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Title: Week 14. Issues relating to bilingualism and general wrap-up


1
GRS LX 700Language Acquisition andLinguistic
Theory
  • Week 14.Issues relating to bilingualism and
    general wrap-up

2
Code-switching
  • Code-switching often occurs in conversations
    between fluent bilinguals mixing up the two
    languages.
  • Sometimes people distinguish between code-mixing
    (intra) and code-switching (inter).
  • We wont distinguish here, but were mainly
    talking about intrasentential mixing.

3
Spanish-English
  • No, yo sí brincaba en el trampoline when I was a
    senior.No, I did jump on the trampoline when I
    was a senior.
  • La consulta era eight dollars.The office visit
    was eight dollars.
  • Well, I keep starting some. Como por un mes todos
    los días escribo y ya dejo.Well, I keep
    starting some. For about a month I write
    everything and then I stop.

4
But it isnt random
  • El viejo man The old man
  • The old hombre El hombre viejo
  • The viejo hombre
  • Certain mixes are not considered to be possible
    by fluent bilinguals.

5
But it isnt random
  • The old man Vo buuRaa aadmii
  • The buuRaa man Vo old aadmii
  • The buuRaa aadmii Vo old man
  • She sees lo.
  • How can we characterize what mixes are possible
    vs. impossible?

6
Prior efforts
  • Several proposals have been offered to account
    for what are good mixes and what arent, but it
    appears to be a hard problem. Very famous attempt
    by Poplack (1980, 1981)
  • The equivalence constraint. Codes will tend to be
    switched at points where the surface structure of
    the languages map onto each other.
  • The free morpheme constraint. A switch may occur
    at any point in the discourse at which it is
    possible to make a surface constituent cut and
    still retain a free morpheme.

7
Poplack
  • Looking at the constraints on code-switching of
    this sorts can help us understand the nature of
    (at least fluent) bilingual language
    representation.
  • One odd thing about Poplacks constraints is that
    it implies that part of UG is dedicated to
    mixing. The Free Morpheme Constraint and
    Equivalence Constraint are only constraints on
    mixing two grammars. Is UG built specifically for
    bilinguals?

8
Problems for Poplack
  • Equivalence and Free Morpheme Constraints
    Accounts for estoy eatiendo, but leaves
    unexplained
  • The students habian visto la pelicula italien.
  • The student had visto la pelicua italien.
  • Los estudiantes habian seen the Italian movie.
  • Motrataroa de nin kirescataroa n
    PocajontasRef-treat-vsf about this
    3s-3os-rescue-vsf in P.It deals with the one
    who rescues P.

9
Problems for Poplack?
  • El no wants to go
  • He doesnt quiere ir.
  • No nitekititoc not 1s-work-dur (Im not
    working)
  • Amo estoy trabajandonot be.3s work-dur Im not
    working

10
Problems for Poplack
  • Tú tikoas tlakemetl 2sg
    2s-3Os-buy-fut garment-pl-nsf(You will buy
    clothes)
  • El kikoas tlakmetlhe
    3S-3Os-buy-fut garment-pl-nsfHe will buy
    clothes

11
MacSwan 1999
  • Perhaps the most currently comprehensive and
    promising account, building on recent
    developments in syntactic theory.
  • One of the basic premises is that language
    parameters are properties of lexical items (not
    of a language-wide grammar). E.g., verb-movement
    is due to a property of the tense morpheme in
    French, not shared by the tense morpheme in
    English.

12
MacSwan 1999
  • The broad (minimalist) approach to grammar
    takes language to consist of two primary
    components.
  • Computational system (builds trees), language
    invariant.
  • Lexicon, language particular. Functional elements
    of the lexicon encode the parameters of variation.

13
MacSwan 1999
  • MacSwans proposal is that there are no
    constraints on code mixing over and above
    constraints found on monolingual sentences.
  • (His only constraint which obliquely refers to
    code mixing is the one we turn to next, roughly
    that within a word, the language must be
    coherent.)
  • We can determine what are possible mixes by
    looking at the properties of the (functional
    elements) of the lexicons of the two mixed
    languages.

