Crosslinguistic influence and linguistic dominance in Greek-English sequential bilingual children’s production of sentential subjects

This study investigates crosslinguistic influence (CLI) in Greek-English sequential bilingual children, focusing on the production of sentential subjects. 70 Greek-English bilingual children (35 attending a total immersion preschool and 35 attending a partial immersion preschools in Greece) were compared to 34 Greek and 36 English monolingual peers. Using an elicited production task and standardised proficiency assessments, the study examined whether these children use the realisation patterns of their null-subject L1 (Greek) in their non-null-subject L2 (English), and how factors such as subject type (pronoun vs DP), linguistic dominance, and proficiency influence performance. The results showed that bilinguals overused null subjects in English, indicating CLI from the L1 to the L2, and that the effects were more pronounced in the partial immersion group, suggesting that dominance determines the direction and the magnitude of CLI effects. Vocabulary was a significant predictor of accurate subject use in English, indicating that lexical proficiency supports the use of subject arguments in the L2.