The distribution of null subjects in nonnative grammars: syntactic markedness and interface vulnerab

1
The distribution of null subjects in non-native
grammars syntactic markedness and interface
vulnerability

• Juana M. Liceras
• Anahí Alba de la Fuente
• Cristina Martínez Sanz
• University of Ottawa

2
Illicit null subjects

• 1. Pragmatically illicit null subjects Heritage
  speakers
• Elicited production to test spontaneous
  production of subjects
• Entró el abuelito con el perro y pro cortó el
  estómago del lobo y pro sacó a la abuelita y a el
  Caperucita Roja. Mientras estaba dormido el lobo
  pro le llenaroN el estómago con piedras, y la
  abuelita estaba lista pa coserle el estómago.
• The grandfather came in with the dog and pro cut
  the wolfs stomach and took out the grandmother
  and Little Red riding Hood. While was sleeping
  the wolf, pro filled the stomach with stones,
  and the grandmother was ready to sew him the
  stomach. .
• ?WHO FILLED THE WOLFS STOMACH WITH STONES?

3
Illicit null subjects

• Despertó el lobo cosido, lleno de piedras, y el
  abuelito, la abuelita y la caperucita roja
  estaban riendo de él. Al fin todo salió bien y
  pro se fue a casa con el abuelito.
• Woke up the wolf sewn, full of stones, and the
  grandfather, the grandmother and the Little Red
  Riding Hood were laughing at him. In the end
  everything went well and pro went home with the
  grandfather.
• HS 205, intermediate (Montrul 2004 (30) 133)
• ?WHO WENT HOME WITH THE GRANDFATHER?

4
Illicit null subjects

• Entonces la Caperucita roja encontró, pro fue a
  ver quién estaba en la cama, entonces pro
  encontró que era el lobo. ?pro estaba corriendo
  del lobo y entonces pro salió fuera, o pro se la
  comiÓ, pro se comiÓ a la abuelita y a la
  Caperucita.
• So, the Little Red Riding Hood found, pro went
  to see who was in the bed, so pro found that was
  the wolf. ? Pro was running away from the wolf
  and the pro went out, or pro ate her up, pro
  ate up the grandmother and the Red Riding Hood.
• HS 209, intermediate (Montrul 2004 (32) 133)
• ? NO AMBIGUITY BUT CHANGE OF REFERENT MAKES THE
  PARAGRAPH PRAGMATICALLY INCOHERENT

5
Illicit null subjects

• 2. Pragmatically illicit null subjects
  Non-native grammars
• Elicited production to test spontaneous
  production of subjects
• Evidence against the unidirectionality of
  pragmatic deficits (Sorace 2004).
  Montrul and Rodríguez-Louro
  2006 Table 3

6
Illicit null subjects versus agreement errors
7
Illicit null subjects

• Grammaticality judgments to test choice of topic
  versus non-topic connected subject
• A Hola John Hi, John
• B. Hola Ana Hi, Ann
• A Te gustaría almorzar conmigo? Would
  you like to eat lunch with me?
• B Si, me gustaría. Puede venir Beth también?
  Yes, I would. Can Beth come too?
• A Seguro, a qué hora quieres ir? Sure, when
  do you want to go?
• B 1) Bueno, está en clase ahora. Está bien a
  las 1230? Is in class now. Is 1230 ok?
• 2) Bueno, Beth está en clase ahora. Está bien a
  las 1230? Beth is in class now. Is
  1230 ok?
• Lafond et al. 2001 126

8
Illicit null subjects

• In terms of anaphoric relations, in
  languages such as Italian and Spanish, null and
  overt subjects seem to respect Carminatis (2002)
  Position of Antecedent Hypothesis (PAH)
• The null pronoun prefers an antecedent which is
  in the Spec IP position, while the overt pronoun
  prefers an antecedent which is not in the Spec IP
  position. Carminati 2002 33
• Therefore, a null subject whose choice of
  antecedent violates the PAH is also an illicit
  null subject.

