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English Pages 207 [216] Year 1988
Learnability and Second Languages
STUDIES ON LANGUAGE ACQUISITION This series will focus on both first language acquisition and second/ foreign language learning. It will include studies on language acquisition in educational settings, first/second/foreign language loss, and early bilingualism. High quality dissertations and other individual works will be considered for publication, and also collections of papers from international workshops and conferences. The primary goal of the series is to draw international attention to current research in The Netherlands on language acquisition. Editors
of SOLA .
Guus Extra, Tilburg University Ton van der Geest, Groningen University Peter Jordens, Nijmegen University Also published
in this
series:
1. Guus Extra and Ton Vallen (eds.) Ethnic Minorities and Dutch as a Second Language 2. B. Weltens, K. de Bot and T. van Els (eds.) Language Attrition in Progress 3. Sascha W. Felix Cognition and Language Growth 4. Ludo Verhoeven Ethnic Minority Children Acquiring Literacy 5. Allan James and Jonathan Leather (eds.) Sound Patterns in Second Language Acquisition 6. Bert Weltens The Attrition of French as a Foreign Language
James Pankhurst, Mike Sharwood Smith and Paul Van Buren (eds.)
Learnability and Second Languages A Book of Readings
¥ 1988 FORIS PUBLICATIONS Dordrecht - Holland/Providence Rl - U.S.A.
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Learnability Learnability and second languages : a book of readings / James Pankhurst, Mike Sharwood Smith and Paul Van Buren (eds.). - Dordrecht [etc.] : Foris. - (Studies on language acquisition : 7) With ref. ISBN 90-6765-389-6 SISO 803.3 UDC 800.73 Subject heading: language acquisition.
ISBN 90 6765 389 6 © 1988 Foris Publications - Dordrecht No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner. Printed in The Netherlands by ICG Printing, Dordrecht
Contents
1. Learnability and second languages: an introduction James Pankhurst, Mike Sharwood Smith and Paul Van Buren . . . .
1
2. L2 acquisition: logical problems and empirical solutions Mike Sharwood Smith
9
3. Universal grammar and language transfer Lydia White
36
4. The relation between linguistic theory and second language acquisition: a biological perspective Mary-Louise Kean
61
5. Syntax and stylistics: more on the pro-drop parameter Juana M. Liceras
71
6. Late-learned rules in first and second language acquisition Helen Goodluck and Barbara Birch
94
7. Configurationality and the subset principle: the acquisition of V1 by Japanese learners of English Helmut Zobl
116
8. The acquisition of verb categories and word order in Dutch & German: evidence from first and second language acquisition P. Jordens
132
9. Linguistic intuitions in interlanguage development: the problem of indeterminacy Antonella Sorace
167
References
191
1 Learnability and second languages: an introduction James Pankhurst, Mike Sharwood Smith and Paul Van Buren
The idea the 1986
for this
Language
largest meeting
book of readings was born as a result of
Acquisition
Research
Symposium
(LARS), the
in the series to date to be held in Utrecht. The
contributors to the book have attempted to clarify various actual and
potential
interfaces
between
linguistic
theory
and non-
native grammatical development. The present collection of papers, while
remaining
faithful
to
selected and supplemented to
the
conference
form an
theme
have been
up-to-date introduction to
new currents
in second
language acquisition. These currents, we
believe, may
be
summarised
notion
as 1
'language
learnability
others with regard to
second, i.e.
ment
of
aptly
(Pinker
1979,1984).
This
investigations
as
discussed by Pinker and
non-native language develop-
kind of book is urgently needed
nowadays since enough has been done in this unified set serious theory
of readings
and
which will
considered
and
the
look
research
into the
at
that
decade to
warrant a
enable the reader to take a contemporary
second language
proceeds from it. It is, in our
opinion, no coincidence that the most vigorous trend in this move to exploit
the links between linguistics and non-native language
development, is one which can be tradition.
A
psychological workings of
linguistic in
that
the human
theory of language
seen as
approach it
seeks
part of
the Chomskyan
which is not only explicitly to
explore
facts
about the
mind but is also explicitly linked with a
acquisition
seems
to
provide
a ready-made
*We would like to acknowledge the assistance of various people in the preparation of this volume, not least the contributors themselves for their patience in awaiting the final appearance of this book, but also Heleen Kruse, our editorial assistant, who did some necessary groundwork in the preparation of this volume.
2
Learnability and Second Languages
basis
for
developing
knowledge
develops
a
separate
within
the
theory
mind
of
of
how
the
grammatical
second
language
learner. Putting together
a set
of readings like this also gives us
the opportunity to correct some misunderstandings that inevitably arise as
a result
of a cursory reading of papers in the area of
language acquisition w h i c h follow the Chomskyan in fact,
very rare
approach. It is,
to find a discussion of universal grammar in
relation to acquisition written by a scholar who this
tradition
and
which
does
interpretations about what this enterprise is
all about.
1965
and
it
is,
newest branch
than to
this
available
in
the
to read
perhaps,
introduction, rather topic of
uninformed
of the generative
anything relevant since
appropriate
examine the
critics.
inevitably negative ones and
in this short
various treatments of
literature,
fundamental facts about this approach that attention
part of
Some of these misinterpretations are a
result, one fears, of a failure Chomsky
is not
not suffer some important mis-
to simply list some appear to
escape the
Most of these statements are
begging indulgence
of the informed
reader, we list them below: In this theoretical 1:
It is (or
2:
not the
approach: case that
grammatical knowledge of a native
any other) language is innately given.
It is not the case that universal grammar is a
basic set of
rules that exists as a central core in any natural language. 3:
It is
not the
case that every single aspect of grammatical
development can be accounted
for
within
the
framework of
universal grammar. 4:
UG theory
cannot, without
stration, be taken to
be a
further argumentation and demonmeans of
predicting the actual
developmental history of a learner's grammar.
Introduction
3
W e also add the observation that researchers working in this area are by and large quite aware
of the
limitations of
the current
methodology used to investigate grammatical knowledge and seeking to develop the elicitation techniques up to a of
sophistication.
Rephrasing
the
above
m u c h greater level caveats
in positive
terms, we can say that the contributions to this volume should be read w i t h the following general principles in mind: 1:
Language acquisition
of whatever
between the learning mechanisms the
theory
presumes
to
be
kind involves and
the
given
interaction
environment: what
in advance are various
principles w h i c h constrain the form w h i c h grammars of natural languages may actually take. 2:
The grammar that a given hypothesis)
contain
learner
elements
develops
will
(again by
that strictly conform to the
principles of universal grammar: this might be called 'core grammar 1 this
may
(Chomsky 1981b,
differ
for
each
exposure to samples of that certain
aspects
of
UG
Kean
language language
apply
another way, each grammar that apply
1986,
since will
while
selects from
its
1986). However, the learners' show
others
do
them that not. Put
UG those principles
to the particular language type evidenced by the
data. 3:
Even assuming a fully active UG in second language acquisition, there will be a considerable amount of grammatical development that will have to take place without the help
of UG since UG is simply not relevant. UG does not
determine, for example, how given language
many cases
there will
be in a
and what particular form they will take. For
anyone learning Polish, for example, this touches on a major problem area for all types of learner. 4:
Since UG ition, any
theory involves claim
about
no claim
about real time acquis-
developmental
sequences crucially
involving UG will need to be independently motivated.
4
Learnability and Second Languages Turning now to the contents of this volume, the opening con-
tribution by notion
of
Sharwood second
concerning
possibilities exploited to
Smith
provides
language
set u p
an
introduction
learnability
the
way
a research
and
linguistic
logical
theory
can
in the
current literature
Sharwood
(very Smith
m u c h in 1986).
but
from
a
as expressed
in the form of a set of acquisitional line w i t h
The
through a straightforward
be
programme to study it. Sharwood
Smith reinterprets the m a i n positions on this issue strategies
to the
various
proposals in
strategies
extrapolation
consideration
of
V a n B u r e n and
are derived not so m u c h from
various
experimental data
logical ways in w h i c h a
language learner might initially make sense of the L2 data.
In a
sense it is an attempt to find various alternative definitions of the learner's initial state so that experiments may be set see
which
one
holds
true
possible strategies do learner's LI
not
competence in
about the L2,
others
do
of
which
involve
learners. Some logically
any
contribution
the formation assume
u p to
some
from the
of initial hypotheses
kind
of crosslinguistic
influence and yet others involve no access to U G and learning via a
set
of
inductive
principles
quite
different
from
those
attributed to the attainment of the mother tongue. White,
in
her
study,
factors in second language been called
details
she sees as critical focuses on
what has
Plato's problem, namely how do learners come to know
so m u c h on the basis of so little, in precise
terms using
interacts w i t h
constraints
by
which,
may still have development
access
proceeds
'so little' here being defined
the notion
the input (L2 data)
of parameter-setting whereby Universal Grammar,
hypothesis, to. in
White a
way
This
is
because
the
L2
a set of
the second language learner claims
that
language development despite the fact sible.
what
acquisition and
that
is that
second language
different from first UG
is
still acces-
learners may initially
assume
parameter-settings for L2 that they have learned in the course of acquiring
their
first
language
and m a y not necessarily notice
that the L2 input provides no confirmation of making this
claim, White
these settings. In
is making special use of the theory of
markedness whereby certain default
settings
provided
within UG
Introduction
5
are disconfirmed
by the input, i.e. positive evidence in LI data
that effectively violates the this
way,
her
approach
unmarked (default)
defines
an
area
assumption. In
of conflict between
certain Ll-based assumptions about L2 and the actual facts of L2. Kean's
contribution
is
theory and second language perspective.
Taking
on the relation between linguistic
acquisition
linguistic
seen
theory
to
from be
a biological a
"functional
biological model", Kean looks critically at the popular view that UG
is
a
biological
endowment w h i c h is available "intact" from
birth. The neurolinguistic evidence
for studies
of dyslexia and
Down's syndrome in fact suggests that UG matures after birth such that the neural architecture associated w i t h in the
brain is
ment because it comes variation
in
linguistic capacity
quite different at different stages of develop-
the
to
vary
"in
substrate"
puts it, the brain of a
consequence
to ontogenetic
(of linguistic capacity). As Kean
child is
not a
mini-adult brain either
structurally or functionally. This would be in line w i t h evidence on the effect of
experience on
the visual
cortex. The question
is: how m i g h t interlanguage competence reflect UG principles? For example do
invariant
principles
such
as
structure dependence
emerge in LI development and remain unchanged? Secondly of LI onto IL would produce structures in not
always:
the
mix
line w i t h
"copying"
UG; however
might produce non-UG languages. These are
interesting and relevant questions
that
second
language theory
has to find answers to. Liceras
focusses
her
She looks critically at various
aspects
actual, observed
attention on the pro-drop parameter.
a study
associated
by Sharon
with
interlanguage
the
Hilles tying
pro-drop
development
in the
parameter with
(Hilles
1986): the
fact that the emergence of expletives and lexical material in AUX coincides w i t h the decline in missing pronouns in Jorge, a
the English of
young native-speaker of Spanish, does not, according to
Liceras, prove that expletives presence of
subject pronouns.
based in production alone and technique admittedly
actually
trigger
She also
casts doubt
not
also
on
the obligatory
judgement
on a study tasks, a
difficult to use w i t h younger subjects. She
6
Learnability and Second Languages
reports a study of her own which involved a grammaticality judgement task as well as story-telling and which looked at two French and two English adults, acquiring a pro-drop language (Spanish). The subjects turned out to have fully acquired prodrop itself but not certain other aspects associated with it. She suggests that subject-verb inversion and that-t may not be properties identified by learners with the pro-drop parameter and therefore may need to be acquired independently. This study, like the ones that follow, underlines the precision which careful applications of linguistic theory can bring to questions about acquisition and, at the same time, the complexity involved in translating hypotheses about grammatical structure into to hypotheses about real-time development. As part of the general investigation into similarities and differences between LI and L2 development Goodluck and Birch discuss a study of three grammatical phenomena which LI research has shown to be acquired relatively late. As they had predicted Chinese and Spanish learners of English did not recapitulate the developmental patterns evidenced in LI English acquisition. This leads them to emphasize a number of important factors that separate LI and L2 development even allowing for the possibility that there may be some fundamental similarities such as accessibility to UG. This study therefore provides a valuable reminder of what they call the 'singularity' of second language acquisition. Zobl's paper provides an interesting application of the subset principle (Berwick 1985; Wexler and Manzini 1987) whereby first language learners are supposed to develop representations for given grammatical phenomena by always choosing the narrower grammar over the wider grammar so that positive evidence alone may trigger a change. The subset principle entails the basic idea that if a wider grammar is adopted as a first assumption, whereas the grammar to be attained is actually a narrow one, then the learner will never encounter evidence to force him or her to change to a narrower grammar. The subset principle does not at face value seem to work in second language acquisition and this
Introduction might be L2
7
construed as
acquisition
selected by
with
worrying for those who w i s h to see LI and
very
Zobl is
structures by with a
as
Japanese learners
norms),
principle. Zobl
related.
The
case
in point
of English verb-complement
where learners
appear to begin
and proceed to a narrower grammar (in line
wider grammar L2
closely
the acquisition
i.e.
in
comes u p
apparent
violation
of
the
w i t h a subtle and interesting
subset argument
involving the development of the learner's parsing ability
in L2
and the consequent admissal of relevant evidence from outside the immediate grammatical appropriate
area
adjustments
principle is, if one However,
under
to
consideration
the
learner's
follows the
interested
readers
alternative interpretation
argument in
are
triggering the
grammar. The subset the paper, saved.
encouraged
presented
by
Van
to
examine
Buren
an
(Van Buren
1988). Jordens, in different
in
that
characterised outcome
of
in
and
L2 the
learning
volume, looks at the
acquisition
approach
strategies
Sharwood Smith,
of verb
uses an analysis of LI Dutch
are qualitatively
does not proceed in the way
parameter-setting
inductive
acquisition
L2
acquisition
Clahsen and Muysken 1986, at the
to this
his contribution
claim by Clahsen that LI
see
but
is
Clahsen
the 1982,
this volume). Looking
categories and word order, Jordens development
by
de
Haan
(de Haan
1986) to reinterpret Clahsen's data and, as a result, casts doubt on the alleged
qualitative
categories
language
supposedly building
of not the
being new
distinction
acquisition able
grammar.
to
apply
Jordens
between the
each category
to bear on
the
data.
Put
principles
of
acquisition
two basic
principles to
that the different
w i t h the
kind of prior
of learners is able to bring
another
way,
remain
differences may be accounted for
same
argues
developmental patterns have to do rather linguistic knowledge
the
as a result of L2 learners
the
by
the
grammar building
same
looking
and
at
observable
differences in
available building material. Sorace's
contribution
provides
methodological problems associated
a
with
timely
reminder of the
eliciting
learner
(and
8
Learnabllity and Second Languages
native speaker) competence. In particular, she argues against the use of dichotomous judgment tests ( forcing a yes/no answer to a question about the grammaticality of some item) as used informally by many (generative) linguists attempting to account for some grammatical phenomenon in a given language and also used, wrongly as Sorace argues, in second language acquisition research. It is, of course, a great advantage to be able to administer such tests to learners, an opportunity not readily available in first language learners, at least in the early stages, since they are generally considered to be too immature to cope with such sophisticated metalinguistic tasks. Keeping in mind what she sees to be the general indeterminacy of linguistic competence, i.e., the uncertain status of the phenomenon in question, Sorace is of the opinion that a test of judgment should be twofold in that there should be a test asking for judgments and a separate test asking learners to assess the certainty with which they made those judgments. Sorace provides a useful discussion of the problems of inconsistency in a given subject's responses over the whole test and the use of ranking scales to avoid a forced judgment. Hopefully, the various contributions to this volume will provide the reader with both the essential features of current L2 learnability research as well as some specific examples of the various interesting theoretical and methodological problems that have to be faced with when applying linguistic theory to second language development.
2 L2 acquisition: logical problems and empirical solutions Mike Sharwood Smith
1.
INTRODUCTION
The following
discussion will
that have concerned second with
the
specific
aim
deal with
of
explicating
language (L2) learnability. As concepts
in
the
field,
a number of key issues
language researchers a
namely
the
preliminary
in the eighties notion
of second
step,
some basic
'interlanguage 1 , and
construction' will be explained. This will then be discussion of
the application
development, show what kinds
'creative
followed by a
of linguistic theory to real-time of logical
possibilities arise and
would therefore guide research, and introduce a set of terms that can provide the basis for elicitation work. Reference
will be
studies using
this frame-
made to actual instantiations of such a
framework but the thrust of the discussion will be to look at the logical arguments and how they can be knitted together to shape a programme of research into second language development. Thus far, it
is
approach
safe have
inconclusive,
to
say
that studies working generally within this
provided show
results
promise
and
sophistication with which second
which,
although
generally
have considerably advanced the language questions
relating to
grammar may be formulated and investigated.
*This is an adapted version of a paper given at Essex University on 25th February, 1988 in the Logical Problem of Language Acquisition series. Acknowledgements are due to Martin Atkinson and others who contributed to the discussion and hence, indirectly, to the revised version.
Logical problems and empirical solutions
10
The baseline
assumption that
will be
adopted here is that
second language acquisition has by now been shown to be complex
and
poorly
understood
habit formation or indeed on the conscious learning vocabulary
items,
but
with
a highly
process not depending simply on
the
learner
of rules and
typically
exhibiting
creative forms not directly sanctioned by the evidence.
1.1. Interlanguage The notion of interlanguage dates back the field
of second
late sixties when
language acquisition was in its infancy. It
most generally refers to learners of
to the
a second
the systematic
linguistic behaviour of
or other language, in other words learners
of non-native languages. It calls our attention to ity of
viewing learner
learners
of
German",
features which
can be
language such for
example,
the possibil-
as "the German of English as
possessing
systematic
studied in their own right rather than as
imperfect reflections of some norm, in this particular that
norm
"educated
native
speaker German". The term was made
popular by a seminal paper by Larry Selinker claimed that
IL was
the outcome
that characterised second apart from
case call
(1972) in
which he
of a set of special strategies
language
learning
and
hence
set it
the language produced by first language learners. For
Selinker, and others more recently, the crucial fact in determining the
qualitative difference between first and second language
acquisition mechanisms was the fact of typical
cessation
native-speaker
of
norms
(definition adapted
development despite
'developing g r a m m a r 1 ,
prior
repeated
from Selinker
follows, IL grammars will be
fossilisation, namely the the attainment of
as
a
special
the possibility
grammars and interlanguage grammars
and
practice
1972). In the discussion that
treated
that is,
to
exposure
case
that child
have something
of a (LI)
essential in
common, will be kept open (see Bialystok and Sharwood Smith 1985, Kean: this volume).
Michael Sharwood Smith
il
1.2. Creative Construction Creative construction is a term coined in the Dulay and
seventies by Heidi
Marina Burt to describe the organising principles that
create grammars
from
primary
linguistic
input.
The
idea was
implicated in their successful attempt to discredit the view that L2 learning was basically overcoming LI habits or, non-behaviourist mother
tongue
conformed to
terms, (i.e.
a
process
LI)-based
the information
and Burt, and later Steven creative construction
of
to put
gradually
structures
into
it in
transforming ones
which
coming from the environment. Dulay
Krashen,
took place
pursued
the
line
that L2
without recourse to the mother
tongue: this meant that all Ll-patterns observed in L2 production ought to be attributable to performance constraints, i.e. falling back on Ll resources
out
of
sheer
expediency
rather
than as
something which actually reflected representations of the L2 data in the learner's mind (cf. Wode 1986). Creative a term
which globally
construction was
reflected the basic Chomskyan approach to
Ll acquisition: however, until very recently, no attempt was made by the
proponents of
frame specific
this approach
research questions
to use in L2
Chomskyan models to
research (see Schwartz
1986). The claim
that was
advanced by
Robert Lado in the sixties
was that almost all learning difficulty between Ll
originated in difference
and L2 and that this could be explained as a question
of old, interfering habits to be unlearned. In creative
construction
theorists,
relegated Ll 'transfer' to the area pointed
to
evidence
of
common
as
has
contrast to this,
just been indicated,
of performance orders
of
errors. They
development across
learners w i t h different Ll backgrounds - the well-known order" familiar
and they claimed that this evidence of the
Ll in
demonstrated the irrelevance
the creation of new grammars
(Brown 1973, Dulay et
al. 1982). If Ll background was important, they developmental
"morpheme
from Roger Brown's early work on Ll acquisition-
order
would
background of the second various observed
vary
systematically
language learner.
orders for
argued, then the
L2 acquisition
with
the
Ll
A comparison between and similar
(though
12
not identical) LI orders
Logical problems and empirical solutions observed
by
Brown
and
others seemed
sufficient to suggest that LI and L2 acquisition were the outcome of the same basic process, i.e. creative construction. Nowadays, as a result of the failure of the creative construction theorists to convincingly substantiate their claims, most researchers have backtracked somewhat on the subject of LI influence and approach the issue with more caution, i.e. viewing LI influence as something which does not happen automatically and with all aspects of interlanguage, and which, when it does happen, may have subtle, unpredictable consequences by sheer virtue of the complexities involved, complexities that a deeper understanding of the linguistic problems have made us appreciate more fully (see Gass and Selinker 1983, Kellerman and Sharwood Smith 1986).
2. A NEW ROLE FOR LINGUISTIC THEORY
One characteristic of the research in the seventies is the modest role played by linguistics. More recently, since there has been much more in the (Chomskyan) linguistics literature about the acquisitional implications of various rules and principles (cf Hornstein & Lightfoot 1982, Newmeyer 1983, 1987). This has excited interest in second language research. Some of the intriguing theoretical questions this line of inquiry allows us to formulate will now be sketched out. 2.1. The role of UG in IL development: logical possibilities. Christian Adjemian was the first to make a really specific proposal to adopt a Chomskyan approach to IL development (Adjemian 1976). He suggested that IL (grammatical) systems were "natural" in the special, theoretical sense used by Chomsky (Chomsky 1965): they involve grammars that allow the user to
Michael Sharwood Smith
13
generate an infinite range of novel basic
design
characteristics
sentences and
of
grammars
acquiring their Ll. IL grammars differ their "permeability" that the
they have the
created by children
from LI
grammars only in
to invasion from the Ll system: that is, in
developing grammar
is not
sealed off
from inside and
sensitive only to L2 input but is subject to infiltration from an "alien" system (see also
Liceras
expresses
basic
some
of
the
1986). tenets
theory but it suggests more directly the concepts
and tools
a
that ILs
of generative
definition, designed to investigate
In
sense
this re-
of creative construction be analysed using
linguistics w h i c h are, by
natural
languages.
