VARIATION IN SUBJECT PRONOMINAL EXPRESSION IN L2 CHINESE

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoshi Li
Keyword(s):  
Native Speaker ◽  
First Language ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Russian Speakers ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Comparison Results ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Null Pronoun

This study investigates subject pronominal expression in second language Chinese and compares learner usage with patterns found in their first language. The results show that (a) overt pronouns are used more for singular, +animate subjects than plural, –animate ones; (b) switch in subject surface form favors overt pronouns; (c) English and Russian speakers use overt pronouns more than Korean and Japanese speakers; (d) statements favor overt pronouns most, followed by questions and then imperatives; (e) females use overt pronouns more than males; (f) conversations slightly favor overt pronouns, whereas narratives favor null pronouns; (g) higher proficiency learners across language groups use more null subject referents than do lower proficiency learners; and (h) nonspecific subject referents promote null subjects. Comparison results show that learner patterns are similar to those of their native speaker peers on most dimensions explored except that they tend to overuse overt pronouns. That is, the learners have acquired the subject pronoun use pattern in Chinese rather successfully but need to further develop their sociolinguistic competence regarding null pronoun usage.

scholarly journals ONLINE PRONOUN RESOLUTION IN L2 DISCOURSE: L1 Influence and General Learner Effects

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Roberts ◽  
Marianne Gullberg ◽  
Peter Indefrey
Keyword(s):  
First Language ◽  
Pronoun Resolution ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Online Processing ◽  
L2 Processing ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
L1 Influence ◽  
Final Interpretation ◽  
Subject Pronoun

This study investigates whether advanced second language (L2) learners of a nonnull subject language (Dutch) are influenced by their null subject first language (L1) (Turkish) in their offline and online resolution of subject pronouns in L2 discourse. To tease apart potential L1 effects from possible general L2 processing effects, we also tested a group of German L2 learners of Dutch who were predicted to perform like the native Dutch speakers. The two L2 groups differed in their offline interpretations of subject pronouns. The Turkish L2 learners exhibited a L1 influence, because approximately half the time they interpreted Dutch subject pronouns as they would overt pronouns in Turkish, whereas the German L2 learners performed like the Dutch controls, interpreting pronouns as coreferential with the current discourse topic. This L1 effect was not in evidence in eye-tracking data, however. Instead, the L2 learners patterned together, showing an online processing disadvantage when two potential antecedents for the pronoun were grammatically available in the discourse. This processing disadvantage was in evidence irrespective of the properties of the learners' L1 or their final interpretation of the pronoun. Therefore, the results of this study indicate both an effect of the L1 on the L2 in offline resolution and a general L2 processing effect in online subject pronoun resolution.

Null pronoun variation in Mexican-descent children's narrative discourse

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bayley ◽  
Lucinda Pease-Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Mexican Descent ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
Null Pronoun

ABSTRACTIn Spanish, subject pronouns may be realized phonetically or as null. Previous research on a wide range of dialects has established a rich patterning of constraints on this variation, with switch reference as the first order linguistic constraint. Recently, however, Paredes Silva (1993), in a study of written Brazilian Portuguese, suggested a more fine-grained analysis of null subject pronoun variation based on a model of discourse connectedness. This study tests Paredes Silva's model on the oral and written Spanish narratives of northern California Mexican-descent preadolescents. Results of multivariate analysis indicate that discourse connectedness provides a more fine-grained account of pronoun variation in the Spanish of these children than switch reference. The study also considers the effect of morphological ambiguity. We suggest that tense and aspect features provide a better explanation for the higher incidence of overt pronouns with imperfect, conditional, and subjunctive verb forms than the functional compensation hypothesis. Finally, we examine pronoun variation across immigrant generations. The results indicate that children with the greatest depth of ties to the United States are less likely to use overt pronouns than children born in Mexico.

scholarly journals Spoken Latin in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (40) ◽  
pp. 20-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerome Moran
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Direct Method ◽  
First Language ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
The Subject