9
Illicit null subjects

• Picture Verification task to test PAH
• Non-native speakers behave like native
  speakers when it comes to the choice of
  antecedent for null subjects DO NOT produce
  pragmatically illicit null subjects with
  forward (9) or backward (10) anaphora (they
  respect the PAH).
• Sorace and Filiaci 2006 352

10
Illicit null subjects

• Story telling to test spontaneous production of
  subjects
• Picture verification task to test the
  interpretation of null and pronominal subjects
  (PAH)
• Null pronominal subjects were produced at a
  comparable rate in spontaneous production by both
  the near native and the control groups.
  Belleti et al. 2007 671
• There were significant differences between the
  near-native and the native speakers in the
  interpretation of pronominal subjects BUT NOT in
  the interpretation of null subjects.
• Belleti et al. 2007 674

11
Illicit null subjects

• 3. Native grammars
• Entonces cuando el gigante lo vio a él, David le
  dijo a él tú vienes a mí con espada y jabalina,
  yo vengo contra ti en el nombre de Jehovah y
  cogió una honda. Puso una piedrecita así. Pero el
  gigante tenía todas esas cosas puestas y ahí
  mismo él agarró la honda, le tiró la piedra, y
  ahí mismo lo mató. Le dio ahí y cuando pro cayó,
  cogió la misma espada de él y le mochó la cabeza.
  
• Then, when the giant saw him, David told him you
  come to me with sword and javelin, I come against
  you in the name of Jehovah and (he) took a sling.
  (He) put a little stone like that. But the giant
  was wearing all those things and right there he
  grabbed the sling, (he) threw the stone against
  him, and right there (he) killed him. (He) hit
  him there and when pro fell, (he) took his own
  sword of him and cut off his head.
• Martínez Sanz (forthcoming) Eliser, 8UW

12
Null subjects in Romance-derived Creoles

• According to Lipski (1999) some null subjects are
  possible in Philipinie Chabacano Spanish,
  Mauritian Creole, Papiamento and Palenquero but
  they are the exception.
• (i) The majority of null subjects are produced
  in main clauses
• (ii) Instances of null subjects in embedded
  clauses which are coreferential with subject in
  matrix (double null subject configurations) are
  rare.
• Lipski (1999) argues that these Creole null
  subjects are null constants (Lasnik and Stowell
  1991). These Creoles do not exhibit pro null
  subjects of the Spanish and Italian type because
  they do not have the resources to license and
  identify them.

13
Licensing and identification of null subjects GB

• Null subjects have to be licensed and identified
  (Rizzi 1986). In languages such as Italian and
  Spanish, they are licensed via a strong
  feature in INFL and identified via the
  phi-features in AGR, as in (2).
• (2)
• Liceras et al.1998 264

14
Null subjects Minimalist accounts

• Alexiadou Anagnastopoulous (1998). The set of
  phi-features of I is interpretable. Agr is a
  referential pronoun, therefore there is no need
  for pro. Following Rohrbacher (1992) and Speas
  (1994) these authors propose that strong
  morphemes (the Spanish agreement markers) have
  individual lexical entries in the numeration and
  that in this type of language EPP is checked via
  merge.
• Holmberg (2005), Manzini and Roussou (1999),
  Platzack (2003, 2004).

15
EPP checking Merge

• Liceras et al. forthcoming
• The Spanish agreement markers are clitic
  pronouns
• Roberts (2001) a unmarked operation of core
  grammar because it DOES NOT create a new layer of
  structure.

16
EPP checking Move

• Liceras et al. forthcoming
• Roberts (2001) a marked operation of core
  grammar because it DOES create another layer of
  structure.

