SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY RESOLUTION IN L2 LEARNERS

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola E. Dussias
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Paper Questionnaire ◽  
Processing Strategies ◽  
Pencil And Paper ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
L1 English

This study investigates whether proficient second language (L2) speakers of Spanish and English use the same parsing strategies as monolinguals when reading temporarily ambiguous sentences containing a complex noun phrase followed by a relative clause, such as Peter fell in love with the daughter of the psychologist who studied in California. Research with monolingual Spanish and English speakers (e.g., Cuetos & Mitchell, 1988) has suggested that, whereas English speakers show a bias to interpret the relative clause locally (i.e., to attach the relative clause to the noun immediately preceding it), Spanish speakers reading Spanish equivalents of English sentences attach the relative clause to the first noun in the complex noun phrase (i.e., nonlocal attachment). In this study, I assess whether speakers whose native language (L1) and L2 differ with respect to processing strategies were able to employ each strategy in the correct context. To this end, L1 Spanish–L2 English and L1 English–L2 Spanish speakers read ambiguous sentences in their L1 and L2. Data collection was carried out using a pencil-and-paper questionnaire and a self-paced reading task. Analyses of both sets of data revealed that both groups of speakers favored local over nonlocal attachment when reading in their L1 and L2. The results are discussed in the context of models that assume the existence of a fixed, universal set of parsing strategies. The implications of L2 parsing research for the field of SLA are also discussed.

Contrasting Preterite and Imperfect use among advanced L2 learners: Judgments of iterated eventualities in Spanish

2013 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Rafael Salaberry
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Classroom Environments ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Specific Component ◽  
Frequency Effects ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Grammaticality Judgments ◽  
L1 English

AbstractThere are numerous studies that analyze the second language (L2) acquisition of aspect (e.g., see overviews and summaries in Ayoun and Salaberry 2005; Bardovi-Harlig 2000; Labeau 2005; Salaberry, 2008; Salaberry and Shirai 2002). The present study focuses on a specific component of tense-aspect: the iteration of eventualities (iterativity and habituality) conveyed with the use of Spanish Preterite and Imperfect respectively. The analysis is based on data from monolingual Spanish speakers and L1 English speakers with near-native competence in the L2 with the use of contextualized grammaticality judgments. The findings of the study show that near-native speakers of L2 Spanish do not distinguish fine-grained representations of aspectual knowledge (iterativity versus habituality), even though they demonstrate native-like judgments with more prototypical uses of aspect. The discussion of the findings points to possible effects of mapping of meaning and form in the L2, as well as possible instructional effects paired with frequency effects prompted by classroom environments.

The correspondence between sentence production and corpus frequencies in modifier attachment

2002 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 879-896 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Desmet ◽  
Marc Brysbaert ◽  
Constantijn De Baecke
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Sentence Production ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Attachment Preference ◽  
Attachment Sites ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Relative Clause Attachment

We examined the production of relative clauses in sentences with a complex noun phrase containing two possible attachment sites for the relative clause (e.g., “Someone shot the servant of the actress who was on the balcony.”). On the basis of two corpus analyses and two sentence continuation tasks, we conclude that much research about this specific syntactic ambiguity has used complex noun phrases that are quite uncommon. These noun phrases involve the relationship between two humans and, at least in Dutch, induce a different attachment preference from noun phrases referring to non-human entities. We provide evidence that the use of this type of complex noun phrase may have distorted the conclusions about the processes underlying relative clause attachment. In addition, it is shown that, notwithstanding some notable differences between sentence production in the continuation task and in coherent text writing, there seems to be a remarkable correspondence between the attachment patterns obtained with both modes of production.

scholarly journals LEXICAL BUNDLES IN L1 AND L2 ENGLISH DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS

2021 ◽  
pp. 475
Author(s):  
Ilyas Yakut ◽  
Fatma Yuvayapan ◽  
Erdogan Bada
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Formulaic Sequences ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Functional Perspective ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Doctoral Dissertations ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
L1 English ◽  
American English Speakers

Based on contrastive interlanguage analysis, this study explores the usage of lexical bundles occurring in doctoral dissertations produced in the English language related studies in the USA by L1 American English speakers and in Turkey by Turkish speakers of English in the last ten years between 2010-2019. In our analysis of the data, we identified a significant number of types of 4-word bundles from both corpora from a structural and functional perspective. The findings regarding the types of lexical bundles and their structural and functional dispersions revealed significant differences between the two corpora. While L1 English writers refrained from heavily utilizing formulaic sequences, the opposite could be observed in the works of L2 English authors. This study has significant implications for academic writers producing work in the English language since corpus-informed lists and concordances might be of great help to L2 speakers of English in identifying appropriate lexical bundles that are specific to their disciplines.

