Priming motion events in Italian heritage language speakers

Abstract Language contact can lead to short-term effects like cross-linguistic influence but might also contribute to long-term processes such as contact-induced language change. Recent studies suggest that structural priming may serve as a cognitive mechanism linking synchronic and diachronic outcomes in contact-induced language change since it occurs across languages and persists over time. Heritage language speakers, immersed in extreme language contact situations and often presenting an innovative language use, provide a valuable testing ground of the possible agents that produce and transmit these changes. Moreover, age is also thought to influence speakers’ tendencies to adopt innovative constructions with younger speakers being more accepting than older ones. In this study, we investigate whether priming serves as a mechanism underlying language change and its impact on speakers’ long-lasting linguistic choices. We conducted within and across languages priming experiments on motion event constructions focusing on the differences in the distribution of framing patterns between Italian (verb-framed language) and German (satellite-framed language), testing younger and older Italian HLS living in Germany. Our findings contribute to understanding the mechanisms underlying cross-linguistic influence and its role within language change and identifying its agents, bridging the gap between historical linguistics and psycholinguistic research on bilingual populations.