17
Spanish overt pronouns

• Liceras et al. forthcoming

18
Where are we?

• Learners of Spanish have to master two different
  sets of subject pronouns (i) strong pronouns,
  which, by default, have the feature topic
  shift and (ii) weak pronouns which do not seem
  to have such a feature.
• Merge is the operation which leads to the
  incorporation of the weak pronouns in the
  structure. These bound morphemes are
  interpretable and part of the numeration.
• The strong pronouns are adjoined and occupy a
  focus position.

19
Where are we?

• Both sets of pronouns are present in non-native
  Spanish grammars from the early stages of
  development.
• There seems to be a correlation between the
  pragmatically deviant use of strong pronouns and
  the production of errors with weak
  pronounsagreement errors (Montrul
  Rodriguez-Louro 2006). This correlation does not
  show with respect to null pronouns.
• Non-native speakers intuitions are not as
  clear-cut as native speakers intuitions when
  judging pragmatically deviant null subjects
  (Lafond et al. 2001), namely when besides the
  agreement marker an overt subject is needed.
• Both native and non-native speakers produce and
  accept some pragmatically deviant null subjects.
  These null subjects are seldom ambiguous in terms
  of establishing a discourse referent.

20
Research questions

• Will native and non-native speakers written
  narratives show different patterns in terms of
  the relationship between the use of overt
  (strong) and bound (weak) pronouns?
• Will null subjects with switch reference produced
  by native and non-native speakers in written
  narratives be different in terms of both overall
  quantity and use of ambiguous agreement markers?

21
Hypotheses

• Null subjects will not be problematic for
  non-native speakers because the EPP checking via
  Merge is an unmarked operation of core grammar.
  But
• Native and non-native speakers of Spanish may
  differ in terms of how they resolve ambiguity.
  CONSEQUENTLY
• 1 Non-native speakers of Spanish will produce
  less instances of agreement subjects (bound
  pronouns) with switch reference than native
  speakers because they may have more problems with
  bound morphemes.
• 2 Non-native and native speakers will differ
  with respect to the patterns of identification of
  ambiguous bound morphemes.
• 3 Given the findings of previous studies, the
  number of pragmatically deviant (illicit) null
  subjectsinstances of unresolved ambiguitywill
  be small both in the case of native and
  non-native speakers.

22
Hypotheses

• These non-native grammars will not show the
  pattern of distribution of null subjects which
  characterizes Romance-based Creoles because bound
  pronominals (agreement markers) are part of these
  grammars from the early stages. CONSEQUENTLY
• 4 Null subjects with switch reference will
  occur in both main and subordinate clauses.
• 5 Instances of null subjects in embedded
  clauses which are coreferential with null
  subjects in the matrix clauses will not be rare.

23
The study

• Data
• Narratives (i) Non-native (NN) participants
  were asked to write freely about the character
  that would result from choosing from a list of
  randomized characteristics regarding age, marital
  status, profession, hobbies, place of residence,
  etc. Each narrative had an average of 500 words.
  (ii) Native participants were asked to give their
  impressions about a short film they were shown.
• Participants
• -15 intermediate and 15 advanced (L1 English)
  non-native speakers of Spanish from two North
  American universities.
• -15 native speakers of peninsular Spanish.
  University students from various faculties at a
  Spanish university in Spain.

24
Codification of data categories

• Impersonal subjects, quirky subjects and
  subject relatives were not counted

25
Codification of data identification / ambiguity

• Bound morphemes as pronominal subjects AGR
• Ambiguity Discourse
• comiÓ two or more candidates he, she,
  you-formal(s) ate
• comieroN two or more plural candidates
  they, you-formal(p) ate
• Ambiguity FLEX
• era, sería, fuera 1sts, 3rds, 2nds (usted)
• I, she, he, you-formal(s) use to be/was, would
  be, would be / had been

26
Results Null and overt subjects
27
Results Null and overt subjects

• The results of a Two-way ANOVA on the use of null
  and overt subjects showed a significant effect of
  Group1 (F(2,42)8.855, p 0.001).
• A post-hoc analysis, using the Bonferroni
  Correction, shows that the NN Intermediate group
  differs significantly from both the NN Advanced
  and the Native groups, both in the use of null
  and overt subjects (p? .004 in all cases). The
  Native and NN Advanced groups do not differ
  significantly in the use of null (p 1.00) and
  overt subjects (p 1.00).
• 1 The variable Group includes NN Intermediate,
  NN Advanced and Native.

28
Non-ambiguous versus ambiguous bound pronominal
subjects
29
Non-ambiguous versus ambiguous bound pronominal
subjects

• In terms of Identification1 of null subjects,
  the results of a Three-way ANOVA showed a
  significant effect of Group for AGR (p 0.025),
  but not for A-Flex (p.087) and A-DISC (p.086).
• A post-hoc analysis, using the Bonferroni
  Correction, shows that the Intermediate group
  differs significantly from the Native group with
  respect to the use of AGR (p.027). None of the
  other comparisons yielded any significant
  differences (p?.08 in all cases).
• 1 The label Identification includes the
  variables AGR, A-FLEX and A-DISC.

30
Illicit null subjects
31
Illicit null subjects NN Intermediate Group

• (1) Si (el) ballet no estuve fuera parte de mi
  vida no sabe sabría como estoyestar (el)
  ballet es mi y pro (yo) soy (el) ballet
  502-W081-BUC
• If ballet were not part of my life I would not
  know how to be ballet is me and I am ballet.
• (2) Queremos dar a nuestros hijos la vida que mis
  padres me dieron. Ahora pro sabe (usted???) un
  poco acerca de Vicente. 511-W081-HAW
• We want to give our children the life that my
  parents gave me. Now you (singular-formal???)
  know a little bit about Vicente.
• (3) Pero, si pro (uno/se) quiere ser una
  psiquiatra buena, la primera cosa que pro
  (uno/se) tiene que aprender es como hablar con
  muchas personas diferentes y tipos.
  512-W081-HOO
• But, if (you) want to be a good psychiatrist,
  the first thing that (you) have to learn is how
  to speak with many different people and types (of
  people).

32
Illicit null subjects NN Advanced Group

• (1) Hace poco cumplí 33 años y empecé a tener
  dudas que había un lugar para mi o que pro (yo?)
  podía cambiar el rumbo rápido de mi vida.
  602-W071-BLA
• Not too long ago I turned 33 and began to have
  doubts that there would be a place for me or that
  (I?/the rapid course of my life?) could change.
• (2) Espero que pro (ustedes?/ellos?) comprendan
  y que pro (ustedes?/ellos?) me lo perdonen.
  612-W071-GUA
• I hope that (you-plural-formal?/they?)
  understand and that (you-plural-fromal?/they?)
  forgive me for that.
• (3) Luc y yo vivimos en una mansión con piscina y
  una cancha de tenis. Me encanta nuestra casa,
  nuestro vecindario, y nuestra piscina Aquí pro
  (usted/él) tiene mi primer secreto a veces me
  siento sola. 613-W071-HIG
• Luc and I live in a mansion with a pool and a
  tennis court. I love our house, our neighborhood
  and our pool Here you (you-singular-formal/he)
  have my first secret sometimes I feel lonely.

33
Illicit null subjects Native group

• (1) En mi caso particular, la adolescencia se
  caracterizó por dar una vida excesiva a los
  papeles. Ante la indiferencia, y los complejos
  que creaba pro (yo?/la adolescencia?) construía
  mundos. C06-JUF
• In my particular case, adolescence characterized
  itself by giving an excessive life to papers.
  Confronted with the indifference, and the
  complexes that it created (I? / adolescence?)
  built worlds.
• (2) No era un conjunto de batallitas de diario o
  de conquistas de lo que pro (yo?/the diary?/the
  diarys author?) presumía. El plagio o la mentira
  no eran sus líneas. C06-JUF
• It was not about the set of little diary stories
  or achievements that (I?/it?) was bragging about.
  Plagiarism or lies were not (its/the diarys
  author?) lines.
• (3) Me miró sorprendido y me sonrió. En el folio
  pro (él/yo) llevaba las respuestas del examen y
  una nota. Cuando termines rompe el papel.
  C10-SOL
• He looked at me surprised and smiled. On the
  sheet (he/I) was carrying the answers to the exam
  and a note. When you finish destroy the paper.