scholarly journals Pistas prosódicas en la desambiguación de oraciones de relativo: hablantes bilingües frente a estudiantes de L2

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-80
Author(s):  
Irene Checa-Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Silent Reading ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Bilingual Processing

<p class="AbstractText">This study investigates the preferences for attachment of a relative clause (RC) to a complex noun phrase (NP) of the type: NP1 of NP2, in Spanish-English bilinguals and advanced learners of Spanish. Spanish speakers show a moderate preference for attaching the RC to the first NP, while speakers of English prefer the second NP. Subjects were presented this construction in written (Experiment 1) and oral (Experiment 2) forms. Results show no group had a preference for either attachment in silent reading, Low Attachment was preferred with a pause after NP1 by learners, and High Attachment was preferred in the absence of any pause by bilinguals and learners. However, the learner group behaved distinctively in Experiment 2 in two ways: their reaction times were shorter, and their choice for the kind of RC attachment was more sensitive to the absence of a pause being more likely to choose Low Attachment, as English monolinguals. These results suggest that advanced learners are influenced by their L1 more heavily in oral comprehension than in reading, while bilinguals take longer for processing prosodic cues. Reasons for a slower bilingual processing are posited. Lastly, implications for prosody teaching are drawn from these results.</p>

Gender assignment strategies used by L1 and L2 speakers of Spanish

2019 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alyssa Martoccio
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Native Spanish Speakers ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Bare Nouns ◽  
And Gender ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
L1 English

Abstract This article compares gender assignment on known nouns by intermediate (n=15) and advanced (n=15) second language (L2) learners of Spanish (L1 English) and native Spanish speakers (n=15). Participants completed a written vocabulary task, which asked the meaning and gender of 63 nouns. Gender assignment scores revealed that only intermediate and native speaker groups scored significantly differently on known nouns, as shown by the vocabulary task. Results indicated that intermediate learners assigned the incorrect gender to known nouns significantly more than native speakers. Both L2 learner groups made errors on high frequency known nouns, whereas the few native speaker errors were on low frequency known nouns. Along with think-aloud data which showed the effectiveness of strategies that directly link the noun with its article, these results indicate that nouns need to be taught as units rather than bare nouns, using distributional co-occurrence relations.

Prediction error and implicit learning in L1 and L2 syntactic priming

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 895-911
Author(s):  
Carrie N. Jackson ◽  
Holger Hopp
Keyword(s):  
Prediction Error ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Syntactic Priming ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Priming Task ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Short Term Adaptation ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
L1 English

Aims and Objectives: This study examines the syntactic priming of adverb-first word order among 27 first language (L1) English, 33 L1 German, and 32 L1 German-second language (L2) English speakers to investigate the relationship between short-term priming and longer-term learning across different speaker groups. Design/Methodology: Participants completed a syntactic priming task in either English or German, in which they heard sentences containing fronted (i.e. adverb-first) or non-fronted adverbial phrases and described pictures containing similar adverbial phrases. Immediately before and after the priming task, participants completed picture description tasks containing similar sentence types to measure their baseline production of fronted adverbials, and whether subsequent production of fronted adverbials was modulated by the priming task. Data Analysis: We used mixed-effects logistic regression to compare participants’ production of fronted sentences during the priming task according to prime type (fronted vs. non-fronted) and their production of fronted sentences before versus after the priming task, including the additional factors of adverbial phrase (temporal phrase vs. locative phrase) and speaker group (L1 English vs. L1 German vs. L2 English). Findings/Conclusion: Participants exhibited greater short-term priming during the priming task for temporal versus locative phrases, with the L2 English speakers exhibiting the greatest short-term priming. There was a significant increase in the production of fronted sentences from baseline to post-test, with the L1 English speakers exhibiting the greatest gains. Originality: This study uses systematic between- and within-language comparisons to examine: (a) whether the extent of syntactic priming depends on the frequency of a construction in a speaker’s L1 or L2 (i.e. prediction error); and (b) whether prediction error and short-term priming lead to longer-term learning. Significance: Our findings show that the magnitude of prediction error influences both short-term adaptation and longer-term priming. However, the ability to harness prediction error for longer-term learning versus short-term adaptation may vary between L1 and L2 speakers.

scholarly journals The impact of uninformative parafoveal masks on L1 and late L2 speakers

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Breakell Fernandez ◽  
Christoph Scheepers ◽  
Shanley E.M. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Movement Behavior ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Parafoveal Processing ◽  
Reading Research ◽  
Boundary Paradigm ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
The Impact ◽  
L1 English

