scholarly journals Isomorphism and language-specific devices in comprehension of Korean suffixal passive construction by Mandarin-speaking learners of Korean

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gyu-Ho Shin ◽  
Sun Hee Park

Abstract Across languages, a passive construction is known to manifest a misalignment between the typical order of event composition (agent-before-theme) and the actual order of arguments in the constructions (theme-before-agent), dubbed non-isomorphic mapping. This study investigates comprehension of a suffixal passive construction in Korean by Mandarin-speaking learners of Korean, focusing on isomorphism and language-specific devices in the passive. We measured learners’ judgment of the acceptability of canonical and scrambled suffixal passives as well as their reaction times (relative to a canonical active transitive). Our analysis generated three major findings. First, learners uniformly preferred the canonical passive to the scrambled passive. Second, as proficiency increased, the judgment gap between the canonical active transitive and the canonical suffixal passive narrowed, but the gap between the canonical active transitive and the scrambled suffixal passive did not. Third, learners (and even native speakers) spent more time in judging the acceptability of the canonical suffixal passive than they did in the other two construction types. Implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the mapping nature involving a passive voice, indicated by language-specific devices (i.e., case-marking and verbal morphology dedicated to Korean passives), in L2 acquisition.

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-107
Author(s):  
Enikő Tankó

Abstract This paper investigates the choice of Hungarian equivalents for the English passive construction in translated texts in order to have a glimpse on how translators deal with the English passive. In previous studies (Tankó 2011, 2014), we have looked at the problems encountered by L1 speakers of Hungarian in the acquisition of the English passive voice, having identified different Hungarian equivalents of the English passive that native speakers would resort to when expressing a passive meaning. A special attention has been paid to the Hungarian predicative verbal adverbial construction, which seems to be the closest syntactic equivalent of the English passive, which captures most of its syntactic or discourse function properties. The main question to pursue is whether L1 speakers of Hungarian use the same strategies as shown in previous studies or they choose some other structures to express the passive meaning when it comes to translating literary texts. On the other hand, we would like to analyse Hungarian contexts which require a translation using the passive in English. Thus, our corpus consists of Orwell’s 1984 and Jókai Mór’s Az arany ember, comparing them with their translated versions.


Author(s):  
Айгуль Наилевна Закирова ◽  
Никита Алексеевич Муравьев

В статье рассматриваются две пассивные конструкции в горномарийском языке. В обеих из них используется причастная форма на -mə̑; основное различие между конструкциями состоит в падежном оформлении пациентивного участника. В одной из конструкций сохраняется исходное аккузативное маркирование пациенса, тогда как в другой конструкции пациентивный участник получает номинативное оформление. Цель исследования — сравнительный анализ двух разновидностей пассива и выявление закономерностей, лежащих в основе выбора падежного оформления пациенса. В литературе по пассивным конструкциям во многих языках отмечается наличие двух пассивных конструкций: адъективного пассива со стативной семантикой и глагольного пассива с динамической семантикой. Это же различие ожидалось увидеть и применительно к горномарийскому причастному пассиву. Для проверки этого предположения были изучены: а) синтаксические особенности конструкций, соотношение в них именных и глагольных свойств, б) аспектуальная семантика конструкций, а именно противопоставление стативной и динамической семантики, в) особенности кодирования участников и контексты с различным референциальным статусом пациенса. Было установлено, что пассив с номинативным кодированием пациенса в целом характеризуется именным синтаксисом, стативной семантикой и обязательной определенностью пациенса, тогда как пассив с аккузативным кодированием имеет глагольный синтаксис, динамическую семантику и не ограничен с точки зрения референциальных свойств пациенса. Единственным наблюдаемым отклонением от данных закономерностей является одинаковая допустимость обеих разновидностей пассива в хабитуальных контекстах, что подлежит дальнейшему выяснению. На основе выявленных закономерностей было сделано обобщение, что пассив с номинативным кодированием пациенса описывает состояние, возникшее в результате некоторого события, тогда как пассив с аккузативным кодированием описывает само событие. В качестве итога исследования предложена интерпретация семантического различия между конструкциями в теоретической парадигме синтаксиса первой фазы Дж. Рэмчанд: аккузативную конструкцию можно рассматривать как конструкцию с озвучиванием каузирующего и процессуального подсобытия, а номинативную — как конструкцию с озвучиванием результирующего подсобытия. The article provides an account of two participial passive constructions employing the -mə̑- participle in Hill Mari. The data was collected in 2017 and 2019 in the villages of Kuznetsovo and Mikryakovo of the Gornomarijskij district, Republic of Mari El. The two constructions with the -mə̑- participle differ in the first place in how the patient is marked: in one of them the patient is marked for nominative, whereas in the other construction the accusative marking is inherited from the transitive verb. The aim of this study is to compare the two constructions in terms of their syntax and semantics and explore the rules that govern the choice between them. In the existing literature two kinds of passive constructions are described: adjectival passive constructions with stative interpretation and verbal passive constructions with dynamic interpretation. The two Hill Mari -mə̑- constructions were expected to demonstrate the same distinction. In order to test this hypothesis, we considered a) the syntactic properties of the constructions, and the nominal or verbal behavior of the -mə̑- form in both cases; b) the aspectual semantics of the two constructions, i.e. the possibility of stative and dynamic interpretation in both constructions; c) the marking of the arguments in the constrictions, i.e. the possibility of overt expression of the agent and the referential properties of the patient. Syntactically, the passive construction with the nominative marking of the patient turned out to be an adjectival predication. This construction is stative, and the nominative patient NP is always definite. The construction with accusative patient marking is a verbal clause with a dynamic interpretation. The accusative patient NP may have any referential properties. However, both constructions can refer to habitual events, which needs further investigation. The observed properties of the two constructions lead to the following generalization: the construction with nominative patient marking denotes a resultant state of an event, whereas the construction with accusative patient marking denotes the event itself. This difference may be interpreted in the first phase syntax framework developed by G. Ramchand: in the nominative construction the patient is the Resultee, whereas in the accusative construction the patient is the Undergoer.


