What is it about?
This article reports on a study showing how Animacy affects how L2 learners interpret and us object pronouns. Learners have a tendency to use the dative form (le) only for humans and the accusative forms (lo/la) for non-human entities. This tendency weakens as overall proficiency increases and the interpretation and use of object pronouns begins to approximate L1 grammar.
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Why is it important?
We show how the influence of Animacy on Spanish object pronoun interpretation and use decreases as proficiency increases. We also make a novel contribution by making a three-way animacy distinction (human, animal, inanimate). Understanding how object pronouns develop in L2 grammar also informs pedagogical approaches to facilitating acquisition.
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This page is a summary of: The effect of animacy on object pronoun distinctions in L2 Spanish, Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, June 2020, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/lab.19024.ols.
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