb-specific animacy biases across animacy conditions and speaker groups. These findings reveal that Spanish HSs maintain baseline-like variable patterns of DOM. Moreover, HSs may advance language change in predictable directions based on patterns of variation present in the baseline variety.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1017/s1366728924000555

Cites

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Another characteristic of heritage Spanish is variation in the differential object marker.

    “Another characteristic of heritage Spanish is the variation in the differential object marker (Montrul & Bowles, 2009;Callen, 2025), which usually marks animate, specific direct objects (e.g., la chica but not la mesa).”

    From Sounds Like Politics: Cardi B and the Discourse of Español Ratatá (2026) · cites this paper as Callen, 2025

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

No references could be resolved yet.

Research works printed but not linked: 68

  1. Aissen, J. (2003). Differential object marking: Iconicity vs. economy. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 21(3), 435–483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Albirini, A. (2014). Toward understanding the variability in the language proficiencies of Arabic heritage speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism, 18(6), 730–765.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Alfaraz, G. G. (2011). Accusative object marking: A change in progress in Cuban Spanish? Spanish in Context, 8(2), 213–234. DOI:10.1075/sic.8.2.02alfCrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  4. Anwyl-Irvine, A. L., Dalmaijer, E. S., Hodges, N., & Evershed, J. K. (2021). Realistic precision and accuracy of online experiment platforms, web browsers, and devices. Behavior Research Methods, 53, 1407–1425. DOI:10.3758/s13428-020-01501-5CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed · DOI
  5. Arechabaleta Regulez, B., & Montrul, S. (2021). Psycholinguistic evidence for incipient language change in Mexican Spanish: The extension of differential object marking. Languages, 6(3), 131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Balasch, S. (2011). Factors determining Spanish differential object marking within its domain of variation. In Michnowitz, J. & Dodsworth, R. (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 5th workshop on Spanish sociolinguistics (pp. 113–124). Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
  7. Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48. DOI: 10.18637/jss.v067.i01CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  8. Bautista-Maldonado, S., & Montrul, S. (2019). An experimental investigation of differential object marking in Mexican Spanish. Spanish in Context, 16(1), 22–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Benmamoun, E., Montrul, S., & Polinsky, M. (2013a). Heritage languages and their speakers: Opportunities and challenges for linguistics. Theoretical Linguistics, 39(3–4), 129–181. https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2013-0009CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  10. Benmamoun, E., Montrul, S., & Polinsky, M. (2013b). Defining an “ideal” heritage speaker: Theoretical and methodological challenges Reply to peer commentaries. Theoretical Linguistics, 39(3–4), 259–294. https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2013-0018CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  11. Bossong, G. (1991). Differential object marking in Romance and beyond. In Kibbee, D. & Wanner, D. (Eds.), New analyses in romance linguistics (pp. 143–170). John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Callen, M. C. & Miller, K. (2022). Linguistic variation in the acquisition of morphosyntax: Variable object marking in the speech of Mexican children and their caregivers. Language Learning and Development, 18(3), 310–323. DOI:10.1080/15475441.2021.1977133CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  13. Cedergren, H. J., & Sankoff, D. (1974). Variable rules: Performance as a statistical reflection of competence. Language, 50(2), 333–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Company, C. (2002). Grammaticalization and category weakness. In Wishcer, I., & Diewald, G. (Eds.), New reflections on grammaticalization (pp. 201–215). John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  15. Coşkun Kunduz, A., & Montrul, S. (2022). Sources of variability in the acquisition of differential object marking by turkish heritage language children in the United States. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 25(4), 603–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Cuza, A., Miller, L., Pérez Tattam, R., & Ortiz Vergara, M. (2019). Structure complexity effects in child heritage Spanish: The case of the Spanish personal a. International Journal of Bilingualism, 23(6), 1333–1357. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006918786467CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  17. Di Salvo, M., & Nagy, N. (2022). Differential object marking in heritage and homeland Italian. In Bayley, R., Preston, D. R., & Li, X. (Eds.), Variation in second and heritage languages (pp. 311–336). John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. Di Salvo, M., & Nagy, N. (2023). Differential object marking in Italian: Evidence from Heritage Italian communities. Italian Journal of Linguistics, 35(1), 91–1145. https://doi.org/10.26346/1120-2726-204Google Scholar · DOI
  19. Dussias, P. E., Marful, A., Gerfen, C., & Molina, M. T. B. (2010). Usage frequencies of complement-taking verbs in Spanish and English: Data from Spanish monolinguals and Spanish—English bilinguals. Behavior Research Methods, 42(4), 1004–1011.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
  20. Dumitrescu, D. (1997). El parámetro discursivo en la expresión del objeto directo lexical: español madrileño vs. español porteño. Signo yseña, 7, 303–354. https://doi.org/10.34096/sys.n7.5743Google Scholar · DOI
