Use of the English Subjunctive by L1 English/L2 Spanish
Bilinguals∗
Melissa Whatley
Indiana University
Abstract
The current study examines the use of the English subjunctive mood by L1
American English/L2 Spanish late bilinguals using a multi-competence model of
bilingualism (Cook, 1991, 1992; Pavlenko, 2000). While the use of the present
subjunctive is productive in Spanish (Butt & Benjamin, 2000), it is generally assumed
that use of this verb form in English is declining (Whitley, 2002; Kleiser, 2008; Kovács,
2009). However, recent research shows that the subjunctive may be productive in
mandative constructions, such as it is important that, in American English (Övergaard,
1995; Hundt, 1998; Crawford, 2009). The current study examines bilingual and
monolingual use of the subjunctive in addition to examining participants’ use of the
subjunctive for three age groups (20 – 29, 30 – 39, and 40+) in order to capture any
change in progress occurring in American English. Participants (N=37, 18 bilinguals and
19 monolinguals) in the current study completed a 20-item sentence completion task
including 12 sentences for which the subjunctive is possible as well as 8 distractor items.
Results confirm the aforementioned hypothesis, showing that bilinguals generally use the
subjunctive in mandative constructions while monolinguals prefer constructions other
than the subjunctive. Findings for the three age groups also lend some support to the
hypothesis that the subjunctive is declining in American English.
1. Introduction
The current study seeks to examine the influence of late bilinguals’ second
language (L2) on the production in their first language (L1), specifically the influence of
L2 Spanish on L1 English in subjunctive verb constructions. This phenomenon, as
defined by Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008), is the “influence of a person’s knowledge of one
language on that person’s knowledge or use of another language”, and has been studied
from both second language acquisition (SLA) and bilingualism perspectives. While
studies in SLA have concentrated on the influence of learners’ L1 on their L2, studies in
bilingualism generally focus on the opposite phenomenon, influence of a speaker’s L2 on
his/her L1.
Pavlenko (2000) and Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008) suggest that the influence of a
bilingual speaker’s L2 on his/her L1 is best addressed within a multi-competence
framework (Cook, 1991; Cook, 1992). Cook (1991) defines multi-competence as “the
compound state of a mind with two grammars” while Cook (1992) expands this
I would like to thank Dr. Kevin Rottet for his feedback and suggestions on this project, two reviewers
(Marda Rose and Maria Hasler Barker) for their insightful comments as well as the associate editor
(Valentyna Filimonova). All errors are my own.
∗
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definition even further to distinguish multi-competence from L1 transfer during L2
acquisition. Multi-competence exists once a speaker has two complete grammatical
systems in his/her mind and not during the acquisition process. Unlike the more
traditional Chomksyan view of the bilingual speaker as the possessor of two distinct,
separated language systems, multi-competence views the bilingual as possessor of two
linguistic systems that co-exist simultaneously (Cook, 1992). Since the systems of the
two languages of a bilingual coincide, a logical extension is that they are able to mutually
influence each other (Pavlenko, 2000; Jarvis and Pavlenko, 2008). The present study
explores the influence of bilinguals’ L2 Spanish on their L1 English within a multicompetence framework while focusing on a morphosyntactic phenomenon – the present
subjunctive.
2. Previous Literature
Previous research on the influence of a bilingual’s L2 on his/her L1 has focused
on an array of linguistic phenomena, including phonetic, syntactic, lexical, and pragmatic
(see Pavlenko, 2000 for a review). On the morphosyntactic level, previous research has
shown that an L2 can influence an L1 regarding word order, sub-categorization of verbs,
and the ability to make correct grammaticality judgments (Pavlenko, 2000).
While no previous research has specifically addressed the use of the English
subjunctive by bilinguals, many researchers have documented the attrition of the Spanish
subjunctive (Merino, 1983; Lipski, 1993; Silva-Corvalán, 1994; Lynch, 1999; SilvaCorvalán, 2003, Montrul; 2007). For example, Silva-Corvalán (1994) analyses the use of
the Spanish subjunctive in conversational data from 17 Mexican-American bilinguals
living in the Los Angeles area. She finds a general reduction of the obligatory use of the
subjunctive in that it is either optional or completely lost in favor of the indicative in
linguistic contexts where it is required in other dialects of Spanish. Lynch (1999) finds in
a cross-generational study that the indicative expands to occupy semantic space
previously belonging to the subjunctive in data from oral interviews of 3 generations of
Cuban bilinguals living in Miami, Florida. Montrul (2007) expands on this idea and finds
that not only do the Spanish/English bilinguals participating in her study have trouble
producing the subjunctive in what are considered to be obligatory contexts, but that they
are also unable to interpret the subjunctive semantically. It is important to note that
Montrul’s participants were mostly Spanish/English bilingual undergraduate students
enrolled in a language course designed especially for heritage speakers, and information
about their contact with Spanish is not provided.
