The Combinatorial Variability Hypothesis in the Second Language

This paper takes a new perspective on an old topic, namely that of transfer. For many years now the influence which first languages have on the adult acquisition of second languages has been intensely researched and discussed. Most linguists accept that there are some aspects of language development which cannot be explained by transfer; for example, so called ‘poverty of the stimulus’ cases, which are treated in the same way by all learners of a second language (L2), regardless of their first language (L1). However, there is much evidence that transfer – both positive and negative – from the L1 can, and does, affect the syntactic, morphological and phonological properties of the interlanguage grammars of L2 learners. Interpreting the role of transfer is complicated in cases where third languages are involved. Clearly the scope for possible transfer in this scenario is extended to include not only influence from the L1 but also from the L2 (or any number of previously acquired languages). This study looks not at whether specific features have been transferred from an L1 or L2 to a third language (L3), but instead at whether learners who have not encountered certain features in their L1 or L2 are somehow more sensitive to them in the L3. Results seem to indicate that those L3 learners who have achieved a higher proficiency in their L2 are more target-like in their performance on these features than those learners of an equivalent L3 proficiency but a lower L2 proficiency.

Language Learning, 2010

Keywords grammatical inflection; morpheme acquisition; rule-based learning; itembased learning; single versus dual mechanism; implicit and explicit processing; declarative and procedural memory; input frequency; saliency; usage-based; associative learning Learning inflectional morphology is a vexing problem for second language (L2) learners. Children acquiring their native language also experience some difficulty, which results in their committing overgeneralization errors. However, relatively quickly, children sort out the regulars from the irregulars and one allomorph from another. This is not the case for learners of L2s, at least not for older learners. Long after individuals have achieved a high level of proficiency in the L2, they are still plagued by uncertainty when it comes to grammatical inflections (Todeva, 2010), and their production in the L2 is still characterized by morphological omissions, commissions, and substitutions of one allomorph for another. Furthermore, there is great variability in learners' performanceeven volatility . Sometimes a particular morpheme is present in learners' production, sometimes it is absent. Indeed, it is L2 learners' struggle with learning inflectional morphology that has encouraged researchers to study what it takes to process morphology, with the premise that it is processing difficulty that makes its acquisition so elusive .

Eurosla Yearbook, 2009

This study investigates the validity of Dual-Mechanism Model in the mental representation of regular and irregular active past perfective verbs in adult non-native Greek. In this model, regular inflection is computed by a symbolic rule, while irregular words are fully stored in the lexicon. A nonce-probe elicitation task showed that both natives and non-natives generalized the regular affix -s, and more so in regular than in irregular perfective verb stems. Moreover, the degree of similarity of the nonce verbs to real ones did not affect the affixation of regulars. Dissimilar irregulars were affixed less often than similar ones by the intermediate learners but neither by the advanced learners, nor by the natives. Our findings support computation for regulars, as proposed by the Dual Mechanism Model, both in native and in non-native language acquisition. Yet, the model's claim for full storage of all irregular words is not verified.

This dissertation investigates second language (L2) development in the domains of morphosyntax and semantics. Specifically, it examines the acquisition of definiteness and specificity in Russian within the Feature Re-assembly framework (Lardiere, 2009), according to which the hardest L2 learning task is not to reset parameters but to reconfigure, or remap features from the way they are assembled in the L1 into new formal configurations in the L2. Within the Feature Re-assembly approach, it has been argued that re-assembling features that are represented overtly in the L1 and mapping them onto those that are encoded covertly by context in the L2 will present a greater difficulty than re-assembling features in the opposite direction . This dissertation examines the acquisition of four linguistic properties (types of modifiers, word order, indefinite determiners and case marking) that encode definiteness and specificity overtly or covertly in L2 Russian by English and Korean speakers. The native languages of the learners were chosen specifically in order to test various overt-covert mappings. The data obtained from two experimental tasks (grammaticality and felicity judgments) completed by 56 Russian native speaker controls, 51 English-and 53 Koreanspeaking learners support Slabakova's prediction that overt-to-covert realization of the feature is more challenging than covert-to-overt realization. In addition, the findings uncovered other important factors facilitating or impeding acquisition, such as the nature of the form-to-meaning mapping (one-to-one or one-to-many) and the availability of clear, unambiguous evidence for a certain mapping in the input available to learners. Results also reveal that the presence or absence of the L1 transfer depends on the overt/covert status of the feature in the L2. That is, when the feature is marked overtly in both the L1 and L2, L1 transfer has facilitative effect on the acquisition of the feature. On the contrary, when the feature is marked covertly in both the L1 and L2, L1 transfer has

Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 2009

The present study examined the proposal that the presence of a similar morpheme in the learner's first and second languages (L2) facilitates morphological development in the L2. Advanced Russian and Japanese speakers of English as a second language performed a self-paced reading task in which they read English sentences word by word for comprehension. Russian participants showed a reliable sensitivity to plural errors, but Japanese participants did not. The findings supported the morphological congruency hypothesis. A theoretical proposal is put forward to explain how morphological con-gruency affects L2 morpheme acquisition. The findings and the proposal are relevant to the discussion of the critical period hypothesis, ultimate attainment in L2, and the characterization of L2 competence of steady-state adult L2 learners. The acquisition of grammatical morphemes by second-language (L2) learners has received a great deal of attention in SLA research, both as a research topic in its own right and as a means to investigate other SLA issues such as the aspect

Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 2009

2014

The relation of syntax to morphology has been a central debate in the L2 acquisition literature (Haznedar and Schwartz 1997; Haznedar 2001; Ionin and Wexler 2002; Lardiere 1998; Prévost and White 2000a; Schwartz 2003, White 2003, 2004 among others). Specifically, there is a question of whether L2 learners acquire target syntax without the concomitant acquisition of the L2 morphology or are the two developments linked in some way. There has also been a related debate in synchronic and diachronic syntax, namely, can certain syntactic differences between languages (and language change) be explained as effects of differences in the morphology? The answer to this question has obvious implications for first language acquisition: If overt morphology is a reliable cue to abstract syntactic structure then this would provide an obvious bootstrapping mechanism for the L1 learner. In this essay I focus on first language acquisition. Two areas of adult grammar in which the syntax–morphology conn...

2007

Many languages use haplology, suppletion, and the blocking of derivations to achieve avoidance of 'accidental' repetition of surface morphs. At the same time, many languages permit accidental repetition and even encourage 'deliberate' repetition through reduplication. Strong universal constraints against morph repetition therefore fail. This furthermore implies the inadequacy of accounts of morphological processes in terms of matching templates or schemas. We present a psycholinguistic processing model built on evidence from language acquisition, and drawing on activation theory, which affords a unification of the linguistic data while allowing for their variety. 'Many colleagues have contributed information from languages with which they are familiar and/or directed us to published and unpublished sources. Special thanks go to Joan Bybee, Joe Stemberger, and Arnold Zwicky for sharing their work in progress, and to Ken Hale and Nick Clements who kept us from making some premature generalizations. Our gratitude also to Jean