14
MacSwan 1999
  • The model of code mixing is then just like
    monolingual speechthe only difference being that
    the words and functional elements are not always
    drawn from the lexicon belonging to a single
    language.
  • Where requirements conflict between languages is
    where mixing will be prohibited.

15
Clitics, bound morphemes
  • Some lexical items in some languages are clitics,
    they depend (usually phonologically) on
    neighboring words. Similar to the concept of
    bound morpheme.
  • Johns book.
  • I shouldnt go.
  • Clitics essentially fuse with their host.

16
Clitics, bound morphemes
  • Clitics generally cannot be stressed.
  • JohnS book
  • I couldNT go.
  • Clitics generally form an inseparable unit with
    their host.
  • Shouldnt I go?
  • Should I not go?
  • Should I nt go?

17
Spanish no
  • It turns out that Spanish no appears to be a
    clitic (despite spelling conventions).
  • Qué no dijo Juan? What didnt J say?
  • Qué sólo leyó Juan? (What did J only read?)
  • Qué meramente leyó Juan?(What did J merely
    read?)
  • Juan no ha no hecho la tarea.(J hasnt not
    done the task.)

18
Nahuatl amo
  • In Nahuatl, amo not does not appear to be a
    clitic.
  • Amo nio amo niktati nowelti.Not 1s-go not
    1s-3Os-see my-sisterIm not going to not see my
    sister.

19
Spanish-Nahuatl mixing
  • No nitekititoc not 1s-work-dur (Im not
    working)
  • Amo estoy trabajandonot be.3s work-dur Im not
    working
  • Now, we can begin to make sense of the difference
    in possible mixes at the point of negation
    between Spanish and Nahuatl.

20
MacSwan 1999
  • MacSwan proposes essentially that it is not
    possible to code-mix within a (word-like)
    phonological unit. Essentially a restriction on
    what are pronouncable trees.
  • Idea phonology operates as a set of ordered
    rules which are ordered differently in different
    languagesyou cant run both sets of rules at
    once, hence the result if you tried would be
    unpronounceable.
  • Since Spanish no fuses with the following verb,
    it cant be followed by a Nahuatl verb.
  • Since Nahuatl amo does not fuse with the
    following verb, it is free to be followed by a
    Spanish verb.

21
English-Spanish
  • This also explains Spanish-English (well,
    Spanish-anything)
  • El no wants to go
  • What about English-Spanish?
  • He doesnt quiere ir.
  • He doesnt wants to go.

22
Agreement
  • In languages that code agreement between subject
    and verb, it also appears that mixing is only
    possible where the agreement relationship is not
    disrupted.
  • He doesnt quiere ir.
  • English negation agreement appears on do.
  • Spanish negation agreement appears on the verb.
  • You cant have extra agreement one subject, one
    agreement. They need to match.

23
Agreement
  • Yo nikoas tlakemetl I 1s-3Os-buy-fut
    garment-pl-nsf(I will buy clothes)
  • Tú tikoas tlakemetl you 2s-3Os-buy-fut
    garment-pl-nsf(You will buy clothes)
  • Él/Ella kikoas tlakemetlHe/She
    3s-3Os-buy-fut garment-pl-nsfHe/She will buy
    clothes

24
Agreement
  • Ni-k-koa-s I will buy
  • Ti-k-koa-s You will buy
  • Ø-k(i)-koa-s He/she wlll buy
  • Also relevant Spanish marks and agrees with
    gender but Nahuatl does not distinguish masculine
    from feminine.
  • Spanish pronouns have gender specification. The
    Nahuatl verb does not. They can only be
    compatible (match) if there is no Nahuatl
    agreement morpheme.

25
Spanish-Catalan-Greek
  • Spanish and Catalan both have two genders,
    masculine and feminine.
  • Greek has three genders, masculine, feminine,
    neuter.
  • Predicts Mixing subjects and verbs between the
    three languages is only possible between the
    gender-compatible languages.

26
Spanish-Catalan-Greek
  • Yo vull mengar el dinar (S-C)
  • Jo queiro comer la cena (C-S)
  • Ego vull mengar el dinar (G-C)
  • Ego queiro comer la cena (G-S)

27
Mixing and L2A?
  • Code mixing as discussed so far is generally a
    property of the speech of fluent bilinguals
    (often native bilinguals) and reflects properties
    of universal language knowledge.
  • We can now return to our old question and ask
    Does the knowledge of second language learners
    also have the restrictions on code mixing? To the
    extent that this is part of UG, is this aspect
    of UG active for L2ers?

