Language Dominance Shapes Protracted Development of Nonpersonal Clitics (Even) in Cases of Widespread Bilingualism

Little research has explored how language dominance may affect the development and ultimate attainment of morphosyntax in a situation of widespread and social bilingualism, where exposure to both languages starts early on and can be sustained over time. This study investigates the development of three nonpersonal clitics that have received little attention by empirical research cross‐linguistically, namely the partitive and two different oblique clitics. We investigated whether and how the development and ultimate attainment of these clitics in Catalan were modulated by language dominance. To this end, we tested child (ages 4–9) and adult Catalan–Spanish bilinguals with different degrees of language dominance. Our findings show robust differences among language dominance groups in the development and attainment of Catalan nonpersonal clitics. Specifically, despite continuous and widespread bilingualism, clitics emerge later in non‐Catalan‐dominant bilinguals, and later development does not lead to convergence with Catalan‐dominant bilinguals, even in adulthood.