Why is this happened? Passive morphology and unaccusativity

1997 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Balcom
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Syntactic Rule ◽  
English Writing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Unaccusative Verbs

Zobl discussed inappropriate passive morphology (‘be’ and the past participle) in the English writing of L2 learners, linking its occurrence to the class of unaccusative verbs and proposing that learners subsume unaccusatives under the syntactic rule for passive formation. The research reported here supports and amplifies Zobl' proposal, based on a grammaticality judgement task and a controlled production task containing verbs from a variety of subclasses of unaccusatives. The tasks were administered to Chinese L1 learners of English and a control group of English native speakers. Results show that subjects both used and judged as grammatical inappropriate passive morphology with all verbs falling under the rubric of unaccusativity. The article concludes with linguistic representations which maintain Zobl’s insights but are consistent with current theories of argument structure.

The L2 acquisition of dative experiencer subjects

1998 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvina A. Montrul
Keyword(s):  
English Learners ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Control Group ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Psych Verbs ◽  
L1 Influence ◽  
Preference Task

This longitudinal experimental study is concerned with the L2 acquisition of argument structure and its relationship with Case Theory. French ( n = 17) and English ( n = 19) intermediate learners of Spanish as a Second Language were tested three times over a period of eight months on their knowledge of dative experiencers. Eighteen Spanish native speakers acted as a control group. Dative experiencers in Spanish are common with a subset of psych verbs and unaccusative predicates. These experiencers look like indirect objects on the surface, and indeed can appear in the position of indirect objects. Most of the time, however, they appear in canonical subject position and behave like subjects for some modules of the grammar, such as Control PRO in adjunct clauses. It was hypothesized that if a thematic hierarchy is operative in SLA,both English and French learners would have no difficulty interpreting experiencers as subjects, but that English learners would experience greater difficulty with dative case because there is no dative case in English.An Interpretation Task and a Preference Task were designed to test these hypotheses. Results indicate that,whereas both groups of subjects have access to the thematic hierarchy (a UG component),L1 influence plays an important role with case assignment and checking.

Perfect and periphrastic passive constructions in Danish

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Bjerre ◽  
Tavs Bjerre
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Semantic Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
Strong Emphasis ◽  
Valence Structure

This paper gives an account of the event and argument structure of past participles, and the linking between argument structure and valence structure. It further accounts for how participles form perfect and passive constructions with auxiliaries. We assume that the same participle form is used in both types of construction. Our claim is that the valence structure of a past participle is predictable from its semantic type, and that the valence structure predicts which auxiliary a past participle combines with in perfect constructions and whether the past participle may occur in passive constructions. Our approach sets itself apart from similar approaches, cf. e.g. Heinz & Matiasek (1994), Kathol (1994), Pollard (1994) and Müller (2003), with its strong emphasis on semantics.

Argument structure distribution of predicates in Korean agrammatic speech

2003 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
YOUNG-JOO KIM ◽  
HYANGHEE KIM ◽  
HONG-KI SONG
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Narrative Production ◽  
Scene Description ◽  
The Difference

The present study focuses on the production of predicates by Korean agrammatic aphasic patients with respect to the argument structure distribution of the predicates. We analyzed narrative production data and picture/scene description data elicited from three Broca's aphasic patients in comparison with matched controls. In particular, we examined whether our subjects have the same kind of difficulties that Kegl's English agrammatic patient exhibited in the production of noncopular unaccusative constructions. The results show that our Korean aphasics do not exhibit any dramatic discrepancy from the control group in the pattern of argument structure distribution of the predicates produced. Regarding methodology, our studies reveal that the picture/scene description measures the subjects' competence more effectively than the narrative production task. We propose that the difference found between our agrammatic patients and Kegl's agrammatic subject may be due to the differences in the syntactic processes for deriving unaccusative constructions in the two languages.

scholarly journals Speaking about the past from different perspectives: the acquisition of Italian L2 by Norwegian and Russian learners

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizaveta Khachaturyan
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Text Structure ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Grammatical Aspect ◽  
The Past ◽  
Correct Form ◽  
Textual Features ◽  
Past Tenses

