Testing the Typological Plausibility of Processability Theory:

1

• Testing the Typological Plausibility of
  Processability Theory
• the Acquisition of the Chinese Grammatical
  Marker de
• Presented by Lei Yang

2
Processability Theory

• Pienemann (1998)
• Universal hierarchy of acquisition

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Processability Theory

• Hierarchy of processing procedures__________
• Word/lemma None
• Category procedure Lexical
• Phrasal procedure Phrasal
• S-procedure Interphrasal
• S-procedure Interclausal

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Motivation

• PT tested mainly in Germanic languages
• The need for PT to be typologically plausible

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Linguistic Focus

• Chinese grammatical marker de____________
• Attributive marker de
• Possessive marker de
• Relative clause marker -de

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Linguistic Focus

• 1. Attributive marker de
• Zhe shi (yi) zhi keai-de xiaogou.
• This be (a) CL cute-Attributive dog.
• This is a cute dog.

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Linguistics Focus

• 2. Possessive marker de
• Zhi shi wo-de xiaogou.
• This is I-possesive dog.
• This is my dog.

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Linguistic Focus

• 3. Relative clause marker de
• Na zhi piao de henkuai-de xiaogou hen keai.
• That CL run-fast-RC marker dog is very
• cute.
• That dog which runs fast is very cute.

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Applying PT to Chinese

• Hierarchy of processing procedures__________
• 2. Category procedure Lexical
• 
  (Attributive
• 
  Possesive marker)
• 4. S-procedure
  Interphrasal
• 
  (Relative clause
• 
  marker)

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Research Questions

• Do the fourth year students demonstrate better
  knowledge of the Chinese grammatical marker than
  the first year students?
• Is the relative clause marker more difficult for
  learners learning Chinese as a second language?

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Research Questions

• Have students who have acquired the relative
  clause marker also acquired the other 2
  grammatical markers?
• Does the failure to acquire the
  possessive/genitive and attributive markers
  (Stage 2) post problems for the acquisition of
  the relative clause marker (Stage 4)?

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Data Collection

• 18 first year students and 12 fourth year student
  from Columbia University
• 3 native speakers of Chinese---Baseline

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Data Collection

• Grammaticality Judgment Task
• Disputable questions eliminated before the test
  was administered
• 29 questions, including 10 distractors

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Data Analysis

• Between-group analysis
• Within-group analysis

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Data Analysis

• Between-group Analysis (Error rate)

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Data Analysis

• Within-group Analysis (Error rate)

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Results

• Do the fourth year students demonstrate better
  knowledge of the Chinese grammatical marker than
  the first year students?
• ? Yes!

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Results
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Results

• Is the relative clause marker more difficult for
  learners learning Chinese as a second language?
• What is your prediction based on PT?

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Results

• Relative clause construction Stage 4
• Attributives Possessives Stage 2
• Attributive

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Results

• Have students who have acquired the relative
  clause marker also acquired the other 2
  grammatical markers?
• Have they?
• Attributive

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Results

• Does the failure to acquire the
  possessive/genitive and attributive markers
  (Stage 2) post problems for the acquisition of
  the relative clause marker (Stage 4)?
• ? Individual-specific

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Discussion

• The similar error rates on attributive de and
  relative clause marker de

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Discussion

• The role of information exchange
• Decisive condition in PT
• Is information exchange enough?
• Is transfer in place?

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Discussion

• The surprisingly high error rate on Possessives
• No satisfactory explanation available

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Conclusion

• Counterevidence found for the typological
  plausibility of PT in Chinese
• Further research is warranted

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• Thank you
• (Xiexie!)