28
Toribio Rubin
  • Beginning, intermediate, and advanced learners of
    Spanish (English L1), asked to imitate code-mixed
    utterances.
  • Beginning Processing errors everywhere.
  • Intermediate Repeated everything equally
    fluently.
  • Advanced Repeated good mixes fluently, tripped
    up or unknowingly corrected improper mixes.
  • Looks like the constraints emerge, but
    intermediates are probably translating to L1 and
    doing any judgments there.

29
Bhatia Ritchie (1996)
  • Us ne kahaa that he will go there.
  • Us ne kahaa ki he will go there.
  • Us ne kahaa that vo vahãã jaay-egaa.
  • He said ki vo vahãã jaay-egaa.
  • He said that vo vahãã jaay-egaa.
  • He said ki he will go there.
  • Conclusion was that intermediate and advanced
    learners do have (access to) the constraints.
    Beginning learners showed very little sensitivity
    to contrasts.

30
So
  • Code switching/mixing is quite systematic, and
    moreover quite normal behavior for fluent
    bilinguals.
  • It also gives us hints about how languages are
    represented, to what degrees theyre kept
    separate.

31
Anomic aphasia
  • Loss of ability to retrieve words from memory,
    happens with almost any kind of aphasia (often
    with other more severe consequences), early
    dementia, healthy tired individuals
  • Words are not equally susceptible theres a
    systematicity to the errors.

32
Anomic aphasia
  • Content words (boat) are more susceptible than
    function words (the).
  • Infrequent words are more susceptible than
    frequent words.
  • Proper nouns are more susceptible than common
    nouns.
  • Sometime semantic classes go as a block (color
    words, letters, numbers).

33
Regression
  • Theres an old idea sometimes referred to as the
    rule of Ribot (dating back to the 1880s) that
    the newest things learned are the most vulnerable
    to attrition (Freud adopted this view, calling it
    regression, a return to earlier stages,
    Jakobsen claimed the same thing).
  • But an aphasic who says Baby cry is not as happy
    with it as an infant.

34
Aphasias
Brocasnonfluent cmpr okrep poor Wernickesfluentcmpr poorrep poor conductionfluent cmpr okrep poor
anomicfluentcmpr okrep ok transcortical sensorynonfluentcmpr poorrep poor transcortical motornonfluent cmpr okrep ok
35
How about multiple languages?
  • What about a second language?
  • Are the same brain areas used for both L1 and L2?
    Or are they different? Or do they overlap?

36
Recovery from aphasia
  • When a bilingual suffers from an aphasia, several
    things can happen during recovery (assuming
    recovery)
  • Parallel recovery
  • Differential recovery
  • L1 recovers faster (Ribots lawold before new)
  • L2 recovers faster (Pitres lawfrequent first)
  • Recovery generally implies that the actual
    language centers havent been destroyed, only
    either cut off or inhibited.

37
Recovery from aphasia
  • The fact that L1 and L2 can recover independently
    implies that they are at least in part
    differentially represented in the brain.
  • Case Dimitrijevic (1940) Woman grew up in
    Bulgaria, Yiddish home language, moved to
    Belgrade at 34 and spoke Serbian (and Yiddish)
    from then on, forgetting Bulgarian. A brain
    injury at 60, after two months for recovery,
    resulted in her only being able to speak
    Bulgarian and Yiddish she could no longer speak
    Serbian (though she could understand it), despite
    it having been her dominant language for 25 years.

38
Second language recovery
  • Almost 1/3 of reported multilingual aphasics do
    not recover their L1, but their L2 (L3, ).
  • Case Minkowski (1928). Patients L1 was Swiss
    German, learned standard German in school, moved
    to France for 6 years, became fluent in French,
    then moved back to Switzerland (using SG, though
    still reading French). 19 years later, had a
    stroke. After 3 days for 3 weeks spoke only
    (increasingly fluent) French, then started
    recovering German, but for 6 months was incapable
    of using SG. Around Christmas, suddenly SG
    returned (to the detriment of French).