Author(s):  
Nadia Mifka-Profozic

In this study, the effectiveness of implicit corrective feedback was examined with a group of 30 sixteen-year-old English native speakers learning French, who received either recasts or clarification requests on errors they made with the passé composé and the imparfait. The control group did not receive any feedback. Overall, the results indicate that recasts were more effective in improving accuracy of form and use for both the passé composé and the imparfait. However, an examination of language development with reference to the Aspect Hypothesis and the inherent lexical aspect of verbs showed that no change occurred between the pretest and the posttests. The passé composé was associated exclusively with achievement verbs, whereas the imparfait was limited to several frequent irregular stative verbs and a few activity verbs.


2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antje Stoehr ◽  
Titia Benders ◽  
Janet G van Hell ◽  
Paula Fikkert

Speech of late bilinguals has frequently been described in terms of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from the native language (L1) to the second language (L2), but CLI from the L2 to the L1 has received relatively little attention. This article addresses L2 attainment and L1 attrition in voicing systems through measures of voice onset time (VOT) in two groups of Dutch–German late bilinguals in the Netherlands. One group comprises native speakers of Dutch and the other group comprises native speakers of German, and the two groups further differ in their degree of L2 immersion. The L1-German–L2-Dutch bilinguals ( N = 23) are exposed to their L2 at home and outside the home, and the L1-Dutch–L2-German bilinguals ( N = 18) are only exposed to their L2 at home. We tested L2 attainment by comparing the bilinguals’ L2 to the other bilinguals’ L1, and L1 attrition by comparing the bilinguals’ L1 to Dutch monolinguals ( N = 29) and German monolinguals ( N = 27). Our findings indicate that complete L2 immersion may be advantageous in L2 acquisition, but at the same time it may cause L1 phonetic attrition. We discuss how the results match the predictions made by Flege’s Speech Learning Model and explore how far bilinguals’ success in acquiring L2 VOT and maintaining L1 VOT depends on the immersion context, articulatory constraints and the risk of sounding foreign accented.


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-248
Author(s):  
Enikő Tankó

AbstractThe main question to be investigated is to what extent native speakers of Hungarian understand and acquire the English passive voice, as there is no generalized syntactic passive construction in Hungarian. As we will show, native speakers of Hungarian tend to use the predicative verbal adverbial construction when translating English passive sentences, as this construction is the closest syntactic equivalent of the English passive voice. Another question to be investigated is whether L2 Romanian works as a facilitating factor in the process of acquiring the L3 English passive voice. If all our subjects, Hungarian students living in Romania, were Hungarian-Romanian bilinguals, it would be obvious that knowledge of Romanian helps them in acquiring the English passive. However, as it will be shown, the bilingualism hypothesis is disconfirmed. Still, passive knowledge of Romanian influences to some extent the acquisition of the English passive voice.