It also
leaves the door open (via the notion of permeability) for looking at possible Ll effects on the actual creation of L2 grammars. If certain important aspects of grammatical be
explained
using
a
Chomskyan
acquisition can
framework, then other aspects
about w h i c h (this) generative theory has less (or nothing) to say may therefore, handle.
A
by a
large
process of
number
of
elimination, also
problems,
for
be easier to
instance
various
morphological, semantic and pragmatic features of the language to be
acquired,
(compatible)
will
in
fact
need
to
be
handled
using other
approaches.
The issue
of how
theoretical linguistics
can be tied into
acquisition research that was raised by Adjemian in 1976 has been addressed again,
over the
last few
Government and Binding theory
years, using
EST and later
(Chomsky 1981). This has allowed L2
researchers to frame a number of specific, theoretical questions, like the one concerning the supposed naturalness of other questions a:
to what
IL grammars:
include:
degree does
linguistic "markedness"
as defined by
the theory play a role in development? b:
to what degree do the grammatical "parameters" learner's Ll
(selected from
the total repertoire available
for natural languages and set in defined by L2 grammar?
the theory,
of the
specific ways),
again, as
influence the shape of the emerging
14
Logical problems and empirical
solutions
2.2. Learnability theory Using linguistic theory to grammars especially advanced
stages
validity
of
look
at
the
complexity
of IL
as they have evolved in the intermediate and
of
consider
the
of the stimulus" argument
(cf.
acquisition,
Chomsky's
"poverty
us
forces
to
discussion in Hornstein and Lightfoot 1982; see also Pinker 1979, 1984). This
argument was
originally put forward w i t h respect to second language acquisi-
Ll acquisition but it can be applied to
tion as well albeit with certain interesting To
summarise
the
argument
for
qualifications.
second language
research:
however rich the communicative context of utterances addressed to the language
learner and however helpful the native speakers are
or teachers may be, there human
languages
input nor even by given to
that
are
subtle
cannot
the usual
be
and
type of
language learners,
complex
features of
provided by the usual kind of correction and explanation
that is, even in a formal classroom
where there may be a lot of metalinguistic explanation. Hence the input
tends
provide in thesis,
to
be
structurally impoverished: whatever it does
semantic or
furnish
the
pragmatic terms, learner
work out certain subtle terise the
with
principles and
native-speaker grammar,
determined" by the environmental The conclusion that is perspective under
it does
not, by hypo-
enough relevant evidence to constraints that charac-
i.e. the
grammar is "under-
input.
usually drawn,
discussion, is
given the particular
that acquisition of particular
crucial aspects of grammar takes place via an interaction between a) the evidence provided by the input and b) a set of grammatical principles available to all normal language part of
our genetic
potential
learners w h i c h forms
endowment, i.e. Universal Grammar (UG). The
contribution
of
a
possible
third
source,
namely
previously learned languages, will be dealt w i t h shortly. It is
relevant now
to consider
how linguistic and psycho-
linguistic research might interact. The aim
of linguistic theory
is to investigate the nature of the hypothesised principles of UG
Michael Sharwood Smith and how
they
language,
are
apart
15
instantiated from
in
having
unique instantiation of UG:
particular
its
languages. Each
own vocabulary, represents a
in other
words, UG
structural options
in the
make-up of
some aspects of UG
simply
do
not
allows for many
a natural grammars. Also,
apply
to
certain grammars.
Hence, there may be some constraint w h i c h is valid for a given L2 that was not applicable in the case of movement rules, constraining relevant
for example,
movement
for
L2.
would
One
the LI.
whereas LI then
be
The L2
irrelevant
for
over
operate
develops, and affected
time
how
by
the
other
of
UG
as
the
working
native
(see
but
and
individual's of
these
principles of
grammar gradually
principles
non-native
White
1985,
might be
competence
possessed by the learner and which represent different tions
LI
related aim in second language research,
should then be to investigate the way in w h i c h the UG
may have
may not: UG principles
systems
instantia-
1986, this volume, Flynn 1986,
Liceras 1986, etc.). The question who clearly
then is,
create novel
where do
second language acquirers,
utterances, get
the necessary
inform-
ation for them to bridge the information gap and develop grammars that respect those constraining principles? There are a number of possible answers to this question of second language learnability and all
of them have to do ultimately w i t h the vexed question of
how we define the second language learner's "initial Rutherford
state"
(see
1986).
One possibility may be that common principles typical of all languages, i.e. "universal grammatical" principles UG)
have
been
activated
during
learner's first natural grammar, principles are
acquisition
and that
to
some or
make the
all of these
transferred to the L2 in the form they have taken
in the LI grammar. In this initial template
for the
have to restructure those w h i c h turn
LI
(principles of
way,
the
L2 system, aspects
of
LI
grammar
as it the
serves
as an
were. Learners then Ll-based
IL grammar
out to be specific to the LI in the light of incoming
L2 evidence available to, and perceived by them. principles of
This means that
UG which, for example, rule out structure-indepen-
16
Logical problems and empirical solutions
dent operations, come to be in IL, as it were, same
time,under
this
scenario,
UG
is
by proxy.
At the
no longer active and
therefore does not help the learner in creating new areas
of the
IL n o t based on LI. Without the LI template, the L2 learner would have to
build an
IL using
some other
principles, perhaps just
those principles of hypothesis formation and testing that are not allowed free rein in first language (grammatical) acquisition. In this view,
then, IL
development is, in that it is influenced by
UG, "parasitic" on the LI grammar. be that
IL conforms
system in
the learner's
input calling
The consequence
of this must
to UG until some adjustment to the Ll-based developing grammar
the Ll-based
(as a
result of L2
system into question) actually leads
to a violation of UG. That is, the learner changes the IL some newly
constrained by feature w h i c h
UG and,
by so
could never
whole, would then cease Chomskyan sense UG.
Such
doing, allows
appear in
to
in a
'non-natural'
any LI. The IL, taken as a
possess
a
natural
grammar
in the
of the word: it would have elements that violate
violations
precisely
to fit
perceived input following some general hypothesis not
because
would
UG
be
would
tolerated
no
longer
by be
the
L2
active
acquisition process. In a similar vein,
H e l e n Goodluck
the potential
calls
development of
what she
learner
in
the L2
discusses
'wild' grammars in
first language acquisition but in this case the non-conformity to UG
is
attributed
language development
to
maturational
The empirical consequences that utterances
factors
typical
of
the
nonconformist
reflecting non-natural
of
child
grammatical
intuition
view are
(anti-UG) patterns ought
then to appear regularly in IL production and, tests
of
(Goodluck 1986).
(the
more
normal
importantly,
technique
for
eliciting IL competence) should show tolerance for such constructions.
The
possibility
also
exists
strained hypothesising will allow tured and
change into
rules that
that the learner's uncon-
Ll-based rules
to be restruc-
are not possible according to
UG. Another logical possibility is that L2 in
the
same
way
as
Ll
systems
and
systems are acquired
that the constraints on
Michael Sharwood Smith
17
possible shapes that the L2 grammar may take are imposed directly (and not via transfer). W e might In other
term this
the recreative view.
learner "recreates" the L2 grammar as if he
words, the
or she were a native learner of the language active
and
not
only
this:
the
structure of his or her LI. The L2 ignored and
plays no
part in
learner's native
the developing
Adjemian's terminology, there would IL.
The
first
and
second
be no
scenarios
is interesting
match
up
with
IL grammar. Using
just
on to
first to
developmental
discussed
Even assuming
that L2
an
open
the third logical
data
as
their
totality
to
reflected in spontaneous.
learners had direct access to UG, it
question
originally implied, developmental in
are
consider the way these
learner performance whether elicited or completely
stills remains
language is
"permeability" in the
possibilities
sketched out in figure one.Before going possibility, it
because U G is still
learner is insensitive to the
the
as
to
whether,
(IL) grammars must also conform
constraints
imposed
grammars at every stage of development. The grammars (or child grammars,
as Adjemian
for that
by
universal
position
that
IL
matter) literally conform
to U G at every single step on the way means in effect holding the view that every new adjustment to complete scan so that it elicit
of that
remains
data
from
grammar triggers a
grammar and any necessary
natural. a
the mental
This
learner
at
would
reorganisations
mean
that
any time and still find that,
whatever the spontaneous performance suggests, the grammar always
conforms to
way
with
conformity
principle which,
in real
underlying IL
UG. However, it is worth considering
the possibility that there may be the
one could
to
room for
universal
some deviation along grammar as the guiding
time development,
can nevertheless be
temporarily overridden, ignored or abandoned during periods where internal restructuring of the grammar is complicated in (cf.
Sharwood
Smith
1985
allowing for this logical would
be
to
try
and
forthcoming).
possibility
in
a
The
an active
UG in
for
research programme
and capture as many interesting
developmental
phenomena as possible without abandoning the potentially notion of
some way
motive
fruitful
interlanguage growth. This, then, is
another way of looking at the way an active UG works in
(first
18
Logical problems and empirical solutions
î
Î
L2 input
L2 input
I. Parasitic development (UG not active in IL grammar)
II. Recreative development (UG active in LI & IL grammar)
Figure 1: Parasitic versus recreative development and) second language acquisition. be
called
intermittent
The process
reorganisation.
in question might
In other words, at any
given stage of development, the IL grammar may still be conceived of as
a system
but nonetheless
as a system w h i c h is not neces-
sarily a unified whole in terms of conformity stage of
to UG.
A t a given
development, learners would produce systematic patterns
some of w h i c h would be hard to account for within a U G framework. UG, in
this view,
could function as a corrective mechanism that
would restructure the grammar internal
inconsistencies.
acquisition but fashion w i t h would not
would
from UG
sometimes
work
temporary toleration
immediately
filter
time
would
to
time
still in
be a
all
in
L2
gradual piecemeal
of violations
out
to eliminate active
of UG, i.e. it
inconsistency
from the
start. Intermittent deviance, deviance in the learner's i.e. his
or her
periodic
theoretical
it needs to be emphasised, refers to systematised intuitions
IL competence, "crisis"
w h i c h in points
about the L2,
this scenario undergo in
development
where
Michael Sharwood Smith
19
internal restructuring
takes place
loff-Smith
UG
1986).
speaking, there
If
have to
the grammar have to
is
according to
still
be moments
be brought
active,
UG (cf. Karmithen,
logically
where recalcitrant areas of
into line:
the learning device,
for one reason or another, should perceive areas of inconsistency in the grammar that,
so
to
speak,
is
currently
driving both
intuitions about the L2 as well as actual language production and reception (cf. Felix 1984). A close study of
learner development
would have to look for evidence of sudden shifts in IL intuitions that would suggest such
crisis
points.
By
such a
definition,
longitudinal investigation would have to use tests that zeroed in on relatively stable learner
intuitions.
Arguments supporting the run as
follows. Suppose
intermittent
current system, which might well be naturalness, various
nevertheless
reasons,
acquired rule learner) and conformism
e.g.
an
to one
view might part of the
general direction of
upset some other part
overgeneralisation
of
some
(for newly
or intrusion from another grammar possessed by the that
and
these
readjustments
inconsistency
(see discussion
in
the
typically
created non-
system
as a whole. This
a familiar
learning pattern
in Kellerman 1985, Sharwood Smith and Kellerman:
forthcoming). The normal consequence
of
readjustments,
even if
solely in conformity w i t h UG as regards the particular
domain being readjusted, areas of
would
non-naturalness: this
on the attainment of grammar could
paradoxically
account for
allow
all
kinds
tend
to engender
situation would only be remedied
an end-state,
i.e. w h e n
the developmental
all incoming (perceived and analysed)
primary data with mechanisms all of would
in the
typically
"U-shaped" turn away from the norms
they were
deviance
that readjustments
of
w h i c h conformed
to UG: this
peripheral phenomena but still only
those compatible w i t h what we understand to be the constraints on natural
languages.
If
developing
non-conformity, it would not be basis
for
unacceptable
theories
about
circularity
IL
naturalness in
grammars
appropriate the
to
may
use
contain
them
as a
since this would create
argumentation:
occurs in developmental grammars is "natural".
anything that
Logical problems and empirical solutions
20
The notion that all developmental grammars may (or always do) radically diverge from end-state grammars applies to both LI and L2 situations. However, it is even more plausible when L2 developmental grammars are considered since the possibility arises that crosslinguistic influence may in some cases add to the degree of nonconformity. Not only would there be: a:
externally triggered
adjustments of
some particular domain
of the IL grammar to account for newly perceived data, b:
internal readjustments as a result of a creative overextension of some current rule,
but also something specific to L2 acquisition, namely: c:
the recruitment by the acquisition device of parts of another grammar, for example (but not necessarily) the Ll.
All of these processes may have the effect of introducing (further) inconsistency across the various domains in the developing grammar. The whole notion of developmental nonconformity rests on the idea that there is, initially, a certain amount of opacity between these domains as far as the acquisition device (LAD) is concerned. LAD is capable, so to speak, of cutting off the branch it is sitting on, i.e. introducing conformist changes in one domain that (at least temporarily) undermine conformity elsewhere. The migrant worker data reported in the literature provide us with examples: Felix (1985) discusses a violation of the Structure Preserving Constraint. Actually, it is in fact instructive to consider Emonds proposals in a typological perspective rather than as simply a violation of one constraint:1 if the IL grammar belongs to the class of grammars having a) underlying SVO and b) move alpha then, if it were a truly conformist grammar it would not allow rightward movement of V into final position in sub-clauses; the test of its conformity would be to see if that were indeed the case: for ll am indebted to Paul van Buren for this point.
Michael Sharwood Smith example, we in
would expect
grammaticality
enough
21
to
take
no acceptance of V-final constructions
judgement
tests.
It
of non-conformity since learners may be ing their
is
not,
incidentally,
learner spontaneous performance as confirmation
L2 capacities
systematically
(for the sake of improved
and borrowing LI constructions they
know
overload-
communication)
perfectly
well
to be
deviant. It
may
causes
of
be
noted
that
nonconformity
cognitive
problem-solving
claims go against the
we can conceive of three different
without
even
procedures
tendency to
conformist developmental
invoking that
both
general
(op. cit.)
are here called
grammars. In fact, even crosslinguistic
traditional language
Germanic
Felix
develop what
effects from the interaction of relatively least in
the
languages,
proximate systems
(at
typology) like D u t c h and English,
may
produce
unusual
effects.
For
example, a recent investigation carried out by the present author into
the
preposition-stranding
learners of
English (briefly
Smith 1985)
revealed a
rejected pied-piping,
behaviour
of
27
D u t c h school
reported in V a n B u r e n and Sharwood
percentage of
learners who consistently
i.e. the movement of the PP
(prepositional
phrase) "intact", without extraction of the complement NP "On what
am I
sitting")
One conformist expectation would be a
return to an unmarked grammar (Mazurkewich 1984 and 1982) and
a consequent
refusal to
this would
go against the overwhelming evidence of the input English) where stranding predominates. the
extent
that might
their
data-driven
we
however, U G
was operating
atrophied, then we sentences w i t h
would
least where there was
them
,i.e. had not
non-stranded
grammar contained
actual
expect
expect
of
evidence that
'move alpha'.
stranding
development
In view of grammatical to
strand
not been them
to
be to
(conversational the input and development is exclusively. If switched
off or
actually reject
(i.e. 'pied-piped') prepositions, at
showed
their current developmental
In actual
school subjects) did reject stranding stage
pace Stowell
accept stranding at all (not
allowing "What am I sitting on", for example):
to
(as in
fact 40%
(of the 27
where learners
at a later
more tolerance (only 20% rejected
(see Van Buren and Sharwood Smith op. cit.).
22
Logical problems and empirical To conclude, it
could
conceivably
be
the
solutions
case
that all
developing grammars and particularly L2 ones tend to be radically nonconformist because of capacity restrictions on the acquisition
device: revisions
iately across the board to ensure all
the
time.
theoretical Goodluck
This
would
position
take
1986
,
Zobl
Felix
that
L2
100%
conformism
the formulation of a
nonconformism
into
1985).
account
(see
It also means that
through a non-conformist
of some aspect of the grammar unlike
LI learners of the same language mean
that
learners going
their acquisition
stage in
carried out immed-
anything like
require
1984,
evidence pointing to L2
cannot be
the working of
acquisition
is
cannot be different
acquisition (see also Goodluck's
taken ipso in
essence
discussion of
facto to from
LI
wild Ll grammars
referred to above) . Note that in
the
there is an important methodological
notion
plausible it
of
intermittent
reorganisation
disadvantage
view,
however
might seem as a working explanation of how UG might
work: it has to do w i t h the interpretation of IL data. Violations of
UG
in
IL
as
reflected
researcher w i t h a view are less
helpful: they
the view that UG
is
learner
data
elicited by the
facts about
IL competence
can be interpreted either as support for
no
alternatively, w i t h
in
to uncovering longer
this third
active
in
view that
L2
acquisition or,
it is active but does
not work instantaneously across the whole system. As indicated by the Hilles
example, the
developmental patterns time, to
problem can longitudinally,
be resolved i.e.
over
by looking at a
period of
see to what extent UG violations remain in the IL while
the IL as a whole still seems to be developing and to what extent UG violations
have a
w h e n compared w i t h
limited life span in the developing
other
phenomena,
especially
those
system also in
conflict w i t h the input. It may
be seen from the two basic views sketched above, the
parasitic 'initial template' view Ll influence
only plays
and the
recreation view, that
a role in the first view. But it is not
the case that Ll influence automatically implies an For example,
there is
inactive UG.
the possibility that internal UG-inspired
Michael Sharwood Smith reorganisation is
23
held up because of Ll influence - a version of
an idea put forward by a Schumann 1978,
few researchers
Wode 1978
in the
seventies
(see
and Zobl 1978). It might, then, be the
case the Ll influence (or
influence
from
any
other linguistic
system possessed by the learner) may exert a counter-force to UG. In particular, Lydia White
has
manner that
UG is
suggests that
argued
of UG
Ll
influence
in a
still active in L2 acquisition
despite the fact that its operation certain instantiations
for
is initially
constrained by
in Ll carried over to L2 (see, for
example, White this volume, Liceras 1986). Mary-Louise Kean makes this point
clearly
(in
Kean 1985)
learner brings a different UG to different, that
is, only
by pointing
the task
out that the L2
of developing
an L2,
in the very specific sense of being no
longer unset: it has been set in Ll terms. To take the example of Jorge discussed by Sharon Hilles w i t h reference to the setting of the
pro-drop
English a
parameter,
UG that
Jorge
has had
brings
to
the
This implies that, for Jorge, a natural grammar drop (null
subject), his
example, and this features
of
Ll Spanish
includes
that
all
particular
should have pro-
being the prime (and only)
the
associated morphosyntactic
UG parameter, unless the evidence
disconfirms this assumption and, attends to
acquisition of
the pro-drop parameter set as [+PD].
of course,
assuming that Jorge
this evidence (Hilles 1986). What m i g h t be called the
'reconstructive' view involves three developmental phases: Phase 1: initial application deemed
to
be
configurational
of Ll
relevant", grammars,
instantiations of
UG "where
e.g. number of bounding nodes in plus
or
minus
pro-drop
(null
subject), etc., etc. Phase 2:
recreative application
relevant,
i.e.
on
the
of UG in areas where Ll is not basis
of
(perceived)
positive
evidence. Phase 3:
reorganisation, revising
the evidence demands imposed by UG.
it,
the effects of Phase 1, where
within
the
absolute constraints
24
Logical problems and empirical
"Where
deemed
relevant"
simply
means
"as
perceived input". Since UG contains principles of alternative
grammars, for
solutions
indicated to cover
example grammars
by
the
a range
w i t h and without
movement rules, some of the principles of UG will not be relevant for a
particular Ll
(e.g., no
movement rules
ergo no bounding
nodes), but L2 evidence will make it clear that they are relevant for L2:
in this case, the learner will process them according to
the recreative
view (above).
The reconstructive
view is illus-
trated in Fig 2 : Principles of UG (interacting w i t h input)
usincj Ll input v Note: UG ensures conformity=> within the grammar as it develops
Ll grammar
using L2 input
using Ll grammar
IL grammar
L2 input Fig 2. A third view: the reconstructive view (UG active in Ll and IL grammar) In
this
third
view,
IL grammatical development, where it
departed from Ll would still be constrained by UG and then
contrast
with
view, where U G plays
the
this would
first, parasitic or initial template
no active
role in
reorganisation, i.e. in
Phase 3. It should kind discussed
be noted, at this juncture, that questions of the above only
emerge when
one has
a very specific
Michael Sharwood Smith
25
theoretical model in view so this is a demonstration of complexities and
properly. The advantage of the
study
of
IL
is
using UG
that
and associated
theoretical questions
whether L2
The three
m a i n views
(working) hypotheses see also
roles of re-expressed
Clahsen and
seen
within a
LI and UG that have as
three general
Bley Vroman, Schachter
Muysken 1986), the Recreative
Mazurkewich), and
the Reconstructive
advanced by White, Flynn, Liceras, Sharwood Smith
no longer
active in
Parasitic Hypothesis
carried over
holds that
second language acquisition and that
traces of conformity to UG in IL may of LI
be
investigations, i.e., respectively, advanced by
and V a n Buren and others). 1 The UG is
then
be
for IL
(as advanced by
Hypothesis (as
can
on the
the Parasitic Hypothesis (as Hypothesis
in the
perspective.
just been outlined above can
and others;
acquisition proceeds
to LI acquisition. Any observed differences
between IL and child (LI) language larger explanatory
so find interesting
to ask in connection w i t h the more general
and crucial question of similar way
concepts in
one can apply a quite sophisticated
linguistic model to IL problems and in doing
same or
both the
sophistication of addressing theoretical issues
into the
be traced
back to features
developing grammar. The Recreative
Hypothesis holds that UG is active in second language acquisition and that grammatical development unfolds very m u c h along the same lines as it does for first language acquirers. The Reconstructive Hypothesis holds
that UG
is still active but in a different way
in that the learner sets parameters way that
have been
shared by
LI and
L2 in the
set for LI: this entails complications where
there is no evidence in the input for resetting the IL parameters so
that
IL
is
aligned
with
native-speaker
L2.
These three
hypotheses, all of w h i c h had their supporters, can be worked into a more
sophisticated framework and a preliminary example of this
will be given in the following section.
1
M a z u r k e w i c h 1984, White 1986, this volume, Flynn 1986, Liceras 1986, Bley Vroman 1986, Schachter 1986,1988 Van Buren and Sharwood Smith 1986.
