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Setting the elements of syntactic variation in L2 acquisition: On the English ’s morphemeElisa Di DomenicoUniversità per Stranieri di Perugiaelisa.didomenico@unistrapg.itIf parameters are located in the functional lexicon (Borer 1983, Rizzi 2011 a.o.) and thetriggers are vocabulary items with their idiosyncratic properties, then acquiring a second language(L2A) is to be thought of as very similar to first language acquisition (L1A). The L2 learner is facedwith new words/morphemes (or with their apparent absence) whose syntactic properties have to bediscovered (through UG) and, ideally, there is nothing to be reset and everything to be set. Theliterature has however brought to light many differences between L1A and L2A, and among themmany can be explained assuming parameter resetting. My aim here is not to deny these results, butjust to explore the idea that the L2 learner is faced with new vocabulary items whose syntacticproperties have to be discovered through a specific instance, the English –s morpheme, which I findparticularly interesting because its morpho-phonological opacity makes it a potentially ambiguoustrigger.In this work I analyse data collected through a written task from 50 Italian L2 learners ofEnglish (beginners or near beginners) aged 10 to 12. We chose two uses of the –s morpheme whichare homophonic and homographic: the case in which ’s is a contracted form of BE and the case inwhich it is a genitive. Subjects were presented a list of sentences (well formed and non –ambiguous) corresponding to 5 different patterns (see Table 1). They had to decide whether thevalue of ’s in each item was BE or genitive and indicate it to the right of the item. Two testingsessions were realized, one soon after students were taught BE simple present and ’s –genitive andone five months later. Results indicate: a) a similar percentage of target and non-target decisionsacross items in the two sessions (Table 2). b) an equal ranking of the various patterns in the twosessions (Table 3 and Figure 1). c) a statistically significant difference between Pattern 2 andPattern 3 in both sessions (Figure 1).a)indicates that it is really a problem to decide what is ’s, and the problem persists over time. b) andc) show that this decision is not equally difficult and the difficulty is structure dependent. Weinterpret the results in the following way. Learners not only find ’s ambiguous, but theyparse the sentences they are presented with, assuming the hypothesis in (1):(1) Is and ’s are allomorphs of a general agreement morphemeinput driven partUG driven partIn Pattern 2, but not in Pattern 3, ’s is placed at a choice point (Fodor 1998), i.e. a point in which itcan be attached within the constituent currently being parsed (the DP) following Late Closure, orprojecting the CP node (coherently with Minimal Attachment). Hence the significantly highernumber of non –target decisions. (1) is also confirmed by some elicited production errors like (2)and (3):(2) Q. What does Jane want?A. Bag is Mary(3) Q. Where are the belts?A. The belt is Brom is on the table. The belt is Katrina is on the chairwhich reveal that the boundaries of what is known as ‘BE overgeneration’ (Ionin and Wexler2002),when BE is third person singular, go beyond the clause and include the DP as well. And if‘BE overgeneration’ is a hallmark of L2 acquisition (Paradis et al. 2008) we can restate ourintroductory issue. An L2 learner, like an L1 learner, tries to discover the properties of ’s, but,differently from the latter, the former starts building hypotheses with an already matured structure(perhaps in the form of ‘treelets’ as proposed by Fodor 1998).
Table 1Value of ’s Pattern Example1. BE Common noun + ’s + PP My bike’s in the garage2.BE Proper name + ’s +PP Jodie’s in the garden3.GVIS + subj+ Poss simpleNP +’s Is this Jack’s tracksuit?+N4.GVIS + subj+ Poss conjoinedNP Is this Tom and Jenny’s car?+’s +N5.GV PossNP + ’s + NP + BE + AP Rosie’s dog is very friendlyTable 2. Total % of target decisionsSessionTarget decisionsDecember 67.6%June 71.2%Table 3 Patterns ranking for target decisionsSessionRankingDecemberP3>P1>P4>P5>P2JuneP3>P1>P4>P5>P2Figure 1.6040200Target decisionsP1 P2 P3 P4 P5PatternsDecemberJuneDecember: There is a statistically significant difference between Pattern 2 and Pattern 3 (χ 2 =5. 4726p=.05; with Yates correction χ 2 = 4.5228 p=.05).June: There is a statistically significant difference between Pattern 2 and Pattern 3 (χ 2 = 8.2079p=.05 (significant also at p=.01 and at p=.001); with Yates correction χ 2 = 6.9937 p=.05 (significant also at p=.01).Selected References:Borer, H. (1983) Parametric Syntax, Dordrecht, Foris.Fodor, J.D. (1998) Parsing To Learn, Journal of Psycholinguistic research, 27/3: 339-374.Ionin, T. and Wexler, K. (2002), Why is ‘is’ easier than ‘-s’?: acquisition of tense/agreementmorphology by child second language learners of English, Second Language Research,18/2: 95-136.Paradis, J., Rice, M., Crago, M. and Marquis, J. (2008) The acquisition of tense in English:Distinguishing child L2 from L1 and SLI. Applied Psycholinguistics, 29:1-34.Rizzi, L. (2011) On the elements of syntactic variation, Studies in Linguistics (CISCL WP) vol. 4.