This study investigates the influence of L1 language-specific patterns on the acquisition of L2 structures. The lack of certain grammatical categories is often compensated for at another level of linguistic structure. This study analyses how Italian past tenses (connected with the category of aspect) are acquired by Russian and Norwegian learners. In Norwegian, in contrast to Russian and Italian, there is no grammatical aspect. The data analyzed contain a written narration of a short story presented through four pictures and were collected from several groups of informants: Russian and Norwegian native speakers, learners of Italian (levels B1 and C1), and Italian native speakers (the control group). The results obtained show that Norwegian learners, independently of their level, use more temporal connectors in their narratives. However, verbal semantics or temporal connectors (usually considered to be triggers of Italian past tenses) do not help them use the correct form. Russian learners performed better on the test. Their errors show that the textual function of the verb is more important for them than its semantics. However, they overuse coordinative connectors (e ‘and’ and ma ‘but’) at the beginning of sentences. These results lead to further discussion of textual features in the three languages and the role of the tense-aspect category in text structure.

scholarly journals La production des scenarios contrefactuels par des apprenants adultes hispanophones

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Repiso
Keyword(s):  
Counterfactual Thinking ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
The Past ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Modal Verb ◽  
Organizational Principles ◽  
The Way

The production of alternatives to factual events implies a counterfactual thinking in which reality is compared to an imagined view of what might have been. Previous studies in linguistics have analyzed counterfactuality in the context of conditional constructions if P (then) Q (Bates 1976; Bloom 1981; Reilly 1982; Au 1983; Liu 1985; Bernini 1994; Chini 1995; Schouten 2000; Yeh & Gentner 2005). This article aims to describe the use of simple conditional sentences in a mutation task by 30 Spanish-speaking learners of French. In quantitative terms, the frequency of use of the conditional tense in the learner group is similar to that of the French control group for the same task. In qualitative terms, however, the way in which learners use the conditional differs from the native pattern in several ways: the use of the conjunction -que at the head of the mutation core (i.e., Qu’elle aurait pu choisir son repas ‘That she could have chosen her meal’); the omission of a modal in the mutation core (i.e., Son supérieur aurait choisi les moules ‘Her superior would have chosen the mussels’) or the use of a modal verb elsewhere than in the past participle position (i.e., Elle pourrait avoir commandé elle-même ‘She could have ordered herself’). Our results show that in the production of counterfactual scenarios, the learners combine flexional features that match the native pattern with syntactic and lexical elements dominant in the organizational principles of information in the L1

The Past Tense Debate Revisited: Electrophysiological Evidence for Subregularities of Irregular Verb Inflection

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (9) ◽  
pp. 1870-1885 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie Regel ◽  
Andreas Opitz ◽  
Gereon Müller ◽  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Past Tense ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Syntactic Rule ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Tense Form ◽  
Electrophysiological Evidence ◽  
Verb Inflection ◽  
Experimental Block ◽  
Irregular Verbs

Neuropsychological research investigating mental grammar and lexicon has largely been based on the processing of regular and irregular inflection. Past tense inflection of regular verbs is assumed to be generated by a syntactic rule (e.g., show-ed), whereas irregular verbs consist of rather unsystematic alternations (e.g., caught) represented as lexical entries. Recent morphological accounts, however, hold that irregular inflection is not entirely rule-free but relies on morphological principles. These subregularities are computed by the syntactic system. We tested this latter hypothesis by examining alternations of irregular German verbs as well as pseudowords using ERPs. Participants read series of irregular verb inflection including present tense, past participle, and past tense forms embedded in minimal syntactic contexts. The critical past tense form was correct (e.g., er sang [he sang]) or incorrect by being either partially consistent (e.g., *er sung [*he sung]) or inconsistent (e.g., *er sing [*he sing]) with the proposed morphological principles. Correspondingly, in a second experimental block, pseudowords (e.g., tang/*tung/*ting) were presented. ERPs for real words revealed a biphasic ERP pattern consisting of a negativity and P600 for both incorrect forms in comparison to the correct equivalents. Most interestingly, the P600 amplitude for the incorrect forms was gradually modulated by the type of anomaly with medium amplitude for consistent past tense forms and largest amplitude for inconsistent past tense forms. ERPs for pseudoword past tense forms showed a similar gradual modulation of N400. The findings support the assumption that irregular verbs are processed by rule-based mechanisms because of subregularities of their past tense inflection.