  21. Felser, C., & Uygun, S. (2022). Optional plural agreement in heritage Turkish speakers’ verb form choices. Heritage Language Journal, 19(1), 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. Flores, C., & Rinke, E. (2020). The relevance of language-internal variation in predicting heritage language grammars. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23(1), 25–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. Gahl, S., & Garnsey, S. M. (2004). Knowledge of grammar, knowledge of usage: Syntactic probabilities affect pronunciation variation. Language, 80(4), 748–775.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. Giancaspro, D., Perez-Cortes, S., & Higdon, J. (2022). (Ir)regular mood swings: Lexical variability in heritage speakers’ oral production of subjunctive mood. Language Learning, 72(2), 456–496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  25. Gries, S. Th. (2021). (Generalized linear) mixed-effects modeling: A learner corpus example. Language Learning, 71(3), 757–798. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12448CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  26. Hur, E. (2020). Verbal lexical frequency and DOM in heritage speakers of Spanish. In Mardale, A. & Montrul, S. (Eds.), The acquisition of differential object marking (pp. 207–235). John Benjamins.Google Scholar
  27. Hur, E., Lopez Otero, J. C., & Sanchez, L. (2020). Gender agreement and assignment in Spanish heritage speakers: Does frequency matter?. Languages, 5(4), 48. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages5040048CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  28. Hurtado, I., & Montrul, S. (2021). Priming dative clitics in spoken Spanish as a second and heritage language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 43(4), 729–752.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  29. Jegerski, J., & Sekerina, I. A. (2020). The processing of input with differential object marking by heritage Spanish speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23(2), 274–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  30. Kupisch, T., & Polinsky, M. (2022). Language history on fast forward: Innovations in heritage languages and diachronic change. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 25(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728921000997CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  31. Kupisch, T., & Rothman, J. (2018). Terminology matters! Why difference is not incompleteness and how early child bilinguals are heritage speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism, 22(5), 564–582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. Labov, W. (1994). Principles of linguistic change, volume 1: Internal factors. Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
  33. Li, P., Zhang, F., Yu, A., & Zhao, X. (2020). Language history questionnaire (LHQ3): An enhanced tool for assessing multilingual experience. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23(5), 938–944.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  34. Linck, J. A., Kroll, J. F., & Sunderman, G. (2009). Losing access to the native language while immersed in a second language: Evidence for the role of inhibition in second-language learning. Psychological Science, 20(12), 1507–1515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  35. Lizárraga-Navarro, G. Z., & Mora-Bustos, A. (2010). Variación en la marcación diferenciada de objeto en español (‘Variation in differential object marking in Spanish’). Forma y Función, 23(1), 9–38.Google Scholar
  36. Mai, Z., Kwan, C., & Yip, V. (2018). Expressing displacement in heritage Cantonese: Cross-linguistic influence and structural vulnerability. International Journal of Bilingualism, 22(6), 603–618. DOI:10.1177/1367006916681084CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  37. Mai, Z., Zhao, L., & Yip, V. (2021). The Mandarin ba-construction in school-age heritage speakers and their parental input. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 12(3), 377–405. https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.18025.maiCrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  38. Montrul, S. (2004). Subject and object expression in Spanish heritage speakers: A case of morphosyntactic convergence. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7(2), 125–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  39. Montrul, S. (2013). Differential Object Marking in Argentine Spanish. An experimental study. In Colantoni, L., & Rodríguez Louro, C. (Eds.), The handbook of Argentine Spanish (pp. 207–228). Frankfurt: Vervuert Iberoamericana.Google Scholar
  40. Montrul, S. (2016). The acquisition of heritage languages. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  41. Montrul, S. (2022). Native speakers, interrupted: Differential object marking and language change in heritage languages. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  42. Montrul, S., & Bateman, N. (2020). Vulnerability and stability of differential object marking in Romanian heritage speakers. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 5(1).Google Scholar
  43. Montrul, S., Bhatt, R., & Bhatia, A. (2012). Erosion of case and agreement in Hindi heritage speakers. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 2(2), 141–176. https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.2.2.02monCrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  44. Montrul, S., & Bowles, M. (2009). Back to basics: Incomplete knowledge of differential object marking in Spanish heritage speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12(3), 363–383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  45. Montrul, S., & Sánchez-Walker, N. (2013). Differential object marking in child and adult Spanish heritage speakers. Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 20(2), 109–132. doi:10.1080/10489223.2013.766741CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  46. Nagy, N., & Lo, S. (2019). Classifier use in heritage and Hong Kong Cantonese. Asia-Pacific Language Variation, 5(1), 84–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  47. Perez-Cortes, S., Putnam, M.T., & Sánchez, L. (2019). Differential access: Asymmetries in accessing features and building representations in heritage language grammars. Languages, 4, 81. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages4040081CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  48. Polinsky, M. (2006). Incomplete acquisition: American russian. Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 14(2), 191–262.Google Scholar
