Non-null Subject Language Research Articles

Pronoun interpretation in intermediate-advanced L2 English speakers: L2 to L1 cross-linguistic effects

Aims and objectives: L2 learners who speak a null subject (L1 Spanish) and a non-null subject language (L2 English) may experience cross-linguistic interference from the L2 on L1 pronoun interpretation. In this study, we test pronoun interpretation in the L1 and L2 of adult learners, in comparison with two groups of monolingual speakers, to assess if L1 pronoun interpretation can change as a result of L2 acquisition at intermediate-advanced levels of L2 proficiency and in the absence of long L2 immersion. Methodology: A group of L2 English speakers (L1 Spanish) participated in two offline sentence comprehension tasks where they interpreted pronouns in the L1 and L2. The results are compared with English and Spanish monolingual speakers. Data and analysis: We find that adult English learners comprehend pronouns in their L1 (Spanish) differently than Spanish monolingual speakers, demonstrating a strong subject bias for interpreting null and overt pronouns. In addition, we show that pronoun interpretation patterns acquired in the L2 explain the changes to L1 interpretation biases. Conclusions: The results of this study significantly advance the understanding of the factors that contribute to bilingual language comprehension, showing the permeability of the L1 comprehension system at the discourse level as soon as the L2 sets in.

Grammaticality Judgments as Evidence for Null-subject Parameter Resetting by Young and Adult Libyan EFL Learners

This study investigates a number of issues related to the differences between young and adult second language learners concerning the process of parameter resetting in cases when the first and the second language have two different values of the same parameter. The case which is examined in this study is the fact that Arabic which is the first language of the target groups of participants in this study is a pro-drop (null-subject) language, while English which they are studying as a foreign language is a non-pro- drop (non-null subject) language. The study uses Grammaticality Judgment tasks to which group of the Libyan EFL learners, the young or the adult learners’ group have reset this parameter from its value in Arabic to its different value in English. These Grammaticality Judgment tasks were applied to 91 university students who are studying in the Department of English, Faculty of Arts at Misurata University. The young learners’ group included 45 pupils in the first grades at the International Knowledge School in Misurata. The academic performance level of the participants in the two groups was considered as a factor which may affect the grammaticality judgments of the participants. The results showed that younger learners performed better in the grammaticality judgment tasks and that their judgments were not affected by the fact that their first language had a different value of the pro-drop parameter. It was also noticed that the intensive academic study at a university level did not help the older participants to be better than younger participants in this task. Moreover, the level of academic achievement was not a factor in this study that participants with lower academic levels performed better than those with higher academic levels

Referential choice in two languages: The role of language dominance

Aims and Objectives: Bilingual speakers that speak a null subject (Spanish) and a non-null subject language (English) may show some indeterminacy in referential choice in their nondominant language in comparison to monolingual speakers. The present study tests the production of referring expressions in the two languages of bilingual speakers (Spanish and English) to assess attainment at the discourse level and explore the role of language dominance on referential choice. Methodology: A group of 49 Spanish–English bilinguals participated in a picture description task in English and Spanish measuring referential choice in contexts of reference maintenance and topic-shift. Data and Analysis: The results of our study show that at a group level, bilingual speakers produced more underspecified references in maintenance contexts than English monolingual speakers and produced more overspecified references in topic-maintenance and topic-shift contexts than Spanish monolingual speakers. The results further show that language dominance in the target language is associated with more monolingual-like referential choice. Conclusions: We discuss the role of language dominance in the development of bilingual referential choice patterns.

스페인어의 복합 시제구 생략(complex

In Spanish, there are cases in which both the matrix TP and the embedded TP are elided all together, leaving apparently one remnant per clause. This paper examines how such kind of complex process of clausal ellipsis can be accounted for in a principled way, taking into consideration the existing analyses of TP-deletion. I argue that complex TP-ellipsis in Spanish is derived by deleting both the matrix TP and the embedded TP without moving the remnants of each TP. I claim that a deletion analysis assuming in-situ remnants is adequate to deal with complex TP-ellipsis and is also supported by the fact that heads like complementizer and negation (or the positive polarity marker si) cannot undergo the alleged movement of the remnant to the specifier of a functional phrase. I also discuss why non-null subject languages like English and French do not allow complex clausal ellipsis of both matrix TP and embedded TP, by claiming that the difference between Spanish and English/French may be attributable to the presence/absence of (some sort of) the so-called Comp-trace effects in the context of complex TP-ellipsis.

ACQUIRING L2 PRONOUN INTERPRETATION BIASES

AbstractLearners of a nonnull subject language (e.g., English) whose first language (L1) is a null subject language (e.g., Spanish) can show some optionality in the interpretation of overt subject pronouns in the second language (L2). By exposing L2 learners to nativelike interpretations of pronouns in discourse, we aim at understanding how exposure can promote implicit learning of pronoun comprehension biases in a L2. A sentence comprehension task was used with intermediate-proficiency English L2 speakers (L1 Spanish) that included a pretest, an exposure phase using the priming technique, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest administered 6–10 days later. English learners showed a significant increase in nativelike pronoun interpretations both in the immediate posttest and in the delayed posttest, in comparison to the pretest. The results show that exposure through priming can be effective in changing L2 participants’ interpretations and that effects of exposure are persistent and may aid in the successful acquisition of pronoun resolution biases.

