L2 Korean metonymy: The relative role of a conceptual universal and conventionalization

Aims and Objectives: This study examines how second language (L2) learners acquire and process count and mass nouns in English, with a particular emphasis on the influence of their first language (L1). Given the crosslinguistic similarities in plural-marking systems between English and Russian, as well as the differences between English and Korean, the study aims to compare Korean- and Russian-L1 learners, investigating their ability to detect plural-marking errors in English sentence comprehension. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study employs both offline acceptability judgment and online self-paced reading tasks to assess learners’ explicit and implicit knowledge, respectively. Participants consist of three groups: Korean-L1 learners (Korean group), Russian-L1 learners (Russian group), and native English speakers (English group). This comparative design enables a systematic analysis of L1 influence on L2 acquisition. Data and Analysis: Data from the acceptability judgment task were analyzed using a cumulative link mixed-effects model. For the self-paced reading task, a linear mixed-effects regression model was applied. Findings/Conclusions: The results indicate that the Russian group performed similarly to the English group in the acceptability judgment task, while the Korean group exhibited sensitivity to grammatical errors only for count nouns. In the self-paced reading task, both learner groups struggled with real-time processing, suggesting incomplete implicit knowledge. Originality: This paper uniquely integrates offline and online tasks to test the effects of L1 knowledge on L2 acquisition and processing of plural marking, as well as contributing to the understanding of explicit and implicit knowledge in L2 learners. Significance/Implications: The findings support theories emphasizing crosslinguistic differences as major obstacles in L2 morphosyntactic acquisition. The study also demonstrates the influential roles of task type and linguistic interfaces, suggesting that cognitive load from online processing and the management of multiple information sources can impede the application of L1 and explicit knowledge during real-time processing.

The present study examined whether linguistic cognitive control skills were related to non-linguistic cognitive control skills in monolingual children (Study 1) and in bilingual children from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds (Study 2). Linguistic inhibitory control was measured using a grammaticality judgment (GJ) task in which children judged the grammaticality of sentences while ignoring their meaning. Non-linguistic inhibitory control was measured using a flanker task. Study 1, in which we tested monolingual English-speaking children, revealed that better inhibitory control skills, as indexed by the performance on the flanker task, were associated with improved performance on the GJ task. Study 2, in which we tested bilingual English-Spanish speaking children from low SES backgrounds, revealed that better non-linguistic inhibitory control skills did not yield better performance on the GJ task. Together, these findings point to a role of domain-general attention mechanisms in language performance in typically developing monolingual children, but not in bilingual children from low SES. Present results suggest that the relationship between linguistic and domain-general cognitive-control abilities is instantiated differently in bilingual vs. monolingual children, and that language-EF interactions are sensitive to language status and SES.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the differential performance on musical chord and grammaticality judgement tasks in post-stroke aphasia. The accuracy of musical chord judgement task and grammaticality judgement tasks were analyzed, and the correlation between grammaticality judgement task and the severity of aphasia was examined. Methods: Fourteen individuals with aphasia and fifteen adults without aphasia participated in the study. The subject listened to a presented voice and was asked to determine whether the musical chord connection was natural and whether there was a grammatical error in the sentence. Results: First, People With Aphasia (PWA) showed significantly lower accuracy in the grammaticality judgement task compared to adults without aphasia. Second, PWA showed significantly lower accuracy in the musical chord judgement task compared to adults without aphasia. Third, the accuracy of the grammaticality judgement task was the most predictable variable of the severity of aphasia by 37.9%. Conclusion: PWA showed significantly lower accuracy in musical chord and grammaticality judgement tasks compared with normal adults, suggesting that PWA have difficulties in performing musical and grammatical tasks. Since damage to the brain structures affects music and language ability, PWA showed poorer performance on both musical chord and grammaticality judgement tasks. Moreover, grammaticality in Korean has an important role in this task. Thus, producing various treatment protocols of grammar comprehension is important because grammaticality is an important linguistic feature in comprehending sentences in Korean.

