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The comparative investigation of the acquisition of gender in
Spanish by early and late bilinguals of different language
combinations is highly debated and crucial as the phenomenon of
gender involves grammatical features that differ in all three
languages under investigation. Against this background, both early
and late bilinguals face an arduous learning task which differs in
complexity. Couched within a generative framework, the empirical
study focuses on 257 participants with different levels of
proficiency in Spanish ranging from low to advanced, and through a
series of tests aims to discover which extra-linguistic and
intra-linguistic factors act as triggers for non-native outcomes in
adult heritage speakers and L2 learners. The observed morphological
variability is argued not to stem from a representational (i.e.
syntactic) deficit, but rather from a mapping problem in L2
learners and heritage speakers. Successful attainment in terms of
gender is possible but dependent on the interplay between various
extralinguistic and linguistic factors.
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