26
Logical problems and empirical solutions
3. STRATEGIES A N D SCENARIOS IN IL DEVELOPMENT
The
idea
of
studying
the
learner's
initial
and
later
hypotheses about the nature of the L2 system(s), as was mentioned earlier, was not
really
standard creative was because
considered
in
any
construction framework
development
was
viewed
detail
within the
of the seventies: This
as
highly
piecemeal: the
learner develops certain native-like forms, inflections, articles etc, in
a certain
developmental order,
the precise explanation
for w h i c h remains a mystery: it was sufficient that such an order could be said to exist since influence
exerted
by
it
pointed
teachers
or
course of acquisition and it also mother tongue
to
the
teaching
lack
of real
techniques on the
underlined the
irrelevance of
influence.
W i t h i n the
more iL-oriented
oneself questions about how
approach, one
a given
is freer to ask
IL system
has arisen: this
approach encourages investigators to scan different areas of what they consider to be the logical
aspects
of
current
the
grammar
grammar
and
(including
the phono-
lexicon) and to look for
patterns without special reference to native-speaker norms. These patterns may
be viewed
as the
outcome of the learner's current
assumptions, beliefs or hypotheses
(tacit or otherwise) about the
nature of
the language he or she is acquiring. Something of this
idea
eventually
was
approach in
developed
in
creative
construction
that they began to look at the stage-by-stage growth
of 'mini-systems' like negation an
the
IL-based
approach
needs
and question-formation. to
view
these
However,
various stages of
development not as sequences up to various "target" forms etc.) scattered along the route to a (hypothetical)
(A,B,C,
"native" end-
state but as developmental stages where native-like forms have no privileged
status
and
where
the
interest
is,
focussed on the developmental forms themselves. of
so-called
Sharwood Smith
'developmental 1986),
which
scenarios' is
what
(see
will
if
anything,
The construction be
van
Buren
and
discussed now,
provides a way of looking at system in IL development rather than
Michael Sharwood Smith
27
system in the attainment of linguistic nativeness 64).
IL
development
like
child
language
building grammars out of perceived input as it as is
(cf Ellis 1985:
development
means
comes along, not,
the case w i t h a linguist, assembling large amounts of data
known to reflect the native-speaker norms and only then coming to conclusions about the grammar underlying that data (White 1982). 3.1. Developmental
scenarios
The key to understanding interlanguage lies in the coherence and plausibility of the research is
explanatory
undertaken. Research
framework
to date
n o t i o n of strategy. What is necessary strategies
may
be
were a repertoire etc) but, tion,
fitted. of
the
(transfer,
between
yet to
strategies
generally
these suggestions were not precision
until
attempted
to
markedness as
use
overgeneralisation,
the
some
how
they
communicative domains that
precede
L2-based strategies but
expressed w i t h
investigators
a basis
strategies,
be spelled out. There have been sugges-
tions both in the learning and in the Ll-based
m u c h of the
structure into which
the learning versus communication distinc-
relationships
interacted, were
has made
is a
w h i c h IL
In Selinker's original model, there
strategies
apart from
within
a very
h i g h level of
turned (back) to linguistics and
version
of
the
notion
of linguistic
for defining the early IL hypotheses that
learners typically make (see also Bickerton 1984 for a discussion of the
notion of a "bioprogram"). What we take to be the initial
hypotheses a learner has and those
that are
expressed as claims about developmental
follow them
may be
scenarios.
It is instructive to consider further the difference between developmental
scenarios
understood in
the seventies..
deviant
or
non-deviant
learners' performance. then,
an
investigator
and
the
developmental
The latter
forms
(F1,F2,F3,
sequences
as
involve a sequence of etc.
appearing
in
From observations of learner performance, may
infer
a
predictable
development which can form the basis of further
sequence
investigations.
of
28
Logical problems and empirical solutions There is no ready-made explanation attached to the n o t i o n of
a developmental sequence. A developmental scenario
involves just
that, i.e. an explanatory framework for some developmental order. In
fact,
a
developmental
theoretical
framework
is
scenario
for
predicting
mental orders. It is not just a post-hoc sequences: some
best
understood
and explaining
as a
develop-
explanation of observed
observed regular developmental sequences may not
have a single, unified explanation but may have
as a
come about
result of an interaction of many poorly understood processes: the morpheme order literature is rich in example Cancino,
Rosansky and
and Burt 1982).
A
developmental development
consideration
sequences of
particular scenario come
from
a
of
(such
negation)
examples of
Schumann 1978,
may
some
this (see, for
H a t c h 1979, Dulay
structurally
transitional indeed
be
stages
related in
suggestive
of
the some
but the idea for a scenario may just as well
linguistic
or
psycholinguistic
theory
as
from
observation of learner performance. A
scenario,
suggests, stages
for
for
then,
is
example,
given
a
that
reasons.
"story" learners
The
about development which progress
behaviourist
through given
approach
to
L2
learning advanced by Lado provided us w i t h a
single scenario: we
could
structures
expect
a
beginning w h i c h use.
Those
maximal
use
would decline
Ll-based
of
Ll-based
w i t h increasing
structures
that
structures would appear early and where across the
two languages,
there was
explanation was 'interference'
transfer' or
formed
priate. Creative scenario but w i t h
new
L2-specific
construction theory less
of
an
associations
first
claims
which
might
were based
on something
w i t h the application of
more than linguistic
where appro-
likewise provided a single
explanation
explanatory force concerning about
Ll-transfer, sow h i c h declined as
since developmental
sequences were simply attributed to a mysterious The
no s u c h match
"erroneous" Ll-based structures would
appear instead. The overriding the learner
the
matched corresponding L2
called
'negative
in
experience of L2
'black box'.
really be said to approach
possible scenarios
and which
general learning theory came markedness
theory,
in this
Michael Sharwood Smith case, markedness
29
in a
more traditional, non-Chomskyan sense. It
was and still is suggested
that
learners
may
have
an inbuilt
preference for unmarked forms (rules/structures). This means that they will opt for unmarked versions of these aspects of admit of
L2 share a marked quickly develop
form in an IL
some
area of
w i t h the
form,
the
learner
quickly opt for the
will
because not
when
1977).
the
LI
has a
Fred Eckman
gives us the
of the devoicing of word-final stops, which
he claimed to be more common across languages (Eckman
learner will
follow the LI pattern but
unmarked version.
phonological example
IL, the
marked form. This conformity is
coincidental, in this explanation, marked
IL which
markedness in defiance of the input. Hence where LI and
Where
the
LI
and hence unmarked
has the unmarked form and L2 the
marked one, the learner will begin w i t h the deviant unmarked form in conformity w i t h the LI: hence German learners of English would begin w i t h a German rule devoicing final stops
as in
[bret] for
'bread'. English learners of German would more readily assume the voiceless unmarked
stops form
of more
normal
German
since
"attractive'.
they
will
find the
The implication is then that
this kind of markedness has psychological reality and that marked forms
come
psychological
to
be
marked
complication
because
markedness
hitherto
reflects
unexplained.
This
some hypo-
thesised "unmarked" tendency in L2 acquisition leads logically to a
developmental
strategy
and
scenario
this
is
to
in
which
the
learner
has
a fixed
select the unmarked option either in
agreement or in defiance of the situation in
the target language
as reflected in the input he or she is exposed to (cf. Hyltenstam 1977). The learner, in other evidence that
signals the
words,
presence of
data. In this way, the strategy preference for
initially
may
certain, allegedly
be
filters
out any
the marked option in the defined
as
an initial
simpler forms. Hence early IL
systems in this view would be created partially
on the
basis of
the input and partially on the basis of an inbuilt preference for unmarked options and unmarked systems in general. What should be continually emphasized is the fact scenarios crucially depend on what is understood by In other words, the researcher investigating a given
that such
"markedness". IL develop-
30
Logical problems and empirical solutions
mental scenario
has to
select one
amongst a number of possible
approaches to markedness. Hence, an appeal to a particular theoretical
viewpoint
in
(the
relevant branch of) linguistics is a
necessary prerequisite to a project of Rutherford
1984).
Note
that
this kind
there
is
explanation for why given forms should the
Greenbergian
sense.
The
no
(see papers in
real psychological
be marked
great
or unmarked in
advantage of the Chomskyan
approach to markedness is that it is tied u p w i t h positive
and
negative
the notions of
i.e. to a learnability
evidence,
theory
w h i c h has a great degree of coherence and is testable. 3.2. Developmental
strategies
As I have just explained, a the
learner
adopting
a
developmental scenario
preference
example, linguistically unmarked
strategy
(or
less
involves
favouring,
marked)
for
systems. It
should be clear that there is a hierarchical relationship between "scenarios" and "strategies" such ordinate term.
In other
that
scenario
scenario under investigation, one or more scenario
may
be
is
words, given a particular
outlined.
This
explicit study of a particular
allows
the super-
developmental
strategies within that for
a more coherent,
scenario.
In 1985, Van Buren and Sharwood Smith proposed a preliminary set of three scenarios and a number of strategies linked to these scenarios
(see V a n Buren and Sharwood Smith 1986).
This proposal
is set out below, using a slightly revised terminology). As implied
earlier, a theory that defines what is learnable
(Pinker 1984) in competence terms is essentially a theory of what constitutes
evidence
linguists we observe first
and
second
to
the
the
learner.
As linguists or psycho-
environmental
language
conditions
acquisition
takes place and we can
establish to some degree what events might be of
those
events
occur
and
hence
acquisition device. A theory of second to
provide
a
framework
dimension of processing and
for
are
under which
relevant and which
potential input to the
language learnability has
investigating the crosslinguistic
acquisition since,
in this context,
Michael Sharwood Smith
31
information is
potentially available
from a
other
source
grammar, namely
than
extrapolation
impossible.
The
'evidence'
can
be
from universal
learned previously.
first
contribution
third source, i.e. or
the native language system and
has been from
from a
environment
information from
any other system which simple
the
language
of
the
This makes
learnability theory
different
sources
of
investigated under two different assumptions
related to the notion of 'learning strategy', that is, strategies adopted by
not so m u c h the learner (qua single, undifferentiated
individual)
but
as
the
relevant
developmental
mechanisms
(Sharwood Smith forthcoming): a:
The Singular Learning Strategy
assumption,
b:
The Multiple Learning Strategy
assumption
This
means
that
we
can
assume,
for example, that all second
language acquisition follows essentially the same course: this is the Singular
Learning Strategy Assumption. Alternatively, we can
assume that there is
individual
variation:
learners
differ in
their approach to grammar creation. This is the Multiple Learning Strategy Assumption. It should be 'success' in
noted
to invoke varying strategy
that
we
are
not
even
talking about
learning. In other words we do n o t necessarily have degrees
variation.
In
of
success
theory,
a
achieving exactly the same level of
as
given
a
characteristic of
set
of learners all
language development
can be
hypothesized to have approached the task of learning in different ways. Hence, strategy variation means
of
distinguishing
cannot
Viewed another way, this means that acquisition on
the
relevant
there being
modules)
second language
see
cognitive
discussion
into
an assumption
first language
for a discussion of et.al
made
the part of first language acquirers
terms of some of possibility of
be
on
1982.:ch.4).
the sole
first and second language acquisition.
and
need
not
of
'complete'
(at least in exclude the
strategy variation (
learning strategy variation affective variables in Dulay
32
Logical problems and empirical solutions In V a n Buren and
was proposed
Sharwood Smith
involving a
third
which,
in
effect,
scenarios, five strategies. were,
respectively,
Crosslinguistic Scenario
the
(CLS)
subsumed
assumption.
together with
combines the two and, w i t h i n those Using
an
Primary
Scenario
(IPS):
modular approach
'scenarios' were outlined
Two fundamental learning a
(1985) a
multiple learning strategy
adapted
Language and,
under
the
the
terminology they
Scenario (PLS), the Inductive
scenarios
strategies w h i c h are listed below together
Principle
were
the five
w i t h their associated
scenario: 1. The Input-driven Strategy
(PLS)
2. The Unmarkedness Strategy
(PLS)
3. The Equivalence Strategy
(CLS)
4. The Non-equivalence Strategy
(CLS)
5. The Free Generalisation Strategy.(IPS) The
Primary
Language
Scenario
assumes
that
the learner
basically attends to the primary linguistic
data, the
without
he or she happens to
reference
possess.
In
other
to
any
other
grammar
words,
there
is,
initially
at
L2 input, least, no
crosslinguistic influence operative in the his or her IL grammar: the L2 is, as it were, treated as "another LI". The
Input-driven
Strategy
equates
the
second
language
acquirer w i t h the standard (Chomskyan) view of the first language acquirer, i.e. one who accepts in equal measure positive evidence in the input confirming the presence of unmarked structures and positive disconfirming Any systematic order of factors
(ripe
for
evidence (evidence of marked development
investigation)
would such
then
structures).
be
decreed by
as frequency, semantic
transparency or whatever happens to makes data salient. The Unmarkedness Strategy implies evidence
for
unmarked
structures
in
evidence for marked structures whether grammar or
not: there
is a
that the
learner accepts
L2 but initially they
bias towards
are
in
rejects
the native
unmarked values. This
implies a certain "blindness" to data (see Kean 1985).
Michael Sharwood Smith
33
The Crosslinguistic Scenario influenced in
implies
that
the
learner is
some particular way by the properties that charac-
terise his or her LI or any other language other
than the
L2 in
question. The Equivalence
Strategy implies
that the learner makes an
initial assumption of L1/L2 structural equivalence
and initially
that disconfirms this. LI parameters define the
rejects evidence
first settings of L2 parameters. The Non-equivalence learner
(i.e.
Strategy is
learning
device)
the converse
adopts
an
target language initially assuming
its
turally distant
Ll. W i t h
from that
of the
of this. The
exotic view of the
structure
to
be struc-
regard to these two
different crosslinguistic strategies, a logical problem arises in connection w i t h the initial selection of a marked parameter which is not actually confirmed by the L2 data the
marked
option,
is
not
but which,
positively
since it is
disconfirmed.
If, for
example, we take [+pro-drop] to the unmarked case and the learner sets the
parameter for
[-pro drop], the learner will have to be
sensitive to negative evidence of some to come
is not purely coincidental. the 'deviant'
in order
If we
observe learners
that
mechanisms
literature
for are
evidence and development
that
learner
sensitive
we have
to
has
unmarked value, at
phrased
Some this
least,
more
advanced our
accordingly.
principle and the subset and Kenneth
than
the
just
work
question
in
condition as
reported
in
the
terms of the subset
advanced by
Rita Manzini
wider grammar and
a smaller grammar for a particular structural area of the learner to fail
the subset
principle which
will always opt for the smallest grammar
compatible w i t h the data is also seem
direct positive
Wexler. Helmut Zobl, for example, points to evidence
the grammar: this would suggest that holds that
then we can acquisitional
knowledge of second language
recent
that Japanese learners of English begin w i t h a proceed to
moving from
marked option to a later stage in the IL where the
parameter is reset to the 'correct' assume
indirect nature
to the conclusion that the lack of pro-drop in the input
contravened.
It
would,
of course,
to account for any observed move from a wider
34
Logical problems and empirical solutions
grammar to
a smaller
grammar
(see
in particular,
Zobl in this
volume and V a n Buren forthcoming). The fifth
strategy is the Free Generalisation Strategy, and
it implies uninhibited generalisations ties
or
of
perceived
L2
of LI
structural
properties
implies a corresponding insensitivity to the that
would
confirm
such
structural properand
it also
absence of evidence
overgeneralisations
(i.e.
indirect
negative evidence). The free generalizer is most likely to ignore violations of
UG in the developing system and is hypothesised to
show a h i g h degree insensitivity Smith op.
of fossilisation
(for
full
cit. and
grammars will
discussion
Sharwood Smith
be non-natural,
free generalisation may well first and
due to
this
characteristic
see V a n Buren and Sharwood op. cit.).
The resulting IL
i.e. not conform to UG. Note that be a
typical learning
strategy in
second language acquisition w i t h features that are not
relevant to principle
UG. It
is, of
scenario
to
course, possible
which
this
that the inductive
strategy
belongs
may
be
interpreted as a cognitive problem solving scenario that is valid for other than purely linguistic development (cf. Felix 1985) 3.3. Some methodological To
implications
investigate
the
learner makes, u s i n g
the
just been
sketched out,
initial
and subsequent hypotheses the
scenario/strategy
framework
that has
one needs to set u p "strategy profiles"
for learners w i t h given language backgrounds and a given L2 and a given
structural
area
in
mind and relate those to
profiles', i.e. the profiles predicted by viewpoints within
the framework.
particular
'prediction theoretical
In this way, learners who, for
example, follow a Non-equivalence strategy, i.e. treat the exotic, ought w i t h the LI
to avoid
and will respond to an appropriate
accordingly.
Each
of
the
line w i t h
elicitation test
actual responses of learners to that
test may then be compared w i t h a theoretical made
L2 as
any parameter-setting that aligns the L2
response profile in
that particular strategy and a calculation can then be
concerning
the
degree
responses m a t c h the predicted
to
which
response.
each
of
their
actual
Michael Sharwood Smith In Utrecht,
35
we have
stranding in mind and framework
has
carried out based on
been
by
been working
the
only
applied
Margaret
mainly w i t h preposition-
study
to
date
experimentally
Polomska
in
is
(Polomska
a
1987). Approaches
an analysis of strategic behaviour easily allow a fine-
grained analysis of individual members of a group well
as
value
an
of
analysis
the
predicted that
of
Multiple not all
developmental scenario that
seems
various
which this pilot study
quite
paradigms
reported in
of subjects as
group results. This should reveal the Strategy
Assumption
in
which
it
is
learners will necessarily adopt the same or developmental
reasonable including
Sharwood Smith
if
we
the
strategy, a possibility are to believe studies in
preposition-stranding
and V a n
study
Buren (op. cit.) where some
subjects seem to pied-pipe exclusively opting for an unmarkedness strategy while others did not.
4. CONCLUSION
Hopefully,
the
preceding
discussion
has
shown
how
a
particular approach to grammatical acquisition can be constructed drawing
selectively
researchers
in
metatheory in relatively
the
the
experience and
on
of
second
linguistic
language
theory
and
the eighties. When second language learning seemed
simple,
approaching the
on
seventies there
was
complexity of
attempt
anything
the type of preliminary
no
need
to
framework
sketched out above. Now it seems that second language acquisition also seems
vital to adopt a coherent
position on what we think might be the
is enormously
complex, it
guiding principles behind
grammatical acquisition
and follow that through until it becomes
plain that it is not yielding any useful insights. From the early work that
has been done so far by White, Liceras, Flynn and many
others, it looks as though this approach still has quite a lot of promise.
3 Universal grammar and language transfer Lydia White
1. SOME GOALS FOR A THEORY O F SECOND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
It
is
noteworthy
literature of between tongue
theories (LI)
in
recent on
which the
Contrastive Analysis learner's
ability
regardless of
second that
language there
emphasize
second
has
the
language
(L2)
acquisition
been
a dichotomy
influence of the mother learner,
such
focus
on
LI background,
Contrastive
Burt
the
second
language
(1974),
Dulay,
theories
emphasize
theories, on
language
mother tongues
acquisition.
These
data,
the Creative Construction
the other
developmental errors, namely those of different
the
such as
Burt
forms
w h i c h are
and w h i c h are
can
be
interference
hand, concentrate on common to learners
are also
usually
and Krashen that
attributed to the LI, w h i c h are known as transfer or errors. "Creative"
as
(CA) Hypothesis, and those w h i c h stress the to
Hypothesis of Dulay and (1982).
the years
found in first
assumed
to
reflect
universal acquisition processes. As a
number of
recent papers
have noted, the fact that CA
was often associated w i t h behaviourist learning theory has had an
*I am grateful to Eric Kellerman and Larry Sellnker for comments and discussion. A n earlier version of this paper was presented at the 13th Annual University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Symposium on Current Approaches to Second Language Acquisition, M a r c h 1984, w i t h the title "Universal grammar as a source of explanation in second language acquisition".
Lydia W h i t e
37
unfortunate consequence. W h e n explanation
of
language
the mother tongue as There seems, are
an
an influence
was
rejected
as an
on second
language learning.
in many cases, to be a feeling that transfer errors
embarrassment
aspects of
behaviourism
acquisition, many people also rejected
to
approaches
L2 acquisition,
significance altogether
to the
that
emphasize universal
extent that
(e.g. Dulay
and Burt
some deny their 1974; Dulay, Burt
and Krashen 1982). Recently, there
has been
a revival of interest in language
transfer and there have been a number of attempts to circumstances in
w h i c h it
is likely to occur (e.g. Eckman 1977;
Kellerman 1979; Gass 1979; papers in Gass and has
been
recognized
universals-oriented 1983; Rutherford
explain the
that
transfer
explanations
1983). However,
of
Selinker 1983). It
is
not
L2
acquisition
incompatible with (Adjemian
the possibility that universal
and transfer effects in L2 acquisition m i g h t derive from the same source does n o t seem to have been considered. As
noted
by
needs not only to second language
Corder
(1978) and Sharwood Smith (1985), one
acknowledge multiple
acquisition, such as the influence of the LI, of
other languages known to the learner, but also
to provide
these influences suggest that can
universal factors,
and their
variability. It
will be
my goal to
Universal Grammar (UG) has the potential to provide take
such
predict a
second language acquisition
multiple influences and their variability
into account. In particular, I will explain and
and of
a theoretical base that can account for all
an explanation of certain aspects of which
linguistic influences on
suggest that
certain range
UG is
able to
of transfer phenomena, and
thus to contribute towards a solution to the question of when the LI will
have an
influence and when it will not. Certain aspects
of transfer will turn out to have their
origin in
at first
suggest that a theory of
sight, seem
contradictory to
UG. It might,
Universal Grammar can explain cases of transfer, since often aspects
assumed of
to
reflect
acquisition,
language-specific,
whereas
developmental
these are
non-universal, errors
are
38
Universal grammar and language transfer
considered
to
be
reflections
of universal factors. However, I
would like to suggest that this is a false dichotomy. My approach presupposes basic, role
to play,
to the essential solution of
that
UG
has
another,
indeed more
namely that it provides part of the answer
question
of
how
languages
are
learned, the
w h i c h must surely be one of the fundamental goals of
all theories of second The contribution
language acquisition,
as well
of UG specifically concerns the question of how
learners, on the basis of the input available to them, complex and
of
course,
that
fact, construct interlanguage and subtle
arrive at
subtle knowledge of the language being learned, i.e.
how they attain competence, in Chomsky's sense of presupposes,
as first.
knowledge. I
second
the word. This
language learners do, in
(IL) grammars w h i c h
assume that
encode complex
many do so, without neces-
sarily attaining native-like proficiency.
