The Learnability of Complex Constructions: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective PDF
Preview The Learnability of Complex Constructions: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective
MarcelSchlechtweg(Ed.) TheLearnabilityofComplexConstructions Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs Editors ChiaraGianollo DaniëlVanOlmen EditorialBoard WalterBisang TineBreban VolkerGast HansHenrichHock KarenLahousse NataliaLevshina CaterinaMauri HeikoNarrog SalvadorPons NiinaNingZhang AmirZeldes Editorresponsibleforthisvolume DaniëlVanOlmen Volume 345 The Learnability of Complex Constructions A cross-linguistic perspective Edited by Marcel Schlechtweg ISBN978-3-11-069449-9 e-ISBN(PDF)978-3-11-069511-3 e-ISBN(EPUB)978-3-11-069518-2 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2020935871 BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie; detailedbibliographicdataareavailableontheInternetathttp://dnb.dnb.de. ©2020WalterdeGruyterGmbH,Berlin/Boston Typesetting:IntegraSoftwareServicesPvt.Ltd. Printingandbinding:CPIbooksGmbH,Leck www.degruyter.com Contents MarcelSchlechtweg Introduction 1 MadeleineVoga Lexicalco-activationwithprefixedcognatesandnon-cognates:Evidence fromcross-scriptmaskedpriming 7 MarcelSchlechtweg,MelinaHeinrichsandMarcelLinnenkohl Differencesinacousticdetail:Therealizationofsyncreticnounsin German 39 SerkanUygunandAyşeGürel Doestheprocessingoffirstlanguagecompoundschangeinlate bilinguals? 63 HilaryWynne,LindaWheeldonandAditiLahiri Planningcomplexstructuresinasecondlanguage:Compoundsand phrasesinnon-nativespeechproduction 91 IsaHendrikx ThelearnabilityofEnglishintensifyingconstructionsinFrench-speaking learners:Receptiveversusproductivecompetence 127 ElenaNicoladis Isithardtolearnmultiplewordorders? 165 SendyCaffarra,PatriciaDiasandBrendanCostello ThelearnabilityofgenderagreementinSpanishbilinguals 183 AndrésEnrique-Arias AgreementmismatchesintheSpanishpreteriteofCatalan-dominant bilingualsinMajorca:Arecedinginterlanguagephenomenon 219 Index 239 Marcel Schlechtweg Introduction The present book has its roots in the workshop The learnability of complex con- structionsfromacross-linguisticperspective,whichwasorganizedbytheeditorat the18thInternationalMorphologyMeetinginBudapest,Hungary,inMay2018.Itis acollectionofresearchpapersthatapproachandconnectthephenomena“learn- ability”,“complexconstructions”and“cross-linguisticperspective”fromdifferent angles,byfocusingonvariouslanguagesandbyapplyingagreatvarietyofmeth- odologies.“Learnability”isunderstoodhereasacovertermforvariousformsand reflectionsoflanguagelearningandacquisition,rangingfromtheacquisitionofa singlenativelanguagetosimultaneousbilingualismandsecond-languageacquisi- tion.“Complexconstructions”,inturn,refersinthecurrentvolumetoitemsorse- quences that show a certain degree of morphological or syntactic complexity or connection,specifically derivatives,inflectedforms, compounds, varioustypesof phrasesandformsrelatedbyagreement.Finally,“cross-linguisticperspective”im- plieseitherthatweconsidertheimplicationsofthespecificcharacteristicsofasin- glelanguageforitslearnabilityincomparisontootherlanguagesthatmissthese characteristicsor thatwe look atthe presenceorinterplayof morethanonelan- guage within a single speaker or hearer, as can be found in simultaneous bilin- gualism or second-language acquisition. Overall, the authors were concerned withvariouslanguagesintheirinvestigations,includingFrench,Greek,German, Turkish,English,Bengali,Welsh,Spanish,Basque,andCatalan.Toexaminethe threeaforementionedconceptsaswellastheirinteraction,bothproductionand comprehension data are of interest and collected in several types of linguistic studies,suchaslexicaldecisionandprimingexperiments,areadingstudy,nam- ingandelicitationexperiments,aclozeandamultiplechoicetest,anEEGstudy, a corpus analysis and an interview. The chapters of the book are organized ac- cordingtothekindofcomplexconstruction(s)theyfocuson.Startingwithmor- phologicallycomplexconstructions,weconsiderderivativesandinflectedforms, beforeconcentratingoncompoundsinthethirdcontribution.Thenexttwochap- ters analyze or compare more than a single type of constructions, in particular morphological and syntactic ones. That is, while one reflects upon compounds and phrases, the other examines morphological and syntactic intensifying con- structions. Afterwards, three contributions investigate syntactic issues, specifi- callyphrasesthatconsistofanadjectiveandanounandagreementphenomena withinthenounphraseandtheverbaldomain. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110695113-001 2 MarcelSchlechtweg Moreprecisely,thefollowingissuesareaddressedinthebook.Inhercontri- bution Lexical co-activation with prefixed cognates and non-cognates: Evidence from cross-script masked priming, Voga looks at different categories of prefixed words,namelycognatesandnon-cognates.Specifically,sheinvestigatespriming effectsfornativespeakersofGreekwhoaresecond-languagelearnersofFrench usingmaskedprimingintwocross-languageprimingexperimentsandaimingto examine the processing of prefixed cognates and translation equivalents. In ordertodoso,VogareliedonthefollowingtypesofGreek-Frenchstimuliinboth primingdirections(L1toL2andL2toL1).First,prefixedcognatepairswerepart of the experiment as they typically cause translation and morphological effects across languages. Second, prefixed non-cognate translation equivalents were used;themeaning,butnotthe form,ofthe prefixwassharedacrosslanguages andthebaseofthecomplexwordswasanon-existingitem.Third,prefixednon- cognate translation equivalents, thistimewith a base thatrepresents a word in both languages, were implemented and, fourth, morphologically simplex non- cognatepairs.FromGreektoFrench,thefirsttwogroups,butnotthethirdone, showedcleartranslationandmorphologicalprimingeffects,indicatingthateven intheabsenceofaformoverlapprimingeffectsariseinthepresenceofashared meaningandtheprefix-basestructure.Vogaarguesthatthisresultiscompatible with a processing system in which complex items are clustered independently fromtheirformalrelation.Apparently,theeffectdoesnotoccurifexistingbases arepartoftheprefixedwords.Togetherwiththefindingsintheprimingdirection fromFrenchtoGreek,whichshowfrequentprimingasymmetries,theresultsare considered to be evidence for the idea of an integrated lexicon that hosts both languagesofabilingualspeaker.Insum,Voga’schapterillustrateshowderiva- tivesarerepresented,andhenceacquired,innativespeakerswholearnasecond language. Schlechtweg, Heinrichs and Linnenkohl report in Differences in acoustic detail: The realizationofsyncretic nouns inGermanon a Praat production study that tested whether and how grammatical information is expressed in the pho- neticform.Manywordsorwordpartsthathavetraditionallybeenconsideredto be polysemous, homophonous or syncretic (e.g. the English words time and thyme,theEnglishgenitivesuffix’sasincar’sandthepluralsuffixsasincars) havebeenshowntodifferinthepreciseacousticrealizationinrecentyears.So, for instance, words of higher frequency such as time are shorter in production than the low-frequency counterparts, thyme, in this case. The present chapter discussesastudyinwhichnativespeakersofGermanwereaskedtouttersenten- ces that contain nouns whose singular and plural versions are syncretic. One group of nouns was monomorphemic and was tested in the nominative case (Schatten (singular) ‘shadow’ versus Schatten (plural) ‘shadows’). In the second Introduction 3 group, bimorphemic genitive nouns (Fürsten (singular) ‘of the prince’ versus Fürsten(plural)‘oftheprinces’)wereinvestigated.Theitemswerecontrolledfor severalpotentiallyconfoundingvariables,forinstance,thefrequencyoftheindi- vidual forms or number of syllables. Also, the singular and plural nouns ap- peared in exactly the same sentences in order to control for several potentially confounding variables on the sentence level (i.e. there is one set of nominative sentences, each sentence is used once with the noun in its singular form and oncewiththenouninitspluralform;thereisonesetofgenitivesentences,each sentenceisusedoncewiththenouninitssingularformandoncewiththenoun in its plural form). The study aimed at analyzing whether singular and plural nounsarepronounceddifferentlyandwhetherthemorphologicalstructureofan itemhas aninfluence on the duration.Notethatthe only marker thatindicates thatanounoccursinthesingularorpluralistheaccompanyingdefinitearticle: der in der Schatten indicates singular use, die in die Schatten signals plurality. Similarly,desindes Fürstenshowssingularity but derinderFürstenrepresents plurality.Resultsofthisstudyindicatethatpluralformsseemtobepronounced with a longer duration than singular forms. Overall, the chapter provides evi- dencefortheideathatspeakersoflanguagesrelyingonsyncretismacquireand