Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vfjqv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T11:27:15.525Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

SOME NOTES ON THE SHALLOW STRUCTURE HYPOTHESIS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2017

Harald Clahsen  and
Claudia Felser
Harald Clahsen*
Affiliation:
University of Potsdam, Germany
Claudia Felser
Affiliation:
University of Potsdam, Germany
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Harald Clahsen, Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany. E-mail: harald.clahsen@uni-potsdam.de
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Since the Shallow Structure Hypothesis (SSH) was first put forward in 2006, it has inspired a growing body of research on grammatical processing in nonnative (L2) speakers. More than 10 years later, we think it is time for the SSH to be reconsidered in the light of new empirical findings and current theoretical assumptions about human language processing. The purpose of our critical commentary is twofold: to clarify some issues regarding the SSH and to sketch possible ways in which this hypothesis might be refined and improved to better account for L1 and L2 speakers’ performance patterns.

Type
Critical Commentary
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 693 - 706
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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

Our work on this article has been supported by an Alexander-von-Humboldt Professorship to Harald Clahsen. We thank the SSLA editors and reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive comments on earlier versions of our manuscript.

References

REFERENCES

Birdsong, D., & Gertken, L. M. (2013). In faint praise of folly: A critical review of native/non-native speaker comparisons, with examples from native and bilingual processing of French complex syntax. Language, Interaction and Acquisition, 4, 107–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boxell, O., & Felser, C. (2017). Sensitivity to parasitic gaps inside subject islands in native and non-native sentence processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20, 494–511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boxell, O., Felser, C., & Cunnings, I. (2017). Antecedent contained deletions in native and non-native sentence processing. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 7, 554–581.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Foris.Google Scholar
Clahsen, H. (1995). German plurals in adult second language development: Evidence for a dual-mechanism model of inflection. In Eubank, L., Selinker, L., & Sharwood-Smith, M. (Eds.), The current state of interlanguage (pp. 123–137). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clahsen, H., Balkhair, L., Schutter, J. S., & Cunnings, I. (2013). The time course of morphological processing in a second language. Second Language Research, 29, 7–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2006a). Grammatical processing in language learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 3–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2006b). Continuity and shallow structures in language processing. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 107–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2006c). How native-like is non-native language processing? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 564–570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clahsen, H., Felser, C., Neubauer, K., Sato, M., & Silva, R. (2010). Morphological structure in native and nonnative language processing. Language Learning, 60, 21–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clahsen, H., Gerth, S., Heyer, V., & Schott, E. (2015). Morphology constrains native and non-native word formation in different ways: Evidence from plurals inside compounds. The Mental Lexicon, 10, 53–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Neubauer, K. (2010). Morphology, frequency, and the processing of derived words in native and non-native speakers. Lingua, 120, 2627–2637.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Veríssimo, J. (2016). Investigating grammatical processing in bilinguals: The case of morphological priming. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 6, 685–698.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunnings, I. (2017a). Parsing and working memory in bilingual sentence processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20, 659–678.Google Scholar
Cunnings, I. (2017b). Interference in native and non-native sentence processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20, 712–721.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunnings, I., & Clahsen, H. (2007). The time-course of morphological constraints: Evidence from eye-movements during reading. Cognition, 104, 476–494.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dallas, A., DeDe, G., & Nicol, J. (2013). An event-related potential (ERP) investigation of filler-gap processing in native and second language speakers. Language Learning, 63, 766–799.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dekydtspotter, L., Miller, A. K., Schaefer, V., Chang, Y., & Kim, O.-H. (2010). Clause-edge reactivations of fillers in processing English as a second language. In Prior, M. T., Watanabe, Y., & Lee, S.-K. (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 2008 Second Language Research Forum (pp. 108–122). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Felser, C. (2015). Native vs. non-native processing of discontinuous dependencies. Second Language, 14, 5–19.Google Scholar
Felser, C., & Cunnings, I. (2012). Processing reflexives in English as a second language: The role of structural and discourse-level constraints. Applied Psycholinguistics, 33, 571–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Felser, C., Cunnings, I., Batterham, C., & Clahsen, H. (2012). The timing of island effects in nonnative sentence processing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 34, 67–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Felser, C., & Drummer, J.-D. (2017). Sensitivity to crossover constraints during native and non-native pronoun resolution. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 46, 771–789.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Felser, C., & Roberts, L. (2007). Processing wh-dependencies in a second language: A cross-modal priming study. Second Language Research, 23, 9–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Felser, C., Roberts, L., Gross, R., & Marinis, T. (2003). The processing of ambiguous sentences by first and second language learners of English. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 453–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferreira, F., & Patson, N. D. (2007). The “good enough” approach to language comprehension. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1, 71–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabriele, A., Fiorentino, R., & Alemán-Bañón, J. (2013). Examining second language development using event-related potentials: A cross-sectional study on the processing of gender and number agreement. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 3, 213–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
García Mayo, M. P. (2006). Synthetic compounding in the English interlanguage of Basque-Spanish bilinguals. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3, 231–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerth, S., Otto, C., Nam, Y., & Felser, C. (2017). Strength of garden-path effects in native and non-native speakers’ processing of subject-object ambiguities. International Journal of Bilingualism, 21, 125–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldrick, M., Putnam, M., & Schwarz, L. (2016). Coactivation in bilingual grammars: A computational account of code mixing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19, 857–876.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hakuta, K., Bialystok, E., & Wiley, E. (2003). Critical evidence: A test of the critical-period hypothesis for second-language acquisition. Psychological Science, 14, 31–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hopp, H. (2014). Working memory effects in the L2 processing of ambiguous relative clauses. Language Acquisition, 21, 250–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacob, G., Heyer, V., & Veríssimo, J. (2017). Aiming at the same target: A masked priming study directly comparing derivation and inflection in the second language. International Journal of Bilingualism. doi: 10.1177/1367006916688333Google Scholar
