The acquisition of Mandarin reflexives by heritage speakers and second language learners

Abstract

This study investigates (a) whether heritage speakers (HSs) and second language learners (L2ers) acquire the properties of Mandarin reflexives and (b) whether HSs have an advantage over L2ers in acquiring the binding properties of Mandarin reflexives: taziji ‘himself/herself’, which requires local antecedents, and ziji ‘self’, which allows local and long-distance (LD) antecedents. Fourteen native speakers (NSs), 14 HSs, and 12 L2ers completed a Truth Value Judgment Task. Unlike NSs, HSs and L2ers predominantly allowed local but not LD interpretations, possibly due to English transfer and/or local binding as the default option. Regarding taziji, HSs patterned with NSs in accepting only local interpretations, while L2ers overaccepted the LD interpretations and underaccepted the local interpretations, possibly due to indeterminacy in judgments or misanalysis of taziji as the pronoun ta.