Lexical Frequency Effects on L2 Spanish Subject Pronoun Expression

2013

Much recent work argues that lexical frequency plays a central explanatory role in linguistic theory, but the status, predicted effects, and methodological treatment of frequency are controversial, especially so in the less-investigated area of syntactic variation. This paper addresses these issues in a case study of lexical frequency effects on variable subject personal pronoun (SPP) expression in Spanish. Prior studies of Spanish SPP use revealed significant constraints including formal and semantic properties of the verb, and discourse factors such as a switch-reference. These appear to be confirmed in our analysis of 4,916 verbs from a spoken corpus of Spanish, along with a powerful role for lexical frequency. But the frequency effect – best configured as a discrete rather than continuous variable - is complex; statistically, it has no independent direct effect, but operates entirely through interaction with other constraints. All other constraints on SPP use are amplified in high frequency forms, and some disappear at low frequencies. Frequency thus acts as a ‘gatekeeper’ and potentiator: above some frequency threshold, significant linguistic constraints on SPP use emerge; below the threshold they do not. We propose that this reflects experience and acquisition: speakers cannot formulate hypotheses about individual lexical items until they have sufficient evidence; the threshold is the level at which speakers have enough experience with a form to do so.

As the breadth of the current volume indicates, the (non)expression of verbal subjects in Spanish is of great interest. Such inquiry is not limited to the expression of subjects by native speakers, but also includes research on the expression of subjects by second language (L2) learners. Such investigations take place at the intersection of L2 acquisition research and research on sociolinguistic variation and thus contribute to both fields. One of the central goals of this cross-disciplinary research is to understand the path through which language develops among L2 speakers, using tools from sociolinguistics to describe the changes in rates of occurrence of a given form as well as the changing factors that predict such occurrence across levels of proficiency. This research also provides additional information about those factors to sociolinguists whose primary pursuit is to understand how language is used across geographic, social, and linguistic contexts. The current study contributes to L2 acquisition and sociolinguistic study by providing the first account of how the rates of subject pronoun expression (SPE) and the linguistic factors that predict it change as the L2 proficiency of learners of Spanish increases.

Subject pronoun expression in Spanish, 2015

THE PRESEnT STUDY ExPLORES methodological issues related to the growing need to understand the role of lexical frequency (lf) in patterns of language acquisition and use. One specific methodological challenge is determining which measures of lf are appropriate for the study of l2 learners-namely, how do we identify the appropriate comparison for l2 learners? to explore this issue, we analyze patterns of variable subject expression in a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews of thirteen bilingual native and twelve highly advanced nonnative speakers of spanish. We provide measures of lf based on three corpus-internal measures as well as one external measure. Our results show similarities and differences between groups regarding the lf of the most frequent verb tokens that lead to differences in how the results may be interpreted. in addition, we demonstrate that the factor switch reference, which has been shown to influence subject expression for native and nonnative speakers in previous studies, demonstrated differing subject expression patterns by frequency for native versus nonnative speakers.

Earlier work on existential agreement variation in British English and Caribbean Spanish has made a convincing case for the hypothesis that existential agreement variation is constrained by three domain-general cognitive constraints on language (production) that are assumed in Cognitive Linguistics: markedness of coding, statistical preemption, and structural priming. A corollary of this analysis is that the same constraints should also be able to account for the behavior of other morphosyntactic alternations. To explore this hypothesis, I perform a case study of a well known, but notoriously hard to model alternation: subject pronoun expression in Cuban Spanish. I propose that the variation between overt and omitted tacit amounts to a competition between two abstract constructions: <Verb> and <SPP Verb>, which is constrained by the three domain-general cognitive constraints. The database consists of 7,849 conjugated verbs with human-reference subjects that were drawn from 24 sociolinguistic interviews with native speakers of Cuban Spanish residing in Havana, Cuba. The results of a mixed-effects logistic regression suggest that speakers prefer <SPP Verb> for conceptually more prominent subjects, for verb forms that are entrenched in this construction, and when they have just used or processed this construction. As this pattern coincides completely with the predictions that follow from markedness of coding, statistical preemption, and structural priming, the paper concludes that morphosyntactic variation is constrained by these domain-general cognitive constraints.

Our main goal is to analyse the interlanguage of our students with respect to the acquisition of pronominal subjects, based on their discourse function, and of null subjects. Data will be provided as a result of designed tests with translations and grammaticality judgements (according to Sorace 1996). We address the following questions: (1) Which specific characteristics of interlanguage do these students share? Is it possible to identify different patterns according to different evolution/level of students? (2) In case of interlinguistic errors, is it because of L1 interference errors? or because of development errors? Or both? (3) Can a formal typology of topics and foci help students acquire and entrench both explicit and null pronouns? (Jiménez-Fernández 2014a).

Adults’ variable use of grammatical structures is highly systematic (e.g. Labov 1994). Yet, we know very little about how or when the variable use of morphosyntactic structures develops during childhood. The current study begins to address this lacuna in the literature by investigating overt versus null subject pronoun expression (e.g. yo bailo ~ bailo) in child Spanish. Over 2,500 finite verbs were extracted from sociolinguistic interviews conducted with 24 monolingual Spanish-speaking children in Oaxaca, Mexico, ages six to eight years old (mean age 7;0). The children’s rate of pronoun expression was only nine percent, which suggests that the overproduction of null subjects during null-subject first language acquisition persists into school age. Despite their infrequent use of pronouns, the children’s behavior nonetheless demonstrates a) systematic patterns of variation, and b) evidence of an emerging adult-like system. We demonstrate this through multivariate analysis of six fact...

2009

We agree with those who propose that input and input processing are the beginning points of the acquisition process (Carroll, 2007; N. Ellis, 2007; VanPatten, 2007). The relationship between input and L2 knowledge begins with the noticing of forms in the input and associating them with meaning (Schmidt, 1990; 2001; VanPatten 1996; 2004). Perceptual salience leads some forms to be noticed before others (Slobin, 1973; 1985; VanPatten, 1996; 2004). Some forms have but one function, and likewise have a more salient and transparent form-function association, whereas other forms have many functions, resulting in a less salient, less transparent form-function association (Andersen, 1990; Bardovi-Harlig, 2007). Clitic pronouns in Spanish are not salient for a variety of reasons. As clitics, they inherently lack phonological stress in the input. As forms with multiple functions, they do not all have a distinct form-function association, thus making some connections less salient than others (...

Nuevas tendencias en la investigación lingüística. Granada: Método Ediciones, 2002

Evidence in recent second language research (SLR) leads to an apparent contradiction. While some studies claim that advanced adult learners can indeed achieve native-like competence, other studies suggest that they only achieve nearnative competence. The former studies focus on universal principles of universal grammar (UG), whereas the latter investigate properties which UG allows to vary (within limits) and attribute lack of native-like competence to L1 influence on the L2. In this study we investigate whether this is the expected pattern, i.e., that advanced L2 speakers will always show native-like competence where principles are involved, yet near-nativeness where the L1 differs parametrically from the L1 with respect to functional features. An experimental study consisting of three groups ((i) English and (ii) Greek natives learners of Spanish as L2 and L3 respectively and (ii) Spanish natives) were tested on some pronominal constructions where the presence of overt and null pr...