When reduced input leads to delayed acquisition: a study on the acquisition of clitic placement by Portuguese heritage speakers

摘要

This article examines the competence of heritage speakers of Portuguese living in Germany withrespect to clitic placement in Portuguese by comparing their performance with that of monolingualspeakers of the same age (7–15 years of age) in a test designed to elicit oral production data. Theresults of the study indicate that the heritage speakers go through stages in the acquisition ofclitic placement that are similar to those of monolingual acquirers even though they take longerto attain the target grammar.