Bilingual preposition-stranding acceptability in heritage speaker Spanish, English, and code-switching

Paper presented virtually at the 2nd Heritage Language Syntax, Utrecht, Netherlands. [PDF]

This study examines preposition stranding (p-stranding) in US heritage Spanish speakers, comparing monolingual English, monolingual Spanish, and code-switching contexts. Results show that English prepositions allow p-stranding regardless of the bilingual type, while simultaneous bilinguals are more likely to accept p-stranding with Spanish prepositions compared to sequential bilinguals. These findings suggest that the preposition, rather than the determiner, governs whether p-stranding is permissible in both monolingual and code-switching contexts.