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GLOW Newsletter #70, Spring 2013Edi
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INTRODUCTIONWelcome to the 70 th GL
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Welcome to GLOW 36, Lund!The 36th G
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REIMBURSEMENT AND WAIVERSThe regist
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STATISTICS BY COUNTRYCountry Author
Page 12 and 13: 15:45-16:00 Coffee break16:00-17:00
Page 14 and 15: 14:00-15:00 Adam Albright (MIT) and
Page 16 and 17: 17:00-17:30 Anna Maria Di Sciullo (
Page 18 and 19: 16.10-16.50 Peter Svenonius (Univer
Page 20 and 21: GLOW 36 WORKSHOP PROGRAM IV:Acquisi
Page 22 and 23: The impossible chaos: When the mind
Page 24 and 25: 17. Friederici, A. D., Trends Cogn.
Page 26 and 27: Second, tests replicated from Bruen
Page 28 and 29: clusters is reported to be preferre
Page 30 and 31: occur (cf. figure 1). Similar perfo
Page 32 and 33: argument that raises to pre-verbal
Page 34 and 35: Timothy Bazalgette University of
Page 36 and 37: . I hurt not this knee now (Emma 2;
Page 38 and 39: Rajesh Bhatt & Stefan Keine(Univers
Page 40 and 41: SIZE MATTERS: ON DIACHRONIC STABILI
Page 42 and 43: ON THE ‘MAFIOSO EFFECT’ IN GRAM
Page 44 and 45: The absence of coreferential subjec
Page 46 and 47: PROSPECTS FOR A COMPARATIVE BIOLING
Page 48 and 49: A multi-step algorithm for serial o
Page 50 and 51: Velar/coronal asymmetry in phonemic
Page 52 and 53: On the bilingual acquisition of Ita
Page 54 and 55: Hierarchy and Recursion in the Brai
Page 56 and 57: Colorful spleeny ideas speak furiou
Page 58 and 59: A neoparametric approach to variati
Page 60 and 61: Lexical items merged in functional
Page 64 and 65: Language Faculty, Complexity Reduct
Page 66 and 67: Don’t scope your universal quanti
Page 68 and 69: Restricting language change through
Page 70 and 71: 4. Conclusion This micro-comparativ
Page 72 and 73: 2. Central Algonquian feature hiera
Page 74 and 75: availability of the SR reading in (
Page 76 and 77: Repairing Final-Over-Final Constrai
Page 78 and 79: a PF interface phenomenon as propos
Page 80 and 81: (b) Once the learner has determined
Page 82 and 83: cognitive recursion (including Merg
Page 84 and 85: can be null, or lexically realized,
Page 86 and 87: feature on C and applies after Agre
Page 88 and 89: Nobu Goto (Mie University)Deletion
Page 90 and 91: Structural Asymmetries - The View f
Page 92 and 93: FROM INFANT POINTING TO THE PHASE:
Page 94 and 95: Some Maladaptive Traits of Natural
Page 96 and 97: Constraints on Concept FormationDan
Page 98 and 99: More on strategies of relativizatio
Page 100 and 101: ReferencesBayer, J. 1984. COMP in B
Page 102 and 103: Improper movement and improper agre
Page 104 and 105: Importantly, while there are plausi
Page 106 and 107: This hypothesis makes two predictio
Page 108 and 109: (3) a. Það finnst alltaf þremur
Page 110 and 111: (2) Watashi-wa hudan hougaku -wa /*
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However when the VP (or IP) is elid
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More specifically, this work reflec
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modality, or ii) see phonology as m
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(I) FWHA The wh-word shenme ‘what
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1The historical reality of biolingu
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Rita Manzini, FirenzeVariation and
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Non-counterfactual past subjunctive
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THE GRAMMAR OF THE ESSENTIAL INDEXI
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Motivating head movement: The case
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Limits on Noun-suppletionBeata Mosk
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Unbounded Successive-Cyclic Rightwa
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Same, different, other, and the his
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Selectivity in L3 transfer: effects
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Anaphoric dependencies in real time
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Constraining Local Dislocation dial
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A Dual-Source Analysis of GappingDa
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[9] S. Repp. ¬ (A& B). Gapping, ne
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of Paths into P path and P place is
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Deriving the Functional HierarchyGi
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Reflexivity without reflexivesEric
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Reuland, E. (2001). Primitives of b
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on v, one associated with uϕ and t
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Merge when applied to the SM interf
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1 SachsThe Semantics of Hindi Multi
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Covert without overt: QR for moveme
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Morpho-syntactic transfer in L3 acq
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one where goals receive a theta-rel
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follow Harris in assuming a ranked
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changing instances of nodes 7 and 8
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Sam Steddy, steddy@mit.eduMore irre
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Fleshing out this model further, I
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(5) Raman i [ CP taan {i,∗j}Raman
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properties with Appl (introduces an
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econstruct to position A then we ca
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(5) Kutik=i ez guret-a.dog=OBL.M 1S
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sults summarized in (2) suggest tha
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Building on Bhatt’s (2005) analys
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Underlying (derived from ON) /pp, t
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out, as shown in (3) (that the DP i
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Word order and definiteness in the
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Visser’s Generalization and the c
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the key factors. The combination of
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Parasitic Gaps Licensed by Elided S
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Stages of grammaticalization of the
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