Path and rate of development in child heritage speakers: Evidence from Greek subject/object form and placement

Aims: We investigated: (1) whether differences in accuracy between heritage speakers (HS) and monolingual (MS) signal the path or merely rate of language development, (2) whether, independently these differences, HS become more accurate as they grow older. Methods: Using an elicitation task, we collected data from three groups Greek: United States Canada (78–226 months), MS same age (77–177 younger (42–69 months). In terms structures, focused on two phenomena that are encoded differently Greek English: subject/object form reference maintenance contexts subject placement embedded wh-dependencies. Data Analysis: were analyzed with mixed-effects logistic regression models. Findings: found group had a lower produced different error patterns than both groups. Specifically, only non-felicitous lexical subjects/objects ungrammatical preverbal subjects wh-structures. Accuracy, though, increased age. Furthermore, current amount (HL) input generation, which included covariates, emerged significant predictors some all conditions. Originality: The inclusion helped us determine observed also attested at earlier developmental stages. wide range path/rate older accumulate necessary HL input. Implications: may go through stages not L1 acquisition. However, do necessarily entail outcome HS’ continue to increase, provided using their HL.