2. CRITICAL FACTORS IN SECOND LANGUAGE A C Q U I S I T I O N
2.1. Universal grammar and first language Before investigating the role of UG tion, it ative
is necessary
grammmar
theory, it
briefly to
regarding
in second
language acquisi-
outline claims made in gener-
acquisition.
Within
generative
is assumed that certain aspects of language structure
must be innately present atical
LI
acquisition
aspects
of
in the
language
child, to
acquisition
account for problem(Chomsky
1965, 1975,
1981b). This innate structure is referred to as Universal grammar and it
consists, in the main, of principles limiting the ways in
which the child can conceive of language, or rather of a grammar, since
the
latter
is
the
primitive
major arguments concern the fact that complex
aspects
of
notion in the theory. The there are
many subtle and
language that native speakers unconsciously
know, for w h i c h there is insufficient evidence in the input data,
39
Lydia W h i t e the language
they are
exposed to as children. For example, they
have intricate knowledge of ambiguity, scope, taught, and
despite the
they hear. 1
in the language that idea of
what children
and there
is
a
etc, without being
fact that these things are not explicit hear and
mismatch
In other
words, we
have some
of what they eventually attain,
between
the
two;
that
mismatch is
overcome by the assumption that UG mediates between the input and the grammar constructed by the child, and that the
Language
Acquisition
Device
UG forms
part of
and hence is available to the
child to aid acquisition. A further assumption is that the the
child
is
in
the
form
of
bulk of
negative evidence, or information as to possible in
the language.
data available to
positive evidence, rather than
In this,
what structures
the child
are not
differs from the
linguist, who can ask explicit questions as to the possibility or impossibility of certain forms, and also from the second language learner, who in many cases does receive negative evidence, in the form of
correction, a
point to w h i c h I shall return (section 5,
below). As an example, consider the following la:
sentences:
W h a t did John see_?
b:
What did Mary believe [S' that J o h n saw_]?
c:
W h a t did Jane say [S that Mary believed[S' that John saw]]?
d: *what did Mary believe [NP the claim[S' that John saw_]]? The questions in (la), (lb) and (lc) are is not.
grammatical, while (Id)
In all cases, the equivalent statements are grammatical.
How do language learners
attain such
knowledge? If,
on the
basis of examples like (la), they work out a rule of Wh-movement, 1
F o r details and examples see Chomsky 1981b; Baker 1981; Hornstein and Lightfoot 1981; Lightfoot 1982.
and McCarthy
40
Universal grammar and language transfer
how do
they discover that this rule can apply in m u c h larger and
m o r e complex sentences like (lb) and (lc) and yet cannot apply to produce (Id)?
Children are not known to make mistakes like (Id),
so that one cannot assume that they come
up with
such forms and
corrected, even supposing that correction is an
are subsequently
available source of evidence. Nor
is
it
occurrence
is
sufficient to rule it out,
of
forms
like
(id)
simply
that
the non-
since (lc) is just as unlikely to have been heard and yet will be judged
grammatical
when
sibility of forms like course of
it
is
(Id),
first
and
language acquisition,
encountered. The impos-
their
non-occurrence
as part of UG a principle, known as Subjacency, w h i c h number
of
bounding
nodes
which
limits the
a moved element can cross. In
particular, bounding nodes in English are S', S and NP, exceptions
being
provided
by
an
the W h
element has
whereas in (lb), only S' has
to
element
two
moves
through
the
be
assuming
certain
approach
to
general
innate
language
rule
of
crossed.
Wh-movement
in
(lc),
case
the W h
The "logical
limit
this
from
In
cases is
which
(Id) is
b o t h NP and S',
positions.
in such
principles
learning,
movement in
to cross
COMP
problem" for language acquisition
the only
"escape" route through COMP,
available in S' but not in NP. In this way, disallowed, since
in the
can be explained if one assumes
answered by the
child's
preventing the
over-applying. Assuming the
presence of this universal principle allows one to explain a wide range
of
Subjacency
phenomena, also
since
accounts
there for
are
(c.f.
many
other
Chomsky
cases that
1981b).
Other
universal principles
account for further aspects of our linguis-
tic
our
competence
and
acquisition
of
that
knowledge
(c.f.
Chomsky 1981b for examples). 2.2. Universal grammar and second language acquisition What
is
arguments
the
relevance
concerning
language learner
to
first
is faced
second language acquisition of such language
development?
The
second
w i t h a similar problem to that facing
the first; that is, if second language learners eventually attain reasonable accuracy in the L2, they will end u p w i t h very complex and subtle knowledge for which the input data
was
insufficiently
Lydia W h i t e
41
precise. Indeed, does n o t
this is
achieve a
probably true
high degree
even if
of accuracy;
the L2 learner
many learners may
well reach a level of competence in the L2 w h i c h includes complex knowledge w h i c h was never explicitly present in the L2 input, and w h i c h is
n o t simply
the knowledge
that they
even t h o u g h it may not coincide w i t h that of the
have of their LI,
of the
native speaker
there may be a logical problem for L2 acquisi-
L2. Thus,
tion, just as there is for
LI. O f
course, this
does not neces-
sarily m e a n that it is to be dealt w i t h in the same way. However, if, as discussed above, first
language
learners
have
at their
disposal certain universal principles w h i c h aid language acquisition, then such
principles
may
still
be
available
in second
language acquisition, particularly in second language acquisition by
children.
learners, if
Indeed,
they
may
also
be
available
differences between
child and
is by no means clear
what
Scarcella
Krashen,
UG
pursuing. I
mediates
these
child
will suggest
there do
adult learners
papers whether
adult
we assume that they are n o t de-activated at the end
of some neurological critical period. While
in
to
differences and
and
are
due
to (cf.
Long 1982). The question of
adult
acquisition
is
worth
that UG is, indeed, available to adult
L2 learners but that it may not be as freely to children,
seem to be
in many cases, it
available as
it is
though the limitations will turn out to be specific
to UG itself. 2.3. Implications of parametric variation for L2 acquisition A n important point to consider in L2 acquisition is the fact that the L2 first
learner has language.
already activated
Until
linguistic universals
fairly would be
is the same for all languages,
UG by learning his or her
recently,
it
was
assumed that
invariant across languages, that although not
all languages would
instantiate all universals. However, in the last few years, there has been a growing realization that universal principles subtle ways
from language
parametric variations has been introduced (Chomsky The idea
vary in
to language, and hence the concept of 1981b; 1982).
is that a limited number of options, or parameters, are
associated with a particular principle and that specific evidence
42
Universal grammar and language transfer
from
the
language
being
learned
will
trigger
parameter for that language. Thus, language
the
relevant
specific differences
are, in many cases, reducible to differences in the
options that
UG makes
the
available.
Subjacency,
this
For
is
example,
a
to
universal
return
bounding nodes are barriers to movement, has
movement
rules
languages may vary nodes. In
will as
obey
to
English the
this
The
relevant
which
bounding nodes
evidence
for
and any
Nevertheless,
nodes
are S',
and NP
the
case of
language w h i c h
principle.
precisely
French and Italian, they are S'
to
principle to the effect that
are bounding
S and NP, but in
but not
S (Rizzi 1982).
language learner in the latter
cases comes from the possibility of extracting from certain kinds of structures in French and Italian, whereas such extractions are not possible in English. Another example is provided
by
the
position
phrasal categories. All languages have phrases
of
heads of
(NP, VP,etc) which
contain heads (N, V, etc) but the position of the head within its phrase
varies
from
language
heads to the left, as English relative
clause
follows
to
language. Some languages have
does;
the
for
head
noun
example
follows the verb. In other languages, the head In Japanese,
relative clauses
precede
verb.
the
parameter w h i c h
Thus,
precede their
head
position
in
English a
and the direct object is to
the right;
heads, and objects
constitutes
an
open
language learners have to "fix" for the language
they are learning. In these two examples, there is and languages
differ as
to w h i c h
a limited
range of options
option they use. In addition,
there are cases where one talks of a parameter as having +
and -
values, some languages choosing the former and others the latter. The pro-drop parameter is such a case. It is active +) in
languages like
(i.e. set at
Spanish and Italian but not in English and
French. Amongst the effects of this parameter are the possibility of empty
subjects, of verb-subject word order, and of extraction
of subjects out of (Chomsky 1981a,
embedded
clauses
containing
complementizers
1982;Jaeggli 1982; Rizzi 1982). These properties
Lydia W h i t e
43
are illustrated below, where
the Italian
sentences are grammat-
ical whereas their literal translations in English are not: 2a:
verra *will come he will come
b:
verra Gianni *will come John J o h n will come
c:
chi credi che verra? *who do you think that will come? who do you think will come?
As
can
be
seen
from
these examples, setting a parameter in a
particular way (in this case, at + pro-drop) can have
a range of
consequences, so that a number of apparently unrelated
construct-
ions are in fact connected. This
concept
of
parametric
variation
is
particularly
interesting w h e n one looks at L2 acquisition, since many learners will be faced w i t h situations where some principle the value
of the
language may the learner
parameter in
have some may be
LI and
L2, or
principle inactive.
faced with
differs as to
one or the other
In such situations,
conflicting evidence from LI and
L2, motivating incompatible parameter settings. If L2 acquisition mirrors LI
acquisition, one might expect L2 learners to have the
ability to focus only on the
L2 data,
and therefore
to set the
parameter required for the L2, regardless of the situation in LI. It seems more likely, however, that L2 learners by the
parameter already
instantiated in
least initially, they carry over the for the
mother tongue.
In other
will be affected
their LI, so that, at
setting already established
words, the
evidence in LI has caused a parameter to
fact that positive
be set
in a particular
way may obscure the fact that positive evidence in L2 motivates a different setting. In situations where it is really reset parameters,
the learner
reflected in the transfer of
may have particular the
incidence of interference errors.
LI
value,
and
necessary to difficulties, hence
in the
44
Universal grammar and language transfer Taking
a
parameterized
UG
into
account,
the
following
situations may occur and the following predictions can be made: 3a:
LI and L2 have the same principle, set
in the
same way:
there should be no transfer problems, so that L2 acquisition may proceed in a manner similar to Ll. b:
Ll does not have some principle activated w h i c h in
L2:
L2
data
will
motivate
the
is required
relevant
principle.
However, the learner may initially assume that L2 is like Ll in not requiring the principle in question. c:
Ll and
L2 both
instantiate some
set in different ways: there parameter
until
the
principle w i t h parameters
will
learner
be
transfer
of
the Ll
realizes, on the basis of L2
data, that the Ll setting is not appropriate. d:
Ll has some parameter set at the + value but L2 has the value:
there
will
be
transfer
of the Ll value until the
learner realizes that the Ll parameter
is not
operative in
L2. While (c)
and (d)
may seem essentially the same, I will suggest
below that situations like problems than
(d)
may
cause
the
learner greater
those like (c). In fact, the predictions above may
be further complicated by
the question
of markedness.
For some
principles, one parameter setting may represent the unmarked case and the L2 learner may be the settings
in the
affected by
the markedness
values of
Ll and L2, in complex and interesting ways,
w h i c h go beyond the scope of
this paper.
See White
(1986a) for
more detailed discussion. I
now
turn
to
some
situations w h i c h exemplify the cases
discussed in (3), above. Supporting section 3.
A native
speaker of
(or vice versa) will be in have the
pro-drop parameter
data
will
be
discussed in
Spanish who is learning Italian
situation (3a)
above; both languages
set at its + value. There should be
no acquisition difficulty w i t h respect to acquiring constructions
Lydia White
45
related to that parameter. In contrast, a native speaker of Spanish or Italian learning English will be in situation (3d); that is, the pro-drop parameter is active in LI but inactive in L2, so that the learner effectively has to reset the parameter to a situation which, I predict, will lead to transfer errors, with such learners dropping subject pronouns in English, and making other errors traceable to their treating English as if it were a pro-drop language. Notice that this crucially depends on which language is the LI and which the L2. The converse situation, that is the native speaker of English learning Spanish, would represent situation (3b), since the pro-drop parameter is inactive in Ll and has to be acquired in L2. This situation should not cause particular difficulties, given that positive data in L2 motivate the parameter. In other words, the L2 learner will hear examples of missing pronouns in the L2 and this will trigger the + value of the pro-drop parameter, with its attendant consequences, although prior to noticing this data, the learner may assume that the Ll situation pertains in L2. Thus, this theory predicts differences in acquisition diffficulty for the same two languages in situations (3b) and (3d), depending on directionality. Finally, the situation in (3c) can be exemplified by word order parameters; where the Ll and L2 differ as to the position of the head, there may be initial problems but the contrast is present in the positive data. In the case of the English learning Japanese, or vice versa, the L2 data indicate that the head position is different from the Ll. One might expect initial transfer effects, in either direction , until the L2 learner takes note of this contrast between the two languages. Thus, where parameters do not differ, as in (3a), or where Ll has not had some principle activated at all, as in (3b), L2 acquisition may be more likely to proceed along universal lines, with the learner's non-target output taking the form of developmental errors, whereas when parameters differ, as in (3c), or have to be reset to -, as in (3d), the original parameter
46
Universal grammar and language transfer
setting may compete w i t h the new one required for L2,
leading to
transfer errors, at least initially. The case
outlined in
(3d) may
for the L2 language learner. It to
that
discussed
by
Baker
(1979)
generalize optional rules. As case
of
Dative
Movement.
be particularly problematic
constitutes a an
He
situation similar
for LI learners who over-
example, points
Baker
out
discusses the
that, if there is a
transformational rule of Dative Movement, the following
situation
could arise. On the basis of sentences like: 4a:
John gave the book to Fred
b:
John gave Fred the book
together
with
justified in
the
rule
in
hypothesizing
question, (5b)
the
after
learner
hearing
would
be
sentences like
(5a) : John reported the accident to the police
5a:
b: *John reported the police the accident However,
(5b)
is ungrammatical. The learner who produced such an
overgeneralization would such forms
have somehow
problematic, since many forms that hear
are
nevertheless
to
be
learners
grammatical)
negative evidence, in the argued
to notice
the absence of
in English (a seeming impossibility and, in any case,
form of
non-occurring
or
or
may
not
happen to
would have to be given
corrections, w h i c h ineffective
have been
in LI acquisition
(McNeill 1966; Brown and Hanlon 1970; Braine 1971). The situation of the L2 learner who carries over the of an
LI parameter
+ value
is parallel in the following way. Taking the
pro-drop parameter as an example,
if
over
as has been found (White 1985,
from
Spanish
to
English,
the
parameter
is carried
1986b; Hilles 1986; Phinney 1987) then the Spanish learner has to notice the
absence of
missing subjects in English, that is, the
fact that subjects cannot be presence
of
explicit
omitted
pronominal
in
English.
Noticing the
subjects is not sufficient to
Lydia W h i t e
47
lead to loss of this parameter, given that Spanish can lexical pronouns
in certain
presence of pronoun subjects the -
value of
is consistent
the pro-drop
be hard
w i t h both
parameter, whereas
subjects is consistent only w i t h the
also have
other words, the
circumstances. In
+ value.
the + and
the absence of
Therefore, it may
for Spanish speakers learning English to discover on the
basis of positive data
alone
since, w h e n
explicit pronouns in English, this is not
they hear
that
English
is
with
missing
+pro-drop.
I
Spanish, on
subjects would
the other
will
indicate
suggest
hand, hearing sentences that
the LI
grammar, will
their own
right, and
an IL
UG, though it may for the
not use
variation
grammars allowable.
of
make it
IL
w h i c h happens
clear that I
In other set
In addition,
w h i c h are
are natural languages.
Indeed,
that UG mediates
not violate principles of
the parameters
should
grammars,
the assumption
grammar should
target language. 2
parametric
I should
series
the latter point is dictated by L2 acquisition;
one of
recent theories of L2 development, that
the L2 learner constructs a systems in
be
interlanguage.
In concluding this section, with many
must
particularly favour the transfer of
the LI parameter or rule into the
assume, along
Spanish
that any circumstance where the L2
data are consistent with several grammars, to be
pro-drop,
from Spanish. 1 For
enough to tell them that English is different E n g l i s h learning
not
w h i c h are appropriate
words, the possibilities of limits
where a
to
the
kinds
of IL
language learner does
1 H o w e v e r , Hyams (1986) proposes that English LI learners actually assume pro-drop initially, and that there is positive evidence available in English to make them change their minds, concerning the expletive elements it and there. In that case, such evidence might also be available to the L2 learner, although such evidence as I have seen suggests that null expletives persist longer in L2 acquisition than null referential pronouns. 2 I have suggested that Ll parameter settings will be carried over in certain circumstances. Another possibility, still consistent w i t h the idea of UG as a parameterized system but not involving transfer, is that the language learner will adopt a parameter which is instantiated in neither Ll nor L2 but is nevertheless an option made available by UG. See Du Plessis et al. (1987) for an example of such a case.
48
Universal grammar and language transfer
choose the wrong parameter
for the
target language,
all struc-
tures associated w i t h that parameter should be affected, and when he or she
restructures
propriate
parameter,
the
interlanguage
this
change
structures. Thus, this view of UG changes in
learner grammars,
grammar
should
affect
predicts a
as the
to
the ap-
all
these
network of related
learner switches over from
the Ll parameter setting to that required in the L2. In proposing that in predicts
transfer,
I
certain do
not
simply takes the Ll grammar
well-defined
circumstances Ug
w i s h to suggest that the learner
and
slots
L2
vocabulary
into it.
Rather I assume that at all stages of the L2 acquisition process, the L2 learner is trying to come to terms with to
construct
a
grammar
to
account
structures
the
Ll
in
a
data, and
for that data. One of the
learner's tasks is to impose structure grammar
the L2
on the
L2 input.
particular
way
The Ll
and certain
parameters have been triggered for the Ll. I have suggested that, in certain
circumstances, these
Ll parameters are carried over;
in effect, the Ll data serve as input to the IL grammar, until L2 data
force
the
learner
to
reanalyse
respects. Where that fails to happen, to
interpret
the
Ll
data
as
the
IL in the relevant
the learner
relevant
will continue
to L2, so that the Ll
parameter will continue to be represented in the
interlanguage.
3. SUPPORTING EVIDENCE
Recently, there has been increasing acquisition
researchers
investigate the Amongst these,
role of few have,
parameterized UG fruitful
area
and UG in
of
research
interest
number
in
amongst L2
(see section 4).
pursued the implications of a
been done which
UG
of people have begun to
L2 development
as yet,
but what has
development process.
a
offers
suggests that
this is
insights into the L2
Lydia W h i t e
49
As far as the situations in (3a) and recent work
I have
(3d) are
speakers of Spanish learning English as a second 1985, 1986b).
concerned, in
investigated the pro-drop parameter in adult language
(White
Such adults have the parameter activated in LI and
are acquiring a language where it is not operative; they are thus in the
position of
having to
outlined in (3d). In judgments
and
a
three
like
(2c),
of
pronouns and
which
involve
for
English.
that English
pro-drop
extracting (1987),
and produce questions
subjects
other
work
subjects
an overt
within
the same
often omitted
in the
of Spanish students learning English. There is also in
in
the
literature
spontaneous
speakers of Spanish Schumann
over
a verb-subject word
working
framework, finds that subject pronouns are w r i t t e n work
has two of
languages: they accept
they accept
Phinney
grammaticality
I found that native
complementizer. They do not, however, accept order
w h i c h is the case
involving task,
indeed, assume
characteristics
missing subject
to - ,
experimental work
question-formation
speakers of Spanish do, the
rest it
1974;
and
learning
White
which elicited
ESL
1977;
reports
(e.g.
th
omission of
production Cancino,
by
native
Rosansky and
Butterworth and Hatch 1978). In my
experiments, native speakers of
French acted
as controls. Since
French, like English, is not a pro- drop language, these subjects were in situation (3a), acquiring a L2 w h i c h was similar to LI in the relevant
respects. They
did not
accept pro-drop character-
istics in English, again supporting my hypothesis. 1 Work by Ritchie (1978) is relevant to the situation described in
(3b),
where
operative in LI. E n g l i s h as w h i c h are
L2
has
Ritchie
some shows
principle activated w h i c h is not that
Japanese
adults learning
a second language constrain rightward movement rules, non-existent in
described as
Japanese, in
terms of
what would be
Subjacency, although he assumes an earlier formula-
tion of the principle.
In
other
words,
Japanese
adults, when
^-However, null expletives have been reported in interlanguages where neither LI nor L2 is a pro-drop language (e.g. Zobl 1984). It is possible that the null expletives and null referential pronouns should not, in fact, be treated as identical phenomena w i t h i n the pro-drop parameter. See Safir (1982) for discussion.
50
Universal grammar and language transfer
learning
English,
observe
instantiated in their LI,
a
universal principle w h i c h was not
suggesting that
parameters of
UG can
still be set for adults on exposure to an L2. The claims
outlined in (3c) are supported by research which
suggest that having to change word-order can
be
problematic.
For
Japanese and Chinese adults word order Muysken
avoid certain
differences between
(1981)
word-orders
show
by
that
Turkish
and branching direction
example, Schachter Ll and
the
and
(1974) claims that
structures because of
L2. Jansen, Lalleman and
acquisition
of
the
two Dutch
Moroccan immigrants is affected by
the Ll word-order, w i t h the former
preferring SOV
order and the
latter SVO. Flynn
(1983,
1984)
perhaps
is
the
first
to
pursue the
implications of the situation in (3c) from the point of view of a parameterized UG, and to suggest that where parameters differ, L2 acquisition might be where Ll
hindered.
She
tests
the
hypothesis that
and L2 m a t c h in branching direction, the acquisition of
complex sentences will be
facilitated,
and
match,
be
A d u l t native speakers of
acquisition
Spanish and
will
Japanese learning
involving adverbial tasks.
delayed.
Spanish,
English were
subordinate clauses,
like
English,
is
a
where
they
do not
tested on sentences
via elicited right-branching
imitation language
(heads are to the left of their complements), whereas Japanese is left-branching
(heads are to
the
do
Japanese
have
the right).
Her results
show that
more problems w i t h the structures tested
than the Spanish do, in accordance w i t h her hypothesis. A d j e m i a n and Liceras acquisition
of
(1984),
restrictive
in their
and English also report findings w h i c h and
(3d).