Micro-variation in subject realization and interpretation: an introduction

In this introduction to the Special Collection of the same title, we start out by discussing some key issues addressed by recent research on micro-variation in subject realization and interpretation in anaphoric contexts (Section 1). This includes the status of some subject anaphoric devices in null vs. non-null subject languages, the possibility of micro-variation among null subject languages, and the way in which L2 speakers, elderly speakers and children deal with the task at stake and the factors that may influence this process. Then, we briefly summarize the seven contributions to this collection (Section 2) and relate the findings of each contribution to one another as well as to previous research (Section 3). As a whole, the studies in this collection not only shed light on many of the above mentioned issues, but they also raise novel research questions that open new perspectives of investigation into the choice and interpretation of subject referring expressions.

Factors Constraining Subject Expression in European Portuguese Spoken in Hamburg. A Bi-Generational Corpus Investigation

The present study investigates subject expression in two generations of Portuguese migrants living in Hamburg, Germany. Based on a corpus of oral speech, we aim to assess whether second generation heritage speakers (HSs) differ from first generation migrants with respect to the factors constraining subject realisation/omission in European Portuguese (EP), a null subject language, in contact with German, a non-null subject language. The results do not reveal evidence in favour of ongoing language change, given that there are neither quantitative nor qualitative differences between the two generations of speakers. They show very similar overall rates of subject omission (around 67%) and they reveal sensitivity to the very same determining factors of subject pronoun realisation/omission, namely person and number, verb type, switch reference (topic continuity [TC]/topic shift [TS]) and distance. This finding is in line with previous corpus studies investigating the spontaneous speech of different generations of bilingual speakers or comparing monolingual and bilingual speakers of the same null subject language (e.g., Flores-Ferrán, 2004; Nagy, 2015). We conclude that language contact per se does not necessarily lead to a diverging grammar at an inter-generational level, as long as stable input conditions allow for the acquisition of the constraints that are valid for null subject languages.

Pronoun Processing and Interpretation by L2 Learners of Italian: Perspectives from Cognitive Modelling

How do second language learners acquire form-meaning associations in the second language that are inconsistent with their first language? In this study, we focus on subject pronouns in Italian and Dutch. A native speaker of the non-null subject language Dutch learning the null subject language Italian as a second language will not only have to learn to use and comprehend null pronouns, but will also have to learn to use and comprehend overt pronouns differently in the L2 than in the L1. The interpretation of Italian overt pronouns, but not of Dutch overt pronouns or Italian null pronouns, has been argued to require perspective taking, specifically the use of hypotheses about the conversational partner’s communicative choices to guide one’s own choices. Therefore, a related question is how perspective taking and cognitive constraints influence L2 acquisition of such forms. Using computational cognitive modelling, this study explores two learning scenarios. In cognitive model 1, second language acquisition proceeds in the same way as first language acquisition and is based on the same grammar. In cognitive model 2, second language acquisition differs from first language acquisition and involves the construction of a partly different grammar. Our results suggest that the second scenario may be cognitively more plausible than the first one. Furthermore, our models explain why second language learners of Italian perform less native-like on overt pronouns than on null pronouns.

ZENGİN UYUM DİLLERİNDE ÖRTÜK VE AÇIK ÖZNELER

Chomsky’s (1982) Extended Projection Principle (EPP) seems to be voided in some languages where the reference of subject can be recovered either from the agreement morphology on verb or from discourse where agreement is not available. Known as the null subject phenomenon, this has sparkled a great deal of discussion and cross-linguistic research in theoretical linguistics. Furthermore, null subjects are so common in null subject languages that subjects can only surface under strict conditions. Yet when these conditions are met null subject languages behave like non-null subject languages. That is, under the right discourse conditions subjects have to be overt regardless. I investigate in this paper how and why subjects remain unexpressed as well as how and why they have to be expressed in a null subject language; namely Turkish. In doing so, I reveal novel data contradicting the predictions made by Holmberg (2005, 2010a) regarding the theoretical account and classification of null subject languages. Finally, I offer a minimalist version of the subject deletion method developed by Roberts (2010) for null subjects.