The current study seeks to analyze the opposite phenomenon of these previous
studies: the influence of L2 Spanish on production of the L1 English subjunctive.
Production of the subjunctive in L1 English by bilinguals is a previously unstudied
phenomenon of morphosyntactic L2-to-L1 influence. The following sections detail
subjunctive use in both Spanish and English.
2
3. The Subjunctive
3.1. The Spanish Subjunctive
While researchers disagree on the contexts that require the subjunctive and the
contexts where it is optional (see for example, Guitart, 1994; Mejías-Bikandi, 1998;
Travis, 2003), there is no debate as to whether or not most dialects of Spanish use the
present subjunctive productively.
Butt and Benjamin (2000) give 6 general uses of the subjunctive in Spanish: (1)
to express doubt or uncertainty, (2) in statements of possibility and probability, (3) in
statements of influence, (4) for emotional reactions and value judgments, (5) to express
fear, and (6) after certain noun phrases such as the fact that. The Spanish subjunctive is
almost always used in dependent clauses after the connector que ‘that’, which is the case
in all of the examples below (examples from Butt and Benjamin, 2000, 237 - 280).
(1) Dudo
que
sea
verdad lo que dices.
I doubt
that it is (subj.)
true what you say
“I doubt that what you’re saying is true.”
(2) Es
posible
It is
possible
“There may be a storm.”
que
that
haya
there is (subj.)
(3) Es
necesario que lo
reciban
It is
necessary that it
they receive (subj.)
“It is necessary that they receive it by tomorrow.”
(4) Es
natural que
esté
It is
natural that he/she be (subj.)
“It’s natural for him/her to be upset.”
tormenta.
storm
para mañana.
for tomorrow
alterada.
upset
(5) Temo
que
le
moleste.
I’m afraid that him/her
it upsets (subj)
“I’m afraid it may upset him/her.”
(6) Le
molesta el hecho de que no
venga
a verlo.
to him
it annoys the fact of that [neg] she comes (subj.) to see him
“The fact that she doesn’t come to see him annoys him.”
As explained in the following section, as far as subjunctive use is concerned, American
English is comparable to Spanish only in statement of influence contexts.
3.2. The English Subjunctive
Contrary to Spanish, it is generally claimed that the use of the subjunctive in
English is declining (Whitley, 2002; Kleiser, 2008; Kovács, 2009). Palmer (1987) even
3
asserts that “the subjunctive mood is a simple transfer from Latin and has no place in
English grammar”. However, recent research has shown that the present subjunctive may
be productive in what authors have called mandative constructions in American English,
following a sort of linguistic revival of the subjunctive form in this particular dialect
(Övergaard, 1995; Hundt, 1998; Crawford, 2009). Övergaard (1995) bases the part of his
study that focuses specifically on American English on the Brown University Corpus of
Edited American English, a computerized corpus of texts, including books, periodicals,
and government documents and finds a recent increase in subjunctive forms in mandative
contexts. Hundt (1998) also draws from this particular corpus while Crawford (2009)
studies the use of the subjunctive in a corpus of news writing. Both of these authors also
find a recent increase in the use of subjunctive forms in American English. Serpollet
(2009), whose study is also based on a written corpus, indicates that the revival of the
subjunctive in American English as documented by the aforementioned studies appears to
be slowing down. It must be pointed out that a weakness of these four studies is that
none of them examines the use of the subjunctive in American English in naturalistic
production data, such as spontaneous written production or sociolinguistic interviews. As
mentioned in the previous section, the mandative use of the English present subjunctive
found in these four studies appears to be comparable to what Butt and Benjamin (2000)
refer to as statements of influence (see translation of [3] in [7]) in Spanish.
(7)
It is necessary that they receive (subj.) it by tomorrow.
Morphologically speaking, use of the subjunctive mood is only detectable in
English in third person singular verb forms, as it prescriptively involves the dropping of
the final –s from this form (he thinks vs. it is important that he think). All other forms of
the subjunctive are identical in the indicative and the subjunctive in English (I think vs. it
is important that I think). An exception to this rule is the verb to be, which in the
subjunctive is simply expressed as be in all forms (Kleiser, 2008).
