title: Age and input effects in the acquisition of mood in Heritage Portuguese.
abstract: The present study analyzes the effect of age and amount of input in the acquisition of European Portuguese as a heritage language. An elicited production task centred on mood choice in complement clauses was applied to a group of fifty bilingual children (six- to sixteen-year-olds) who are acquiring Portuguese as a minority language in a German dominant environment. The results show a significant effect of the age at testing and the amount of input in the acquisition of the subjunctive. In general, acquisition is delayed with respect to monolinguals, even though higher convergence with the monolingual grammar is observed after twelve years of age. Results also reveal that children with more exposure to the heritage language at home show faster acquisition than children from mixed households: the eight- to nine-year-old age boundary seems relevant for those speakers with more exposure, and the twelve- to thirteen-year-old age boundary for those with less exposure.
authors.affiliation: Universidade do Minho,Portugal.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5629-9556
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Flores
authors.affiliation: Universidade de Lisboa,Portugal.
authors.forename: Ana Lúcia
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4758-7462
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.affiliation: Universidade de Lisboa,Portugal.
authors.forename: Alice
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jesus
authors.affiliation: Universidade de Lisboa,Portugal.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8622-9786
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Marques
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007804:Language Development; D007807:Language Tests; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism