Acquiring antecedents for reflexives when both L1 and L2 permit long-distance binding

Mari Umeda,Makiko Hirakawa,Kazue Takeda,Michiko Fukuda,John Matthews,Yahiro Hirakawa,Neal Snape

doi:10.22599/jesla.14

Abstract

The present study examines second language (L2) acquisition of the Japanese reflexive zibun (self) by Chinese-speaking learners. The reflexive zibun allows both local and long-distance (LD) binding interpretations. In a recent analysis, zibun is categorized into three types: zibun bound locally by a co-argument, zibun bound by an empathic LD antecedent, and zibun bound by a logophoric LD antecedent. An empathic antecedent is the participant in a sentence that the speaker most empathizes with, whereas, a logophoric antecedent is an individual “whose speech, thoughts, feelings, or general state of consciousness are reported” (Clements, 1975). Chinese also has a reflexive, ziji (self), that can be bound by an LD antecedent, like Japanese zibun. However, Chinese ziji is categorized into two (not three) types: locally bound ziji and ziji bound by a logophoric LD antecedent (Huang, Li & Li, 2009). The goal of this study is to determine whether Chinese-speaking learners are able to distinguish the two different types of LD antecedent for zibun in Japanese. Twenty-eight Chinese-speaking learners of Japanese at advanced levels of proficiency and 36 native speakers of Japanese participated in the study. The results showed that Chinese learners were unable to distinguish between the two types of LD antecedents, showing a persistent presence of first language (L1) transfer.

Highlights

Interpretations of reflexives by L2 learners have attracted much attention in previous L2 research
Among reflexive expressions used in natural languages, previous studies have mainly focused on two types of reflexives: a bi-morphemic reflexive, such as the English himself and the Japanese kare-zisin, which must be bound by an antecedent within its local domain, and a mono-morphemic reflexive, such as Japanese zibun and Chinese ziji, which can be bound by an antecedent outside of their local domain
The present study investigated whether Chinese learners of Japanese acquire the distinction between two types of LD antecedents, empathic and logophoric, for the Japanese reflexive zibun

Summary

Introduction

Interpretations of reflexives by L2 learners have attracted much attention in previous L2 research. Among reflexive expressions used in natural languages, previous studies have mainly focused on two types of reflexives: a bi-morphemic reflexive, such as the English himself and the Japanese kare-zisin, (himself), which must be bound by an antecedent within its local domain, and a mono-morphemic reflexive, such as Japanese zibun (self) and Chinese ziji (self), which can be bound by an antecedent outside of their local domain.. The same restriction does not apply to zibun in (2) or ziji in (3), for which both the matrix and local subjects are possible antecedents. Reflexive expressions such as zibun and ziji, which can be bound by a non-local antecedent, are called long-distance (LD) reflexives. Most LD reflexives are subject-oriented, with co-reference restricted to a clausal subject

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