makeuseoffinephoneticdetailinordertodistinguishbetweenapparentlyiden- ticalforms. After the two preceding chapters concentrated on derivatives and inflected forms, Uygun and Gürel examine in their article Does the processing of first lan- guagecompoundschangeinlatebilinguals?compounds,specificallytheprocessing ofTurkishcompoundsinTurkishnativespeakerswhoaresecond-languagespeak- ersofEnglish.Thestartingpointoftheircontributionistheideathattheacquisition ofasecondlanguagemayhaveaninfluenceontheprocessingandrepresentation ofthe native language.That is, languageusersthatspeaka second languagecan differfromspeakersofthesamenativelanguagewhodonotknowthesecondlan- guage in focus. In their experiment, Uygun and Gürel analyze possible modifica- tionsintheprocessingofL1compoundsinlatebilingualspeakerswholiveintheir homecountry,Turkey,and,thus,gobeyondmanyotherstudiesconcentratingon subjectslivinginthecountryofthesecondlanguage.Thestudycontrastedmono- lingualTurkishandproficientTurkish-Englishspeakersinamaskedprimingexper- iment on nominal compounds. It is shown that Turkish monolinguals rely on a decompositionstrategythatisbasedontheactivationoftheheadconstituentand forwhichsemantictransparencyofcompoundsisirrelevant.Incontrast,thebi- linguals showed a pattern of decomposition based on the non-head element if compounds were fully transparent. Overall, the contribution indicates that L1 morphological processing seems to depend on whether a language user has learnedasecondlanguageornot. 4 MarcelSchlechtweg InPlanningcomplexstructuresinasecondlanguage:Compoundsandphrases in non-native speech production, Wynne, Wheeldon and Lahiri investigate the processingofEnglishcompoundsandphrasesinnativespeakersofBengali.Itis often assumed that one’s native language is activated in the production of a second language. In English, in particular, incorrect stress assignment repre- sentsatypicalsignalofthisassumption.Intheirexperiments,theauthorsexam- ined how speakers of Bengali, a language with comparable compounding but distinct word stress, produced English compounds and phrases. It turned out that the planning unit for both English complex and simplex items retained a prosodic shape in the Bengali speakers. Also, although the Bengali speakers faced difficulties in correctly producing stress, they clearly distinguished be- tween the two construction types, compounds and phrases, in all experiments. Thatis,inthepresenceofincorrectstresspatterns,theywerestillcapableofac- cessingtheprosodicshapesofthetwostructures.Wynne,WheeldonandLahiri interprettheirfindingsasevidenceinfavoroftheideathatpost-lexicalinforma- tion is split into and treated in differentsubprocesses and argue that the learn- ability of English compounds and phrases relies on the separate preparation of prosodicandsegmentalcomponents. Hendrikx’contributionThelearnabilityofEnglishintensifyingconstructionsin French-speaking learners: Receptive versus productive competence is concerned withtheacquisitionofEnglishmorphologicalandsyntacticintensifyingconstruc- tionsbynativespeakersofFrench.Thepointofdepartureistheobservationthat languagesdifferinwhethertheyfavormorphologicalorsyntacticintensifyingcon- structions.Forinstance,whileintensifyingadjectivalcompounds(e.g.razor-sharp) areproductiveinEnglish,theyarenotinFrench.Thisdivergencemightcausedif- ficultiesintheacquisitionoftheseEnglishconstructionsbyFrenchspeakers.This is where the paper comes into play; it aims at looking at implications of cross- linguistic mismatches for the acquisition of English intensifying constructions. Further, the article evaluates whether the educational approach of Content and LanguageIntegratedLearning(CLIL)improvestheacquisitionoftheconstructions infocusand,finally,hastheobjectivetocomparethereceptionandproductionof the target items, in particular by using a cloze test and a multiple-choice test. HendrikxshowsthatbothEnglishandFrenchprimarilyusesyntacticintensifying constructions,but,bythesametoken,thatmorphologicalconstructionsaremore frequentinEnglishthaninFrench.Thesefindingsare,inturn,compatiblewith the observation that the French speakers use fewer morphological items in EnglishthannativespeakersofEnglish.Finally,theanalysisrevealedthatCLIL studentsoutperformnon-CLILstudentsinthetestsandthatthelearners’recep- tive knowledge goes beyond their productive one. In sum, the chapter shows
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