34
Percentage of null subjects in Main and
Subordinate clauses
35
Coreferential null subjects in embedded and
subordinate clauses

• Bound morphemes have clear pronominal status

36
Use of Strong Subject Pronouns
37
Use of Strong Subject Pronouns

• The results of a One-way ANOVA indicate that
  there are significant differences among the
  groups. A post-hoc analysis using the Bonferroni
  Correction shows no significant differences
  between the Native and Advanced groups. There are
  significant differences, however, between the
  Intermediate group and both the Advanced (p.001) and the Native groups (p .009).

38
Conclusions

• ? Our first research question was Will native
  and non-native speakers written narratives show
  different patterns in terms of the relationship
  between the use of overt (strong) and bound
  (weak) pronouns?
• The answer is Yes, they do with respect to the
  overall production of overt personal pronouns
  versus bound pronominals (agreement markers) but
  only in the case of the Intermediate group.

39
Conclusions

• Our second research question was Will null
  subjects with switch reference produced by native
  and non-native speakers in written narratives be
  different in terms of both overall quantity and
  use of ambiguous agreement markers?
• The answer is the NN Intermediate group is
  significantly different from the NN Advanced and
  the native group in terms of the overall quantity
  of null subjects they produce. The NN
  Intermediate group is also significantly
  different from the Native group in terms of the
  use of ambiguous agreement markers (bound
  pronouns).

40
Conclusions

• Our hypotheses were
• Null subjects will not be problematic for
  non-native speakers because the EPP checking via
  Merge is an unmarked operation of core grammar.
  However, native and non-native speakers of
  Spanish may differ in terms of how they resolve
  ambiguity. CONSEQUENTLY
• 1. Non-native speakers of Spanish will produce
  less instances of agreement subjects (bound
  pronouns) with switch reference than native
  speakers because they may have more problems with
  bound morphemes.
• This hypothesis was confirmed but the results
  were only significant in the case of the NN
  Intermediate group.

41
Conclusions

• 2. Non-native and native speakers will differ
  with respect to the patterns of identification of
  ambiguous bound morphemes.
• This hypothesis was confirmed but again only for
  the NN Intermediate group who used less discourse
  and person ambiguous bound pronouns (agreement
  markers) than the Advanced and the Native groups.
  
• 3. Given the findings of previous studies, the
  number of pragmatically deviant (illicit) null
  subjectsinstances of unresolved ambiguitywill
  be small both in the case of native and
  non-native speakers.
• This hypothesis was confirmed. The total number
  of illicit null subjects was very low and was
  similar for all three groups.
• In terms of the topic shift feature, our data
  shows (contra Sorace 2000) that, at least in
  written narratives, native and non-native Spanish
  bound pronominals can bear a topic shift
  feature.

42
Conclusions

• We did not expect to find similarities between
  non-native grammars and Romance-based Creoles
  with respect to the pattern of distribution of
  null subjects because bound pronominals
  (agreement markers) are part of non-native
  Spanish grammars from the early stages.
  CONSEQUENTLY
• 4 Null subjects with switch reference will
  occur in both main and subordinate clauses.
• In fact, our data showed that null subjects with
  switch reference occur in both main and
  subordinate clauses.
• 5 Instances of null subjects in embedded
  clauses which are coreferential with null
  subjects in the matrix clauses will not be rare.
• This is in fact the case with our data, since
  our subjets systematically produced sequences of
  double null subjects as the ones listed in
  slide 35.

43
Further research

• We would like to suggest that
• (1) The referential status of bound pronominals
  agreement markers- has to be taken into
  consideration when investigating so-called null
  subjects.
• (2) Bound pronominalsas suggested by Lozano
  (2008)be analzyed in relation to the specific
  person (first, second, third) and number
  (singular or plural) they encode. Lozano (2008)
  has shown that vulnerability mainly with respect
  to overproduction of overt pronounsaffects
  pronouns which carry 3rd person and animate
  features but not those which carry 1st person
  -animate features.
• (3) A distinction should be made between
  illicit null subjects which create ambiguity
  that cannot be resolved via an overt pronoun but
  requires an overt DP subject from illicit null
  subjects which bear contrastive focus or violate
  Carminatis Position of Antecent Hypothesis.

44
Acknowledgments

• Institutions
• University of Ottawa
• University of Barcelona Data from Research
  project El desarrollo del repertorio lingüístico
  en hablantes no nativos de castellano y catalán"
  (MEC-SEJ2006-11083), 2006-2009 Principal
  Investigator Joan Perera.
• University of Alabama Prof. Diana Carter
• Graduate students
• G. Boudreau, J. LaMontagne, P. López-Morelos, L.
  Walsh

45
Selected References

• Alexiadou, A. and E. Anagnostopoulou, E. 1998.
  Parametrizing AGR word order, V-movement and
  EPP-checking. Natural Language and Linguistic
  Theory 16 491-539.
• Belletti, A., Bennati, E. and A. Sorace. 2007.
  Theoretical and developmental issues in the
  syntax of subjects Evidence from near-native
  Italian. Natural Language and Linguist Theory 25
  657689.
• Hulk, A. and N. Müller. 2000. Bilingual first
  language acquisition at the interface between
  syntax and pragmatics. Bilingualism Language and
  Cognition 3(3) 227-244.
• Lafond, L., R. Hayes and R. Bahatt. 2001.
  Constraint demotion and null subjects in Spanish
  L2 acquisition. In J. Camps and C. Wiltshire
  (eds.), Romance Syntax, Semantics and L2
  Acquisition (pp. 121-135). Amsterdam John
  Benjamins.
• Lasnik, H. and T. Stowell. 1991. Weakest
  crossover. Linguistic Inquiry 22 687-720.

46
Selected References

• Lipski, J. 1999. Null subjects in
  (Romance-derived) creoles routes of evolution.
  Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
  Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Los
  Angeles, January 8, 1999.
• Maranz, A. 1995. The minimalist program. In G.
  Webelhuth (ed.). Government and binding theory
  and the Minimalist Program (pp. 351-382). Oxford
  Blackwell.
• Montrul, S. 2004. Subject and object expression
  in Spanish heritage speakers a case of
  morpho-syntactic convergence. Bilingualism
  Language and Cognition 7 (2) 125-142.
• Montrul, S. C. Rodríguez Louro. 2006. Beyond
  the syntax of the null subject parameter. A look
  at the discourse-pragmatic distribution of null
  and overt subjects by L2 learners of Spanish
  (pp.401-418). In L. Escobar V. Torrens (eds.),
  The Acquisition of Syntax in Romance Languages.
  Amsterdam John Benjamins.

47
Selected References

• Rizzi, L. 1994. Early null subjects and root
  null subjects. In T. Hoekstra and B. D. Schwartz
  (eds.). Language acquisition studies in
  generative grammar (pp. 151-176). Amsterdam John
  Benjamins.
• Rohrbacher, B. (1992) English AUX-NEG, Mainland
  Scandinavian NEG-AUX and the theory of V-to-I
  raising. Proceedings of the 22nd Western
  Conference on Linguistics (WECOL 92).
• Sorace, A. 2004. Native language attrition and
  developmental instability at the syntax-discourse
  interface data interpretations and methods.
  Bilingualism Language and Cognition 7 (2)
  143-145.
• Sorace, A. and F. Filiaci. 2006. Anaphora
  resolution in near-native speakers of Italian.
  Second Language Research 22(3) 339-368.