Asymmetric Effects of Pronouns on L2 Acquisition of Raising

doi:10.18627/jslg.37.2.202108.213

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2021 Vol.37, Issue 2 Preview Page Next Page

Research Article

Asymmetric Effects of Pronouns on L2 Acquisition of Raising: Choe, Jinsun

31 August 2021. pp. 213-225

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Abstract

This study investigates Korean-speaking learners’ comprehension of raising constructions containing an experiencer phrase. Specifically, it examines whether the type of the intervening experiencer (pronoun, lexical NP) produces a similar asymmetric effect on L2 learners’ comprehension as it does on children’s. A picture-based truth-value judgment task was conducted with one hundred Korean-speaking adults to test the comprehension of different patterns of raising constructions. The results found that the learners’ comprehension was better when a lexical NP is raised across a pronominal experiencer (e.g., John seems to her to be happy), compared to a pronoun raised across a lexical NP (e.g., He seems to Mary to be happy). These findings parallel the pattern of raising in child English and are consistent with a processing-based approach to intervention effects observed in both L1 and L2 acquisition across different constructions.

Keywords

raising construction

pronoun

NP type

intervention

L2 acquisition

References

Arnon, I. 2010. Rethinking Child Difficulty: The Effect of NP Types on Children’s Processing of Relative Clauses in Hebrew. Journal of Child Language 37.1, 27-57. 10.1017/S030500090900943X 19327196
Choe, J. 2015. Linking Problem in the L2 acquisition of English Raising. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal 23.4, 115-130. 10.24303/lakdoi.2015.23.4.115
Choe, J. 2016. Intervention Effects in the Comprehension of English Raising Constructions by Korean Learners. Korean Journal of Linguistics 41.4, 741-759. 10.18855/lisoko.2016.41.4.009
Choe, J. 2018. L2 Acquisition of Raising Revisited: The Role of the Experiencer Phrase. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal 26.2, 21-38. 10.24303/lakdoi.2018.26.2.21
Choe, J. and K. Deen. 2016. Children’s Difficulty with Raising: A performance Account. Language Acquisition 23.2, 112-141. 10.1080/10489223.2015.1047097
Choe, J. and W. O’Grady. 2017. Asymmetry in Children’s Comprehension of Raising. Journal of Child Language 44.3, 752-765. 10.1017/S0305000916000179 27065188
Crain, S. and C. McKee. 1985. The Acquisition of Structural Restrictions on Anaphora. In S. Berman, J-W. Choe, and J. McDonough (eds), Proceedings of the 15th annual meeting of North East Linguistic Society (NELS 15). University of Massachusetts, Amherst: GLSA Publications, 94-110.
Crain, S. and R. Thornton. 1998. Investigations in Universal Grammar: A Guide to Experiments in the Acquisition of Syntax and Semantics. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Eckman, F., L. Bell, and D. Nelson. 1988. On the Generalization of a Relative Clause Instruction in the Acquisition of English as a Second Language. Applied Linguistics 9, 1-13. 10.1093/applin/9.1.1
Friedmann, N., A. Belletti, and L. Rizzi. 2009. Relativized Relatives: Types of Intervention in the Acquisition of A-bar Dependencies. Lingua 119, 67-88. 10.1016/j.lingua.2008.09.002
Gibson, E. 1998. Linguistic complexity: Locality of syntactic dependencies. Cognition 68.1, 1-76. 10.1016/S0010-0277(98)00034-1
Gibson, E. 2000. The Dependency Locality Theory: A Distance-based Theory of Linguistic Complexity. In W. O’Neil, Y. Miyashita, and A. Marantz (eds.), Images, Language, Brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 95-126.
Hirsch, C. 2011. The Acquisition of Raising. Cambridge, MA: MIT Dissertation.
Hirsch, C., R. Orfitelli, and K. Wexler. 2007. When Seem Means Think: The Role of the Experiencer-phrase in Children’s comprehension of Raising. In A. Belikova, L. Meroni, and M. Umeda (eds.), Galana 2, Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition - North America (GALANA). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Hirsch, C. and K. Wexler. 2007. The Late Acquisition of Rasing: What Children Seem to Think about Seem. In S. Dubinsky and W. D. Davies (eds.), New Horizons in the Analysis of Control and Raising. New York, NY: Springer, 35-70. 10.1007/978-1-4020-6176-9_3
Hyams, N. and W. Snyder. 2005. Young Children Never Smuggle: Reflexive Clitics and the Universal Freezing Hypothesis. Paper presented at the 30th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD), Boston, MA.
Orfitelli, R. 2012. Argument Intervention in the Acquisition of A-movement. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Dissertation.
Postal, P. M. 1974. On Raising: One rule of English Grammar and its Theoretical Implications. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Rosenbaum, P. S. 1967. The Grammar of English Predicate Complement Constructions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Schulz, B. 2006. Wh-scope Marking in English Interlanguage Grammars: Transfer and Processing Effects on the Second Language Acquisition of Complex Wh-questions. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Dissertation.
Um, H.-J. 2010. A-movement and pro in Korean. Studies in Modern Grammar 59, 67-88.
Wexler, K. 2004. Theory of Phasal Development: Perfection in Child Grammar. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 48, 159-209.
Yoshimura, N. and M. Nakayama. 2019. Intervention Meets Transfer in Raising Constructions. In P. Guijarro-Fuentes and C. Suárez-Gómez (eds.), Proceedings of GALA 2017: Language Acquisition and Development. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 251-266.
Yoshimura, N., M. Nakayama, and A. Fujimori. 2017. The Acquisition of Control, Raising, and Tough Constructions among Japanese learners of English. In M. Hirakawa, J. Matthews, K. Otaki, N. Snape, and M. Umeda, Proceedings of PacSLRF 2016. Tokyo: Chuo University, 247-252.
Yoshimura, N., M. Nakayama, A. Fujimori, and H. Shimizu. 2016. Control and Raising Constructions in Early L2 English Acquisition. Second Language 15, 53-76.