Grammaticality judgments are a very popular task in attrition research. This chapter will look at different ways in which these tasks can be set up and used.

One of the goals of second language acquisition research is to find a theory which can predict and explain what second language learners can acquire. The acquisition of unergative and unaccusative verbs has been one of the issues addressed in second language acquisition. A number of studies indicated that these verbs pose an acquisition problem especially in English L2 acquisition. This study investigates the Lattakian Syrian Arabic speakers’ acquisition of English unergative and unaccusative verbs based on the cross-linguistic, syntactic analyses of the structures involving these verbs across Lattakian Syrian Arabic and English. The paper reports on empirical findings from grammaticality judgment, translation, and picture description tasks in English as a second language. The grammaticality judgment task was meant to tap into learner’s competence on the two verb types, whereas the latter two tasks on their performance. The findings largely support the theoretical position that argues for the existence of first language influence at the early stages of acquisition, and for no fundamental differences in native speaker and second language syntactic representations at later stages of acquisition, a position such as the Full Transfer Full Access hypothesis. The findings also unfold crucial factors which seem to be at play in the acquisition of intransitive verbs, ones such as learners’ world knowledge, and the morphological structure of the verbs at question.

Typical experiments investigating the accessibility and/or role of principles of Universal Grammar (UG) in adult second language acquisition (SLA) use a written grammaticality judgement (GJ) task to infer knowledge of principles of UG. This investigation examined whether subjects would judge sentences differently in the aural modality from the visual. It was hypothesized that subjects in the aural condition would be less accurate and slower at judging sentences than subjects in the visual condition. Four language groups were tested: ESL (English second language), FSL (French second language), L1.E (English first language) and L1.F (French first language). Subjects were assigned to either an aural or a visual condition. The target sentences presented to the subjects were declarative sentences involving embedded questions, as well as ungrammatical wh-questions which violated Subjacency. The presentation times for all sentences were matched across conditions. Accuracy and reaction time to grammaticality judgement were measured. The hypothesis that subjects would be slower and less accurate in the aural condition than the visual one was supported. Furthermore, subjects were less accurate and slower to judge violations of Subjacency than other sentences, in both modalities. The detrimental effects of the auditory task on judgements were most pronounced for the L2 learners. These results are discussed in the context of the informativeness and validity of outcomes derived from GJ tasks, and the ways in which they are presented.

Introduction: So far, many studies have investigated the extent and nature of the grammatical deficit in aphasia. However, to the best of our knowledge, this research is the first in the Persian language to inspect the comprehension of patients with Broca’s aphasia on diverse syntactically complex structures. Materials and Methods: To scrutinize the impact of task on aphasics’ performance, four age-, education- and gender-matched Persian-speaking patients with Broca’s aphasia were compared with their healthy matched controls regarding the two different tasks of grammatical judgment and figurine act-out task. The structures used to examine the subjects’ performance included agentive passive, subject cleft, object cleft, object relative clause, and object experiencer psychological verbs. Results: Our results which supported the trade-off hypothesis, showed that our subjects generally performed better in grammatical judgment task than in figurine act-out task (P≤0.05). Particularly in the second task, as our inner task comparison, the patients’ problems were more severe in object cleft, object experiencer, and object relative clauses: all structures whose interpretations need more cognitive load. Conclusion: Our findings put more weight on the interactive or constraint-based model of language processing.