Much reading research has found that informative parafoveal masks lead to a reading benefit for native speakers (see, Schotter et al., 2012). However, little reading research has tested the impact of uninformative parafoveal masks during reading. Additionally, parafoveal processing research is primarily restricted to native speakers. In the current study we manipulated the type of uninformative preview using a gaze contingent boundary paradigm with a group of L1 English speakers and a group of late L2 English speakers (L1 German). We were interested in how different types of uninformative masks impact on parafoveal processing, whether L1 and L2 speakers are similarly impacted, and whether they are sensitive to parafoveally viewed language-specific sub-lexical orthographic information. We manipulated six types of uninformative masks to test these objectives: an Identical, English pseudo-word, German pseudo-word, illegal string of letters, series of X’s, and a blank mask. We found that X masks affect reading the most with slight graded differences across the other masks, L1 and L2 speakers are impacted similarly, and neither group is sensitive to sub-lexical orthographic information. Overall these data show that not all previews are equal, and research should be aware of the way uninformative masks affect reading behavior. Additionally, we hope that future research starts to approach models of eye-movement behavior during reading from not only a monolingual but also from a multilingual perspective.

DO LEARNERS LIGHTEN UP?

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 801-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Solon
Keyword(s):  
First Language ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Native Spanish Speakers ◽  
Learning Situation ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Speech Learning ◽  
Phonetic Realization ◽  
L1 English

This study explores the second language (L2) acquisition of a segment that exists in learners’ first language (L1) and in their L2 but that differs in its phonetic realization and allophonic patterning in the two languages. Specifically, this research tracks development in one aspect of the production of the alveolar lateral /l/ in the L2 Spanish of 85 native English speakers from various levels of study and compares L2 productions to those of native Spanish speakers as well as to learners’ L1 English. Additionally, laterals produced in specific contexts are compared to examine learners’ acquisition of L2 allophonic patterning, as Spanish contains a subset of the lateral allophones that exist in English. Results suggest development toward nativelike norms in the phonetic details of Spanish /l/ and in allophonic patterning. These findings have implications for existing theoretical accounts of L2 speech learning, which cannot adequately account for the learning situation examined.

The On-Line Resolution of the Sentence Complement/Relative Clause Ambiguity: Evidence from Spanish

2004 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josep Demestre ◽  
José E. García-Albea
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Ambiguity Resolution ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Lexical Information ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution ◽  
On Line ◽  
Verbal Mood

Abstract. Two self-paced reading experiments investigated syntactic ambiguity resolution in Spanish. The experiments examined the way in which Spanish subjects initially interpret sentences that are temporarily ambiguous between a sentence complement and a relative clause interpretation. Experiment 1 examined whether the sentence complement preference found in English is observed in Spanish speaking subjects. In Experiment 2, verbal mood was manipulated in order to study the influence of verb-specific information on sentence processing. Since subcategorization for a subjunctive complement clause is generally assumed to be a lexical property of some verbs, the manipulation of the mood of the embedded verb affords us an interesting and novel way to examine the influence of lexical information on syntactic ambiguity resolution. Experiment 1 showed that Spanish speakers initially interpret the ambiguous that-clause as a sentence complement. Experiment 2 showed that verb-specific information, in particular, the information that specifies that a verb subcategorizes for a subjunctive complement, is accessed and used rapidly and affects the ambiguity resolution process. The results are discussed in relation to current models of sentence processing.

scholarly journals Acquisition of the Tap-Trill Contrast by L1 Mandarin–L2 English–L3 Spanish Speakers

Languages ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Patience
Keyword(s):  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Developmental Patterns ◽  
Reading Task ◽  
Target Segment ◽  
L2 Spanish ◽  
L1 English ◽  
Single Substitution

The goals of this study were to investigate the developmental patterns of acquisition of the Spanish tap and trill by L1 Mandarin–L2 English–L3 Spanish speakers, and to examine the extent to which the L1 and the L2 influenced the L3 productions. Twenty L1 Mandarin–L2 English–L3 Spanish speakers performed a reading task that elicited production of rhotics from the speakers’ L3 Spanish, L2 English, and L1 Mandarin, as well as the L2 English flap. The least proficient speakers produced a single substitution initially, generally [l]. The same non-target segment was produced for both rhotics, mirroring the results of previous studies investigating L1 English–L2 Spanish speakers, indicating that this may be a universal simplification strategy. In contrast to previous work on L1 English speakers, the L1 Mandarin–L2 English–L3 Spanish speakers who had acquired the tap did not tend to use it as the primary substitute for the trill. Overall, the L1 was a stronger source of cross-linguistic influence. Nonetheless, evidence of positive and negative L2 transfer was also found. The L2 flap allophone facilitated acquisition of the L3 tap, whereas non-target productions of the L2 /ɹ/ were also observed, revealing that both previously learned languages were possible sources of cross-linguistic influence.

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