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The present study investigates the relationship between discourse integration skills and Spanish copula choice in monolingual Chilean Spanish-speaking children. Previous research has focused on determining the age at which children associate  estar  to a transitory property and  ser  to an inherent property (Holtheuer, Carolina. 2012. Spanish-speaking children do not always overuse estar.  Revista Signos  45(78). 3–19, Holtheuer, Carolina &amp; Johanna Rendle-Short. 2013. Ser and estar: Corrective input to children’s errors of the Spanish copula verbs.  First Language  33(2). 155–167, Schmitt, Cristina &amp; Karen Miller. 2007. Making discourse dependent decisions: The case of the copulas ser and estar in Spanish.  Lingua  117(11). 1907–1929, Sera, Maria. 1992. To be or to be: Use and acquisition of the Spanish copulas.  Journal of Memory and Language  31. 408–427, Requena, Pablo, Astrid Román-Hernández &amp; Karen Miller. 2015. Children’s knowledge of the Spanish copulas ser and estar with novel adjectives.  Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics  22. 193–207), showing that by 2 years of age children know the categorial distribution of the two copulas, but that at 5 years of age only some children, but not all children, have knowledge of the transitory/inherent distinction that often arises when the same adjective occurs with one or the other copula. The present study seeks to extend the latter research by further investigating the factors that might influence why only some children associate  estar  to transitory properties at 5 years of age, a question that will not only shed light on  when  the subtle meaning differences of the copulas are acquired, but also  how  they are acquired. Maienborn, Claudia (2005. A discourse-based account of Spanish ser/estar.  Linguistics  43(1). 155–180) notes that  estar  is discourse-linked, while  ser  is not. Specifically, the use of  estar  with an adjectival predicate to compare changes to a person across different stages of their life relies on one’s ability to integrate the larger discourse (i.e., these various stages) into their statement. In the present study, to determine whether Spanish-speaking children’s production of the copula  estar  with adjectival predicates was associated with their discourse integration abilities, children were presented with both a Copula Elicitation Task and a Discourse Production Task. Analyses revealed an association between children’s discourse integration skills and their use of  estar  with adjectives to express transitory properties, a finding that indicates that children’s acquisition of  estar  is mastered late – at least in part because of their late development of discourse integration skills more generally. Most studies on the acquisition of  estar  with adjectival complements have focused primarily on comprehension. Experimental studies on children’s  production  of  estar  are rare. As such, this experimental study is one of the few that examines children’s use of  estar  in production and the first, as far as we know, that provides empirical support for the link between discourse integration skills in children and their use of  estar  with adjectival predicates.

Copula Choice is Associated with Discourse Integration Skills in Spanish-Speaking Children