Heritage Tagalog in Italy: An Investigation of Voice and Word Order in Tagalog-Italian Bilinguals

This study investigates contact-induced changes in the language of Tagalog–Italian bilingual heritage speakers in Italy, focusing on word order and voice. Drawing on data from 85 participants across four groups—Tagalog homeland speakers, first-generation immigrants, second-generation heritage speakers in Italy, and baseline Italian speakers—the study examines how structural overlap between Tagalog and Italian shapes bilingual grammars. The analysis of elicited descriptions of transitive events reveals clear asymmetries across domains. In the word order domain, second-generation speakers exhibit a shift from typical Tagalog verb-initial order to verb-medial order, reflecting convergence toward Italian and English. In contrast, the voice system remains relatively stable: the voice contrast is preserved across generations, and the only significant generational difference is a higher rate of actor voice in patient-oriented contexts among second-generation speakers, which suggests emerging variability rather than a restructuring of the system. These results indicate that word order is more susceptible to cross-linguistic influence, while voice resists transfer due to its typological distinctiveness and lack of direct equivalents in Italian and English. At the same time, minor changes in voice distribution may reflect reduced sensitivity to discourse-pragmatic constraints rather than structural reanalysis. Overall, the findings support a model of partial grammatical sharing, whereby shared structures are reinforced while non-overlapping domains remain distinct.