Semantic and syntactic aspects of the mass/count distinction: A case study of semantic dementia

This study investigated whether L1 Chinese learners of Korean can acquire case particle alternation in motion verb constructions. An acceptability judgment and self-paced reading task were conducted with L2 advanced learners of Korean in tandem with native Korean speakers. The result of the acceptability judgment task demonstrated that the L1 group accepted the sentences in both case-marking conditions, whereas the L2 groups (both higher and lower proficiency learners) only accepted the sentences in the ‘ul/lul’ condition, while rejecting the sentences in the ‘eseo’ condition. From the results of the self-paced reading task, L2 participants did not show any reading time differences between the two case-marking conditions. However, given that the L2 learners failed to demonstrate target-like knowledge of ‘in manner of motion’ verb construction in the acceptability judgment task, their reading-time patterns in the self-paced reading task may not be interpreted as their acceptance of both conditions. These findings suggest that the L1 Chinese-speaking learners of Korean have a persistent difficulty acquiring the case alternation regarding motion verb construction. (Ewha Womans University)

This study explores the effects of second language (L2) proficiency and the extent of exposure to the L2 on how L2 learners process nonlocal subject–verb agreement in English. A group of 61 adult Tagalog–English bilinguals, who began learning English before the age of 11, and a control group of 23 native speakers of English completed acceptability judgment and self-paced reading tasks. In the acceptability judgment task, both groups exhibited sensitivity to agreement violations, indicating their knowledge of subject–verb agreement in English. In the self-paced reading task, the L2 group exhibited delayed sensitivity to agreement violations compared to native speakers. Notably, the processing patterns of L2 learners were significantly influenced by their L2 proficiency in English. In contrast, the effect of language exposure was not significant. These results indicate that the ability of L2 speakers to compute nonlocal agreement in English is predominantly shaped by their proficiency. These findings suggest that while both L1 and L2 processing rely on fundamentally similar underlying mechanisms, L2 parsing appears to be more closely tied to language proficiency.

In this paper, we report on an experiment investigating adult second language (L2) acquisition of Spanish object clitic placement by native speakers of English (which lacks clitics) and French (where clitics contrast in certain respects with Spanish). Two different experimental methodologies are compared: an on-line sentence matching (SM) task and an off-line grammaticality judgement (GJ) task. Subjects were advanced and intermediate level English-speaking and French-speaking learners of Spanish, together with a native-speaker control group. A variety of constructions involving Spanish clitic placement were tested. The results from the two tasks complement each other: all groups show significant effects for grammaticality on the SM task and considerable accuracy on the GJ task, suggesting that L2 clitic placement can successfully be acquired even when the first language (L1) lacks clitics. However, both tasks reveal that L2 learners have difficulties in restructuring and causative contexts, which we attribute to problems with clitic climbing.

This study investigates the use of two types of Consciousness-Raising (CR) tasks in learning Subject-Verb Agreement (SVA). The sample consisted of 28 Form 2 students who were divided into two groups. Group 1 was assigned with Grammaticality Judgment (GJ) tasks and Group 2 received Sentence Production (SP) tasks for eight weeks. Learners were given a pretest before the treatment and a posttest once they completed the tasks. They were also required to answer questionnaires and some were interviewed. The findings show the two CR tasks promote SVA learning among students but SP tasks are descriptively better than GJ tasks in terms of gain scores.