Information

Publisher :The Modern Linguistic Society of Korea
Publisher(Ko) :한국현대언어학회
Journal Title :The Journal of Studies in Language
Journal Title(Ko) :언어연구
Volume : 37
No :2
Pages :213-225
DOI :https://doi.org/10.18627/jslg.37.2.202108.213

[1] Arnon, I. 2010. Rethinking Child Difficulty: The Effect of NP Types on Children’s Processing of Relative Clauses in Hebrew. Journal of Child Language 37.1, 27-57. 10.1017/S030500090900943X 19327196

[2] Choe, J. 2015. Linking Problem in the L2 acquisition of English Raising. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal 23.4, 115-130. 10.24303/lakdoi.2015.23.4.115

[3] Choe, J. 2016. Intervention Effects in the Comprehension of English Raising Constructions by Korean Learners. Korean Journal of Linguistics 41.4, 741-759. 10.18855/lisoko.2016.41.4.009

[4] Choe, J. 2018. L2 Acquisition of Raising Revisited: The Role of the Experiencer Phrase. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal 26.2, 21-38. 10.24303/lakdoi.2018.26.2.21

[5] Choe, J. and K. Deen. 2016. Children’s Difficulty with Raising: A performance Account. Language Acquisition 23.2, 112-141. 10.1080/10489223.2015.1047097

[6] Choe, J. and W. O’Grady. 2017. Asymmetry in Children’s Comprehension of Raising. Journal of Child Language 44.3, 752-765. 10.1017/S0305000916000179 27065188

[7] Crain, S. and C. McKee. 1985. The Acquisition of Structural Restrictions on Anaphora. In S. Berman, J-W. Choe, and J. McDonough (eds), Proceedings of the 15th annual meeting of North East Linguistic Society (NELS 15). University of Massachusetts, Amherst: GLSA Publications, 94-110.

[8] Crain, S. and R. Thornton. 1998. Investigations in Universal Grammar: A Guide to Experiments in the Acquisition of Syntax and Semantics. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

[9] Eckman, F., L. Bell, and D. Nelson. 1988. On the Generalization of a Relative Clause Instruction in the Acquisition of English as a Second Language. Applied Linguistics 9, 1-13. 10.1093/applin/9.1.1

[10] Friedmann, N., A. Belletti, and L. Rizzi. 2009. Relativized Relatives: Types of Intervention in the Acquisition of A-bar Dependencies. Lingua 119, 67-88. 10.1016/j.lingua.2008.09.002

[11] Gibson, E. 1998. Linguistic complexity: Locality of syntactic dependencies. Cognition 68.1, 1-76. 10.1016/S0010-0277(98)00034-1

[12] Gibson, E. 2000. The Dependency Locality Theory: A Distance-based Theory of Linguistic Complexity. In W. O’Neil, Y. Miyashita, and A. Marantz (eds.), Images, Language, Brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 95-126.

[13] Hirsch, C. 2011. The Acquisition of Raising. Cambridge, MA: MIT Dissertation.

[14] Hirsch, C., R. Orfitelli, and K. Wexler. 2007. When Seem Means Think: The Role of the Experiencer-phrase in Children’s comprehension of Raising. In A. Belikova, L. Meroni, and M. Umeda (eds.), Galana 2, Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition - North America (GALANA). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

[15] Hirsch, C. and K. Wexler. 2007. The Late Acquisition of Rasing: What Children Seem to Think about Seem. In S. Dubinsky and W. D. Davies (eds.), New Horizons in the Analysis of Control and Raising. New York, NY: Springer, 35-70. 10.1007/978-1-4020-6176-9_3

[16] Hyams, N. and W. Snyder. 2005. Young Children Never Smuggle: Reflexive Clitics and the Universal Freezing Hypothesis. Paper presented at the 30th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD), Boston, MA.

[17] Orfitelli, R. 2012. Argument Intervention in the Acquisition of A-movement. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Dissertation.

[18] Postal, P. M. 1974. On Raising: One rule of English Grammar and its Theoretical Implications. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

[19] Rosenbaum, P. S. 1967. The Grammar of English Predicate Complement Constructions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

[20] Schulz, B. 2006. Wh-scope Marking in English Interlanguage Grammars: Transfer and Processing Effects on the Second Language Acquisition of Complex Wh-questions. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Dissertation.

[21] Um, H.-J. 2010. A-movement and pro in Korean. Studies in Modern Grammar 59, 67-88.

[22] Wexler, K. 2004. Theory of Phasal Development: Perfection in Child Grammar. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 48, 159-209.

[23] Yoshimura, N. and M. Nakayama. 2019. Intervention Meets Transfer in Raising Constructions. In P. Guijarro-Fuentes and C. Suárez-Gómez (eds.), Proceedings of GALA 2017: Language Acquisition and Development. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 251-266.

[24] Yoshimura, N., M. Nakayama, and A. Fujimori. 2017. The Acquisition of Control, Raising, and Tough Constructions among Japanese learners of English. In M. Hirakawa, J. Matthews, K. Otaki, N. Snape, and M. Umeda, Proceedings of PacSLRF 2016. Tokyo: Chuo University, 247-252.

[25] Yoshimura, N., M. Nakayama, A. Fujimori, and H. Shimizu. 2016. Control and Raising Constructions in Early L2 English Acquisition. Second Language 15, 53-76.

The Journal of Studies in Language ISSN:1225-4770(Print) 2671-6151(Online) 언어연구

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