Mastering the Grammar of Past Tense Counterfactual Sentences: A Pilot Study of Adolescents Attending Low-Income Schools

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Marilyn A. Nippold ◽  
Kristin Shinham ◽  
Scott LaFavre
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Descriptive Grammar ◽  
The Past ◽  
Significant Difference

<b><i>Background/Aim:</i></b> This pilot study was designed to determine if adolescents had mastered the grammar of past tense counterfactual (PTCF) sentences (e.g., “If Julie had done all of the track workouts, she might have won the state meet”). Of interest was their ability to use the modal, auxiliary, and past participle verbs correctly in the main clause of a PTCF sentence. Prior research had indicated that PTCF sentences were challenging to older children. Hence, we wished to determine if PTCF sentences would continue to challenge adolescents. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> The participants were two groups of adolescents, who were aged 13 and 16 years, and a control group of young adults having a mean age of 22 years (<i>n</i> = 40 per group). Each participant read a set of four fables and completed a PTCF sentence based on the story. Each incomplete sentence contained a subordinate clause that employed the past perfect verb form (e.g., “If the fox <i>had been</i> able to jump higher…”). The participant’s task was to complete the sentence in writing, generating a grammatically correct main clause that contained the present perfect verb form (e.g., “he <i>would have been</i> able to reach the delicious grapes.”). <b><i>Results:</i></b> On the PTCF sentences task, the 16-year-olds earned a higher mean raw score than the 13-year-olds, but the two groups did not show a statistically significant difference. However, the 22-year-olds performed significantly better than the 13-year-olds. It was also found that using the correct form of the past participle verb was the most difficult aspect of the task for all three groups, and that mastering the grammar of PTCF sentences continued into adulthood. <b><i>Discussion/Conclusion:</i></b> The PTCF sentence is a late linguistic attainment, perhaps due to its infrequent occurrence in spoken language. The study offers implications for the concept of grammatical mastery and for the distinction between prescriptive and descriptive grammar.

Salvaging the Mother Tongue in Exile

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 187-204
Author(s):  
Tomás Espino Barrera
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
First Language ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
The Past ◽  
Progressive Loss ◽  
First Language Attrition ◽  
Lost In Translation ◽  
Deliberate Effort ◽  
Deep Sense

The dramatic increase in the number of exiles and refugees in the past 100 years has generated a substantial amount of literature written in a second language as well as a heightened sensibility towards the progressive loss of fluency in the mother tongue. Confronted by what modern linguistics has termed ‘first-language attrition’, the writings of numerous exilic translingual authors exhibit a deep sense of trauma which is often expressed through metaphors of illness and death. At the same time, most of these writers make a deliberate effort to preserve what is left from the mother tongue by attempting to increase their exposure to poems, dictionaries or native speakers of the ‘dying’ language. The present paper examines a range of attitudes towards translingualism and first language attrition through the testimonies of several exilic authors and thinkers from different countries (Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory, Hannah Arendt's interviews, Jorge Semprún's Quel beau dimanche! and Autobiografía de Federico Sánchez, and Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation, among others). Special attention will be paid to the historical frameworks that encourage most of their salvaging operations by infusing the mother tongue with categories of affect and kinship.

An exploratory study on pro-drop in a written description task in L2 Spanish

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
An Vande Casteele ◽  
Alejandro Palomares Ortiz
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
L2 Spanish ◽  
Spanish Language Learners ◽  
Description Task ◽  
Experimental Group ◽  
Written Description

Abstract The present article aims at investigating the pro-drop phenomenon in L2 Spanish. The phenomenon of pro-drop or null subject is a typological feature of some languages, which are characterized by an implicit subject in cases of topic continuity. More specifically, behaviour regarding subject (dis)continuity in Spanish differs from French. This paper will offer a contrastive analysis on subject realisation by French learners of L2 Spanish compared to L1 Spanish speakers. So, the goal of this pilot study is to see if a different functioning in pro-drop in the mother tongue also influences the L2. The study is based upon a written description task presented to the two groups of participants: the experimental group of French mother tongue L2 Spanish language learners and the control group of Spanish native speakers.

scholarly journals Predicate union and the syntax of Japanese passives

1997 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
STANLEY DUBINSKY
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
Unaccusative Verbs

This paper presents a relational account of the Japanese constructions that are commonly referred to as ‘passives’. They are shown to all be multipredicate, monoclausal constructions, with the differences between them primarily attributable to optionality in the lexical argument structure of the ‘passive’ predicate. The proposed analysis explains the differences between passives and causatives, despite their sometimes identical case-marking. Further, evidence from the interaction of unaccusative verbs and passive is shown to lead to a formal revision of the 1-Advancement Exclusiveness law. Finally, the differences between Japanese and Korean with respect to passives is reduced to a simple lexical difference between the two languages.

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