The processability account anticipates that learners will make more underpassivization errors than overpassivization errors since passivization entails more processing. Although one study on psych-verbs and a few on unaccusatives examined Turkish L2 learners’ acquisition, no research compared a single set of learners’ acquisitions of these verbs together from a processing point of view. In this regard, the current study aims to investigate whether the processing complexity of passivization influences acquisition of psych and unaccusative verbs. It also questions whether general accuracy levels in Grammaticality Judgement Task (GJT) and degree of familiarity with target verbs are related to their level of accuracy with individual psych and unaccusative verbs. 33 undergraduate-level university students performed on the GJT and a Word Familiarity Rating Task (WFRT). The GJT included 38 items with 12 sentences for psych-verbs, 12 sentences for unaccusative-verbs, 12 sentences for distracters and 2 sentences for examples. The WFRT was a survey questioning familiarity with 6 psych and 6 unaccusative verbs. To analyse the data, a set of nonparametric tests and descriptive statistics were used. The results revealed that learners performed mor The processability account anticipates that learners will make more underpassivization errors than overpassivization errors since passivization entails more processing. Although one study on psych-verbs and a few on unaccusatives examined Turkish L2 learners’ acquisition, no research compared a single set of learners’ acquisitions of these verbs together from a processing point of view. In this regard, the current study aims to investigate whether the processing complexity of passivization influences acquisition of psych and unaccusative verbs. It also questions whether general accuracy levels in Grammaticality Judgement Task (GJT) and degree of familiarity with target verbs are related to their level of accuracy with individual psych and unaccusative verbs. 33 undergraduate-level university students performed on the GJT and a Word Familiarity Rating Task (WFRT). The GJT included 38 items with 12 sentences for psych-verbs, 12 sentences for unaccusative-verbs, 12 sentences for distracters and 2 sentences for examples. The WFRT was a survey questioning familiarity with 6 psych and 6 unaccusative verbs. To analyse the data, a set of nonparametric tests and descriptive statistics were used. The results revealed that learners performed more accurately on unaccusatives than on psych-verbs. They did more underpassivization errors by accepting ungrammatical active constructions of psych verbs. Their performances on psych and unaccusative verbs went parallel with their general accuracy levels in GJT while their degree of familiarity with and accuracy level for two verbs do not correlate with each other.The results suggest that such factors as processability and L1 transfer seem to impact the acquisition. Keywords:Second language acquisition; psych verbs; unaccusative verbs; underpassivization; overpassivization. e accurately on unaccusatives than on psych-verbs. They did more underpassivization errors by accepting ungrammatical active constructions of psych verbs. Their performances on psych and unaccusative verbs went parallel with their general accuracy levels in GJT while their degree of familiarity with and accuracy level for two verbs do not correlate with each other.The results suggest that such factors as processability and L1 transfer seem to impact the acquisition. Keywords:Second language acquisition; psych verbs; unaccusative verbs; underpassivization; overpassivization.

To explore the clinical potential of grammaticality judgement tasks, this study investigated whether a Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT) of inflectional morphology could differentiate between a clinically selected sample of children with DLD and children in mainstream (i.e. regular education) schools. We also explored the relationship between grammaticality judgement and measures of receptive vocabulary, receptive grammar, and nonword repetition. Children with DLD (n = 30; age range = 69–80 months) and mainstream children in Pre-primary, Year 1, and Year 2 (n = 89, age range = 61–96 months) were assessed on a GJT of regular past tense, third person singular, and possessive ‘s. The GJT was sensitive to developmental differences in mainstream children and differentiated children with DLD from Year 1 and 2 mainstream children, with DLD results consistent with a one-year delay in performance compared to controls. The GJT was the strongest discriminator of membership to a clinically selected sample of children with DLD (ROC curve analysis, area under the curve = 88%). Receptive grammar, receptive vocabulary, and nonword repetition were related to performance on the GJT. The grammaticality judgement of inflectional morphology shows promise as a reliable indicator of DLD and a measure sensitive to developmental differences in mainstream children. GJTs should continue to be explored for clinical application as a potential tool for both assessment and intervention.

This study explored first language (L1) transfer in child second language (L2) acquisition, testing whether L1-Chinese children learning L2 Korean show an advantage over L1-Russian children in the acquisition of adjective-added Korean classifier phrases. Chinese, like Korean, has classifier phrases with similar word orders, while Russian does not. L1-Chinese (n = 18) and L1-Russian (n = 27) children (age = 11-12 years) with L2 Korean completed an acceptability judgment task (AJT) designed to explore grammaticality in the orderings of Korean classifier phrases. The L1-Chinese children also completed a Chinese-version AJT, a translation equivalent to the Korean AJT. The study resulted in two main findings. First, in the Korean AJT, the L1-Chinese children showed more target-like performance than proficiency-matching L1-Russian children. Second, the L1-Chinese children showed comparable ratings between the Korean AJT and the Chinese AJT. The results suggest that L1 transfer takes place during child L2 acquisition, countering claims of a limited role of L1 transfer in child L2 acquisition.