They
(COMP) systems of Spanish,
allows
look
at
are consistent
w i t h (3b)
the acquisition of the complementizer
different languages. English, unlike French or an
empty
COMP,
as in (6), where the relative
pronoun has been omitted: 6:
investigation of the
relative clauses in French, Spanish
The book I need is expensive
Lydia W h i t e
51
They find that native able
to
acquire
this
speakers of
native speakers of English difficulty in COMPs
from
speakers
losing it, LI
of
to
L2
French
French learning
ESL are
empty COMP, i.e. situation (3b), whereas learning
French
transferring the (situation
learning
language allows an empty
to
have some
possibility of empty
(3d)).
Spanish,
seem In
addition, native
where
COMP, nevertheless
neither
native
assume that Spanish
it. Since these subjects all knew English, this could
does allow
well be a case where evidence of other contributes to the current IL grammar.
languages that
one knows
1
Regarding the claim that a particular parameter should affect a range of structures in the IL grammar, in White
(1985, 1986b),
two of the three pro-drop characteristics are shown to be carried over into that
a
English by number
from the 1986),
of
parameter so
that
of modal
altogether
presence
at
of Spanish.
It turns out
(Chao
1981;
Safir
1982; Hyams
absence of VS order errors may be On
some
analyses
(Hyams 1986),
missing subjects crucially depends on the absence
auxiliaries
looking
or
parameter. 2
irrelevant to the possibility of
native speakers
recent linguistic analyses exclude the third
the
as
a
pro-drop
distinct
category.
Hilles
(1986),
parameter in the interlanguage of one
Spanish speaker learning English,
finds
modals in
the decrease in use of missing
the IL
coincides w i t h
that
the
emergence of
pronouns, suggesting that these apparently independent may be
related in
the ILG,
structures
as the parameterized approach would
predict. This analysis is particularly interesting since it looks at
aspects
of
parametric
variation
that
have
developmental
implications in L2 acquisition. 1 T h i s is not the interpretation they give to their results, although they do interpret them within the UG framework. 2 A n o t h e r possibility is that VS order is part of the pro-drop parameter and that it was not, for some reason, tapped by these grammaticality judgment tasks. Rutherford (personal communication) reports that he has many examples of VS order from Spanish learners of English, in written production data. In Schumann (1978), the transcripts of Alberto's speech include a number of examples of VS order as well.
52
Universal grammar and language transfer Flynn (1983,
branching
1984) also
direction
consequences
than
tries to
between overall
LI
show that differences in
and
L2
have
Lust (1981) claims that for LI acquisition direction ical anaphora
(i.e. the
more
difficulties w i t h complex
relationship between
subtle
sentences. of grammat-
pronouns and noun
phrases) accords w i t h the principal branching
direction (PBD) of
the language being learned. Flynn suggests that such a constraint may also be present in L2 acquisition , but confounded by the PBD LI, so
of the from
L2
will
grammatical
that native have
speakers of
particular
anaphora
in
L2.
branching
languages
where the
pronoun precedes
like
an LI whose PBD differs
difficulty
with
direction
of
According to the PBD claim, left-
Japanese
favour
the noun
backwards
it refers
anaphora,
to, as in (7b).
Right-branching languages like Spanish and English,
on the other
hand, favour forwards anaphora, as in (7a): 7a: b:
John went to a movie after he had dinner After he had dinner, John went to a m o v i e
(In both sentences, we are concerned only w i t h the interpretation where J o h n
and
speakers of learning
he
are
coreferential).
On
this
view, native
Japanese will be expected to have greater difficulty
English
structures
involving
anaphora
than
native
speakers of Spanish. Using sentences anaphora, subjects on than
the
Flynn
involving adverbial subordinate clauses and
found
b o t h forward Japanese,
acquisition of
that
the
performance
and backward
suggesting
anaphora where
a
of
her
Spanish
anaphora was m u c h better
general
depression
in
the
languages do n o t m a t c h in PBD. In
addition, while the Spanish subjects found forward anaphora cases significantly easier
than backward, the Japanese subjects showed
no significant difference between the two t y p e s . 1 l-The PBD claims for acquisition of anaphora were largely based on the situations pertaining in adverbial clauses (extensively studied by Flynn) and in conjoined clauses, w h i c h involve a different kind of anaphora. The facts regarding the possibilities for anaphora in Japanese are more complex and subtle than the PBD
Lydia W h i t e
53
4. COMPARISON W I T H OTHER APPROACHES
In recent theories of second language development, the finding of similarities in acquisition sequences and in error types to an
emphasis on
universal aspects of second language develop-
m e n t (e.g. Dulay and Burt 1974; Bailey, M a d d e n Dulay, Burt
has led
and Krashen
and Krashen 1974;
1982). In many cases, the assumption is
made that certain universal processes are at work, but these often rather
problems if considered from the learner's point of view 1976;
are
loosely defined and some of them involve conceptual
Corder
1978).
overgeneralization, neutral; they
In
(Adjemian
fact, universal strategies as loose as
simplification,
are compatible
and
transfer,
are
theory
w i t h many different theories as to
the nature of what is acquired by the L2 learner, and how. In some cases, more precise linguistic investigated, often
a number of recent papers have relative
clauses
in
the
noun-phrase accessibility conclusions
as
to
universals have been
within a typological framework. For example, looked at
the L2
acquisition of
context of Keenan and Comrie's hierarchy, and
whether
L2
learners
(1977)
have reached different do or do not transfer
resumptive pronouns and whether or not this relates theory alone allows. For example, backwards possible in the equivalents of sentences like:
to positions
anaphora is not
i. He said that John was unhappy In (i), the pronoun and the proper noun cannot refer to the same person, either in English or in Japanese. The fact that the pronoun precedes John is not sufficient to guarantee coreference in Japanese. One needs more detailed, structurally based principles, such as some version of the binding theory (Chomsky 1981a,1982), interacting w i t h X' theory, to account for the range of possibilities and, once one assumes such principles, m u c h of the PBD explanation of the acquisition of anaphora is rendered superfluous, since many of its claims fall out from the binding theory, w h i c h in addition accounts for cases that a PBD-based theory does not. The acquisition of L2 anaphora needs to be investigated on a wider range of syntactic structures than adverbial clauses, in order to determine the extent of the effects of word order differences on anaphora interpretation.
54 on
Universal grammar and language transfer Keenan
and
Comrie's
hierarchy
Kruse 1977; Gass 1979). What many clear is
the psychological
(e.g. Eckman 1977; loup and
of these
papers fail
to make
status of the hierarchy. Do learners
come equipped w i t h it or not, and, if not, how does it concern L2 acquisition? Theories of L2
development that accept UG as an explanatory
construct constitute an attempt to give precise content claims for
universals in
L2 acquisition and impute this content
to the learner. That is,
the
learner,
learner,
like
the
to these
LI
assumption
is
comes
acquisition w i t h specific linguistic
that
made
equipped
to
universals w h i c h
the L2 language
limit the
possibilities of grammar construction. There is a growing body of recent research that investigates the role tion (Ritchie and
1978; Liceras
Liceras
1984;
investigate the
of UG
in L2 acquisi-
1985; Sharwood Smith 1985; Adjemian
Mazurkewich
1984a,b).
A
few
specifically
implications of changing parameters of UG
(Flynn
1983,1984; Hilles 1986; Phinney 1987; W h i t e 1985, 1986b). I share with
all
of
these
assumptions
that
UG
is
still active, or
activatable, in L2 acquisition. However,
some
of
these
approaches
make
an
implicit or
explicit assumption that in L2 acquisition, as in LI acquisition, UG will interact directly w i t h the learned. In
other words,
it is
are
made
to
account
errors and the fact that the forms (Adjemian
this is dealt w i t h being that
in
a
U G can start from
effects the
grammar
from
Ll. Where
existence of transfer is
'permeable'
to Ll
1985; A d j e m i a n and Liceras 1984),
markedness
framework,
the assumption
transfer of the least marked aspects of Ll is likely.
Equivalent claims 1977; Kellerman
exist
outside
1979). However,
that this is not necessarily the to the
any for
IL
1976; Liceras
the language being
assumed that
scratch in L2 acquisition, without attempts
data from
ones outlined
the
UG
framework
(e.g.Eckman
see W h i t e (1986a) for arguments case. For
reasons very similar
in this paper, I propose that marked forms
are likely to be transferred to the L2, because they have already been motivated
in the Ll, so that the learner may fail to notice
when the L2 in fact does not contain marked forms.
Lydia W h i t e
55
My theory differs from many of those mentioned above in that I assume
that UG can take into account the existence of transfer
errors, that these are predictable variation between
the
basis
of parametric
LI and L2, and are likely in cases where there
is a conflict in the positive This differs
on
evidence available
in LI
and L2.
from the claims of traditional contrastive analysis
in a number of respects: a: I have distinguished three situations (3d))
which,
according
between the LI and L2, suggested that
to
CA,
and
hence
the differences
circumstances and
that
they
difficult. Specifically,
(those in (3b), (3c) and
would
constitute
difficulty.
are not will
differences
However,
I have
the same in these three
not
necessarily
be equally
I have proposed that (3d) constitutes a
potentially problematic situation for language learners,
if they
have only positive data to rely on. b:
Where
one
parameter
of
UG
has
a
range of consequences,
affecting a number of different structures, I have all
structures
related
to
connected in the IL of the them
will
affect
the
a
particular
learner, and
others.
In
proposed that
parameter
that changes
will
be
in one of
traditional CA, there is no
reason to assume that change in one structure should have
such a
subtle range of consequences. A number
of researchers have suggested that UG is n o t fully
available to adult learners w i t h other
systems, for
stage of Piaget proposal is
(Krashen
because
it
comes
into competition
example the formal operations cognitive and
Galloway
1978;
Felix
that one does not, in fact, need to go outside UG to
look for a source of conflict or competition for the that competition stress
universal
have focussed on the learners
of
aspects
parameter of
similar sequences
different
Lis
for
L2 acquisition
UG. Many theories
of second language acquisition the
of development acquisition
morphemes and certain syntactic structures. The applied to
L2 learner;
can be expected when two languages differ as to
the settings they adopt for some which
1985). My
shown by
of
theory of
various UG as
does not necessarily have anything to
56
Universal grammar and language transfer
say about acquisition sequences at all, unless it theory of
theory makes claims about the order (cf.
incorporates a
markedness and, in addition, it is assumed that such a
Liceras
1985;
Mazurkewich
of acquisition
in real time
1984a,b; Phinney 1987). For LI
acquisition, it may well be the case that some parameters are set before
others
potential
and
are
interaction
acquisition, one
necessary triggers to others. Given the between
data
from
LI
and
L2
in L2
cannot necessarily make such assumptions for L2
acquisition. The burden
of
providing
a
theory
of acquisition
through time may not rest w i t h UG at all, though it is clearly of great importance. The only made here
prediction for
acquisition sequences
is that, in certain circumstances, LI parameter values
will be instantiated in the IL grammar before
the appropriate L2
setting is acquired.
5. PEDAGOGICAL
IMPLICATIONS
Many second language learners differ from first language learners in one
possibly crucial
methods, correction
respect; that
is available
is, in
to the
effective is another matter. One aspect of the ative
language
teaching
is
to
structure as such; another is to
cut
m o s t L2 teaching
learner. Whether it is
down
m o v e to communicon
the teaching of
encourage communication without
interruption from corrections. A n implication of the situation in (3d) is
that truly
exposure to
L2, may
communicative teaching,
or totally
informal
leave gaps in the learner's knowledge, such
that he or she may never be able to lose the LI
setting, so that
LI forms will be particularly likely to fossilize in these cases. For those learners who do transfer LI forms
as a
result of such
circumstances, explicit correction or grammar teaching may be the only source of data to lead example, one that
change
in
their
grammars. For
may have to point out to native speakers of Spanish
pronouns
expecting
to
them
cannot to
be
notice
omitted that
in
English,
rather
than
this is the case. As mentioned
Lydia W h i t e
57
above, noticing
the
presence
of
pronouns
is
not necessarily
sufficient to show that English is not a pro-drop language. Thus, there appear to be some circumstances where depriving students of correction is
far more
problematic than is usually supposed, if
the student is aiming for accuracy as well as fluency in the L2. The situation discussed above cases where
positive evidence
is
in
complete
contrast to
is available in the L2 itself, as
is the case w i t h (3b) and (3c). Where the L2 data do
indicate an
explicit contrast w i t h LI, a difference that does not just depend on the absence of certain forms motivate the need to and
change in
for
the
the parameter
explicitly point
L2,
in
example.
L2,
is
positive data
in question;
out word-order This
the
not,
one may nor
differences between LI however, to rule out the
possibility that correction might provide a means of learner's
attention
to
certain
aspects
of
drawing the
the L2; the adult
learner, in particular, may sometimes find this useful. It m i g h t discussed teaching
appear
above in
talking
that
suggest
certain
about
the the
need
for
circumstances.
differences
However, for some learners, certain aspects
possibilities
of the
correction. implies
Thus,
it
prove
in
view some
of
and L2, this is not so.
have
second
measure,
language
means explicitly
useful
L2 which are not at all
this
retaining,
this
LI
others. Sometimes this focussing will
LI transfer
contrastive
If
between may
for
to
to
focus on
problematic for be
my
language
approaches
means of
acquisition to
language
teaching w h i c h are currently unfashionable. This approach to UG also has other implications of potential pedagogical interest: as we have a
range of
have seen,
syntactic structures may be might
be
that
one parameter
of UG may
consequences, as pro-drop does, in that several by
subsumed by
concentrating
one
the same
parameter. It
aspect of the parameter,
whether by explicit correction or otherwise, the teacher fact
be
initiating
grammar than might be concentrating on
a
much
wider
superficially
the lack
range
will in
of changes in the IL
expected.
For
example, by
of lexical pronouns in Spanish or the
58
Universal grammar and language transfer
required presence of lexical pronouns in English, the
teacher of
Spanish or English may be contributing to the learner's knowledge of subject these
extraction
languages
possibilities
without
from
embedded
clauses in
explicitly discussing this as an
ever
issue.
6. DIRECTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
Most of the experimental universal
grammar
for
work investigating L2
acquisition has involved adults. One
possibility that needs to be investigated from Ll
the implications of
is whether
competition
parameters is only a problem for adult learners, whether
children have more suggested
by
privileged
claims
that
access
children
to
interference errors (Dulay and Burt 1974). children do
not have
the kinds
the
L2
data,
as is
make negligible numbers of If it
turns out that
of problems that adults do, one
might propose that difficulties in changing parameters of
UG are
the linguistic effects of a critical period for L2 acquisition. A second area of considerable interest involves the question of directionality. I have suggested that in situations like those described in
(3d), the
and w h i c h the acquisition. It
L2
question as
will
lead
m i g h t be
to
to w h i c h language is the Ll
differences
in
difficulty of
easier for a native speaker of English
to acquire a pro-drop language than it is for a native speaker of Spanish to
acquire a
n o n pro-drop
language. In situations like
those in (3c), on the other hand, the difficulty should be equal; that is,
the native
speaker of
an SOV
language should experience the same degree other way
round. Both
of these
language learning a SVO of difficulty
claims need
as the
to be investigated
experimentally. A third area w h i c h
is of
particular interest
concerns the
learning situation; I have suggested that circumstances like (3d)
Lydia W h i t e
59
may be particularly absence
of
some
difficult, parameter,
contrast to the learner.
in
that
L2
is
marked
by the
rather than presenting an explicit
As
a
result,
such
circumstances may
require negative evidence in order for the learner to acquire the relevant aspects of the target grammar. In the cases that investigated,
the
teachers
told
discuss the obligatory nature
me
of
that
lexical
I have
they did explicitly pronouns
in English,
thus supplying the necessary evidence. Such evidence is m u c h less likely to be available in an informal setting.
Hence there
is a
need to investigate adult learners who have learned their L2 in a totally informal corrected, to
environment
see whether
where
or not
they
are
unlikely
to get
these situations are problem-
atic for them.
7. CONCLUSION
It might be objected that approaches to L2 acquisition that focus on the
explanatory value
of UG
are over-concerned w i t h narrow,
structural issues, specifically syntactic ones, and neglect other explanations. In
fact, such
objections rest on a misconception.
UG is invoked to account for a particularly problematic aspect of LI acquisition,
namely the
question of
how the child creates a
grammar, given the poverty of the stimulus, and, as I have argued above, this is also a crucial question in L2 acquisition. This is not to exclude the fact that
there
are
many
other
aspects of
language and language use that the learner must also acquire, but explanations of how the latter complementary to, has to offer. In learners'
is
achieved
should
be
seen as
rather than replacing, the explanation that UG addition,
to
account for
psychological and of difficulty for
is
the
concentrating
try on
learner
by
theories
social factors. I have suggested that a source the
difficulties
many
transfer
of
Ll
parameters,
independent of psychological factors, although it w i t h them
and this is
might interact
in interesting ways; that is, given that some learners
Universal grammar and language transfer
60
do experience "psychological distance" be interesting quences of these
if one
(Schumann 1978),
could characterize
non-linguistic
it would
the linguistic conse-
influences.
These consequences
might be to get stuck w i t h an LI parameter setting. In conclusion,
I have
suggested in this paper, that UG can
explain a number of aspects of L2 acquisition, including cases of language transfer. In particular, transfer is to be expected when the LI and L2 data conflict in specific be along
parametric lines.
ways, and
In addition,
transfer will
my hypothesis predicts
that certain cases of transfer will be m u c h
more persistent than
others, w h i c h has certain consequences for L2 teaching. Though it is somewhat unusual approach to
to
focus
L2 acquisition,
on
transfer
within
a universal
it seems that the current theory of
UG, w i t h its interest in predicting
and accounting
for language
variation, is a particularly appropriate source of explanation of some of the similarities and differences that have
been observed
in the L2 acquisition of speakers of different mother tongues.
4 The relation between linguistic theory and second language acquisition: a biological perspective Mary-Louise Kean 1. INTRODUCTION
The goal of modern linguistic theory is frequently taken to be the formal characterization of human linguistic capacity, a theory of Universal Grammar (UG). Under this view, linguistic theory is responsible for the characterization of both the structure of human languages and the capacity which the normal child brings to the task of first language (LI) acquisition. Because the course of first language acquisition is essentially uniform across individuals independent of the language being acquired and because language functions are selectively impaired by selective brain damage in the adult, linguistic capacity is taken to be a biological endowment. Linguistic theory is, in this context, then a functional biological model. In research on second language (L2) acquisition, attempts have been made to apply linguistic theory to the analysis of L2 data (e.g., White 1983, 1985; Flynn and Espinal, 1985; Hilles, 1986; Van Buren and Sharwood Smith, 1985). The role of linguistic theory in explaining L2 phenomena varies considerably in this research. At one extreme, there are those who hold "that the principles of UG which determine LI acquisition also determine L2 acquisition" (Flynn and Espinal, 1985 p. 108); at the other extreme are those who argue that linguistic theory allows for increased precision in formulating questions about L2, but "that increased precision is no justification for applying linguistic theory in simplistic ways to theoretical problems of [L2] acquisition" (Van Buren and
62
A biological perspective
Sharwood Smith, 1985, p. 36). In this paper it will be argued that there is no justification for assuming that UG either can or should be directly responsible to the facts of L2 acquisition, but, at the same time, L2 research can make critical contributions to the development of the theory of human linguistic capacity.
2. A BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON LINGUISTIC CAPACITY
In linguistic discussions of LI acquisition, it is often assumed that the child encounters the experience of his/her linguistic environment with a fully developed, operational theory of UG which serves to define the domain of learning and constrain the tacit hypotheses the child will adopt in the course of acquisition (e.g., Lightfoot, 1982; Hyams, 1983). This assumption is biologically implausible . The human nervous system undergoes extensive postnatal development (Conel, 1939-1959); this includes progressive changes in the substrate of linguistic capacity during maturation. The biological endowments of young language users change then during the course of acquisition. Two basic variables influence the development of the nervous system: maturation and experience. In the classic demonstration of this, Weisel and Hubel (1965) showed that the functional architecture of the visual system changes in response to specific visual experience at particular points in time. Biological parsimony therefore dictates that linguistic theory, UG, be taken as a characterization of an emergent property of the nervous system. (Kean, in press). If the assumption that linguistic theory is a functional biological model is taken seriously, then it must be predicted that ontogenetic variation in the structure of language relevant components of the nervous system will give rise to variation in the structure of linguistic capacity. If variation in function is
Mary-Louise K e a n not found
63
in relation
to variation in neural architecture, then
the claim that linguistic theory has biological content is either false or
at such
a level
of abstraction as to be devoid of any
interesting or significant empirical be offered
to illustrate
content. Two
examples will
the fact that linguistic capacity does
vary in consequence to ontogenetic variation in the substrate. Developmental dyslexia
is diagnostically
a specific reading
disorder; the diagnosis requires that the individual be of normal intelligence and motivation, have had appropriate acquire
reading
skills,
psychiatric disorder.
and
In a
developmental dyslexics, anomalies
series of
organization of
preferentially areas
of
Sherman, Rosen,
studies o n
the brains of
Galaburda and his colleagues have found
anomalies in the cellular cortical
opportunity to
not suffer clinical neurologic or
the
occurring left
Aboitz, and
brain areas
in
cerebral
w i t h the
language
responsible
hemisphere
(Galaburda,
Geschwind, in
press). The develop-
ment of these anomalies is of prenatal origin, dating to the time of
the
involve
formation atypical
atypicalities
of
the cortex. Structurally, these anomalies
patterns
of
of
cellular
organization
produce
growth and connectivity in the brain. mental dyslexic qualitative
organization.
anomalous
The brain
Such
patterns
of
of the develop-
represents therefore a case where there has been
ontogenetic
variation
in
the
structure
of
the
substrate of linguistic capacity. By
definition,
developmental
developmental aphasia order. Indeed,
in any
or
any
dyslexics
other
do
transparent
terse
just
as
nondyslexics.
atypicality of linguistic does
not,
however,
The
behaviour
entail
that
functionally the same as that studies of
phonological and provides data
readers (including
language dis-
of
in their
being loquacious
seeming
absence of any
developmental dyslexics linguistic capacity is
nondyslexics.
In
a
range of
syntactic capacity in developmental
dyslexia, anomalies in linguistic processing have M a n n (1984)
suffer
conversation w i t h a dyslexic discourse is
fluent and conventional; dyslexics vary between and
not
from longitudinal
dyslexics)
have
problems
been reported.
research that poor w i t h phonological
64
A biological perspective
processing. Vellutino
(1979) and Vogel
of problems w i t h inflectional mental dyslexics.
difficulties
dyslexia
subtle ontogenetic substrate
of
syntax in develop-
Kean (1984) reports that a subset of dyslexics
encounter specific Developmental
(1975) both offer evidence
morphology and with
provides
variation
linguistic
referential dependencies.
then
in
critical
the
capacity
evidence
structure
can
yield
that
the neural
of
variation in the
structure of linguistic capacity. Quantitative variation in the structure of the brain may also selectively
influence
Down's syndrome
the
there is
w h i c h preferentially
structure of linguistic capacity. In a quantitative
affects a
neuron cells (Ross, Galaburda, and study
of
language
curtailment of neurons
specific and ubiquitous class of
development
Kemper, in
1984).
Down's
In
an early
syndrome, Lenneberg
(1964, cited in Lenneberg, 1967) found that the onset of language acquisition
was
frozen at an
delayed
early
itudinal study,
and
Fowler
acquisition
she
proceeded
children. The course of
its
progress was seemingly
stage.
In
a
detailed long-
(1984) also found a delay in the onset of
acquisition, but, strikingly, course
that
developmental
found
at
the
that same
normal acquisition
over rate
its active as in normal
in Down's
seems to
cease at the level of linguistic competence typically achieved by a normal 2 1/2 year old some
individuals,
(mean length
Fowler
found
of utterance
that
3.0-3.5). In
period
of
followed by
development. As
this is a retarded population, it is critical to
the pattern
independent of
of language
other aspects
substrate
yields
development was
anomalous
found to be
of cognitive development. The data
from Down's syndrome therefore neural
of structurally
normal
development was note that
a period
the
also show
selective
that variation
variation
in
in the
linguistic
capacity. Data from both developmental provide
evidence
that
the
structure
of
development, it is
the
of
nervous
plausible
and
Down's syndrome
structure of the nervous system has
consequences for the structure the
dyslexia
to
linguistic
capacity. Because
system changes in the course of argue
that
the
structure of
Mary-Louise K e a n linguistic
65
capacity
is
development. This
view
Lenneberg
and
(1967)
also was
changing first
was
through
the
prominently
course of
put
forward by
reiterated by Gleitman (1981) on the
basis of Fowler's data on
Down's
syndrome.
language
normal
children has also been used to
argue
acquisition
that
course of
in
linguistic
capacity
acquisition. Just
changes,
Recent
research on
matures
through the
such findings are to be expected if
the assumption of a biological foundation
of linguistic capacity
is taken seriously. The brain
of a
in structure or
child is not a miniature adult brain either
function;
brain
systems
underlying linguistic
capacity and the functions subserved change through the course of development. In consequence, UG must be the nervous
system. Under
m a t u r e and become available acquisition. The
an emergent
property of
this interpretation, components of UG to the
child engages
child through
w i t h the
his/her linguistic environment under
the course of
experience provided by
constraints imposed
by the
currently available functional capacity. The specific
character of
functional capacities changes in
response to experience. The data system
cited
earlier
(Weisel
on
development
of
the visual
and Hubel, 1965) illustrate this
point. Operating under temporal constraints, the visual cortex is poised to
engage w i t h
specific visual experience; the nature of
the experience encountered during the critical period dramatically
influences
the
character
of development within the nervous
system (Blakemore, 1974). It is structure
of
the
linguistic
reasonable substrate
developmental experience. It would, to assume
that the
for a speaker of
to is
assume
that the
also influenced by
for example,
be implausible
neural representation of linguistic capacity
Turkish is
identical to
that of
a speaker of
German; if they were identical that could only m e a n
that German
and Turkish are identical, and that is surely not so. Cross-linguistic data on provide
evidence
capacity varies
that as a
the
acquired
language
disorders also
neural representation of linguistic
consequence of
the native
language of an
66
A biological perspective
individual. A translation of the speech output of an aphasic speaker of one language into any arbitrarily chosen other language will not be a felicitous rendering of the speech of an aphasic in the second language. If the languages are closely related typologically (e.g. German and Dutch) then of course the translation will be more felicitous than if the languages are typologically unrelated (e.g., Walbiri and Italian). But, this only serves to illustrate the point that what is neurally represented in speakers of German and Dutch is more similar than what is neurally represented in speakers of Walbiri and Italian. Since the functional substrate linguistic capacity of an adult is distinct from that of a child and the functional substrate varies among adult speakers of different languages, it follows that UG should not be expected to provide an explanation for L2 acquisition as well as LI acquisition. That is, if the focus of linguistic theory is on LI and biological parsimony is demanded, then UG cannot provide an account for both LI and L2 acquisition, and the point of view put forward by Flynn and Espinal must be rejected. Alternatively, if one abandons any pretense of biologism in linguistic theory, then one might attempt to develop a theory of acquisition which covered both the observations of LI and L2 as well as characterizing the structure of the language. It is doubtful however that any such enterprise could be successful or of interest since the functional structure of learners in the two contexts is distinct.
3. LINGUISTIC THEORY AND L2 ACQUISITION
To argue that the theory of UG will not provide an account for L2 acquisition on a par with the one it provides for LI acquisition is not to argue that UG is irrelevant to the analysis of L2 acquisition. Consideration of UG is critical in the analysis of L2 phenomena in two regards. On the one hand, UG provides a
67
Mary-Louise K e a n detailed framework
for analyzing structural data from L2; on the
other, considered in the context of studying how
the representation
quence of the combined influences The normatively second
language
L2 it
(/prescriptively) defective
L2 grammars of
the grammars of their
learners,
means for
varies as a conse-
of maturation and experience.
(Selinker, 1972), are typically taken to grammars. The
provides a
of language
interlanguages
be formally well-formed
nature of their anomaly arises from their deviance
from the grammar of a native speaker of the target L2. This testable
empirical
assumption.
provides a characterization possible
natural
first
In
of
principle,
all
and
only
The
variable properties of
human
different
combinations of
languages;
variables.
The
languages characterized
rather set
in
terms
of para-
are
possible
linkages natural
among (first)
by UG is then a proper subset of the set
well-formed under
sistent parameter settings be critical test
parameter settings are
there
of
of logically possible parameter are indeed
UG
the biologically
the child must set in the course of acquisition. It
is n o t the case that all possible
is a
theory of UG
languages.
human languages are characterized within meters w h i c h
a
settings. UG, then
If
L2 interlanguages
in no case should incon-
encountered.
UG
provides
then a
of the nature of the object under consideration in
L2 research. As the effective learning procedures for ition are
necessarily distinct, a finding that L2
are not well-formed under UG would ing. That
LI and
is, if
it were
were well-formed in terms
not be
L2 acquis-
interlanguages
particularly
surpris-
found that all interlanguage grammars of UG,
that would
suggest that there
are two distinct mechanisms for language learning, one for LI and another for While that
L2, and is a
that the
outputs of
logical possibility,
these are isomorphic.
it is
n o t a particularly
plausible one. There are four candidate explanations for findings of seeming convergence between L2 representations and representations that are wellformed under UG.
68
A biological perspective
First, there are invariant principles of language structure, e.g., structure dependence (Chomsky, 1971). Invariant principles become available in the course of maturation and no learning is required. Thus, if the L2 learner is exploiting his/her available linguistic resources, then these invariant principles should be available and operative in the L2 as in the LI. If structural relations in L2's conform to the invariant principles of UG, that would be compelling evidence that second language learners are processing and representing their L2's through the critical exploitation of their innate linguistic capacity. Such a finding would place powerful constraints on the class of learning and processing procedures which are available for L2 acquisition. Second, there could be transfer from the well-formed LI into the target L2. The mechanisms of learning in such cases are not of a kind with the mechanisms of parameter setting found in first language acquisition since parameter settings are being copied not set. Taking UG to be an emergent property of the system, no parameter setting with the course encountered in first language acquisition should be encountered. White's data (1986b) indicating that markedness considerations do not function in L2 acquisition as they do in LI, supports the notion of UG as an emergent property of the system and its corollary that parameter setting (in the sense of LI acquisition) will not be encountered in L2. Transfer provides a critical vehicle for postulating structural representations in the target L2. It does not, however, insure that the grammar of the interlanguage taken as a whole will be allowable under UG. The combination of transferred structures and innovative L2 structures might not constitute one of the languages represented by UG. Third, it may well be the case that language processing mechanisms constrain the class of possible linguistic representations such that only representations which are well-formed under UG are realizable. To claim that, however, is only to claim that the structural representations generated in processing will include as a proper subset the sets of structures which constitute the languages sanctioned by UG. That is, UG characterizes
Mary-Louise K e a n not only
69
the structures
them; e a c h
but also
structure of
co-occurrence relations among
the interlanguage
could be grammatical
for some language, but the set of structures taken together might not
be
well-formed
a
language.
The
resources available beyond invariant since structural that
strategies
become
place. Attempting
under this view functional
and transfer
innovation away from LI does occur. It could be
processing
learning takes
L2 learner obviously has
UG principles
could
capacity
acquisition, then
lead of
to
the
L2 research
a
mechanism
through which
to process novel L2 structures structural
processor
innovation.
does
can provide
If the
play a role in L2
critical evidence on
its structure. Fourth,
it
could
also
be
the case that the learning and
processing mechanisms employed in fall
outside
the
domain
nevertheless, yield to those
of
some
the
aspects
language
representations w h i c h
of
L2 learning
faculty, but will,
are weakly equivalent
found in the languages characterized by UG. If the (LI)
processor the
learner
deterministic, then
brings
to
the
task
of
acquisition is
it must be the case that factors outside the
core m o d u l e of human linguistic capacity are playing a role in L2 acquisition.
A
deterministic
processor
will
only yield well-
formed structures and allows for no back tracking.
To the extent
the L2 differs from the LI, a deterministic processor will not be able to compute
representations;
any
analysis
by
the learner
would, therefore, have to be undertaken u s i n g extramodular metalinguistic and nonlinguistic) problem solving skills sort.
L2
analysis
learners of
(e.g., of some
exploiting extralinguistic capacities in the
sentences
representations w h i c h skills are used, two
must, do not
by
definition,
fall under
questions of
be
generating
UG. To the extent such
interest are
raised. To what
extent does their use persist independent of L2 proficiency? And, where the u s e of such ciency,
by
what
skills
mechanism
being instructed? The latter for the
diminishes
with
increased profi-
is the linguistic processing system question is
of critical
importance
development of any understanding of how human linguistic
capacity interacts w i t h other cognitive capacities.
70
A biological perspective It is the questions raised by
analyzing convergence
these four
between the
possibilities for
theory of UG and the analysis
of L2 data w h i c h are at the heart of theoretical consideration of L2 phenomena.
Because human
endowment whose mature
linguistic capacity is a biological
character
is
shaped
by
m a t u r a t i o n and
experience, UG cannot be directly responsible for the facts of L2 acquisition.
Second
interesting
if
we
language find,
learning procedures and from those as
well
as
acquisition we
is
none
the
less
should expect to do, that its
representations
vary
in
some respects
characterized through UG. Cases of divergence from UG as
understanding
convergence the
with
growth
and
UG
provide
maturity
critical of
human
data
for
linguistic
capacity. As theories of UG characterize an emergent property, it is
only
through
structure and addressed.
L2
function
research of
that
mature
many
questions
linguistic
about the
capacity
can be
5 Syntax and stylistics: more on the pro-drop parameter Juana M . Liceras
1.
INTRODUCTION
The Government and Binding theory (Chomsky, 1981, 1982) provides a rich framework for the investigation of L2 acquisition. Specifically, the concept of parameter setting has been useful to make precise hypotheses about transfer (Van Buren and Sharwood Smith 1985, White 1985, 1986), difficulty of acquisition (Mazurkewich 1984, Flynn 1986) or permeability (Liceras 1985, 1986a). That research has proven to be fruitful in that it has contributed a finer specification of the principles that may be relevant to L2 acquisition theory. However, it has also pointed to the fact that the properties which cluster around a given parameter may not constitute a global learning unit for L2 learners. Namely, the acquisition of a given property does not, or may not, necessarily trigger the setting of the parameter as a whole. Furthermore, a careful look at any of the parameters discussed in the literature shows that resetting a parameter cannot be thought of as a straightforward task, not even with respect to a given property because it involves learning the properties of a given category as well as the idiosyncratic features of a particular construction.
*Research for this project was supported by a grant from the School of Graduate Studies of the University of Ottawa. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Language Acquisition Research Symposium (LARS), Utrecht, The Netherlands, September 1986.
72
More o n the pro-drop parameter To illustrate those points I have investigated the resetting
of
one
work: the
of
the
best
so-called
defined parameters in current theoretical
'pro-drop'
parameter.(Chomsky 1981, Jaeggll
1982, Rizzi 1982) w h i c h differentiates, for instance, Spanish and Italian (+PD) from English and French (-PD). The
properties that
have been assigned to this parameter can be described as follows: a:
Spanish, unlike English or French, can have missing subjects as shown in (1) and (2): 1:
pro salieron a las ocho *left at eight they left at eight
2:
pro llovió mucho ayer *rained a lot yesterday it rained a lot yesterday
pro is the empty category w h i c h has to have an
overt counterpart
in English or French. b:
Spanish can have free subject-verb inversion as in (3): 3:
pro han llegado mis estudiantes *have arrived my students my students have arrived
c:
Spanish can have apparent violations of the so-called that-t filter as indicated in (4): 4: ¿Quién^ has dicho pro que
va a venir?
*Who did you say that is going to come? Who did you say is going to come? Que
has to be placed before the t left by quién w h e n wh-movement
applies. d:
Spanish can have long wh-movement as shown in (5):
Juana M. Liceras
5:
73
Ese hombre-^ que pro me pregunto a quien t¿ habrá visto *That man¿ that I wonder whom he¿ may have seen
The subject of the ized in Spanish.
embedded clause (ese hombre) can be relativ-
The acquisition of this parameter by native speakers of Spanish learning English has been studied - with different approaches and methodologies - by White (1985) and Hilles (1986). White's aims were to determine firstly whether the carrying over of pro-drop in Spanish was a potential source of transfer errors in the English interlanguage and secondly whether the nonoccurrence of one of the properties discussed above is sufficient to trigger the loss of all of them. The subjects in White's study were Spanish and French speakers - the second group was used as control - learning English in a classroom setting. Hilles, following Hyams' (1983) framework and methodology wanted to determine firstly whether there was a correlation between the emergence of lexical material in AUX (modals) and the decrease of missing subjects in the English interlanguage1 and secondly whether the emergence of expletives, acting as a trigger, would coincide with the emergence of lexical material in AUX and the decrease of pro-drop; and thirdly whether pro-drop - being the unmarked option - would occur in the initial stages. Hilles assumed - following Hyams (1983) among others - that free inversion and that-t were not related to the pro-drop parameter. In Hilles' study there was a 12 year old subject whose spontaneous speech had been elicited over a 10 month period.2
^•In Hyams' (1983) analysis, the presence of pro in the AGR node excludes the presence of lexical material (such as modals) in the AUX node, and vice versa. 2 Hilles used transcripts of the IL of a subject from a longitudinal SLA study by Cancino et al. (1978). She chose Jorge, a 12-year-old from Columbia, who had moved to Boston.
74
More on the pro-drop parameter Hilles
found
interlanguage as
pro-drop well
as
in a
the
initial
coincidence
stages of Jorge's
in
the
emergence of
expletives, lexical material in AUX and decrease of pro-drop. All this happened around the sixth month. While it finding, it may
is an interesting
neither be an indication of the triggering value
of expletives, nor of the
status
of
pro-drop
as
the unmarked
option. In fact, the missing pronouns of the initial stages could be due to transfer evidence
of
a
from Spanish.
developmental
missing pronouns in the speakers
of
French,
To prove
stage
early
,
stages
German
or
that they constitute
one
of
any
would have to find
the
interlanguage of
other - P D language. White
(1985) found that French speakers seldom fail to identify missing pronouns. Nonetheless it is problematic to compare the results of the two studies because they differ w i t h respect to subjects' age and the
elicitation techniques.
However, it cannot be concluded
that the omission of pronouns by Jorge evidences
a developmental
stage rather than transfer. The
fact
that
expletives,
decrease of missing pronouns Jorge's interlanguage act as a trigger to pronouns. That
lexical
occur
material
around
the
in
same
AUX and period in
does not necessarily prove that expletives posit
the
obligatory
presence
of subject
coincidence might well be due to overall develop-
ment in the acquisition of Spanish. Namely, a number of constructions not
related to
pro-drop will also emerge at the very same
time. There is a further technique:
the
fact
problem that
a
concerning construction
Hilles' is
not
conversation does not necessarily m e a n that it does the
interlanguage.
In
subjects to judge a
this
respect,
given construction.
elicitation used
in a
not exist in
White's technique forced It was
not the
u s e of
various properties of pro-drop but the judgments on the sentences that showed with
that more
increasing
missing pronouns
levels
of
inversions were always rejected seldom property
detected. was
not
In
other
sufficient
were correctly
proficiency, and that
words,
the
to
trigger
that
rejected
subject-verb
that-t violations were non-occurrence loss
of
the
of one other
Juana M. Liceras properties,
75
which
indicates
that learners may require separate conclusion seems
evidence for each aspect of the parameter. This to be
further confirmed
when one investigates the properties of
the pro-drop parameter from the point of view
of the acquisition
of a (+PD) language such as Spanish.
2. LEARNING A (+PD) LANGUAGE
Besides
resetting
the
pro-drop
parameter
w i t h respect to the
properties listed in section 1, F r e n c h and English
speakers have
to acquire the following knowledge concerning the category pro: Optionality
versus
optionally or
obligatoriness:
obligatorily
construction. For
instance, pro
6:
subject
depending
in (1)
overt counterpart as shown in (6), pleonastic pro in
A
deleted
can be
but the
pronoun on
the
can be type of
replaced by its
overt counterpart of
(2) yields an ungrammatical
result:
Ellos salieron a las ocho They left at eight
7: *Ello llovió mucho ayer It rained a lot yesterday F r e n c h and
English speakers
learning Spanish
have to differen-
tiate pleonastic and non-pleonastic pro. If both instances of pro are related, it should be the case that missing pronouns will not occur if expletives have not
been
eradicated
from
the Spanish
interlanguage. The properties
of pro and its overt counterpart: As Suner
has shown, pro
can receive
both
an
arbitrary
and
(1983)
a specific
interpretation, exactly as English 'they' in (8) and (9).
76
More on the pro-drop parameter 8: 9:
pro llaman a la puerta they are knocking at the door Lola dijo que pro han confirmado la noticia Lola said that they have confirmed the piece of news
On the other hand, the overt pronominal ellos can only receive specific interpretation both in (6) above and (10). 10:
Ellos llaman a la puerta They are knocking at the door
In this case we know who ellos are. Subject inversion: Subject-verb inversion is supposed to be free so that the NP in (3) above can optionally occur before the verb, as shown in (11): 11:
Mis estudiantes han llegado My students have arrived
However, if the distinction between ergative and non-ergative verbs proposed by Burzio (1981) and Chomsky (1982) has its roots in actual native speakers' intuitions, inversion may have a different status depending on the type of verb.1 According to Burzio (1981), the NP that occurs with ergative verbs is generated in post-verbal position in the case of (11), but not in the case of the non-ergative verb in (12), as indicated in (13) and (14). 12:
Han telefoneado mis estudiantes My students have phoned
^•Burzio (1981) maintains that ergative verbs do not assign case to their direct object but do assign a theta-role to it (presumably theme). Bouchard (1982) provides a different analysis. He maintains that ergative verbs are assigned nominative case at LF level, not at the syntactic level. This is so because it is at the level of LF that (+PD) languages assign case. It is the NP that is assigned nominative case because there is a missing subj ect.
Juana M. Liceras 13: 14:
77
pro^ han llegado mis estudiantes^ [e]¿ han telefoneado mis estudiantes^
According to this analysis, there should be a clear preference for inversion in this case of ergative verbs,1 the fronting of the NP being the exception. On the other hand, the NP will usually occur in pre-verbal position with non-ergative verbs.2 Referentiality: As Montalbetti (1984) and Lujan (1985, 1986) have shown, lexically specified pronouns carry an interpretive behaviour not shared by corresponding phonologically null pronouns. Thus, the presence of the lexically specified pronoun in (15) and (16) is not optional because the coreferential interpretation of the indexed pronouns is only possible in (15). 15:
Cuando Juan^ trabaja, {él^/OjJ no bebe When Juan works {HE^ /he^} does not drink
16:
Cuando {*él¿/0¿} trabaja, Juan^ no bebe When {HE^/he^} works , Juan does not drink
•••The structures (1981) are:
assigned
to
these
constructions
in
Chomsky
(13)a [VP han llegado [NP mis estudiantes]] (14)a [VP [VP han telefoneado] [NP mis estudiantes]]] 2 In fact, inversion is more of a complicated phenomenon than it looks when the properties of (+PD) languages are listed in the literature. Torrego (1984) maintains that in addition to free subject inversion, Spanish has an obligatory inversion rule that applies obligatorily when a wh-phrase of a certain kind or its trace appears in COMP prior to logical form LF in finite clauses, as illustrated in (a) and (b):
a:
Qué querían esos dos? 'What did those two wanted?1 *Qué esos dos querían?
b: Con quién vendrá Juan hoy? 'With whom will Juan come today?' *Con quién Juan vendrá hoy? The examples are taken from Torrego (1984). She also discusses the relationship between adverb placement and inversion.
78
More o n the pro-drop parameter
In (-PD) languages, the contrast depends pronoun
is
stressed
or
not.
Thus,
on whether
the subject
native French and English
speakers will have to identify that contrast in Spanish. Syntax and stylistics: The that
there
various
is
clear-cut
properties
inversion
is
language. On and some
that
regulated
distinction
have by
the other
cases This
been
among
assigned
of
the
stylistic
hand, pleonastic
inversion
situation
has
far shows
and w i t h i n the to
the pro-drop
are
component
of
the
pro, that-t violations
regulated
at
the syntactic
consequences for the acquisition of
both a (+PD) and a (-PD) language. In may not
described so
the one hand, the presence of missing pronouns and
parameter. O n
level.
a
Spanish data
the former
case, learners
be transferring their grammaticality judgments but their
stylistic preferences. That could explain the fact that inversion was seldom
accepted by
White's (1985)
sentences where inversion was ergative
verbs
(in
Burzio's
subjects: the two simple
rejected
were
instances
terms),
thus
SV
preferred order in Spanish. 1 Also, it may well an
important
respect to factors
factor
in
the
need
of
subject
the
which
account
ambiguity, redundancy, ation, emphasis,
for
resetting their
of non-
would
be the
be
the
case that
of (+PD) to (-PD) w i t h
pronouns
be
the
'stylistic'
presence in Spanish. Namely,
facilitating
the
processing
etc. Consequently, learners would not
of inform'realize'
^-White's (1985) simple sentences were: 13: 15:
Slept the baby for three hours Walk the boy very far
A further explanation to why these two sentences might have been systematically rejected is the ambiguity that SV inversion created in English: the post-verbal NP would be interpreted as a direct object. This ambiguity would never be possible in Spanish because [+human] DOs are marked w i t h a,as in (a) and (b): a: b:
pro durmió al niño he put the baby to sleep pro paseó al niño he took the baby for a walk
It may well be the case that lack of [+human] DO marking role in the resetting of the free SV inversion property.
play a
J u a n a M. Liceras that a
79
subject pronoun
has to
be present
w h e n it is obviously
redundant, while they will insert it otherwise. 1 The
resetting
of
a
(+PD)
language
poses
the
following
questions: 1:
W i l l French and English speakers
'realize' that Spanish is a
(+PD) language with respect to all four properties described above
or
will
they
require separate evidence for some of
the aspects of the parameter? 2 2.
