![]() The proponents of Interface Hypothesis (Sorace and Filiaci 2006) have argued that the syntax-discourse interface poses acquisition challenges stemming from the taxing task of integrating structures from syntax and discourse. Problems with establishing referential dependencies with anaphoric pronouns have been reported in studies with various types of bilingual populations. It also suggests that it is important to differentiate among different discourse conditions affecting subject pronouns in context. This pattern of results indicates that variables beside cross-linguistic influence must be considered as explanatory factors in this particular domain. Bilingual children, regardless of age and language combination, also accepted some infelicitous null subject pronouns. A significant interaction between age and language of the community also showed that at the age of 6–7 English-Italian bilinguals in the UK chose significantly more pragmatically overt pronouns than all the other groups of children, while at the age of 8–10 it was the Spanish-Italian bilinguals that performed significantly less accurately than all other groups of children. Younger monolingual and bilingual children chose significantly more pragmatically inappropriate overt subject pronouns than older children and adults. In Italian, by contrast, the patterns of results were much more varied. The results showed no statistically significant differences in English: regardless of age, language combination, and language of the community, participants overwhelmingly rejected ungrammatical sentences with a missing subject and chose sentences with an overt subject pronoun. ![]() ![]() A further aim of the study was to test the influence of input and exposure to Italian by comparing bilinguals living in Italy and bilinguals living in the UK. ![]() The aim was to disentangle possible effects of cross-linguistic influence from the more general effects of bilingualism and the use of ‘default’ forms. ![]() This study investigates the acceptability of Italian and English pronominal subject forms in −topic shift and +topic shift contexts in English-Italian and Spanish-Italian bilingual children aged 6–7 and 8–10, age-matched monolingual children, and monolingual adults. ![]()
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