Jegerski, J., VanPatten, B., & Keating, G. D. (2011). Cross-linguistic variation and the acquisition of pronominal reference in L2 Spanish. Second Language Research, 27, 481–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jessen, A., Festman, J., Boxell, O., & Felser, C. (2017). Native and non-native speakers’ brain responses to filled indirect object gaps. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1007/s10936-017-9496-9CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Karimi, H., & Ferreira, F. (2016). Good-enough linguistic representations and online cognitive equilibrium in language processing. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69, 1013–1040.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kirkici, B., & Clahsen, H. (2013). Inflection and derivation in native and non-native language processing: Masked priming experiments on Turkish. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16, 776–794.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krause, H., Bosch, S., & Clahsen, H. (2015). Morphosyntax in the bilingual mental lexicon. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 37, 597–621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lardiere, D. (1995). L2 acquisition of English synthetic compounding is not constrained by level-ordering (and neither, probably, is L1). Second Language Research, 11, 20–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, R., & Vasishth, S. (2005). An activation-based model of sentence processing as skilled memory retrieval. Cognitive Science, 29, 375–419.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lim, J., & Christianson, K. (2013a) Integrating meaning and structure in L1–L2 and L2–L1 translations. Second Language Research, 29, 233–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lim, J., & Christianson, K. (2013b). Second language sentence processing in reading for comprehension and translation. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16, 518–537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marinis, T., Roberts, L., Felser, C., & Clahsen, H. (2005). Gaps in second language sentence processing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 53–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, J. (2006). Beyond the critical period: Processing-based explanations for poor grammaticality judgment performance by late second language learners. Journal of Memory and Language, 55, 381–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan-Short, K. (2014). Electrophysiological approaches to understanding second language acquisition: A field reaching its potential. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 34, 15–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, V. (2000). Compounding and the representation of L2 inflectional morphology. Language Learning, 50, 153–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neubauer, K., & Clahsen, H. (2009). Decomposition of inflected words in a second language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 31, 403–435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newport, E. L., Bavelier, D., & Neville, H. J. (2001). Critical thinking about critical periods: Perspectives on a critical period for language acquisition. In Dupoux, E. (Ed.), Language, brain and cognitive development (pp. 481–502). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Omaki, A., & Schulz, B. (2011). Filler-gap dependencies and island constraints in second language sentence processing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33, 563–588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pan, H.-Y., & Felser, C. (2011). Referential context effects in L2 ambiguity resolution: Evidence from self-paced reading. Lingua, 121, 221–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pan, H.-Y., Schimke, S., & Felser, C. (2015). Referential context effects in non-native relative clause ambiguity resolution. International Journal of Bilingualism, 19, 298–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papadopoulou, D., & Clahsen, H. (2003). Parsing strategies in L1 and L2 sentence processing: A study of relative clause attachment in Greek. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24, 501–528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, L., & Felser, C. (2011). Plausibility and recovery from garden-paths in second-language sentence processing. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32, 299–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, L., Gullberg, M., & Indefrey, P. (2008). Online pronoun resolution in L2 discourse: L1 influence and general learner effects. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30, 333–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sato, M., & Felser, C. (2010). Sensitivity to morphosyntactic violations in English as a second language. Second Language, 9, 101–118.Google Scholar
Silva, R., & Clahsen, H. (2008). Morphologically complex words in L1 and L2 processing: Evidence from masked priming experiments in English. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 11, 245–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slabakova, R. (2009). What is easy and what is hard to acquire in a second language? In Bowles, M., Ionin, T., Montrul, S., & Tremblay, A. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 10th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition conference (pp. 280–294). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Smolensky, P., Goldrick, M., & Mathis, D. (2014). Optimization and quantization in gradient symbol systems: A framework for integrating the continuous and the discrete in cognition. Cognitive Science, 38, 1102–1138.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steinhauer, K., White, E., & Drury, J. E. (2009). Temporal dynamics of late second language acquisition: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Second Language Research, 25, 13–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tanner, D., Nicol, J., Herschensohn, J., & Osterhout, L. (2012). Electrophysiological markers of interference and structural facilitation in native and nonnative agreement processing. In Biller, A. K., Chung, E. Y., & Kimball, A. E. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 36th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 594–606). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Tokowicz, N., & MacWhinney, B. (2005). Implicit and explicit measures of sensitivity to violations in second language grammar: An event-related potential investigation. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 173–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ullman, M. (2005). A cognitive neuroscience perspective on second language acquisition: The declarative/procedural model. In Sanz, C. (Ed.), Mind and context in adult second language acquisition (pp. 141–178). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
VanPatten, B., & Jegerski, J. (2010). Second language processing and parsing: The issues. In VanPatten, B., & Jegerski, J. (Eds.), Research in second language processing and parsing (pp. 3–23). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veríssimo, J. (2016). Extending a Gradient Symbolic approach to the native versus non-native contrast: The case of plurals in compounds. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19, 900–902.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veríssimo, J., Heyer, V., Jacob, G., & Clahsen, H. (2017). Selective effects of age of acquisition on morphological priming: Evidence for a sensitive period. Language Acquisition. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/10489223.2017.1346104.Google Scholar
Witzel, J., Witzel, N., & Nicol, J. (2012). Deeper than shallow: Evidence for structure-based parsing biases in L2 sentence processing. Applied Psycholinguistics, 33, 419–456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar