On the development of null implicit objects in L1 English

2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana T. Pérez-Leroux ◽  
Mihaela Pirvulescu ◽  
Yves Roberge ◽  
Anny Castilla
Keyword(s):  
Sole Source ◽  
Incomplete Knowledge ◽  
Null Objects ◽  
Null Object ◽  
Object Construction ◽  
Production Study ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Verb Meaning ◽  
L1 Acquisition ◽  
L1 English

AbstractThis article explores a defining property of implicit null object constructions, and how this property emerges during the L1 acquisition process. Implicit objects are non-referential and characterized by a strong semantic association between a null N in object position and the contents of the verb root. By means of an elicited production study, we examine children’s sensitivity to this association in terms of the typicality of implicit direct objects and of their use in a potentially contrastive context. Participants were 73 English-speaking children (between the ages of 2;09 and 5;08) and 20 adult controls. Our results show that children make a distinction between implicit objects with typical and atypical objects—even in scenarios where a previous use introduces a potential contrast—but at rates that differ from those of adults. This suggests an incomplete knowledge of the target properties of null objects and indicates that children use a referential null N until later in development, when the selectional link between V and the null object becomes entrenched and hyponymy with the verb root becomes the sole source of recoverability. We draw implications about the co-development of verb meaning and the null object construction.

ASYMMETRY OF NULL SUBJECTS AND NULL OBJECTS IN CHINESE SPEAKERS' L2 ENGLISH

1997 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boping Yuan
Keyword(s):  
Null Subjects ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Chinese Speakers ◽  
Null Objects ◽  
Null Object ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
L1 Acquisition ◽  
Chinese And English

One of the differences between Chinese and English is that the former allows both null subjects in finite sentences and null objects, but the latter allows neither. This cross-linguistic variation is believed to be related to the underspecification of I and topic drop in Chinese but not in English. This paper reports on an empirical study investigating the unlearning of null subjects and null objects by 159 Chinese learners in their L2 acquisition of English. In L1 acquisition, it has been found that English-speaking children display an asymmetry by frequently allowing null subjects but rarely null objects. The results of this study indicate that there is an asymmetry in Chinese learners' L2 English, which, however, is opposite to that found in English L1 acquisition: Chinese learners are able to reject the incorrect null subject in English, but unable to detect the ungrammaticality of the null object. It is proposed that the unlearning of null subjects by Chinese learners of English is triggered by the evidence in their input indicating the specification of AGR(eement) and T(ense) in English, and that the difficulty in the unlearning of null objects is related to the lack of informative evidence to unset the [+ topic-drop] setting in Chinese learners' L2 English.

The phenomenon of object omission in child L2 French

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
PHILIPPE PRÉVOST
Keyword(s):  
Computational Complexity ◽  
L1 Transfer ◽  
Null Objects ◽  
Object Clitics ◽  
Transitive Verbs ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Direct Objects ◽  
The Moment

This paper investigates object omission in French longitudinal production from two English-speaking children (Lightbown, 1977). Similar patterns of object omission are observed: direct objects start being dropped as transitive verbs are emerging and licit and illicit null objects occur in all recordings thereafter. Moreover, the incidence of illicit null objects drops at about the same time in both children (month 20), which corresponds to the moment object clitics start being used productively and to the end of the root infinitive period (Prévost, 1997). I argue that object omission is an instance of clitic-drop and is related to processing difficulties. In particular, both the projection of full-fledged representations and the production of object clitics (which occupy non-canonical object positions in French) increase computational complexity for children. Object-drop in child L2 French does not seem to be affected by L1 transfer nor to be related to significant difficulties with properties at the syntax/pragmatics interface.

scholarly journals Early development of verb-constructions in an English-speaking child

2000 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 39-52
Author(s):  
Insa Gülzow
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
Morphological Development ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Verb Constructions ◽  
First Results ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
L1 English

In this paper the first results concerning the development of early verb morphology in an L1-English speaking child are presented. Adopting the framework of morphological development of Dressler (Dressler, this volume) the data of a girl from the CHILDES database, Nina of the Suppes corpus, is analysed with regard to the emergence of early verbal categories (e.g. number and person) and their appearance in a first mini-paradigm. In the sessions analysed so far the child Nina has reached an age of 2;2 when the first mini-paradigm emerges.  

scholarly journals acquisition of intensifiers versus reflexive pronouns

2000 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 247-258
Author(s):  
Insa Gülzow
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Central Aspect ◽  
Reflexive Pronouns ◽  
First Results ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
L1 English ◽  
Early Phases

The ultimate goal of the study is to examine the acquisition of intensifiers in English and German. In this paper an overview of the first results regarding four L1 English-speaking children will be given. Contrary to previous claims in the literature (e.g. Thomas 1990), it will be argued that intensifiers are used by children in early phases of language acquisition. Intensifiers play an important role in early phases of language acquisition since they can be used to express the wish either to be included or excluded in a certain action and thus contribute to structuring a central aspect of the child's discourse.  

scholarly journals Null objects in the spontaneous speech of monolingual and bilingual speakers of European Portuguese

Probus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Rinke ◽  
Cristina Flores ◽  
Pilar Barbosa
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Null Objects ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Null Object ◽  
Diachronic Change ◽  
Spontaneous Production ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
First Generation Migrants ◽  
Semantic Properties

AbstractThis paper investigates object omissions in the spontaneous production of European Portuguese by second-generation Portuguese-German bilingual speakers and compares them to first-generation migrants, and two age-matched groups of monolingual speakers. The results show that bilingual speakers as well as the younger generation of monolinguals show a higher number of null objects in their speech than the two older generations. This may reflect an inter-generational development that favours null objects, which is independent of language contact. The analysis of the syntactic and semantic conditions determining the occurrence of null objects in the speech of the different groups reveals that the semantic properties of the null objects realized by the bilinguals, particularly the higher rates of animate and non-propositional null objects, show that they extend the semantic-pragmatic conditions of null object realization along a referential hierarchy. The bilingual speakers may reflect a language-internal pathway that appears to resemble a diachronic change observed in BP.