39
Factors involved in L2 recovery?
  • Minkowskis idea is that the languages are not
    really spatially separated, but that they exert
    mutual inhibition in a fairly delicate balance. A
    lesion will disrupt that balance and can suppress
    a language (including L1).
  • In support, often lost languages can be
    recovered faster than usually required to learn
    from scratch.
  • Also, autopsy studies dont seem to reveal a
    larger extent to Brocas area in polyglots
    (Sauerwin, spoke 54 languages both at poetry and
    prose level normal extent and development in
    Brocas area)

40
Factors involved in L2 recovery?
  • Familiarity often is the determining factor.
  • Conscious vs. unconscious knowledge.
  • Psychological, emotional factors.
  • Language spoken to patient in hospital.
  • Domain-specific (rote) language
  • Higher inhibition levels between closely-related
    languages.

41
Recovery of non-communicationlanguages
  • Case Grasset (1884). Patient knew only French
    (never studied other languages), but then had a
    stroke and after a few days, began speaking only
    Latin (single words only, primarily
    prayer-related).
  • Case Pötzl (1925). Professor who knew several
    modern languages as well as classical Greek and
    Latin. After a stroke, he was only able to
    express himself in the dead languages, which he
    only knew through reading.

42
Paradoxical recovery
  • Case Paradis Goldblum (1989). L1 Gujarati,
    from Madagascar (spoke Malagasy), learned French
    in school. After brain surgery, tested fine in
    French but was having trouble with Gujarati at
    homefairly classic Brocas aphasia symptoms.
    Malagasy was fine. Over following months,
    Gujarati was recovered, but at the expense of
    Malagasy. 2 years later, Gujarati was fine,
    Malagasy was impaired. 4 years later, both were
    fine.
  • Suggests differential inhibition (rather than
    localization).

43
Switching and mixing
  • Healthy bilinguals speaking to other bilinguals
    will often code-mix or code-switch.
  • Aphasic bilinguals sometimes mix unconsciously
    without regard to the normal conversational
    triggers of code-mixing (often using multiple
    languages in conversation with monolingual
    speakers).
  • Or, they will show fixation on one language,
    responding only in one language regardless of the
    language in which they are addressed.

44
Alternating antagonism
  • More dramatic cases reported where patients
    switch week by week or day by day between
    near-total control and near-absent control of one
    language, in complementary distribution to
    another.
  • Case Bruce (1895) Welsh/English (Welsh, left
    handed, demented, docile English, right handed,
    restless and destructive). Alternated sometimes
    several times per day.
  • Bruce proposed this was due to differential
    hemispheric dominance later supported by studies
    of subjects with severed corpus callosum.
    Suggested left hemisphere was home of abstract
    (instructable) capacities.

45
Translation
  • Aphasic deficits in translation capabilities
    suggest translation might be a separate system.
  • Reported cases of loss of ability to translate
    (but retaining some abilities in each language).
  • Other reported cases of loss of ability not to
    translate Case Perecman (1984) patient would
    always spontaneously translate German (L1)
    sentences uttered into English (L2) immediate
    afterward, yet could not perform translation task
    on request.

46
Translation
  • Sometimes this can happen even without
    comprehension Case Veyrac (1931) patient
    (English L1, French dominant L2), could not
    understand simple instructions in French, but
    when instructed in English would spontaneously
    translate them to French and then fail to carry
    them out.

47
Paradoxical translation
  • Case Paradis et al. (1982). Patient switched (by
    day) between producing Arabic and producing
    French. When producing only Arabic, she could
    only translate from Arabic into French when
    producing only French, she could only translate
    from French into Arabic.

48
Bilingual representation
  • A number of dissociated phenomena in bilingual
    aphasia studies.
  • Sometimes only one language returns, not always
    L1
  • production and comprehension and translation seem
    to be separable, and even by language.
  • Monolingual aphasia studies seem to correlate
    lesion localization with function.
  • Not much evidence for localization differences
    between multiple languages per se.
  • Some evidence for localization differences
    between types of learning? (written, conscious
    vs. unconscious, implicit vs. explicit memory?)

49
Bilingual representation
  • Given the postmortem studies showing no real
    morphological differences between monolinguals
    and polyglots, the most consistent picture seems
    to be one of shared neural architecture with
    inhibition between languages.
  • Choice of language A inhibits access to grammar,
    vocabulary of language B during production.
  • Comprehension is often spared even in the face of
    production inability, suggesting that the same
    kind of inhibition does not hold of comprehension.

50
Bilingual representation
  • Many of the aphasic symptoms in production can be
    described in terms of changing inhibitions the
    lesion disrupts the balance of inhibition and
    excitation between neural structures, leading to
  • loss of inhibition (pathological mixing)
  • heightened invariant inhibition (fixation)
  • shifting inhibition (alternating antagonism)
  • psychological inhibition (repression)

51
Subsystems
  • There also seem to be several subsystems which
    can be individually impaired.
  • Naming, concepts
  • Fluency of production
  • Ability to retain and repeat
  • Translation from L1 to L2
  • Translation from L2 to L1
  • Some of these seem to correlate with localization
    differences.

52
More modern methods and results
  • Recording electrical activity in the brain can
    also help us see which parts are used in language
    tasks
  • Electroencephalogram (EEG)
  • Event-related potentials (ERP).
  • Magnetoencephalogram (MEG)
  • Functional brain imaging
  • Computer axial tomography (CT) (X-rays)
  • Positron emission tomography (PET)
  • Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

53
MEG
54
ex. Pylkkänen, Stringfellow, Kelepir, Marantz
(2000)
M350 The first MEG component sensitive to
manipulations of stimulus properties affecting
lexical activation. Working hypothesis this
component reflects automatic spreading activation
of the lexicon at signal maximum all the
competitors are activated.
stimulus
RT
BELL
M250 A component between the M180 and M350. Also
insensitive to variations in stimulus properties
that affect lexical access. Clearly distinct from
the M350 as these two responses have opposite
polarities. Processing of orthographic forms?
Postlexical processes including the word/nonword
decision of the lexical decision task.
M180 A visual response unaffected by stimulus
properties such as frequency (Hackl et al, 2000),
repetition (Sekiguchi et al, 2000, Pylkkänen et
al 2000) and phonotactic probability/density.
Clearly posterior dipolar pattern.
55
More modern methods and results
  • Wada test. Sodium amytal causing temporary neural
    paralysis can simulate a possible aphasia (in
    order to avoid it during neurosurgery).
  • Electrical stimulation. Similar but shorter term,
    more localized.
  • Results are mainly in line with other knowledge,
    but the problem with these tests is that a)
    electrical stimulation is hard to repeat
    (imprecise), b) both methods can only be used on
    people waiting for neurosurgery who may have
    abnormal brains.

56
Ojemann Whitaker 1978
  • Dutch inhibited
  • English inhibited
  • Both inhibited
  • Neither inhibited
  • For whatits worth

57
Differences bilingual and monolingual
representations
  • Best guess at this point is that there is
    overlapthe several languages make partial use of
    physiologically distinct areas of the brain, but
    also share a lot in common.
  • Some evidence that second language has a
    right-hemisphere component, more diffuse than
    first language, although directly contradictory
    findings have also been reported.
  • The state of things is actually a little bit
    disappointingbut it turns out to be hard work..!

58
End of the semesterWrap upTake-Home Points
59
Some major views on L1A/syntax
  • Radford/Guilfoyle/Noonan kids lack functional
    elements initially, have only lexical elements.
  • Wexler kids have access to all the same
    grammatical elements that adults do.
  • Rizzi kids have truncated trees
  • Vainikka kids grow trees

60
L1A Case errors
  • Kids will sometimes make case errors with the
    subject (until around 2).
  • Me got bean.
  • In English, accusative (me) is the default.
  • Very often taken to indicate a subject not in
    SpecIP (a.k.a. SpecAgrSP). No IP? (Radford)
    Sometimes IP and above (Rizzi, Vainikka)? No
    AgrSP? (Wexler)

61
L1A Null subjects
  • Kids will also often drop out subjects, even in
    languages where null subjects are not allowed.
  • Hyams (1986) Mis-set parameter theyre speaking
    Italian initially.
  • Kids who are learning null subject languages drop
    more subjects than kids who are learning non-null
    subject languages.
  • Bloom Long sentences are harder, drop what you
    can. The beginning of a sentence is more
    susceptible.
  • Wexler/Hyams Kids drop more subjects with
    nonfinite verbs. PRO. Sometimes topic drop with
    finite verbs, where topic isnt yet grasped.

62
L1A Optional Infinitives
  • In many languages, kids will allow nonfinite
    verbs in root clauses sometimes, early on (up to
    a little after 2).
  • NS/OI? Wexler (1998) suggests that theres a
    strong correlation between lack of OIs in
    2-year-old speech and being a null subject
    language.
  • True? Or are OIs just extra-rare in null subject
    languages (correlation with more elaborate
    inflection?).

63
L1A Finite vs. nonfinite
  • During Optional Infinitive stage, kids with OIs
    treat finite verbs like finite verbs and
    nonfinite verbs like nonfinite verbs.
  • German (Poeppel Wexler) V2 for finite verbs,
    final V for nonfinite verbs.
  • French (Pierce) Verb before pas for finite
    verbs, verb after pas for nonfinite verbs.

64
Some stories about OIs
  • Rizzi until maturation of RootCP, trees
    truncated sometimes below tense.
  • Wexler/Schütze Syntax intact, but something
    prohibits the same (subject) DP from licensing
    both TP (finite tense) and AgrP (Nom case).
  • Radford Kids dont use functional categories at
    this point (yet, leaves the finite verbs act
    finite data unexplained).
  • Legendre et al Kids minimize the number of
    functional projections, basically same outcome as
    Schütze Wexler.

65
L1A Principles B and P
  • Even older kids seem to allow co-reference in
    apparent violation of Principle B Mary saw her.
  • Chien Wexler, then Thornton Wexler, show that
    when quantifier binding is available (and thus
    requires coindexation), Principle B is respected.
  • Principle P is slow in coming (matures?), which
    says coreference --gt coindexation.

66
L1A A-chains, passives
  • Kids are also purportedly slow to master passives
    and unaccusatives.
  • Borer Wexler (1987) This is maturation of the
    ability to represent A-chainsmore
    specifically, the ability to move an object-type
    thing into a subject-type position (non-local
    assignment of q-roles).
  • Babyonyshev et al. (1998) show kids have trouble
    with the genitive of negation.

67
L1A A-chains etc.
  • Some possible reasons for skepticism on this
  • Snyder, Hyams, Crisma (1994) French kids get
    auxiliary selection right with reflexive clitics
  • Le chienj siest ti mordu tj .
  • VP-internal subjects
  • Korean negation misplacement seems to
    differentiate unergative/transitive from
    unaccusatives.

68
L1A Negation outside of IP
  • Kids for a while seem to have trouble with
    negation outside the IP, and repair their
    utterances so that it remains inside (usually in
    an adult-ungrammatical way).
  • What kind of bread do you dont like?
  • Where he couldnt eat the raisins?

69
L1A Syntax
  • In general, the errors kids are making seem to be
    very systematic.
  • They seem to know many aspects of the grammatical
    system, allowing us to pinpoint (if we look
    closely enough and ask the right questions) what
    parts dont seem to be working.
  • A-chains (or dethematization of an external
    arg.).
  • Using a D feature twice to check functional
    features.
  • Allowing negation in C.
  • Requiring coreference to imply coindexation.

70
L2A What can we say?
  • Certain things are required to explain L1A.
  • Kids dont get negative evidence
  • or if they do, it is inconsistent, it is noisy,
    and moreover sometimes when we try to give them
    negative evidence, they ignore it.
  • The kids must be able to learn a system that
    assign to some sentences, based only on
    positive evidence.
  • Conclusion Universal Grammar constrains the
    kinds of languages there can be, those languages
    cannot generate certain kinds of sentences
    (hence ).

71
L2A What can we say?
  • L1A Languages differ from one another.
  • Something needs to be learned from the
    environment.
  • Yet much of the grammatical system seems common
    across languages.
  • Languages can be thought of as varying not in the
    system (the principles) but in the parameters.
  • The kids, who learn their native language so
    fast, must have some help setting the parameters.
    A Language Acquisition Device (LAD) designed to
    choose among the options made available by UG.

72
L2A What can we say?
  • L2A is generally much harder, more conscious,
    slower, less successful.
  • Whats different about L2A? Did UG disappear? Did
    the LAD disappear?
  • Question What is the state of the L2ers
    knowledge about the L2?
  • Does this conform to what UG would allow?

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L2A UG-accessibility
  • In general, it seems that the evidence points to
    the interlanguages being allowable human
    languages. This could either be influence from UG
    (constraining possible languages) or because the
    IL is a variation on L1.
  • Can we tell? Look at parameter settings Does IL
    represent a different option from L1?

74
L2A Transfer
  • If the IL is UG-constrained, what is the initial
    starting assumption?
  • Is it some kind of general default setting for
    all the parameters (likely to be a subset
    grammar from which all other grammars can be
    learned via position evidence alone)?
  • Is it just carrying over the parameter settings
    from L1?
  • Some combination of these?

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L2A Tricks
  • In order to look properly at parameters, we need
    to know what they are. And what a default
    setting might be. This turns out to be hard.
  • Pro-drop parameter. Default Drop subjects?
    Subset learnable? Correlated with anything else?
  • Binding Theory Governing Category? Default?
    Language-wide? Strictly predictable from
    morphology?

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L2A Interlanguage L1prescriptive rules?
  • Is the IL just L1 plus some prescriptive rules
    (LLK)? (Fundamental Difference)
  • Or does the IL actually show resetting of
    parameters?
  • Resetting should entail cluster of properties
    comes with new value (again requires that we know
    what the parameters, values, clusters are)
  • If we can find a non-L1, non-L2, but UG-available
    option in the IL, that also suggests parameter
    setting.

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Pro-UG
  • MacLaughlin (1998) and Japanese to English via
    Russian anaphors.
  • Kanno (1996) and JSL learners seeming to know how
    to drop case markers without instruction.

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UG?
  • White (1991), ESL kids coming from French dont
    seem to learn that the verb doesnt raise (at
    least over adverbs).
  • Hawkins et al. (1993), FSL people seem to be
    faking Frenchearly stage treating negation as
    part of the verb, start to allow SVAO in addition
    to SAVO (recruiting HNP shift).

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L2A Is there a difference between kids and
adults?
  • L2A is harder as you get older.
  • L1A is quite possibility bounded in time.
  • Evidence for CPs seem to point to different CPs
    for different subsystems
  • CPs exist in vision, maybe we can find a brain
    correlate?
  • Yet some people may manage to overcome this and
    become indistinguishable from a native speaker.
    Some plasticity remains?
  • What disappears/deteriorates? UG? LAD?

80
L2A Negative evidence useful?
  • L1A doesnt use negative evidence.
  • If there is parameter transfer into IL from L1,
    logical subset relations might require negative
    evidence to reach correct parameter setting.
  • Providing people with negative evidence seems to
    helpbut only in the short term (without
    prolonged practicing), it may not yield any
    permanent parameter resetting.

81
L2A Markedness?
  • Are unmarked things easier/quicker to learn
    than marked things? Does teaching the marked
    things give you the unmarked things for free?
  • What are the marked and unmarked things?
  • Why do we see generalization beyond the marked
    (e.g., in Doughtys NPAH experiment)

82
OIs in adults? No, L2A?L1A
  • Almost no finite (inflected) verb forms in
    non-finite contexts.
  • When verbs are marked with inflection, they
    systematically (overwhelmingly) appear before
    negation (i.e., they move).
  • Many of nonfinite forms used in finite contexts
    (used finitely, moved). Prévost White

Oblig. Fin Oblig. Fin Oblig. Nonfin Oblig. Nonfin
Fin -Fin -Fin Fin
A(F) 767 243 278 17
Z(F) 755 224 156 2
A(G) 389 45 76 7
Z(G) 434 85 98 6
83
Bottom line
  • Especially with respect to L2A, there are a lot
    of things left to discover because careful and
    theoretically informed experiments still need to
    be done.
  • Many of the experiments that are in the
    literature rely on misleading simplistic notions
    (a monolithic UG subsuming the LAD, a single
    once-and-for-all CPH, a one-stage-at-a time view
    of acquisition, a subset relation for adverb
    placement or binding domain definitions)

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