2006 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 183-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Cadierno ◽  
Lucas Ruiz

The overall aim of this paper is to discuss how Talmy’s (1985, 2000) typological framework and Slobin’s (1996) thinking for speaking hypothesis can be fruitful for the investigation of how adult language learners come to express motion events in an L2. We report an empirical study which compares the expression of the semantic components of Path and Manner of motion by three groups of informants: (a) learners whose L1 and L2 belong to different typological patterns (Danish learners of Spanish; (b) learners whose L1 and L2 share the same typological pattern (Italian learners of Spanish); and (c) Spanish native speakers. Based on previous research on L1 acquisition, it was hypothesized that the Danish learner group would exhibit a higher degree of elaboration of the two semantic components than the other informant groups. The results of the study, however, show a limited role for the L1 thinking for speaking patterns in advanced second language acquisition.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-124
Author(s):  
Enikő Tankó

Abstract Does knowledge of Romanian, more exactly of Romanian passive voice, help learning the English passive construction? Or is it the other way round: knowledge of English helps students learning Romanian? Perhaps L2 and L3 mutually influence each other in the case of Hungarian students from Miercurea Ciuc? In previous studies addressing the problems encountered by L1 speakers of Hungarian in the acquisition of the English passive voice (Tankó 2011, 2014), I presumed that possessing Romanian to various degrees represented a facilitating factor in the acquisition of the passive given that Romanian, like English, has a well-developed, explicitly-taught passive construction. Of course, speakers of Hungarian living in Romania might be influenced to some extent by their knowledge of Romanian when learning the English passive voice - yet, the question is to what extent. Thus, an important element of this study represents identifying students’ level of Romanian and their production of Romanian BE-passive and SE-passive.


2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Hopp ◽  
Mayra E. León Arriaga

This article reports an eye-tracking study on the native and non-native processing of case in Spanish. Twenty-four native and 27 first language (L1) German non-native speakers of Spanish were tested on their sensitivity to case marking violations involving structural case with objects of ditransitive verbs and to violations of inherent case for objects of transitive verbs (differential object marking; DOM). Both groups distinguished between grammatical and ungrammatical case marking for all sentence types in off-line acceptability judgments. In reading, however, the non-native speakers, unlike the native speakers, were sensitive only to violations of structural case marking with ditransitive verbs and the erroneous realization of DOM with inanimate objects. In contrast, they did not show processing slowdowns for the omission of DOM with animate objects. We interpret the asymmetry in non-native processing as reflecting sensitivity of the parser to grammatical feature hierarchies in that the parser licenses default case markings, yet flags feature clashes occasioned by the suppliance of erroneous inflectional forms with inherent case marking. We discuss the findings in the context of current approaches to second language (L2) acquisition and processing.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 1482-1488
Author(s):  
Jennifer J. Thistle

Purpose Previous research with children with and without disabilities has demonstrated that visual–perceptual factors can influence the speech of locating a target on an array. Adults without disabilities often facilitate the learning and use of a child's augmentative and alternative communication system. The current research examined how the presence of symbol background color influenced the speed with which adults without disabilities located target line drawings in 2 studies. Method Both studies used a between-subjects design. In the 1st study, 30 adults (ages 18–29 years) located targets in a 16-symbol array. In the 2nd study, 30 adults (ages 18–34 years) located targets in a 60-symbol array. There were 3 conditions in each study: symbol background color, symbol background white with a black border, and symbol background white with a color border. Results In the 1st study, reaction times across groups were not significantly different. In the 2nd study, participants in the symbol background color condition were significantly faster than participants in the other conditions, and participants in the symbol background white with black border were significantly slower than participants in the other conditions. Conclusion Communication partners may benefit from the presence of background color, especially when supporting children using displays with many symbols.


Author(s):  
Melanie C. Steffens ◽  
Inga Plewe

Abstract. The introduction of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998 ) has stimulated numerous research activities. The IAT is supposed to measure the degree of association between concepts. Instances have to be assigned to these concepts by pressing appropriate keys as quickly as possible. The reaction time difference between certain conditions, termed the IAT effect, is used as an indicator of the degree of the concepts’ association. We tested the hypothesis that the degree of association between one concept (or category) and the instances of the other presented concept also influences reaction times. In our experiment, the instances in the target categories, male and female names, were kept constant. The adjectives in the evaluative categories were manipulated: Either the pleasant adjectives were female-associated and the unpleasant adjectives were male-associated, or vice versa. These stereotypic associations were indeed found to exert a substantial influence on the size of the IAT effect. This finding casts doubt on the assumption that the IAT effect may be interpreted as a pure measure of the degree of association between concepts.


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