When-questions in second language acquisition

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyeson Park
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Reading First ◽  
First Language ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Developmental Sequence ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
L1 Acquisition

It has been observed that when-questions are one of the last wh-questions produced by children learning English either as a first language (L1) or as a second language (L2). Explanations proposed for the late appearance of when-questions in L1 acquisition have been mostly based on cognitive factors. However, the cognition-based approach to when-questions faces problems in explaining L2 acquisition data, which show that L2 children who are cognitively more mature than L1 children follow the same developmental sequence. In this paper, I propose a possible explanation based on internal linguistic factors. According to Enç (1987), tense is a referential expression and temporal adverbials are antecedents of tense. I develop Enç's theory further and propose that in a when-question, tense is a bound variable, which is bound by the quantificational interrogative when. Thus, in order to produce when-questions, children must be at a stage where they understand bound variable readings. According to Roeper and de Villiers (1991), English-speaking children learn a bound variable reading approximately after 36 months, and the learning continues through the kindergarten years. The age at which a bound variable reading first appears corresponds to the point at which when-questions begin to occur. I propose that the complexity of the interaction between the quantificational when and tense, a bound variable, causes the delayed production of when-questions in developing grammars.

Realizations of oppositional speech acts in English: a contrastive analysis of discourse in L1 and L2 settings

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-202
Author(s):  
Christopher Hopkinson
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Customer Reviews ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
L1 English ◽  
Dimensions Of Variation

Abstract This paper presents the results of a study seeking insights into how speakers express oppositional stance in an online genre (businesses’ responses to negative customer reviews on TripAdvisor). The research is contrastive, exploring the differences between the practices of speakers in two types of setting – L1 English-speaking countries and countries where English is L2 – when performing oppositional speech acts (e.g. disagreement, criticism of the review/reviewer, etc.). Although there exists a large body of work concerned with contrastive differences in speech act realizations, oppositional speech acts remain under-researched – especially in contexts of non-politeness or impoliteness. This paper presents the results of a mixed-method qualitative/quantitative analysis revealing substantial differences along two principal dimensions of variation: the (in)directness with which opposition is expressed, and the downgrading (mitigation) or upgrading (aggravation) of oppositional speech acts. Some of these differences can be traced to well-known tendencies related to L1 versus L2 language use, while others represent new empirical findings that open up potential avenues for future research.

The production and comprehension of Spanish se use in L2 and heritage Spanish

2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832110165
Author(s):  
Aída García-Tejada ◽  
Alejandro Cuza ◽  
Eduardo Gerardo Lustres Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Age Of Onset ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Psych Verbs ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Why Questions ◽  
Spanish Heritage Speakers ◽  
L1 English

Previous studies in the acquisition of clitic se in Spanish have focused on the syntactic processes needed to perform detransitivization. However, current approaches on event structure reveal that se encodes aspectual information which is crucial for its acquisition. We examine the use, intuition and interpretation of the aspectual features constraining the clitic se in Spanish with physical change of state verbs and psychological verbs in declarative sentences, and in a set of why-questions. Twenty Spanish heritage speakers (HSs), 20 English-speaking L2 learners of Spanish, and 20 Spanish monolingual speakers participated in the study. Results showed a clear advantage among the HSs over the L2 learners across conditions. In general, the use of se with change of state verbs at advanced levels of proficiency seems to be harder to acquire than with psych verbs due to the aspectual morphological marking in L1 English. Interestingly, L2 learners and HSs were less sensitive to the [+inchoative] feature with psych verbs in why-questions. Results are also discussed in terms of the age of onset of bilingualism as an affecting factor on the acquisition of the aspectual values of inchoative se.

The strict-sloppy reading of reflexives and pronouns in child Mandarin

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruya Li ◽  
Jianhua Hu
Keyword(s):  
Adult Performance ◽  
Null Object ◽  
Object Construction ◽  
Knowledge Of Language ◽  
Child Mandarin ◽  
Strict Reading

This paper investigates Mandarin-speaking children’s sensitivity to the strict-sloppy reading ambiguity of reflexives and pronouns in two coordinate elliptical constructions: the null object construction (NOC) and the Shi-constructions (ShiC). Two questions are addressed: (1) whether the strict reading of reflexives and pronouns are equally accessible to children; and (2) whether the strict reading is more accessible in the NOCs than in the ShiCs, given that the strict reading is pragmatically motivated (Guo et al., 1996; Foley et al., 2003) and that the NOCs are subject to the pragmatic factors (Xu, 2003). We examined 4-year-old Mandarin-speaking children and adults and found that children were sensitive to the interpretative idiosyncrasies of the two pro-forms whereas adults were sensitive to the interpretative discrepancies between the two constructions. Children’s non-adult performance indicates that their knowledge of language at the lexicon-syntax interface develops late in child grammar.

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