  49. Polinsky, M. (2018). Heritage languages and their speakers. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  50. Polinsky, M., & Kagan, O. (2007). Heritage languages: In the ‘wild’ and in the classroom. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1(5), 368–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  51. Polinsky, M., & Scontras, G. (2020). Understanding heritage languages. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23(1), 4–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728919000245CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  52. Putnam, M. T., Kupisch, T., & Pascual, y, Cabo, D. (2018). Different situations, similar outcomes: Heritage grammars across the lifespan. In Miller, D., Bayram, F., Rothman, J., & Serratrice, L. (Eds.), Bilingual cognition and language: The state of the science across its subfields (pp. 251–280). John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  53. Putnam, M. T., & Sánchez, L. (2013). What’s so incomplete about incomplete acquisition?: A prolegomenon to modeling heritage language grammars. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 3(4), 478–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  54. Requena, P. E. (2023a). Variation versus deviation: Early bilingual acquisition of Spanish Differential object marking. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 13(6), 801–829. https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.21001.reqCrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  55. Requena, P. E. (2023b). Linguistic variation and grammatical complexity in child heritage speakers. Spanish as a Heritage Language, 3(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.5744/shl.2023.1006CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  56. Rodríguez-Mondoñedo, M. (2008). The acquisition of differential object marking in Spanish. Probus, 20(1), 111–145. https://doi.org/10.1515/probus.2008.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  57. Romero Heredero, D., & García García, M. (2023). Differential object marking in Spanish: The effect of affectedness. Caplletra. Revista Internacional de Filologia, 74, 259–285. https://doi.org/10.7203/caplletra.74.26043CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  58. Rowland, C. F., Chang, F., Ambridge, B., Pine, J. M., & Lieven, E. V. (2012). The development of abstract syntax: Evidence from structural priming and the lexical boost. Cognition, 125(1), 49–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
  59. Sanoudaki, E., & Thierry, G. (2015). Language non-selective syntactic activation in early bilinguals: The role of verbal fluency. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(5), 548–560.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  60. Schad, D. J., Vasishth, S., Hohenstein, S., & Kliegl, R. (2020). How to capitalize on a priori contrasts in linear (mixed) models: A tutorial. Journal of Memory and Language, 110, 104038. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2019.104038CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  61. Scontras, G., Polinsky, M., & Fuchs, Z. (2018). In support of representational economy: Agreement in heritage Spanish. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 3(1), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.164Google Scholar · DOI
  62. Shin, N. L. (2022). Está abriendo, la abrió: Lexical knowledge, verb type, and grammatical aspect shape child heritage speakers’ direct object omission in Spanish. International Journal of Bilingualism. Published Online. https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069221124475CrossRefGoogle Scholar · DOI
  63. Ticio, E. (2015). Differential object marking in Spanish-English early bilinguals. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 5(1), 62–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  64. Ticio, E., & Avram, L. (2015). The acquisition of differential object marking in Spanish and Romanian: Semantic scales or semantic features? Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, 60(4), 383–402.Google Scholar
  65. Tippets, I. (2011). Differential object marking: Quantitative evidence for underlying hierarchical constraints across Spanish dialects. In Ortiz-Lopez, Luis A. (Ed.), Selected proceedings of the 13th Hispanic linguistics symposium (pp. 107–117). Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
  66. Torrego, E. (1998). The dependencies of objects. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  67. von Heusinger, K., & Kaiser, G. A. (2007). Differential object marking and the lexical semantics of verbs in Spanish. In Kaiser, G.A., & Leonetti, M. (Eds.), Proceedings of the workshop “Definiteness, Specificity and Animacy in Ibero-Romance Languages” (pp. 85–110). Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft, Universität Konstanz.Google Scholar
  68. Wickham, H. (2016). ggplot2: Elegant graphics for data analysis. Springer-Verlag: New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Callen, M. C.
Affiliations
University of Iowa (US)
Corresponding author
Callen, M. Cole
ORCID
Callen, M. Cole
Venue
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2024-12-13
Volume
28
Issue
2
Pages
357-372
ISSN
  • 1366-7289 (ISSN-L)
  • 1469-1841
DOI
10.1017/s1366728924000555
OpenAlex
W4405374448
Cited by
4
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 1
FWCI
3.92
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
Bilingualism Language and Cognition (publishedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
Keywords
heritage language, differential object marking, Spanish language, heritage speakers, animacy, grammatical variation, language dominance, language change, direct object

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review