Did educated people in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance use Latin routinely (Medieval Latin and Neo-Latin), rather than a regional vernacular, to conduct real-life conversations about ordinary, everyday matters? Were they taught how to do this in the schools of the day with the help of specimen written dialogues (colloquia)? Did their teachers use a Renaissance equivalent of the ‘direct method’, and did they teach Latin in the way that modern foreign languages are taught today? Or was spoken Latin, with a simulacrum of practical relevance to everyday life, a way of ‘bringing the subject to life’, an enjoyable diversion from the standard pedagogical fare (the ‘grammar grind’)? These are the questions that this article addresses. I argue that Latin was not generally used for everyday conversations, and that students were not taught how to conduct them outside the classroom any more than they are today, though spoken Latin was used as a medium for teaching and learning Latin, as it is to some extent today. Since Latin was not the first language of any native speaker, and since it was learned as a language primarily for reading and writing, comparisons with the teaching of modern foreign languages are specious. I also argue that spoken Latin today, as a pedagogical tool, is best kept out of the classroom and used, if it must be used, as a hobby or a pastime. It has limited usefulness as a means of learning Latin to a meaningful level (a level at which the learner can engage with original Latin texts). And the kind of Latin that is spoken in the classroom, an attempt to render a spoken form of Classical Latin, however ‘correct’ it may be grammatically and phonologically (and the grammar and phonology even of Classical Latin changed over time), is most unlikely to have been spoken routinely in the same kind of informal situations by an educated (one who is adept in Classical Latin) native speaker of Latin. In fact, the more ‘correct’ it is, the less likely it is to resemble authentic everyday spoken Latin, even of the educated elite that learned Classical Latin. This is even more the case after Classical Latin came increasingly to be different from the contemporary Latin that anyone spoke, and had increasingly to be learned from grammar books as if it were a second language. What Quintilian says of written Latin may be said of educated spoken Latin too: aliud est Latine, aliud grammatice scribere.

Null-subject encounter: Variable subject pronoun expression in the Spanish of Quechua-Spanish bilinguals in the Central Peruvian Andes

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 1005-1023
Author(s):  
Álvaro Cerrón-Palomino
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
First Language ◽  
Specific Effect ◽  
Peruvian Andes ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Audio Recordings ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Research Questions

Objectives and Research Questions: This study explores the effects of bilingualism on the production of subject personal pronouns (SPPs) in speakers of two null-subject languages, Quechua and Spanish. The paper also seeks to determine if these effects can be explained by general bilingual accounts, such as the Interface Hypothesis (IH), or by contact-specific accounts. Methodology: This is a sociolinguistic variationist study; therefore, the data were collected with sociolinguistic interviews. Data and Analysis: The data consist of transcriptions of audio recordings of eight Spanish monolingual and eight Quechua-Spanish bilingual speakers of Huancayo (Peru). The data were analyzed by using the statistical software SPSS 23.0 and Goldvarb X. Findings: The IH predicts that the overt SPP rate of the bilinguals should be higher than that of the monolinguals and that the pragmatic switch reference constraint should be difficult for the Quechua first language speakers to master. The results show, however, that their rates are similar, and that switch reference was the most robust predictor for the bilinguals. This study’s results suggest that indirect transfer from the mandatory Quechua switch reference subordinating particle – pti is taking place. Originality: This is one of the first variationist studies examining the IH predictions regarding SPP production in bilinguals speaking an indigenous American null-subject language alongside Spanish. In addition, this is the first study to show, through statistical analyses, the contact-specific effect the other language can exert on a particular constraint in the subject pronoun expression of the bilinguals. Significance: The results of the study suggest that even subtle transfer in situations of language contact can be accurately explained by contact-specific accounts.

Argument structure in second language acquisition

1991 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia White
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
First Language ◽  
Control Group ◽  
The Subject

AbstractThis paper investigates the effects of the first language (LI) on second language (L2) argument structure, in two situations: (i) LI sentences form a superset of those permitted in the L2; (ii) L2 sentences form a superset of those permitted in the LI. An experiment was conducted on 55 anglophone children learning French in Canada. Subject completed a perference task, comparing sentences which varied the types of arguments and adjuncts, and their ordering. Result indicate that the subject differed from a native speaker control group in various ways; English argument structure had effects but learners were also sensitve to properties of French which are distinct from English.

The role of the native language in the use of the English nongeneric definite article by L2 learners: A cross-linguistic comparison

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Chrabaszcz ◽  
Nan Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Native Speaker ◽  
Native Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Elicited Imitation ◽  
Russian Speakers ◽  
L2 Learners

The study uses an elicited imitation (EI) task to examine the effect of the native language on the use of the English nongeneric definite article by highly proficient first-language (L1) Spanish and Russian speakers and to test the hierarchy of article difficulty first proposed by Liu and Gleason (2002). Our findings suggest that there is a clear influence of L1 on participants’ reproduction of the second-language (L2) definite article in nongeneric contexts, but that various contexts present different levels of difficulty for the two L1 groups. The participants whose L1 is Spanish – a language with an article system – perform at a native-like level of accuracy in the grammatical condition of the test, whereas the participants whose L1 is Russian – a language without articles – demonstrate a tendency to omit definite articles in the same contexts. In the ungrammatical condition, Spanish speakers differ from the native speaker control group in their suppliance of the definite article in conventional and cultural contexts, while Russian participants supply the definite article significantly less than both the Spanish participants and the control group along all article categories. The study offers novel insights into what constitutes article difficulty for L2 learners from different L1s.

scholarly journals Prosodic effects on pronoun interpretation in Italian

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia White ◽  
Heather Goad ◽  
Jiajia Su ◽  
Liz Smeets ◽  
Marzieh Mortazavinia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Null Subjects ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronoun ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
The Subject

