Hostname: page-component-86c4fcdb79-8tt5w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-02-03T15:01:59.638Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

L2 Grammar and L2 Processing in the Acquisition of Spanish Prepositional Relative Clauses*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2014

SILVIA PERPIÑÁN
SILVIA PERPIÑÁN*
Affiliation:
The University of Western Ontario
*
Address for correspondence: Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University College, Room 152, London, ONCANADAN6A 3K7sperpina@uwo.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper investigates the acquisition of prepositional relative clauses in L2 Spanish by English and Arabic speakers to understand the role of previous linguistic knowledge and Universal Grammar on the one hand, and the relationship between grammatical knowledge and its use in real-time, on the other. An oral production task and an on-line self-paced grammaticality judgment task were analyzed. Results indicated that the acquisition of oblique relative clauses is a problematic area for L2 learners. Divergent results compared to native speakers in production and grammatical intuitions were found; however, L2 reading time data showed the same real-time effects that native speakers had, suggesting that the problems with this construction are not necessarily linked to processing deficits. These results are interpreted as evidence for the ability to apply universal processing principles in a second language, and the relative independence of the processing domain and the production system.

Keywords

L2 language processingprepositional relative clausesNull-PrepShallow Structure HypothesisFundamentally Identical Hypothesis
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 2015 , pp. 577 - 596
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers who provided critical feedback on various aspects of the manuscript, as well as the editor; their time and insights are greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank the informants that participated in this study, and in particular the institutions that provided help with the data collection in Tetouan, Morocco. I am indebted to the language academy Dar Loughat, and the Instituto Cervantes in Tetouan. Thanks also to Ileana Paul who commented on an earlier version of this paper. Of course, any errors or misconceptions remain mine.

References

Adjemian, C., & Liceras, J. (1984). Accounting for Adult Acquisition of Relative Clauses: Universal Grammar, L1 and Structuring the Intake. In Eckman, F. R., Bell, L. H., & Nelson, D. (Eds.), Universals of Second Language Acquisition (pp. 119–131). Rowley, Mass: Newbury House Publishers. Google Scholar
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1987). Markedness and Salience in Second-Language Acquisition. Language Learning, 37 (3), 385–407.Google Scholar
Betancort, M., Carreiras, M., & Sturt, P. (2009). The processing of subject and object relative clauses in Spanish: An eye-tracking study. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62 (10), 1915–1929.Google Scholar
Bley-Vroman, R. (1990). The Logical Problem of Foreign Language Learning. Linguistic Analysis, 20 (1–2), 3–49.Google Scholar
Bley-Vroman, R. (2009). The Evolving Context of the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 31 (2), 175–198.Google Scholar
Bouchard, D. (1981). Les constructions relatives en français vernaculaire et en français standard: étude d’un paramètre. In Cressey, W. W. & Napoli, D. J. (Eds.), Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, 9. Washington, D.C: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Carreiras, M., Duñabeitia, J. A., Vergara, M., de la Cruz-Pavia, I., & Laka, I. (2010). Subject relative clauses are not universally easier to process: Evidence from Basque. Cognition, 115 (1), 79–92.Google Scholar
Carroll, S. (1999). Putting “Input” in Its Proper Place. Second Language Research, 15 (4), 337–388.Google Scholar
Caubet, D. (1993a). L’arabe marocain 1. Phonologie et morphosyntaxe. Paris Louvain: Peeters.Google Scholar
Caubet, D. (1993b). L’arabe marocain. Tome II, syntaxe et catégories grammaticales, textes. Paris: Louvain: Peeters.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht Holland; Cinnaminson: Foris Publications.Google Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2006a). Grammatical Processing in Language Learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27 (1), 3–42.Google Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2006b). Continuity and shallow structures in language processing. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27 (1), 107–126.Google Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Muysken, P. (1986). The Availability of Universal Grammar to Adult and Child Learners-A Study of the Acquisition of German Word Order. Second Language Research, 2 (2), 93–119.Google Scholar
Clifton, C., & Frazier, L. (1986). The Use of Syntactic Information in Filling Gaps. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 15 (3), 209–224.Google Scholar
Cuetos, F., & Mitchell, D. C. (1988). Cross-Linguistic Differences in Parsing: Restrictions on the Use of the Late Closure Strategy in Spanish. Cognition, 30 (1), 73–105.Google Scholar
De Vincenzi, M. (1991). Filler-Gap Dependencies in a Null Subject Language: Referential and Nonreferential WHs. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 20 (3), 197–213.Google Scholar
Dekydtspotter, L., Sprouse, R. A., & Anderson, B. (1998). Interlanguage A-Bar Dependencies: Binding Construals, Null Prepositions and Universal Grammar. Second Language Research, 14 (4), 341–358.Google Scholar
Dekydtspotter, L., Donaldson, B., Edmonds, A. C., Liljestrand Fultz, A., & Petrush, R. A. (2008). Syntactic And Prosodic Computations In The Resolution Of Relative Clause Attachment Ambiguity By English-French Learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30 (4), 453–480.Google Scholar
Dussias, P. E., & Sagarra, N. (2007). The Effect of Exposure on Syntactic Parsing in Spanish English bilinguals. Bilingualism, 10 (1), 101–116.Google Scholar
Ennaji, M. (1985). Contrastive syntax: English, Moroccan Arabic, and Berber complex sentences. Würzburg: Königshausen Neumann.Google Scholar
Eubank, L. (1994). Optionality and the initial state in L2 development. In Hoekstra, T. & Schwartz, B. (Eds.), Language acquisition studies in generative grammar: papers in honor of Kenneth Wexler from the 1991 GLOW workshops (pp. 369–388). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Eubank, L. (1996). Negation in Early German-English Interlanguage: More Valueless Features in the L2 Initial State. Second Language Research, 12 (1), 73–106.Google Scholar
Felser, C., & Roberts, L. (2007). Processing wh-Dependencies in a Second Language: A Cross-Modal Priming Study. Second Language Research, 23 (1), 9–36.Google Scholar
Ferreira, F., & Clifton, C. (1986). The Independence of Syntactic Processing. Journal of Memory and Language, 25 (3), 348–368.Google Scholar
Ferreira, F., & Swets, B. (2005). The productions and comprehension of resumptive pronouns in relative clause “island” contexts. In Cutler, A. (Ed.), Twenty-First Century Psycholinguistics: Four Cornerstones (pp. 263–278). Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Flynn, S., & Martohardjono, G. (1994). Mapping from the initial state to the final state: the separation of universal principles and language-specific principles. In Lust, B., Suñer, M., & Whitman, J. (Eds.), Syntactic Theory and First Language Acquisition: Heads, projections, and learnability (pp. 319–335). Routledge.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. D. (1998a). Learning to Parse? Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 27 (2), 285–319.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. D. (1998b). Parsing to Learn. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 27 (3), 339–374.Google Scholar
Frazier, L. (1987). Syntactic Processing: Evidence from Dutch. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 5 (4), 519–559.Google Scholar
Frazier, L., & Clifton, C. (1989). Successive Cyclicity in the Grammar and the Parser. Language and Cognitive Processes, 4 (2), 93–126.Google Scholar
Frazier, L., & Flores d’Arcais, G. B. (1989). Filler Driven Parsing: A Study of Gap Filling in Dutch. Journal of Memory and Language, 28 (3), 331–344.Google Scholar
Frazier, L., & Fodor, J. D. (1978). The Sausage Machine: A New Two-Stage Parsing Model. Cognition, 6 (4), 291–325.Google Scholar
Frenck-Mestre, C., & Pynte, J. (1997). Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution while Reading in Second and Native Languages. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 50 (1), 119–148.Google Scholar
Gass, S. (1979). Language Transfer and Universal Grammatical Relations. Language Learning, 29 (2), 327–344.Google Scholar
Gass, S. (1983). Language Transfer in Language Learning. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House Publishers.Google Scholar
Gass, S. (1984). A Review of Interlanguage Syntax: Language Transfer and Language Universals. Language Learning, 34 (2), 115–131.Google Scholar
Gibson, E., Pearlmutter, N., Canseco-Gonzalez, E., & Hickok, G. (1996). Recency Preference in the Human Sentence Processing Mechanism. Cognition, 59 (1), 23–59.Google Scholar
Gibson, E., Desmet, T., Grodner, D., Watson, D., & Ko, K. (2005). Reading Relative Clauses in English. Cognitive Linguistics, 16 (2), 313–353.Google Scholar
Guasti, M. T. (2002). Language Acquisition: The Growth of Grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, R. L. (1994). Is Implicational Generalization Unidirectional and Maximal? Evidence from Relativization Instruction in a Second Language. Language Learning, 44 (1), 123–157.Google Scholar
Havik, E., Roberts, L., van Hout, R., Schreuder, R., & Haverkort, M. (2009). Processing Subject-Object Ambiguities in the L2: A Self-Paced Reading Study With German L2 Learners of Dutch. Language Learning, 59 (1), 73–112.Google Scholar
Hawkins, R. (1989). Do Second Language Learners Acquire Restrictive Relative Clauses on the Basis of Relational or Configurational Information? The Acquisition of French Subject, Direct Object and Genitive Restrictive Relative Clauses by Second Language Learners. Second Language Research, 5 (2), 156–188.Google Scholar
Hawkins, R., & Chan, C. Y. (1997). The Partial Availability of Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition: The “Failed Functional Features Hypothesis.” Second Language Research, 13 (3), 187–226.Google Scholar
Hopp, H. (2007). Ultimate attainment at the interfaces in second language acquisition: Grammar and processing. Grodil Press, Groningen, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Hopp, H. (2009). The syntax-discourse interface in near-native L2 acquisition: Off-line and on-line performance. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12 (4), 463–483.Google Scholar
Hopp, H. (2010). Ultimate attainment in L2 inflection: Performance similarities between non-native and native speakers. Lingua, 120 (4), 901–931.Google Scholar
Hsiao, F., & Gibson, E. (2003). Processing Relative Clauses in Chinese. Cognition, 90 (1), 3–27.Google Scholar
Hyltenstam, K. (1984). The use of typological markedness conditions as predictors in second language acquisition: the case of pronominal copies in relative clauses. In Andersen, R. W. (Ed.), Second Languages: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House Publishers.Google Scholar
Ionin, T., & Montrul, S. (2010). The Role of L1 Transfer in the Interpretation of Articles with Definite Plurals in L2 English. Language Learning, 60 (4), 877–925.Google Scholar
Jackson, C. N., & Dussias, P. E. (2009). Cross-Linguistic Differences and Their Impact on L2 Sentence Processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12 (1), 65–82.Google Scholar
Jiang, N. (2004). Morphological insensitivity in second language processing. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25 (4), 603–634.Google Scholar
Jiang, N. (2007). Selective Integration of Linguistic Knowledge in Adult Second Language Learning. Language Learning, 57 (1), 1–33.Google Scholar
Jourdain, S. (1996). The case of null-prep in the interlanguage of adult learners of French. Ph. D. Dissertation, Indiana University.Google Scholar
Juffs, A. (1998). Some Effects of First Language Argument Structure and Morphosyntax on Second Language Sentence Processing. Second Language Research, 14 (4), 406–424.Google Scholar
Juffs, A. (2004). Representation, Processing and Working Memory in a Second Language. Transactions of the Philological Society, 102 (2), 199–225.Google Scholar
Juffs, A. (2005). The Influence of First Language on the Processing of wh-Movement in English as a Second Language. Second Language Research, 21 (2), 121–151.Google Scholar
Juffs, A., & Harrington, M. (1995). Parsing Effects in Second Language Sentence Processing: Subject and Object Asymmetries in wh-Extraction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17 (4), 483–516.Google Scholar
Juffs, A., & Harrington, M. (1996). Garden Path Sentences and Error Data in Second Language Sentence Processing. Language Learning, 46 (2), 283–326.Google Scholar
Just, M. A., Carpenter, P. A., & Keller, T. A. (1996). The capacity theory of comprehension: New frontiers of evidence and arguments. Psychological Review. Vol. 87(4), 103 (4), 773–780.Google Scholar
Keenan, E. L., & Comrie, B. (1977). Noun Phrase Accessibility and Universal Grammar. Linguistic Inquiry, 8 (1), 63–99.Google Scholar
King, J., & Just, M. A. (1991). Individual Differences in Syntactic Processing: The Rate of Working Memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 30 (5), 580–602.Google Scholar
Klein, E. C. (1993). Toward Second Language Acquisition: A Study of Null-Prep. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Klein, E. C. (1995). Evidence for a “Wild” L2 Grammar: When PPs Rear Their Empty Heads. Applied Linguistics, 16 (1), 87–117.Google Scholar
Klein, E. C. (2001). (Mis)Construing Null Prepositions in L2 Intergrammars: A Commentary and Proposal. Second Language Research, 17 (1), 37–70.Google Scholar
Labelle, M. (1990). Predication, WH-Movement, and the Development of Relative Clauses. Language Acquisition, 1 (1), 95–119.Google Scholar
Labelle, M. (1996). The Acquisition of Relative Clauses: Movement or No Movement? Language Acquisition, 5 (2), 65–82.Google Scholar
Leeser, M. J., Brandl, A., & Weissglass, C. (2011). Task effects in second language sentence processing research. In Trofimovich, P. & McDonough, K. (Eds.), Applying priming methods to L2 learning, teaching and research: insights from psycholinguistics (pp. 179–198). Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Levy, R., Fedorenko, E., & Gibson, E. (2013). The syntactic complexity of Russian relative clauses, Journal of Memory and Language 69, 461–495.Google Scholar
