Variation in the expression of possession by Latino children
Tonya E. Wolford
Purpose of study
In efforts to improve national reading levels, a variation analysis of expression of possession in
speech samples was conducted.
Possessive constructions considered in the study:
a) 3rd person possessive pronoun
…my mother’s not going to work—tomorrow his day off.
b) Periphrastic of possessives
…..and the friend of my brother brought it back
c) Attributive –s possessives
…like when I go to my cousin house
Literature review
a) Pronoun selected to agree with possession, or noun that follows, instead of possessor (Hill and
Bradford, 2000 p.11)
b) Spanish has a required agreement of modifiers, nouns usually marked for gender (Whitley, 2002
p.153-154)
c) Syntax of Spanish periphrastic influences English use, mirroring most common form
(Whitley, 2002 p.153-154
d) Latino children should have a greater dependency on periphrastic form, and attributive –s should
be less common (Fernandez Dom. 2000, p.134)
Participants
a) Spontaneous speech samples from 630 elementary school children in Atlanta, Philly, California
b) 61 Latino Spanish (children who learned to read in Spanish)
c) 65 Latino English (learned to read in English)
Comparison group
d) 28 African American children
e) 28 White children
Data collection
Part-time tutors elicited speech via sociolinguistic interview, types of questions asked:
a) Did you ever do something your mom told you not to?
b) Have you ever gotten blamed for something you didn’t do?
c) Do you know any place that is really scary?
Interview duration: 30 minutes to an hour
Total words transcribed: 170,000 words
Average word per child: 1,300 words
Total boy production: 75,000 words
Total girl production: 95,000 words
Girls on average produced 300 more words per interview than boys
Pronoun analysis
Overall pronoun confusion 12% (warranting further investigation)
Pronoun confusion more likely when pronoun agrees with Spanish translation of noun (16%)
For example: His name is Jacqueline.
Mexican origin girls create most pronoun confusion
Learning to read first in Spanish
Developmental factors
Mexican girls favoring confusion vs. Puerto Rican girls not favoring
Periphrastic of analysis
Variables used:
a) (noun + of + noun)
e.g. So my dad, he got the gun of the bad guy
b) (noun + -s +noun) which could be expressed as (noun + noun) (no –s)
e.g. So my dad, he got the bad guy’s gun or bad guy gun
Factors influencing possessive form choice
a) Topicality of possessor [+/- topical]
b) Animacy of possessor [+/- animate]
c) Nature of the possession relation [+/- prototypical]
In recent study of British/American English, most influential factors favoring periphrastic of over
attributive –s were:
a) [- animate] and [- topical] and [- prototypical]
e.g. the fumes of a car to a car’s fumes
Conversely, preferred environment of attributive –s:
a) [+animate] and [+topical] possessor and [+prototypical] possessive relation
e.g. the girl’s arm compared with the arm of the girl (Rosenbach 2000)
3 main types of possessive categories in study:
a) Real possessives
e.g. John’s arm or the arm of John
e.g. the girl’s dog or the dog of the girl
b) Subjective possessives
e.g. the pool’s clarity or the clarity of the pool
c) Objective possessives
e.g. Mary’s murder or the murder of Mary
Out of the 3 factor groups used, the possessor human group was in line with current understanding
of periphrastic of over –s, which is preferred when [-animate]
Atlanta and California equally as likely to use periphrastic of, compared to Philly, as was same for
pronoun confusion
Periphrastic of favored by Mexican girls, as compared to PP children
Mexican boys neutral in use
Knockout—PP boys did not use at all
More English contact within Puerto Rican due official status of English
(Zentella, 2000 p.173-138)
In southeast, Mexicans still use more Spanish at home than any other ESL group
(Alba et al. 2002)
-s treatment varies between PP’s and Mexicans
Attributive –s analysis
Compared to white children, high absence of attributive –s among AA children and Latino Spanish
Absence of attributive –s is well-documented in AA communities (Baugh, 1983;Labov et al. 1968;
Labov & Harris, 1996; Rickford, 1992)
Absence of attributive –s favored in Philly and Atlanta
The difference of Philly on one hand, and Atlanta and California on the other suggests Spanish
language origin factor
PP boys clearly favoring absence of attributive –s 50 % of the time, lesser extent PP girls, and not
significant among Mexican children
Discussion
Sociolinguistic factors > incomplete acquisition
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Relationship pronoun confusion/ agreement in Spanish between possessor and noun
Increased pronoun confusion in 2nd graders
Latino Spanish exhibited higher pronoun confusion and periphrastic of
Varying results for boy and girls, language origin
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Girls favored periphrastic of, group of boys favored absence of –s
PP girls differ, attributed to sociocultural differences
PP boys absence –s, lesser extent PP girls, attributable to link to Black street culture
(Pollack 1978), (Wolfram 1974)
Beyond speaker sex, differences in Mexican and PP children
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Mexican and PP children divided between use of periphrastic of and absence of
attributive –s
PP more influenced by AAVE, less Spanish influence
Mexican children more influenced by Spanish
Implications for ESL instruction
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Dispelling assumptions regarding Spanish ELL’s
Constructing lessons better tailored to suit the needs of students with varying L1
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