The optional Spanish subjunctive mood grammar of New York City heritage bilinguals

Carried out within a variationist-sociolinguistic framework, this study seeks to gain a better understanding of the underlying mood grammar of second-generation heritage bilinguals in New York City (NYC). To that end, we compare optional subjunctive use in the speech of 26 second-generation heritage bilinguals to that of 26 of their first-generation counterparts. Based on usage patterns observed in both generations, a total of ten linguistic contexts are identified as subjunctive optional, i.e., where the subjunctive and the indicative alternate. Results stemming from quantitative analyses show that generation conditions optional subjunctive use, suggesting the presence of two distinct generational groups in our corpus. Furthermore, two internal variables are found to be statistically significant for both cohorts: linguistic context and rank order; whereas only one external variable is significant for the bilingual heritage speakers: level of English skill. Finally, we take a critical approach to challenge widely-accepted notions surrounding heritage languages, namely simplification, attrition and incomplete acquisition, concluding that all three lack the theoretical means to accurately describe the complex bilingual situation in NYC.