In this paper we offer a prosodic account of some well-known L2 findings relating to discourse requirements on pronouns in null subject languages like Italian. Discourse plays a role in determining when a null or overt pronoun in acceptable: in biclausal sentences, null subjects are strongly preferred when the antecedent is the subject in another clause (-topic shift). Overt subjects, in contrast, imply a change of topic and a preference for non-subject antecedents. Carminati (2002) expresses this as the Position of Antecedent Hypothesis (PAH), a processing constraint whereby null pronouns prefer antecedents in Spec IP whereas overt pronouns prefer their antecedents to be elsewhere. Previous methodology used tasks where participants made judgments based on sentences they read to themselves, making it impossible to determine what prosody had been adopted. Our results suggest that there are prosodic effects on pronoun interpretation; hence, prosodic factors should be taken into consideration in future experiments.

scholarly journals Subject pronoun expression in Mexican Spanish: ¿Qué pasa en Xalapa?

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Orozco
Keyword(s):  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Mexican Spanish ◽  
Lexical Frequency ◽  
Verb Semantics ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Grammatical Number ◽  
Effect Of Age

This study is the first variationist analysis of subject personal pronoun expression (SPE) in the Spanish of Xalapa, Mexico. The overall pronominal rate (25%)—the highest such rate found in Mexican Spanish so far—also constitutes one of the highest in a mainland Spanish variety. Six predictors—four internal and two external—significantly condition SPE. The internal conditioning—congruent with what occurs elsewhere—reveals grammatical number and person of the subject as the strongest predictor. It also shows that verb class has tendencies similar to those found in other communities. However, further analysis uncovers that lexical frequency provides more definite answers regarding how verbs condition SPE, as within the copulative verb class category ser ‘be’ favors overt subjects but estar ‘be’ favors null subjects. Moreover, the unusually robust effect of age sets Xalapa Spanish apart from most other varieties. Interestingly, the pronominal rate among teenagers (11%)—below the lowest overall pronominal rate anywhere—is consistent with what occurs in other Spanish varieties such as Colombian, European, Dominican, and Mexican. These findings call for further research on the effects of verb semantics and age on SPE.

scholarly journals A Variationist Study of Subject Pronoun Expression in Medellín, Colombia

Languages ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Rafael Orozco ◽  
Luz Marcela Hurtado
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Random Effect ◽  
Routine Activities ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
Lexical Effect ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Baseline Knowledge ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
Reflexive Verbs

This variationist study of subject pronoun expression (SPE) in Medellín, Colombia uses multivariate regressions to probe the effects of ten predictors on 4623 tokens from the Proyecto para el Estudio Sociolingüístico del Español de España y de América (PRESEEA) corpus. We implement analytical innovations by exploring transitivity and the lexical effect of the verb, which we analyze by testing infinitives and subject pronoun + verb collocations, respectively, as standalone, random-effect factors. Our results reveal the highest pronominal rate (28%) found in a mainland Spanish-speaking community. Additionally, we uncover that pronominal rates increase with age, a finding which appears to have cognitive implications. The internal conditioning contributes to pronombrista studies by showing the effects of discourse type and transitivity. Narratives and opinion statements favor overt subjects, but statements indicating routine activities favor null subjects. Whereas unergative verbs promote overt subjects, reflexive verbs favor null subjects. The lexical effect of the verb reveals opposing tendencies between verbs in the same category as well as within different collocations of the same verb, providing more definitive answers than the semantically guided approaches used for the last four decades and showing that verb groupings do not constitute functional categories with regard to SPE. Overall, this study contributes to expand our baseline knowledge of SPE in mainland Latin American communities and opens interesting research avenues.

Never saw one – first-person null subjects in spoken English1

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSANNE WAGNER
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
First Language ◽  
First Person ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Verb Phrase ◽  
The One ◽  
Colloquial Speech

While null subjects are a well-researched phenomenon in pro-drop languages like Italian or Spanish, they have not received much attention in non-pro-drop languages such as English, where they are traditionally associated with particular (written) genres such as diaries or are discussed under a broader umbrella term such as situational ellipsis. However, examples such as the one in the title – while certainly not frequent – are commonly encountered in colloquial speech, with first-person singular tokens outnumbering any other person.This article investigates the linguistic and non-linguistic factors influencing the (non-) realisation of first-person singular subjects in a corpus of colloquial English. The variables found to contribute to the observed variation are drawn from a variety of linguistic domains and follow up on research conducted in such different fields as first language acquisition (FLA), cognitive linguistics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics and language variation and change. Of particular interest is the finding regarding the link between null subjects and complexity of the verb phrase, which patterns in a clearly linear fashion: the more complex the verb phrase, the more likely is a null realisation. Not discussed in this form before, this finding, given its high significance and its robustness in light of alternative coding, may prove to be an important candidate for inclusion in future studies on (English) null subjects.

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