First language attrition and pronominal resolution in Italian: A self-paced reading study

Purpose: Pronominal resolution in Italian-style null-subject languages has played a central role in the discussion of how acquiring a second language later in life may impact the first, a phenomenon known as attrition . Within that literature, previous (offline) work has argued that attrition leads to a weakening of the interpretive bias for overt pronouns. This has been suggested to reflect processing difficulties rather than representational changes. However, despite this explicit processing claim, little published work has investigated how the online processing of pronominal forms in these languages is affected by attrition. Method: In response, we conducted a self-paced reading task in Italian using temporarily ambiguous stimuli. For this, we recruited L1 Italian speakers living both in Italy ( N = 66) and in a majority English-speaking country ( N = 32, minimum 5 years of residency). Analysis: Reading times from the disambiguating windows were subjected to mixed-effects regressions. Findings: Results indicated participants undergoing attrition exhibited a stronger – not weaker – processing bias for overt pronouns relative to participants still living in Italy (at least towards the beginning of the experiment). Originality: This study is original for two reasons. First, it addresses the gap in research investigating attrition and pronominal resolution from an online perspective. Second, it extends a recently reported offline strengthening effect for overt pronouns to online processing. Implications: Although our results seem to conflict with earlier online findings, they are convergent with recent offline findings. Moreover, there is evidence from other phenomena relating to the null-subject parameter (e.g. null/postverbal subjects) that attrition may lead to a general strengthening of L1 biases. Therefore, we argue that attrition affects overt pronouns inconsistently, with future research needed to understand why this should be the case.