Liceras, J. (1981). Markedness and Permeability in Interlanguage Systems. Working Papers in Linguistics 2, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Liceras, J. (1986). Linguistic theory and second language acquisition: the Spanish nonnative grammar of English speakers. Tübingen: G. Narr.Google Scholar
Marinis, T., Roberts, L., Felser, C., & Clahsen, H. (2005). Gaps in Second Language Sentence Processing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27 (1), 53–78.Google Scholar
Mazurkewich, I. (1984). Dative questions and markedness. In Eckman, F. R., Bell, L. H., & Nelson, D. (Eds.), Universals of Second Language Acquisition (pp. 119–131). Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers.Google Scholar
McDaniel, D., & McKee, C. (1996). Children's Oblique Relatives. Proceedings of the Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 20 (2), 472–482.Google Scholar
McDaniel, D., McKee, C., & Bernstein, J. B. (1998). How Children's Relatives Solve a Problem for Minimalism. Language, 74 (2), 308–334.Google Scholar
Meisel, J. M. (1997). The Acquisition of the Syntax of Negation in French and German: Contrasting First and Second Language Development. Second Language Research, 13 (3), 227–263.Google Scholar
Ohba, H. (2003). Pied-Piping and Stranding in Oblique Relative Clauses in Japanese EFL Learners’ Interlanguage Grammars. In Wakabayashi, Shigenori (Ed.), Generative Approaches to the Acquisition of English by Native Speakers of Japanese, Studies on language acquisition (pp. 143–166). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Pavesi, M. (1986). Markedness, Discoursal Modes, and Relative Clause Formation in a Formal and an Informal Context. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 8 (1), 38–55.Google Scholar
Pérez-Leroux, A. T. (1993). Empty Categories and the Acquisition of Wh-Movement. Ph. D. Dissertation, U Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Pérez-Leroux, A. T. (1995). Resumptives in the Acquisition of Relative Clauses. Language Acquisition, 4 (1–2), 105–138.Google Scholar
Perpiñán, S. (2008). Acquisition of prepositional relative clauses in two types of Spanish–English bilinguals. In Bruhn de Garavito, J. & Valenzuela, E. (Eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 2006 Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 93–106). Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Perpiñán, S. (2010). On L2 Grammar and Processing: the case of Oblique Relative Clauses and the Null-Prep Phenomenon. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Perpiñán, S. (2013). Accounting for variability in L2 data: type of knowledge, task effects and linguistic structure. In Schwieter, J. W., (Ed.). Innovative research and practices in second language acquisition and bilingualism (pp. 165–191). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Pliatsikas, C., & Marinis, T. (2013). Processing empty categories in a second language: When naturalistic exposure fills the (intermediate) gap. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16 (1), 167–182.Google Scholar
Pritchett, B. (1992). Grammatical competence and parsing performance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rodríguez, G. A. (2009). Second language sentence processing: Is it fundamentally different. Ph.D. Dissertation, Univeristy of Pittsburg.Google Scholar
Schwartz, B. D., & Sprouse, R. A. (1994). Word Order and Nominative Case in Non-Native Language Acquisition: A Longitudinal Study of (L1 Turkish) German Interlanguage. In Hoekstra, T. & Schwartz, B. D. (Eds.), Language Acquisition Studies in Generative Grammar (pp. 317–368). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Schwartz, B. D., & Sprouse, R. A. (1996). L2 Cognitive States and the Full Transfer/Full Access Model. Second Language Research, 12 (1), 40–72.Google Scholar
Segalowitz, N. (2003). Automaticity and Second Languages. In Doughty, C. & Long, M. H. (Eds.), The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.Google Scholar
Slabakova, R. (2009). L2 Fundamentals. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 31 (2), 155–173.Google Scholar
Sorace, A. (2005). Selective optionality in language development. In Cornips, L. E. A. & Corrigan, K. P. (Eds.), Syntax and Variation: Reconciling the Biological and the Social (pp. 55–80). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Sorace, A. (2011). Pinning down the concept of interface in bilingualism. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1 (1), 1–33. doi:10.1075/lab.1.1.01sor Google Scholar
Suñer, M. (1998). Resumptive Restrictive Relatives: A Crosslinguistic Perspective. Language, 74 (2), 335–364.Google Scholar
Williams, J. N. (2006). Incremental interpretation in second language sentence processing. Bilingualism, Language and Cognition, 9 (1), 71–88.Google Scholar
Williams, J. N., Möbius, P., & Kim, C. (2001). Native and Non-native Processing of English wh-Questions: Parsing Strategies and Plausibility Constraints. Applied Psycholinguistics, 22 (4), 509–540.Google Scholar