Is there any evidence of an
ergative/non-ergative
distinct-
ion in the subjects' acceptance and production of inversion? 3.
Are subjects
in command of the stylistic conventions which
govern the presence of overt subject pronouns in Spanish? 4.
Is there any relationship of
the
pro-drop
grammatical and
between
parameter
and
the the
syntactic resetting subjects'
overall
stylistic competence in Spanish?
l-This may explain the differences found her sentences 8 and 22, for instance.
by White
(1985) between
8: My sister is very tired because pro came home late last night 22: John is greedy, pro eats like a pig While the presence of he in 22 would be absolutely redundant, the presence of she would clarify that it is the speaker's sister not himself/herself who came home late. 2 B o u c h a r d (1982) argues that (+PD) languages such as Italian and Spanish allow empty category pro in subject position as well as inversion because a) they can assign case at LF; b) their rich inflexion accounts for the assignment of R - i n d e x and F-features to pro.
80
More on the pro-drop parameter
3. THE STUDY
In order to investigate those issues, two French and two English adults who spoke Spanish as a foreign language were tested on various constructions related to pro-drop and their spontaneous speech was also recorded. 3.1. Subj ects The French speakers were M.A. students in our Spanish M.A. programme at the University of Ottawa. They had been studying Spanish for 6 years. None of the two had ever visited a Spanishspeaking country. The English speakers were two young journalists who had had a few weeks of formal training in Spanish but had lived in Spain for eight months immediately before they were contacted for our study. All four subjects were chosen because their Spanish was judged to be equally good by three native speakers who judged the recorded spontaneous speech of 12 non-native subjects. They were students in our Spanish M.A. programme. 3.2. Method All subjects were asked to tell a story and to perform a grammaticality judgment task. The story-telling task was recorded. Subjects were asked to talk about a movie or any story they might want to talk about. The grammaticality judgments tests consisted of 14 items which contained instances of missing pronouns, overt subject pronouns, expletives, subject-verb inversion and that-t sentences (see Appendix). Subjects were asked to identify the sentences that were incorrect and give the correct version. They were also asked to give acceptable versions of the sentences that were correct but did not look 'appro-
J u a n a M. Liceras priate'.
This
'stylistics'.
81 was
done
in
order
to
test
their
command of
1
There were
cases of redundant subject pronouns such as those
in #1 and #2. #1:
Pedro esta muy cansado. El ha dormido como u n cesto Pedro is very tired. He has slept like a log
El would not be used in Spanish because it is redundant and could be interpreted as non-coreferential w i t h Pedro. #2:
Durmió el nino durante tres horas y nosotros pudimos descansar Slept the boy for three hours and we were able to rest
Nosotros is
redundant because
pudimos already indicates that it
has to be nosotros. Subjects were supposed to delete both nosotros, though
el and
the presence of nosotros could have a contrast-
ing effect. There were cases of expletives such as: #5: *Ello hace u n viento horrible It is very windy The sentence is ungrammatical when ello is present. to
Subjects had
delete ello. There were instances of pleonastic and non-pleonastic pro as
in: #14:
pro empieza a haber mucho ruido aqui It is beginning to be very noisy here
1
N o instance of long wh-movement (4) in section 1 - was included because both native and non-native subjects had difficulties interpreting those sentences in previous studies.
More on the pro-drop parameter
82
#6:
pro cenan a las diez porque viven realmente a la española they have supper at ten because they really live the Spanish way
Subjects were supposed to accept these sentences as such. Some instances of non-pleonastic pro had unspecified reference: #3:
Ana quiere decirnos como pro se llega a su casa Ana wants to tell us how to get/one gets to her house
In #3 pro does not have any specific reference. Subjects were supposed to accept sentence #3 as such.1 Item #2 (see appendix) is an instance of inversion involving a non-ergative while the verb in item #7 belongs to the ergative group. Subjects were supposed to accept #7 but not #2. Subjects had to identify the ungrammaticality of item #8, in which the complementizer que is missing. 3.3. Results: the syntactic level 3.3.1. Missing subjects All missing subjects with specified reference (items #6, #7, #8 and #11 in the grammatically judgments task) were accepted by all subjects (see appendix). The cases of missing subjects with unspecified reference involve SE-constructions (items #3 and #9). The two native subjects accepted all three instances. All the non-native subjects had problems with these constructions, as indicated in table 1. Jill and Larry crossed out the two se forcing a reading with specified reference. Louise crossed out the se and put the verb in the infinitive form, keeping the unspecified reference without pro + se. Anne circled se es and wrote a question mark. l-See Suñer (1982, 1983) for pro.
an
analysis
of
the
properties of
Juana M. Liceras Except for
83
Louise who accepted it, similar corrections were made
in the case of item #3. In Larry's case the
se was
kept but, in
of the sentence, pro has a specific reference
his interpretation
w h i c h includes Ana, the subject of the main verb. The stories told by all subjects contained a large number of missing pronouns
w i t h specified
w i t h unspecified reference,
reference. Two instances of pro
with
the
verb
in
the
3rd person
plural - as in (8) above - were produced by Anne and Louise. These results
indicate that pro-drop is well established in
the interlanguage of our
subjects. Cases
of pro
+ se
were the
only instances of pro w h i c h were neither produced nor accepted by the non-native speakers. This those constructions,
since pro
pro w i t h intransitive or realization of "uno"
( + ) * * *
due to
the ambivalence of
may be interpreted as pleonastic
existential verbs
or as
the non-overt
(one).
#3 pro se llega Larry Jill Louise Anne native 1 native 2
may be
#9 pro se es
pro se deben* llegar** + se + +
#9 pro no se es
se se ser (to be) •>
+ +
se se ser ? +
+
acceptance of pro they should get together to arrive
Table 1: Grammaticality judgments. Acceptance of pro w i t h unspecified reference 3.3.2. Expletives The only
instance of
a lexicalized
expletive
was rejected by all subjects. Pleonastic pro in the existential constructions all subjects.
(ello in item #5) item #15
and in
(items #4, #9, #10) was accepted by
84
More on the pro-drop parameter All the stories contained
existential
ones.
No
instances
instances
of
expletives, mainly
of lexicalized expletives were
produced. This indicates that pleonastic pro has been acquired by all subjects. 3.3.3. T h a t - t B o t h native #8 in the
speakers and
Louise put que (that) before t in item
grammaticality
accepted
the
judgment
ungrammatical
que or quien if they transferred native language.
The fact
task.
The
other subjects
sentence. French speakers would put the qui
that Anne
w h i c h occurs
did not
in their
write any lexical
item may be due to her knowledge of English. No
instances
of
that-t
constructions
occurred
in
the
stories. It should be noted that the subjects did not produce any empty complementizer such as in (17) or 17: 18:
Mary said
she is coming
She is the woman
Consequently,
we
accepted
English
the
accept the
ungrammatical.
In
we were looking for
cannot
Spanish
(18):
determine
version
equivalents previous
whether
the
subjects
who
of that-t in Spanish, would also of
(17)
and
(18),
w h i c h are
studies (Adjemian and Liceras 1984;
Liceras 1986a) it was found that advanced learners of Spanish did not accept
instances of
empty complementizers
such as those in
(17) and (18) but accepted cases of missing que such item
#8,
which
indicates
that
that-t
as those in
constructions
are not
perceived as being similar to (17) and (18) above. 3.4.
Results: The stylistic level
3.4.1. Inversion Table 2 shows that inversion w i t h accepted
by
the
two
subjects accepted inversion in verb.
dormir (non-ergative)
was not
native subjects. As expected, both native the case
of llegar,
an ergative
Juana M. Liceras
85
#2 durmió el niño (slept the boy) Larry Jill Louise Anne native 1 native 2
#7 llegó Juan (arrived Juan)
+
+ +
+ + +
-
-
-
-
-
-
(+) acceptance (-) rejection Table 2: Grammaticality judgments: Acceptance of inversion
Larry : 1. ... cuando llegó el frío when arrived the cold 2. ... y enterarme de lo que están haciendo estos escritores and find out what are doing the writers Jill: 1 ... como se desarolla la película how proceeds the movie 2. ... ocurre una cosa bastante extraña happens a thing rather strange 3. ... y salió un nombre and a name came out a name 4. ... donde viven ellos where live they 5. ... es que han tenido los dos it is that have had the two Louise
None
Anne : 1. ... y van los quatro and go the four of them 2. ... donde vive su madre y su padre where live her mother and her father native 1: 1. ... .primero, son todos italianos first, are all Italian 2. ... .la situación en la que se encuentra esta familia native 2: None Table 3: Stories: Inversion
86
More on the pro-drop parameter
Three non-native subjects accepted all inversions and one did not accept any of them. subjects had
These
results
indicate
that
none
of the
native competence with respect to free inversion in
Spanish. However, this assertion because, even
though the
should
be
taken
w i t h caution
native judgments coincide w i t h my own,
only two native subjects have judged these constructions. All instances 3) were
of inversion
produced in
the stories
(Table
perfectly acceptable, more so than the case of durmió in
item #2. Louise and the one
native speaker
did not
produce any
inversion in their story. 3.4.2. Overt subj ect pronouns There was
a total
rejection of either ella or la in the case of
item #11. #11
pro la(i) vi que ella(i) venía pero no la saludé I her saw that she was coming but not her greet 'I saw her coming but I did not greet her'
All subjects were able
to identify
the ungrammaticality
created
by the presence of both the direct object of ver and the coreferential subject of venir. 1 This syntactic judgment was it would
be the
different from
same in the rest
either English of the
accurate -
or F r e n c h - and rather
judgments on
the overt subject
pronouns. As shown in table 4, the French and the native subjects accepted either él or yo but not both Native
speakers
would
normally
emphatic and would avoid using él
1
use
in the yo
case of
item #12.
if
they wanted to be
because, as
we indicate below
Sufier (1982) argues that in the matrix sentence pro is governed and controlled by the matrix object. According to Sufier, little pro, u n l i k e big PRO, is governed. However, both little pro and big PRO are controlled.
Juana M. Liceras
87
(note l, page 88), it may create some sort of ambiguity.1 The same could be said of él in item #1. Nosotros in item #2 #1 [él]
#2 [nosotros]
#11 [ella]
#12 [él]
#12 [yo]
_ +
+ +
_
+
+
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
+
+ +
+
-
-
-
+
-
-
Larry Jill Anne Louise native 1 native 2
-
+
+
+ -
+
(+) the subject pronoun was accepted (-) the subject pronoun was crossed out Table 4: Grammaticality judgments: Acceptance of overt subject pronouns reinforces the contrast between el niño and the speaker at the semantic level. At the structural level, nosotros is somehow preferred over pro because it ensures parallelism between the two coordinate sentences (both have lexicalized subjects). In fact, all subjects but Anne accepted nosotros. None of the subjects accepted or rejected all subject pronouns. The overall use of overt subject pronouns in the stories is shown in table 5. The percentages indicate the number of overt subject pronouns out of all possible instances that were used. Only cases of pro with unspecified reference are included.
Larry Jill Anne
06% 15% 40%
3 out of 50 6 out of 40 25 out of 62
Louise native 1 native 2
02% 14% 16%
1 out of 37 1 out of 7 4 out of 25
affection (1); contrast)2) ambiguity (5); facilitation (1) ambiguity(3); facilitation (5); contrast (2); affection (2); verbs of saying (7); redundant (6); resumptive (1) contrast emphasis contrast(3); emphasis (1)
Table 5: Stories: Percentage of overt subject pronouns used
1
The verbs in White's sentence #22 and in this sentence favour a reading in which the proper noun and the subject pronoun are coreferential.
More o n the pro-drop parameter
88 The use of overt pronouns by similar
even
though
the two
native
1
native speakers
is rather
chose to talk about a movie and
native 2 about her personal life. Jill and
Louise also
chose to
talk about a movie. Larry talked about his life in Spain and Anne told a story for children. The same factors that presence
of
subject
their presence in the also similar
pronouns
system. 1
non-native
one subject,
except for
account for the
in the native system account for The
percentages are
Anne. The large number of
pronouns produced by this French speaker may be due to the actual story; since
it was
addressed to
children, an attempt may have
been m a d e to be more explicit or emphatic. It may also reflect an overuse of
subject pronouns by this subject. In this respect, it
should be
pointed out
system, as
that this
subject's command
of the verb
reflected in the production that we have analyzed, is
considerably poorer than expected
for her
and
other
poorer
than
Louise's,
s t u d y . 2 Nevertheless, that existence of
the in
a correlation
itself
level (high advanced) French
would
between overall
speaker in this
not
point
proficiency and the
use of subject pronouns because our E n g l i s h subjects' the verb English
to the
command of
system was even poorer than Anne's. However, unlike our subjects,
Anne
setting,
which
could
w h e n the
language is
has suggest
learned
Spanish
in
a
classroom
that the correlation only exists
not acquired
in a
natural setting. Given
that it is only one subject who told a very special story, we may simply be dealing w i t h an 'intentional'
style.
l-See Fernández Ramírez (1951) and Liceras (1986b) for an analysis of the u s e of subject pronouns in written Spanish. Barrenechea (1977) and Enriquez (1984) have studied the u s e of subject pronouns in spoken Spanish. 2
B y command of the verb system we m e a n correct use of the verb inflexion as well as the u s e of tense, mood, etc.
Juana M. Liceras
89
4. DISCUSSION
We have chosen to analyze the status of pro-drop in the interlanguage of four speakers who had full communicative possibilities in order to investigate the syntactic and stylistic properties related to the pro-drop parameter. Another reason to choose highly advanced learners is that they know about embedding and complex structures in general. Thus, the problem of lack of exposure to embedding mentioned by White (1985) would not apply to our study.1 In Spite of the fact that our four subjects were judged as having the same level of proficiency in Spanish, the transcription of the stories shows that only Louise's linguistic competence (in Chomsky's terms) was native-like, except for her phonology. It does not seem to be the case that all properties are acquired on the basis of 'realization' that Spanish is (+PD). It is clear that pleonastic pro (lack of expletives) has been acquired by all four subjects. The results also indicate that pro-drop is well established both at the acceptance and the production level. There were problems with pro in SEconstructions which seem to indicate that learners have not yet fixed the unspecified reference value of pro when it has the features [+3rd person, +singular]. Both Louise and Anne produced sentences where pro [+3rd person, + plural] had unspecified reference. The two English subjects did not produce any pro with unspecified reference, but that in itself is not an indication that it has not been acquired. We would need more data to determine that.
^•We do not think that it would apply in the case of her study either because the three languages involved (English, French and Spanish ) are closely related. Our experience is that learners use complex sentences in the very early stages; adult learners, of course.
90
More on the pro-drop parameter Inversion was
other hand, inversion in
accepted by
all subjects
all subjects except Anne. On the
but Louise
their stories.
and a
native speaker used
Anne's stylistic
preference may be
responsible for her rejection of inversion
in the grammaticality
judgments task.
were as
The other
three subjects
native subjects as Anne in that one of
w h i c h included
they accepted
far from the
both inversions -
a non-ergative verb - in the grammatical-
ity judgments task. Thus, it can
be concluded
that there
is no
evidence for an ergative/non-ergative distinction in our subjects acceptance of involved
inversion.
in
the
There
inversions
indicates that our subjects possible but
do not
was
only
one
transitive verb
in
the
stories,
produced
use inversion
w h e n no
which
ambiguity is
have 'intuitions' or 'an opinion' about the
stylistics of this phenomenon. Only Louise was able to detect Spanish that-t
sentences. Anne,
the ungrammaticality
being a
have written something if transfer from
of the
F r e n c h speaker, should French had
been at work
because E n g l i s h
and French differ w i t h respect to the use of the
complementizer.
These
specific evidence
results
inversion, because they are pro-drop
and
indicate
that
learners
need
to acquire that-t as well as the stylistics of
pleonastic
not pro.
triggered This
by
the
confirms
presence of
White's
findings w i t h respect to that-t. It also provides
(1985)
an explanation
to the irregular treatment of inversion in her study. The
answer
to
whether
subjects
are
in
command
stylistic conventions w h i c h govern the presence
of the
of overt subject
pronouns in Spanish seems to be affirmative. The only caution one would
need
to
exercise
redundant subject
concerns
Anne's
high
production
of
pronouns. W e would need m o r e data to determine
whether this is due to the specific story. The fact that Louise was the
only subject
who was
able to
identify the ungrammaticality of the that-t sentence may be taken as
an
subjects
indication
that
'linguistic
parameter at
there
is
competence'
the syntactic
a and
level. We
relationship the do not
between the
resetting
of
the
know whether that
Juana M. Liceras relationship
91
exists
in
general
or
whether
transferring the use of the complementizer be mentioned
also be
the case
play an important role. related the
It should
that Louise is not as fluent in English as Anne is,
w h i c h may explain why English would It may
Louise was simply
in French.
not cause
any interference.
that Louise's metalinguistic If this
that-t sentences
were the
to the
case, she
abilities could have
cases of relativization in
w h i c h the que>qui rule applies in French but
not in
Spanish, as
in: 19:
Elle est la femme qui nous a parlé de toi She is the woman who has told us about you
20:
Es la mujer que nos ha hablada de ti
Notice that
French cannot have que because there would not be an
indication of the presence of a case in Spanish.
subject,
(il).
That is
not the
1
5. CONCLUSION
Our study
has shown that a number of issues not directly
related
to the pro-drop parameter as described in the literature, have to be taken
into consideration
to investigate the acquisition of a
(+PD) language. It has also been relationship between
shown that
the acquisition
ition of stylistics. The results confirm indicate that
inversion and
pro-drop parameter or, 'identified' as that inversion Spanish
such
such by may as
be the
at
there may
of syntax
not be a
and the acquis-
previous findings which
that-t may not be properties of the least,
not
properties
that
can be
L2 learners. In fact, we have suggested triggered need
to
by have
l-See Adjemian and Liceras (1984) and cussion of these facts.
structural the Liceras
properties of
preposition a before (1986a)
for a dis-
92
More on the pro-drop parameter
[+human]
direct objects. W e have also suggested that rather than
'realization 1
the
that
Spanish
linguistic ability to relate
is
(+PD),
it
relativization and
is the meta-
that-t that may
lead to the acquisition of the latter. However, as I have pointed out in the case of Hilles' to
establish
a
causal
(1986) study,
it is
very problematic
relationship between the acquisition of
pro-drop, pleonastic pro and
verb inflexion.
It is
a fact that
our four subjects have an elaborated Spanish inflexional system though only Louise's is native-like - but that in itself does not prove
that
it
is
lack
acquisition of pro-drop.
of
expletives
that has triggered the
J u a n a M. Liceras
93
Appendix
Test sentences. Grammaticality judgments. 1. ?Pedro está muy cansado. E L ha dormido como u n cesto Pedro is very tired. He has slept like a log 2.?{Durmió / el niño} durante tres horas y NOSOTROS pudimos descansar Slept the boy for three hours and we were able to rest 3. A n a quiere decirnos como proU se llega a su casa A n a wants to tell us how to get/one gets to her house 4. A l i i proE habia mucha gente con cara de hambre There were many people w i t h a hungry look 5. *ELLO hace u n viento horrible It is terribly windy 6. pro C e n a n a las diez porque pro viven realmante a la española They have supper at ten because they really live the Spanish way 7. {Llego / Juan} pro nos dió la noticia Arrived J u a n and told us the piece of news 8.*¿Quién dijiste t había llegado? pro No te pude oir W h o did you say had arrived? I couldn't hear you 9. proU Se es famoso o proU no se es, proE no hay termino One is famous or one is not, there is no in between 10. proE Había unos chicos comprando regalos para sus hermano There were some boys buying presents for their brothers 11.*pro (la) vi que (ELLA) venia pero pro no la saludé I saw her that she was coming but I didn't greet her 12.?Paco se mejor de lo que EL aparenta, YO estoy segura Paco is better than he seems to be, I am sure 13. proE Hay los que se burlan de uno sin compasión alguna There are those who make fun of you w i t h no consideration whatsoever 14. proE Empieza a haber mucho ruido aquí It is beginning to be very noisy here
ELLA { / } proU proE pro t ( )
: : : : : : :
overt subject pronoun inversion null subject w i t h unspecified reference pleonastic pro (expletive) null subject w i t h specified reference that-t mutually exclusive
6
Late-learned rules in first and second language acquisition Helen Goodluck and Barbara Birch
1. SOME LATE LEARNED RULES
Recent
studies
of
first
language acquisition by children have
demonstrated that by 4-5 years children are in command of many of the
grammatical
language.
structures
(See Goodluck
and
rules
1986 for
governing
one review).
their native These studies
have reset the balance in our estimate of children's
grammatical
skills, demonstrating that the
of children
are far
more developed
than the
early seventies suggested. gaps
in
children's
linguistic abilities literature of
At the
knowledge
same time,
have been revealed, arguing that
language development does indeed go These
gaps
are
both
at
the
on
level
performance preferences, used where not
provide
a
single
into of
the
school years.
competence
the competence
rules and
grammar does
interpretation for the sentence. We have
begun to explore the learning path language acquisition
the sixties and however, several
for such
phenomena in second
by adults. We deal here with three grammat-
ical phenomena, for which adult
native
speaker
ability
is not
attained until into the school years.
*We are grateful to, among others, Juana Liceras, Xu Darning and Almerindo Ojeda for discussions of this paper and/or their native speaker judgements, to the teachers and students who allowed their classes to be interrupted for our testing, and to Michelle Foley for her help preparing the paper for publication.
Helen Goodluck & Barbara Birch
95
1. 1. Control of temporal adjuncts Studies
of
preschool
that children do not
young school age children have shown
and
master the
adult subject-control
rule for
adjunct clauses such as the temporal clause in (1) until they are six or older. 1:
The girl hugs the boy after walking around.
In (1), the NP the girl must be made subject of the
verb walking
in the adult grammar. Children however frequently misconstrue the subject of such adjunct clause
object,
the
clauses
NP
the
as
coreferential
error despite the fact that their grammar for tuned
to
grammatical
to
the main
boy in the example. They make this temporals is fine-
structure, eliminating the possibility in
most cases that they are reliant on superficial properties of the sentence, such 1981;
as the linear order of nouns and verbs
(Goodluck,
Hsu, Cairns and Fiengo 1985).
1. 2. Reference of picture n o u n reflexives A l t h o u g h the rules of English
grammar
permit
the
refer to either Bill or Joe in a sentence such as 2:
(2),
Bill gave Joe a picture of himself
the strong
preference for
adults is to make the reflexive refer
to the subject, Bill. Read and are well
reflexive to
Hare (1979)
showed that children
into the school years before they reliably evidence the
adult preference for making
the reflexive
in such constructions
refer to the subject rather than the object. 1.3. A
Reference of pronouns in conjoined clauses
third
late-learned
phenomenon
the
the surface subject of the preceding sentence. Thus (4), adults
of
a
adult preference for
referring to
(3) and
subject
the
interpreting in both
pronoun
is
will almost
conjoined
clause
as
invariably select the
96
Late learned rules in LI & L2
surface
subject
of
the
pronoun he, although the the object
of the
first
clause
as
grammar permits
the referent of the
either the
subject or
first clause (Bill/Joe) to be coreferent w i t h
the pronoun. 3:
Bill hit Joe and then he hit Fred
4:
Bill was hit by Joe and then he was hit by Fred
In (3)
and (4),
the conjoined
(active-active and conjuncts differ
clauses have
the same structure
passive-passive, respectively). in
grammatical
structure
W h e n the two
(active-passive and
passive-active), studies with adults show that the preference for choice of surface subject as pronounced
than
it
is
referent
with
of
the
pronoun
is less
conjuncts w i t h the same structure
(Garvey, Caramazza and Yates 1973; Solan 1983, ch.4), 5:
Bill hit Joe and then he was hit by Fred
6:
Bill was hit by Joe and then he hit Fred
This suggests that to some degree thematic/semantic role
of the
adults may
pronoun and
be relying
phrases in choosing the referent for the pronoun. In (3) the pronoun
and the
and (4)
m a i n clause subject share the same semantic
role (agent in (3), patient in (4); in (5) and the pronoun
on the
the m a i n clause noun
and m a i n
clause surface
(6), by contrast,
subject differ in semantic
role, and if a person attempts to m a t c h the pronoun w i t h the main clause NP
w i t h the
same thematic role, s/he will be led to pick
the (direct or prepositional)
object
as
the
referent
for the
pronoun. Although
adults
do
show
some
object as referent of the pronoun (6) in
inclination
in sentences
(5) and
the studies cited above, Solan found the tendency was far
less strong for adults than for children. In in the
to select the
such as
school years
in the choice of pronoun referent, tending to subject as
his study, children
relied heavily on use of thematic relations
referent of
the pronoun
w i t h parallel structure in the two
choose the surface
in sentences
such as (3-4)
conjuncts, and
the object as
Helen Goodluck & Barbara Birch
97
referent of the pronoun in sentences such as (5-6), with nonparallel structure. The comparatively high level for adults of surface subject as referent of the pronoun in (5-6) thus develops late on. The three phenomena reviewed above do not all have the same status in grammatical theory. Control of adjunct clauses by the subject of the main clause is a rule of grammar - our grammaticality judgements allow only for subject reference for adjunct clauses.1 The choice of the main clause subject as referent of a picture noun phrase reflexive and the referent of a pronoun subject of a conjoined clause, by contrast, are processing preferences. Adults select that particular interpretation although the rules of the competence grammar in principle allow them the option of choosing the object also. Why these properties of adult grammar and interpretive procedures are late-learned is not known; nor is necessarily the case that a unified explanation of the facts reviewed above is to be found. One possible account that links the three phenomena with respect to acquisition is that in the course of the school years the child moves from reliance on thematic relations to use of grammatical relations such as "subject1 (or external argument in the terminology of Williams 1980 and elsewhere), where principles of grammar permit a thematic specification to be eschewed. (See Culicover and Wilkins 1984 for one recent discussion of the use of thematic and grammatical roles in control and reflexivization).
^•The obligatoriness of sentence internal subject-control for the subject of such adjunct clauses has been disputed (Huang, 1985); however, even if the rules of the competence grammar in principle allow other interpretations, it is clear that some form of constraint mandates that the subject be interpreted as controller of the adjunct clause in sentences such as (1).
98
Late learned rules in LI & L2
2. SOME EVIDENCE FROM ADULTS
How do
adult second
language learners handle these late-learned
phenomena? Do they acquire the relevant rules and principles when they
are
relatively
advanced
in
their
mastery
language, analogously to the late acquisition
of
a second
of those
rules by
children? Some
findings
by
Goodluck,
Whalley
and
Gallucci
(1982)
suggested that this might not be the case. Goodluck et al. tested adult
native
speakers
of
Spanish
on
their
comprehension of
sentences such as (1) and (2) above, using an act-out task of the type familiar from child language studies (subjects were read the test sentences and acted out their interpretations w i t h dolls and other props).
W i t h respect to temporal adjunct clauses, we found
the overall percentage of subject reference than is
typical for
imately 60% or more subject responses and there
to sentences
such as (1),
were few individual subjects who preferred to make the
adjunct refer to the results
responses was higher
preschool children; the adults gave approx-
with
m a i n clause
children,
where
object. This
contrasts to the
preference for such an erroneous
object-reference interpretation has been
identified
through w h i c h
for example,
many children
pass (see,
as
a stage Hsu et al
1985). W i t h respect to the interpretation of the findings
of Goodluck
learners unequivocally
et al
chose
the
picture n o u n phrases,
were quite clear-cut: the adult subject
as
referent
of the
reflexive in sentences such as ( 2 ) — o v e r 90% of responses to such sentences involved
subject reference
(appropriate pictures were
supplied for the act-out). The learners the
in this
interpretation
reflexives
for
of
which
study performed
relative the
rules
clauses of
relatively poorly on and
reflexive
sentences
with
interpretation
mandate that the reflexive refer to the object, as in (7),
H e l e n Goodluck & Barbara Birch 7: This
99
The girl told the princess to scratch herself.
supported
the
view
that
the
comparative
success these
learners enjoyed w i t h adjuncts and picture n o u n phrase constructions was not simply a function of overall of the
fact that
skill w i t h
English or
the rules for English and Spanish are the same
in relevant respects for the constructions
we tested
learners did
well w i t h
w i t h others;
poor performance by Spanish speakers
(since the
some constructions and relatively poorly w i t h sentence
type (7) is may be due to differences between English and Spanish other than
the rule
for reflexive
interpretation, see footnote
on page 123 below). On
the
least some
basis rules
acquired by
of and
these
findings, we hypothesized that at
interpretive
principles
that
are late-
children may be quickly incorporated into the second
language learner's grammar, allowing in development
characteristic for
the learner
to skip stages
children learning their first
language. If, as we suggested above, the development
of subject-
reference in children for the three grammatical phenomena we have described is due to reference
to
argument)
as
facility
with
the
prior maturation
a relatively grammatical
opposed these of
to
late-acquired ability relation
thematic
constructions a
grammatical
subject
relations, might
to make
(or
external
adult-learner
be attributed to the
construct
and/or
representation inaccessible to children at early stages.
level of 1
^•We do not mean to imply that very young children have no ability whatsoever to refer to subject or external argument, but rather that that ability does not emerge until relatively late for the phenomena we discuss.
100 3.
Late learned rules in LI & L2 T H E STUDY
3. 1. Test and materials W e devised handling
a test of
to further
late-learned
separate subexperiments: the interpretation of pronoun
examine second-language learner's
rules. one
Our
of reflexives;
subjects
of
test
on control
comprised
and one on the
conjoined
three
constructions; one on
clauses.
interpretation
We
played tape-
recorded sentences of the test types to the subjects, followed by a question.
Subjects were
answer sheet.
required to
mark their
answer on an
Table 1 gives an example of the sentence types and
the accompanying question included the examples
in Table
1 show,
in e a c h
the n o u n
test sentences were proper names.
subexperiment.
As
phrases in each of the
The test
questions probed for
one of the names in (the first clause of) the test sentence, both of w h i c h were given on the answer sheet. (male) names
the questionnaires simple active
to
minimize
sentences and
repetitions.
responses
to
There
both
of the
the
mentioned as
passive,
a
were three
action as practice;
types of practice sentences ensured
that the subject was not responding by picking second name
seven different
three simple passive sentences with
questions that focussed on the agent correct
Twenty
were used in the test, and were distributed through
his/her answer,
construction
involved
out the
first or
and was in control of in
some
of
our
test
conditions. There were three tokens of e a c h of the sentence types in each of the
three subexperiments;
tokens
from each
of the
subexperiments were intermingled, and arranged in three blocks of one token of e a c h sentence type. reproduced as
an appendix.
sentence and
approximately
seconds
the next item, during response on
the answer
questionnaire is
Approximately two seconds
between each test six
The complete
its accompanying
intervened
question, and
intervened between each question and
w h i c h the subject had to mark
his or her
sheet. After subjects had completed the
m a i n test, they were given a
52
imately every sixth word deleted.
item cloze
test, w i t h approx-
H e l e n Goodluck & Barbara Birch
101
I. A
CONTROL CONSTRUCTIONS Temporal adjunct clauses Example : Bob met John after selling the ticket to George Question: Who sold the ticket to John? Answer sheet: (a) John (b) Bob
B
Tell-active Example: Bill told Tony to send the money to Joe Question : Who sent the money to Joe? Answer sheet : (a) Bill (b) Tony
C
Tell-passive Example : K e n was told by Mike to go to the movies w i t h Jo Question : Who went to the movies w i t h Jo? Answer sheet : (a) Mike (b) Ken
II. REFLEXIVE CONSTRUCTIONS A Picture n o u n phrase reflexives Example : Jay gave Larry a picture of himself Question : Who was in the picture? Answer sheet : (a) Larry (b) Jay B
Complement object reflexives Example : Jack told Max to make a sandwich for himself Question : Who ate a sandwich? Answer sheet : (a) Max (b) Jack
III.CONJOINED CLAUSE A N D PRONOUN SUBJECT SENTENCES A Active-active Example : Tom hit Rex and then he hit Dave Question: Who hit Dave? Answer sheet : (a) Tom (b) Rex B
Passive-passive Example : Andy was hit by Greg and then he was hit by John Question: Who did John hit? Answer sheet : (a) Andy (b) Greg
C
Active-passive Example : Steve hit Dan and then he was hit by Jay Question : Who did Jay hit? Answer sheet : (a) Dan (b) Steve
D
Passive-active Example : Tony was hit by Dave and then he hit Frank Question: Who hit Frank? Answer sheet : (a) Dave (b) Tony
Table 1 : Test constructions and example items
102
Late learned rules in LI 6 L2
The constructions tested have all been dealt with above, with the exception of active and passive tell sentences (conditions IB and IC. For each of the sentence types IA, IIA and IIIA-D, the adult native-speaker rule/preference is for reference to the surface subject. Sentence type IB in the first subexperiment controlled that correct answers to IA (adjuncts) were not simply the result of blanket choice of the subject and/or first NP as the subject of the subordinate clause--the correct answer to IB requires the main clause object to be made subject of the subordinate clause. Condition IC, with a passive main clause and a tell complement, requires that the main clause subject be made subject of the complement, and - in conjunction with IB - provided a further check that the subject was not relying on agrammatical strategies in responding. Condition IIB was similarly a control sentence type, ensuring that subjectreference responses to picture noun phrases (condition IIA) were not the result of a blanket preference for the subject as referent of a reflexive. 3. 2. Subj ects 3. 2. 1. Native speakers of English A group of 23 native speakers of English (enrolled in an undergraduate literature class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison) were tested as a control that our judgements of responses and preferences for pronoun/reflexive interpretation were representative of adult performance. The percentages of subject responses for these 20 subjects for each of the experimental conditions are displayed in the left-most column of Tables 2, 3 and 4. -11 A11 of the native speakers scored at the upper level on our cloze test grouping (see below), despite the fact that the test situation allowed us to give the native speakers only approximately 10 minutes to complete the cloze test, whereas the adult learners had 35-40 minutes. Mean number of errors for the native speakers was 5.13.
H e l e n Goodluck & Barbara Birch
Adult Native sp. n=23
103
Chinese LI L2 n=l4 n=9
IA Adjunct* 94% IB tell-active! 0% IC tell-passive* 78%
Spanish Ll L2 n=l0 n=15
74% 2% 43%
33% 18% 30%
67% 13% 47%
69% 11% 49%
Table 2: Percentage subject responses; Adjuncts and tell-complements Adult Native Sp. IIA PIC-NP** IIB tell-refl.!
98% 7%
Chinese LI L2
Spanish LI L2
74% 7%
80% 64%
86% 14%
87% 26%
Table 3:Percentage Subject Responses Picture-NP Reflexive and tell-reflexive
Adult Native Sp. I IIA HIB IIIC IIID
ACT-ACT** PASS-PASS** ACT-PASS** PASS-ACT**
99% 96% 87% 74%
Chinese Ll L2
Spanish LI L2
48% 33% 52% 56%
23% 30% 33% 40%
88% 59% 74% 88%
60% 38% 58% 60%
Table 4:Percentage Subject Responses Conjoined Clause and Pronoun Conditions
Key to Tables 2, 3 and 4 * : Subject response is correct response **: subject response preferred response, according to adult intuitions ! : Subject response is incorrect response
The results for the native speakers were as anticipated, with two small deviations.
First there
passive tell sentences
was a
certain amount of error on
(condition IIC): five
out of
the twenty-
three subjects scored less than two out of three correct for that
104
Late learned rules in LI & L2
condition. Second, the overall surface subject
percentage
of
reference
a conjunct was higher in the sentences w i t h non-parallel ical structure
(conditions IIIC and H I D )
the basis of previous experimental tions.
Previous
and w r i t t e n
to the
for the interpretation of the pronoun subject of
studies
sentence
than we anticipated on
studies,
used techniques
completion)
grammat-
or
our
own intui-
(act-out comprehension
plausibly
more
conducive to
reflection on the possible meanings of the sentence than our test was, where the choice of pronoun referent had to be made w i t h i n a fairly
short
time
interval.
Our
adult
control group results
suggest that the adult bias towards surface subject clause in
interpreting the pronoun subject of a conjunct is even
stronger in real-time language processing than judgement
about
preferred
readings
Nonetheless, the only conditions appreciable
amount
of
object
in
would IIIA-C
reference
passive-active
clause
order
where are
responses for
is an
If we
assume object
are a reflection of some
asymmetry in
object responses
for the
fits w i t h a finding reported in Frazier,
Taft, Roeper, Clifton and parallel sentences
there
the non-parallel
induced more object responses than
the conjoined conditions
non-parallel conditions
introspective
Condition IIID, with
condition IIIC, w i t h active-passive order. kind of difficulty, this
our
lead us to suppose.
conditions, as the figures in Table 4 show.
Ehrlich
1984;
in
their
study, non-
of the PASS-ACT type had longer reading times
per word for the second conjunct type, a
of the first
distinction w h i c h
than sentences
they argue
of the ACT-PASS
may follow from the match
between discourse functions of passive and
order of
clauses for
the two types of non-parallel sentences. 3.2.2. Second Language Learners Our experimental
subjects were
Language courses
at
subjects were
the
students in
University
of
English as a Second
Wisconsin-Madison. The
chosen primarily on the basis of availability.
We
H e l e n Goodluck & Barbara Birch were able to language
obtain
a
backgrounds:
105
sizeable
number
Chinese
and
of
subjects
Spanish.
speakers of Chinese and 37 speakers of Spanish. subjects
with
other
language
inspection of the data
backgrounds
from these
from two
There were 28 (Five additional were
tested;
subjects suggests
an
that their
performance is consistent with the points made below). Subjects who did not score at least two out of three correct on the simple active and passive sentences u s e d
as practice were
eliminated from the sample. (Five Chinese and 12 Spanish speakers were eliminated in this way). The remaining subjects were divided into two
groups, based
on their
performance on the cloze test,
w h i c h was scored according to number of acceptable
insertionsi 1
Level 1: less than 30 out of 52 items correct Level 2: 31-52 correct The percentages subexperiments
of
subject
that
responses
comprised
the
for
main
each
of
the three
test are tabulated in
Tables 2, 3, and 4 by condition, second language group and level. There
were
only
two
instances
of
failure to respond for the
sentence types in Tables 2-4; the percentage of is
thus
almost
invariably
object responses
the complement of the percentage of
subject responses.
1 There are no significant differences in cloze test scores between the Spanish and Chinese speakers at either level. We initially divided the learners into three groups, dividing the present upper level group in two at a score of 41 or more correct. There were no consistent differences between the two upper-level subgroups so created in terms of performance on the m a i n test, and the two subgroups were collapsed. Three of our adult native speakers scored less than 41 on the cloze test; an inspection of the data shows this did not correspond to inferior performance on the m a i n test.
106
Late learned rules in Ll & L2 A n inspection
of the
figures in
Tables 2-4
shows a clear
progression towards native-speaker rules
and preferences
level 1
and level
2 for
both language
groups.
percentage between
level
1
2
direction of
and
native speaker
level
are
changes
speakers
in
condition
IIB.
Taking
adjunct
clauses,
type
2 for
of the sub-
observations.
(IA),
the
Chinese
level 1 gave only 3 3% subject responses. The level 1
speakers at
Spanish learners, by adjuncts.
sentence
to level each
experiments in turn, we can make the following For
in the
rules and preferences, except for a
small increase in subject responses from level 1 Chinese
between
Any changes in
(Seven
contrast,
out of
gave
67%
subject
responses to
nine level 1 Chinese learners gave less
than two out of three subject responses to the adjunct condition, compared w i t h two out of ten level 1 Spanish subjects). 2 performance
of the
percentage subject for
Spanish
speakers learned
rule be
grammars. were
runs of
groups is
A t level
similar, w i t h the
responses at 74% for Chinese speakers and 69%
speakers.
thus
quickly
two language The
performance
counter
subject
incorporated
to
from
of
for
adult
1 Chinese
adjunct
clauses will
learners' second language
both levels,
condition
level
hypothesis that the late-
reference into
For both languages at
distinguished
the
IB
temporal adjuncts
(tell-actives); and for
both languages at both levels, there were fewer subject responses to IB
than to IC (tell-passive), although success w i t h condition
IC was not high. For picture-noun phrase reflexives, sentence type (IIA), the preference for and Spanish preference in
reference to
speakers,
subject is present for both Chinese
even
at
children, then,
level
into adult learners' performance, found.
Performance
with
1.
does appear
at
both
late-developing
to enter
as Goodluck
tell-reflexives
evidence for the Chinese speakers
This
immediately
et al. (IIB)
levels
1982 also
gives
clear
that success
Helen Goodluck & Barbara Birch with picture-noun
107
phrase reflexives
was not
due to a first NP-
type response strategy; however, performance of
Spanish speakers
with this condition was relatively poor, particularly at level 1, where 64% of
responses
were
erroneous
(reference
to subject)
responses. For the pronoun subject of conjoined clause sentences D), the
figures
in
responses strongly and IV) for the
Table
4
indicate
that
subject
predominate only at level 2 (conditions I, II
Chinese speakers,
and are
not strongly
for any condition by Spanish speakers, even at level 2. gives a breakdown of conditions in
(IIIA-
reference
individual response
terms of
patterns for
scores of two or more subject
By the criterion of 2 or more subject
responses for
favored Table 5 the four
responses. each of the
four conditions IIIA-IIID, only eight of the Chinese speakers and two of the Spanish
speakers
respond
in
an native-speaker-like
way.
IIIA + + + + + + +
IIIB + + + -
HID
+
+ +
-
+ +
-
+ +
-
-
-
+
-
-
-
-
+
-
-
+ +
-
-
+ +
-
-
-
-
-
UIC
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
+ + -
Total:
Number of Subj ects Chinese Spanish 8 0 0 6 2 0 2 1 2 2 0 0 0 23
+ = a score of 2 or 3 subject responses - = a score of less than 2 subject responses Table 5:Distribution of Subjects by Score Pattern Conditions IIIA-IIID
2 1 1 4 1 1 0 0 3 4 2 4 4 25
Late learned rules in Li 6 L2
108 Tables 6
and 7
summarize the
analysis in
Table 5 in two ways:
numbers of subjects with zero or one minus of
the
four
conditions
(Table
the percentage
(Table
6)
and
that is
These figures indicate
figures) that Chinese subjects overall do
better w i t h the sentence condition IIIB
three out
6) and number of subjects with
minus scores in each condition (Table 7). (as do
scores fof
types IIIA-B
for
the
both
one
subject responses (Table 7).
that
than Spanish
Chinese
and
produces
speakers do
Spanish least
subjects
reference to
Thus the late-learned adult native-
speaker preference for reference to the surface subject
for does
not appear to be readily used in second language performance with these sentence types, at least in the test we employed.
Number of subjects w i t h score patterns for IIIA-D (Table 5) with: 0 or 1 minus scores: 2 or more minus scores:
Chinese
Spanish
14 9
8 17
Table 6: Score patterns by language type: Summary. Total number of subjects w i t h a minus score (from table 5) by condition: IIIA IIIB IIIC IIID
Chinese
Spanish
5 12 7 4
15 18 13 11
Table 7 : Total number of minus scores It should be noted that the do
not
show
any
trend
results for
the conjunct experiment
towards a lesser proportion of subject
reference for the non-parallel conditions PASS-ACT);
this
contrasts
with
the
(IIIC ACT-PASS and
figures
for
the
HID
native
speakers, where those were the conditions for w h i c h produced most object reference.
Rather the condition IIIB (PASS-PASS)
produced
Helen Goodluck & Barbara Birch the lowest proportion learners.1»2
of
subject
109 reference
for
the
adult
-••The first of the test sentences after the six simple active and passive sentences was a sentence of type IIIB. We were concerned that the lower proportion of subject responses for that condition might be due to responses to this sentence. An analysis of the subject responses for the second and third tokens of conditions IIIA-D shows the same pattern for all three tokens, with the exception that for upper level Chinese speakers there is no difference in percentage subject responses for conditions IIIB and IIIC. The Chi-square value for the analysis in Table 6 for the last two responses only is 9.07 (p