in development in English is for early non-use of be followed by later inser-
tion of be as the child matures (Becker, 2000, 2004; Brown, 1973), would
Spanish-English bilingual children show earlier movement to the non-omis-
sion of be in English than their monolinguals peers? These researchers found
that the two S-E bilingual children they studied did indeed show earlier use
of explicit be than monolinguals do. The earlier use was documented to occur
whether the use of be was broken down by adjective type (into individual-
level adjectives, which occur with ser in Spanish, versus stage-level adjectives,
which occur with estar) or into uses with two predicate types (nominal
predicates, which take ser, versus locative predicates, which take estar). See
Tables 4.1 and 4.2, adapted from Fernández Fuertes and Liceras (2010). They
document the bilinguals’ earlier use of be for all types, but especially for uses
corresponding to estar in Spanish.
Complementary data, also from Spanish-English simultaneous bilingual
children, come from Silva-Corvalán (2005, 2009). In her work, Silva-Corvalán
examined two S-E bilingual children’s use of overt subjects in Spanish and
English. Spanish is a null subject language, English uses non-null subjects, and
Spanish-speaking monolingual children show early and continued use of null
subjects. Silva-Corvalán examined whether either language influenced the
other in these two children’s use of subjects. One of the children, from early
on, showed correct use of null subjects in Spanish. The other, however,
showed overuse (incorrect use) of overt subjects in Spanish, presumably
because of the influence of overt subjects in English.
Such findings suggest that there may indeed be cases in which the gram-
mar of one language affects the other in bilingual children. Two factors are
of note, however. One is that language dominance effects may play a role
(e.g. in Silva-Corvalán’s subjects, one was dominant in Spanish, the other
dominant in English; see also Chapter 1). The other is that there may be
additional factors in operation, such as a possible preference for overt forms
66 Part 2: Bilingual Language Development
Table 4.2 Data reported in Fernández Fuertes and Liceras (2010) by predicate type
Explicit be by predicate type
nominal predicates (IL) locative predicates (SL)
MONs 76.3% 18.8%
BILs 91.2% 88.6%Table 4.1 Data reported in Fernández Fuertes and Liceras (2010) by adjective type
Explicit be by type of adjective type
IL adjectives SL adjectives
MONs 62.6% 47.0%
BILs 93.6% 91.2%