4. The Current Study
Given the differences between the highly productive subjunctive system of
Spanish and the considerably weaker system of subjunctive use in English, it is not
unreasonable to think that bilinguals’ L1 English may be influenced by their L2 Spanish,
especially if a multi-competence view of bilingualism is adopted (Cook, 1991; Cook,
1992). One may expect speakers of an L2 with a highly productive subjunctive, such as
Spanish, to expand and reinforce the use of the subjunctive in their own L1. The current
study hypothesizes that, while use of the subjunctive in English may be on the decline,
native speakers of American English who are also bilingual in Spanish use the
subjunctive more productively than monolingual speakers of American English. This
type of Spanish/English bilingualism is a fairly common linguistic profile in the United
States (Instituto Cervantes, 2007). Confirmation of this hypothesis would suggest that
speakers’ L2 Spanish influences their L1 English and thus provide further support for a
multi-competence model of bilingualism (Cook, 1991; Cook, 1992). Additionally, if the
use of the subjunctive is, in fact, declining, as the many researchers have suggested, then
a speaker’s age also becomes important to the current study. Younger speakers, whether
4
bilingual or not, may be expected to use the subjunctive less often than their older
counterparts. The following research questions will guide the analysis that follows:
1. Do bilingual speakers produce subjunctive forms more often than monolingual
speakers? If so, is the manner of sentence completion (subjunctive, indicative, or
other) influenced by a participant’s age?
2. Is the manner of sentence completion (subjunctive, indicative, or other)
influenced by a participant’s age in monolingual production? If so, are these
tendencies the same as those observed for bilingual speakers?
It is hypothesized that the answer to the first research question will show that if a
bilingual speaker’s L2 Spanish impacts his/her L1 English, then this group will produce
more subjunctive forms than monolingual speakers. As far as the second research
question is concerned, it is hypothesized that, if the previously mentioned researchers are
correct that the subjunctive is disappearing in English, then younger speakers of both
groups will produce the subjunctive less than their older counterparts. The results of the
current study increase our understanding of how a bilingual’s L2 influences his/her L1
and provide insight into the current status of the mandative subjunctive in American
English.
5. Method
5.1. Materials
In order to answer these research questions, both bilingual (L2 Spanish) and
monolingual native speakers of American English completed a 20-item sentence
completion task. This task included 12 sentences involving mandative constructions, a
context in which previous research indicates the subjunctive is possible, and 8 distractor
items. Distractor items were of the same syntactic structure as other items, but consisted
of contexts in which previous research does not indicate that the subjunctive is possible in
English. This task can be found in the appendix, where mandative, and therefore
potential subjunctive, constructions are italicized. Participants also filled out a brief
background questionnaire with information about their age, languages spoken, and
language learning history.
5.2. Participants
A total of 39 participants completed both tasks, all friends of the researcher,
during October 2012. Only 37 participants are included in the current analysis, as two
participants did not follow the directions on the sentence completion task. Of the 37
participants who correctly completed both the sentence completion task and the
background questionnaire, 18 were classified as bilingual and 19 as monolingual.
Participants were considered bilingual if they indicated on the background questionnaire
that they had studied Spanish as either a major or a minor at the university level, and all
of these participants used their second language for professional purposes. All bilingual
participants are considered late bilinguals, as they all indicated that they began studying
Spanish post-puberty, usually in high school, but some at the university level.
5
Participants were considered monolingual if they had simply completed required
language courses without further pursuit of language learning. While this group had
studied a variety of languages at the introductory level, none of these participants had
continued to study a second language, nor did they consider themselves bilingual. All
participants, both bilingual and monolingual, indicated that they had completed at least an
undergraduate university degree.
Once speakers were classified as either bilingual or monolingual, they were then
divided into three age groups, 20 – 29, 30 – 39, and 40+. While arbitrary, these age
groups allow for a somewhat even distribution of participants. As indicated in Table 1, in
the bilingual speaker group, 7 participants fall into the 20 – 29 age group, 5 in the 30 – 39
group, and 6 in the 40+ group while in the monolingual speaker group, 5 speakers are
between the ages of 20 and 29 while 5 fall into the 30 – 39 age group and 9 are 40+ years
old. Participants were divided into these age groups in order to capture a potential
change in progress that may be occurring in this particular dialect as far as the use or nonuse of the subjunctive is concerned.
Table 1: Participant language and age groups
Age group
Bilingual
20 – 29
7
30 – 39
5
40+
6
Total
18
Monolingual
5
5
9
19
5.3. Procedure
The manner in which participants chose to finish the sentences for each of the 12
mandative constructions was coded as one of three variants: subjunctive, indicative, or
other. Verbs were coded as subjunctive when participants optionally added the word that
after the prompt plus the verb in its subjunctive form (8). Verbs were coded as indicative
when participants optionally provided that plus a verb in its indicative form (9). The
category of verbs other consists of a variety of constructions that are neither subjunctive
nor indicative forms, but also possible ways of completing these sentences, as illustrated
in (10) – (13). (All sentences are examples produced by the informants.)
