Cross-linguistic influence in bilingual language acquisition: Determining onset and end

Abstract

Abstract In this paper we review current novel work across several languages and instances of bilingual acquisition (2L1 and child L2), whose focus is on the syntax and semantics of different linguistic phenomena with a range of naturalistic and experimental methodologies (e. g. grammaticality judgments, truth-value judgment task, semantics entailment experiments in on-line and off-line modalities and longitudinal data) to determine at which age one can say that the influence of one language over the other diminishes or disappears. Moreover, we discuss the central issue of what may trigger the end of the influence of one language over the other.