Subject Pronoun Expression and PrimingEffects among Bilingual Speakers of Puerto Rican Spanish

One of the most researched aspects of the Spanish language is the optional expression of subject personal pronouns (SPPs). Though some researchers and even some Spanish textbooks claim that overt SPPs are only used in contexts of contrast or emphasis (c.f. Montrul & Rodriguez Louro, 2006; Knorre, et al., 2009; Rothman, 2009), studies of actual usage of SPPs have shown that no one factor can explain all uses of overt SPPs, nor are overt SPPs used all the time in any one context. Factors that have been found to influence SPP expression include verb semantics, discourse connectedness, and person and number, among others (e.g., Ranson, 1991; Morales, 1997; Avila-Shah, 2000; Hurtado, 2005; Lapidus & Otheguy, 2005; Orozco & Guy, 2008). Another factor that recent studies have shown to relate to the use of overt SPPs is priming (FloresFerran, 2002; Cameron & Flores-Ferran, 2004; Travis, 2005b; Travis, 2007). Priming is a psycholinguistic process found to occur in the production of many languages in the domains of syntax and the lexicon (e.g., Bock, 1986; Branigan, Pickering, Liversedge, Stewart, & Urbach, 1995; Bock & Griffin, 2000; Branigan, Pickering, Stewart, & McLean, 2000; Chang, Dell, Bock, & Griffin, 2000; Pickering, Branigan, Cleland, & Stewart, 2000; Gries, 2005; Szmrecsanyi, 2005). The process consists of the repetition of an element or linguistic structure that has been recently experienced, and it