(8) (I suggest…) that John eat apples in secret. (Participant Q)
(9) (It’s preferable…) that John eats his apple instead of getting sick. (Participant
LL)
(10) (It’s preferable…) for John to eat apples, not harp seals. (Participant EE)
(11) (The police officer prohibits…) John to eat bad apples. (Participant AA)
(12) (The police officer prohibits…) John from eating apples while driving.
(Participant X)
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(13) (His teacher prefers…) it if John doesn’t eat apples in class. (Participant X)
5.4. Analysis
Once coded, data was divided accordingly to answer each of the research
questions. T-tests were run in order to show if differences between bilingual and
monolingual speakers, as well as age groups, are significant (alpha was set at p = .05).
6. Results
Table 2 below presents the general distribution of the data, which shows several
general trends in the data. Total percentages do not add up to 100% due to rounding.
Table 2: Sentence completion constructions according to linguistic status
Subjunctive
Indicative
Other
%
N
%
N
%
N
Bilinguals
68.1% 147
14.4%
31
17.6%
38
Monolinguals
25.4% 58
25.4%
58
49.1%
112
p < 0.001
Total
%
100.1%
99.9%
N
216
228
Table 2 indicates that bilinguals choose the subjunctive more often (68.1%) than
monolinguals (25.4%) while monolinguals show a tendency to produce constructions
falling into the “other” category (see examples [10] – [13] above). An unpaired t-test
shows that this difference between the bilingual and monolingual groups is statistically
significant, p < 0.001.
Table 3 shows the same distribution of the data as Table 2 for only the bilingual
group, but also divides results according to age group.
Table 3: Bilingual sentence completion constructions according to age group
Age group
Subjunctive
Indicative
Other form
Total
%
N
%
N
%
N
%
20 – 29
65.5% 55
23.8%
20
10.7%
9
100%
30 – 39
73.3% 44
11.7%
7
15.0%
9
100%
40+
66.7% 48
5.6%
4
27.8%
20
100.1%
p = 0.002
N
84
60
72
Table 3 indicates that age has an effect in the way bilingual participants chose to
complete the task, and t-test shows that this difference is significant, p = 0.002. While
all three age groups overwhelmingly produce the subjunctive more often than any other
verb form in these contexts (65.5% ages 20 – 29, 73.3% ages 30 – 39, and 66.7% age
40+), when the subjunctive is not produced, the youngest age group tends to choose
indicative verb forms as opposed to other types of constructions (23.8% vs. 10.7%) while
the other 30 – 39 and 40+ age groups choose other ways of completing the sentence
rather than using the indicative (15.0% vs. 11.7% and 27.8% vs. 5.6% respectively).
The distribution of sentence completion for the monolingual speaker group
according to age group is shown in Table 4.
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Table 4: Monolingual sentence completion constructions according to age group
Age group
Subjunctive
Indicative
Other form
Total
%
N
%
N
%
N
%
20 - 29
11.7% 7
31.7% 19
56.7% 34
100.1%
30 – 39
35.0% 21
23.3% 14
41.7% 25
100%
40+
27.8% 30
23.1% 25
49.1% 53
100%
p = 0.050
N
60
60
108
As Table 4 indicates, participant age is also statistically significant for the
monolingual group (p = 0.050). All three age groups of monolinguals prefer to complete
sentences using other constructions (see examples [10] – [13] above) and do not produce
subjunctive or indicative verb forms. When these informants do not produce
constructions falling into the “other” category, younger speakers, similar to the younger
group of bilingual speakers, tend to use the indicative over the subjunctive (31.7% vs.
11.7%). The 30 – 39 and 40+ age groups tend to employ the subjunctive when another
form is not used rather than the indicative (35.0% vs. 23.3% and 27.8% vs. 23.1%
respectively), a result that contrasts with production of their bilingual counterparts.
7. Discussion
This section organizes the results presented above in relation to the two guiding
research questions.
7.1. Research Question 1
The first research question asked if bilingual speakers produced subjunctive forms
more often than monolingual speakers and, if so, if the manner of sentence completion
(subjunctive, indicative, or other) was influenced by participant’s age. The results
presented here indicate that the answer to this question is yes. Overall, bilinguals in the
current study produced the subjunctive 68.1% of the time while monolinguals only
produced it 25.4% of the time. When bilinguals do not use the subjunctive to complete
sentences, bilingual participants in the younger age group (20 – 29) tended to choose
indicative verb forms (23.8%) while the other two age groups (30 – 39 and 40+)
displayed a tendency to choose other construction types (15.0% and 27.8% respectively).
7.2. Research Question 2
The second research question asked whether the manner of sentence completion
(subjunctive, indicative, or other) was influenced by a participant’s age in monolingual
production and whether or not these tendencies were the same as those observed for
bilingual speakers. Results suggest that age is indeed significant for monolingual
speakers as far as manner of sentence completion is concerned and lend support to
previous claims that the subjunctive in English is disappearing (Palmer, 1987; Whitley,
2002; Kleiser, 2008; Kovács, 2009). While all three age groups favor constructions other
than those involving the indicative or the subjunctive, the youngest age group’s second
8
choice for sentence completion is the indicative (31.7%) as opposed to the subjunctive
(11.7%). The other two age groups, however, choose the subjunctive rather than the
indicative when not using other constructions (35.0% vs. 23.3% for the 30 – 39 age group
and 27.8% vs. 23.1% for the 40+ age group).
These results are comparable to those of the bilingual group in that younger
speakers in both groups use indicative verb forms when they do not use their preferred
form (i.e. subjunctive for bilinguals and other constructions for monolinguals). Results
for even the youngest bilinguals indicate that the English subjunctive is overwhelmingly
the bilinguals’ preferred means of completing the mandative constructions used in this
particular study, contrary to claims that the subjunctive in English is disappearing
(Palmer, 1987; Whitley, 2002; Kleiser, 2008; Kovács, 2009).
8. Conclusion
The results presented here lend support to Cook’s (1991, 1992) model of multicompetence. Bilingual speakers in the current study seem to be transferring the use of a
construction that exists in their L2 (Spanish) to their L1 (English). It is critical here to
note that the bilinguals in this particular study are simply increasing the frequency of use
of a verb form that already exists in their L1 (English). It is not that the subjunctive does
not exist in English and that speakers are creating a new verb form, but rather that
bilingual speakers use the subjunctive with a greater frequency than monolinguals in
contexts where English already allows for subjunctive use. It has been suggested in
previous studies that the ability of bilingual speakers to use the same structure in their L1
as it exists in their L2 lightens the cognitive load of balancing the two grammatical
systems (e.g. Silva-Corvalán, 1994; Matras, 2000). The bilinguals participating in the
current study appear to have rebalanced the system of their L1 (English), at least in
written production, in order to accommodate an L2 (Spanish) grammatical structure, thus
adding to the list of L1 morphosyntactic phenomena that can be influenced by the
acquisition of an L2 found in Pavlenko (2000). The current study is the first to examine
the effect of L2 Spanish bilingualism on the use of the L1 English subjunctive.
8.1. Future Directions
While the current study increases our knowledge of how an L2 Spanish syntactic
phenomenon can influence a bilingual’s L1 English system, much work on this topic has
yet to be done. This particular study has examined the use of the English subjunctive in
the production of late bilinguals whose second language is Spanish. An analysis of
English subjunctive use by heritage speakers of Spanish living in the United States or of
early bilinguals would add greatly to our knowledge of how the mood systems of Spanish
and English mutually influence one another in bilingual multi-competence.
The current study also considers English subjunctive production in a very
controlled written elicitation task with a limited sample size. In order to examine how
Spanish/English bilinguals use the subjunctive in their everyday speech, an analysis of
oral sociolinguistic interviews is essential. A larger sample size would also aid in the
generalization of results. Additionally, an analysis of other types of morphosyntactic
phenomena in L1 English/L2 Spanish bilingual speech, such as verbal aspect in past time
9
narration or use of the present progressive, may shed further light on the ways in which
an L2 can influence an L1 as well as highlight possible restrictions of this influence.
10
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Appendix
Sentences where the subjunctive is possible in italics
Sentence Completion Task:
Complete the following sentences using the words John/eat/apple. Keep all of the
sentences in the present tense. Write whatever you think sounds best -- don't worry about
if it's grammatically correct or not.
Example: I found out…
that John eats an apple every day.
Example: I want…
John to eat an apple.
1. I hope…
2. It’s important…
3. Mary asked…
4. The doctor insists…
5. I’m sad…
6. I recommend…
7. Mary told me…
8. It’s better…
9. His parents request…
10. Dan said…
11. His teacher prefers…
12. It’s a shame…
13. It’s necessary…
14. His brother wrote…
15. I’m so glad…
16. The police officer prohibits…
17. I suggest…
18. It’s preferable…
19. How cool…
20. They demand…
13