The role of prosody in overt pronoun resolution in a null subject language and in a non-null subject language: A production study

In this study, we investigate how prosodic cues are used when an overt pronoun is associated with either a subject or an object antecedent in Italian and in Swedish. To address this question, 28 Italian speakers and 28 Swedish speakers completed a production task, by reading out loud globally-ambiguous sentences containing overt pronouns and a control interpretation task, where they selected either a subject or an object antecedent for each pronoun, contained in a globally-ambiguous sentence. We expected that the different preference patterns in antecedent assignment in the two languages would affect the speakers’ use of prosody. In Italian, overt pronouns are usually associated with object antecedents, whereas null pronouns are usually associated with subject antecedents (Position of Antecedent Strategy – “PAS” – Carminati 2002). On the other hand, Swedish overt pronouns leave a measure of ambiguity with respect to antecedent assignment. The results of the control interpretation task confirmed that the Italian speakers conformed to the PAS, but the results for the Swedish speakers unexpectedly indicated a preference for subject antecedents. For the production task, the Italian speakers produced longer inter-clausal pauses and pronouns with a higher degree of prominence with subject rather than object antecedents. In contrast, the Swedish speakers produced longer pauses and pronouns with a higher degree of prominence with object rather than subject antecedents. These results suggest that inter-clausal pause and prosodic prominence favoured the most unpredictable antecedent of overt pronouns (see Goad et al. 2018): the subject in Italian and the object in Swedish.

Sujeitos nulos em inglês L2

The present article investigates the acquisition of a core syntactic property – the ungrammaticality of null subjects in English – by advanced and near-native learners whose first languages are European Portuguese (EP), a null subject language, and French, a non-null subject language. Two experimental tasks were used: an untimed drag-and-drop task and a speeded acceptability judgement task. Results show that French speakers behave target-like across all tasks and conditions, but EP speakers do not. At an advanced level, they fail to reject expletive and [-animate] null subjects in the speeded task. Crucially, at a near native level, EP speakers behave fully target-like across all conditions and tasks. These findings indicate that the syntax of subjects may exhibit significant developmental delays depending on first-second language combinations, but is completely acquirable. Developmental problems are argued to result from the misanalysis of (some of) the overt expletive subjects in the L2 input. This proposal is supported by an exploratory follow-up experiment, whose results are presented and discussed in the article.

ANAPHORA RESOLUTION IN L2 ENGLISH

AbstractWe test the interpretation of pronominal forms in L2 speakers of English whose L1 is Spanish. Previous research on learners of nonnull subject languages has shown conflicting results. The aim of the present study is to reconcile previous evidence and shed light on the factors that determine learners’ difficulty to interpret pronominal forms in the L2. In six comprehension experiments, we found that intermediate L2 speakers did not show increased difficulty compared to native speakers in integrating multiple sources of information (syntactic, discourse, pragmatic) to resolve ambiguous pronouns in intrasentential anaphora and cataphora conditions. However, we also found that when two referents with equal prominence are introduced using a conjoined noun phrase in the preceding context, the learner’s performance is significantly different than the performance of the native speakers, both in intrasentential and intersentential anaphora. We suggest that L2 speakers may encounter difficulties evaluating the salience of the antecedents during pronoun resolution.

Contrasting pronominal subjects

Abstract Pronominal subject use constitutes a potential challenge in translation because of cross-linguistic differences: while the subject must be expressed in non-null subject languages, this is not necessary in null subject languages. The aim of the paper is twofold: first, to show that the type of source language influences the frequency of personal pronouns in translation, and second, to establish whether translations into a null subject language differ from comparable target language originals in terms of pronominal subject use. The study is based on the analysis of a 625,000-word corpus comprising original and translated popular science texts in Slovene and the corresponding source texts in English and Italian. The results confirm that pronominal subjects are more frequent in translations from English, a non-null subject language; furthermore, they are more frequent in translations than in comparable originals. Untypical cohesive patterns are identified in translations and possible reasons for their presence are explored.

Morpho-syntactic properties of simultaneous bilingualism: Evidence from bilingual English-Turkish

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: A number of studies on the acquisition of non-null subject languages in child grammars have suggested that while overt subjects are mainly used with finite forms, null subjects co-occur with non-finite forms. The purpose of this study is to explore the proposed relationship between subject realization and verbal morphology in a simultaneous bilingual context. Design/Methodology/Approach: Longitudinal case study Data and Analysis: The present study analyses longitudinal data from an English-Turkish bilingual child (2;4–3;9), with special reference to the distribution of finite forms and the suppliance of overt subjects on the one hand, and subject drop and the use of non-finite forms, on the other. The English/Turkish data comprise 37 recordings collected regularly for nearly 18 months. Findings/Conclusions: English-Turkish bilingual data show that the majority of the overt subjects in the English language of the bilingual child occur both with inflected and uninflected verb forms. At a time the child has consistent and productive suppliance of overt subjects in his English, he uses uninflected verb forms with overt subjects, suggesting that the proposed association discussed in the literature does not necessarily hold. Moreover, around the same time the bilingual child’s Turkish presents robust evidence for the productive and systematic use of inflected forms as well as omission of subjects. Originality and significance/implications: These data, based on a less commonly studied language pair, English-Turkish, challenge previous research that postulates an association between overt subjects and finite forms versus null subjects and non-finite root forms. Overall, there appears to be a relationship between the acquisition of subject–verb agreement in the bilingual child’s Turkish and the correct suppliance of overt subjects in his English, suggesting language-particular devices for the realization of person deixis.

Developmental Asynchrony in the Acquisition of Subject Properties in Child L2 English and Spanish

ABSTRACTGiven that L1A of subject properties in non-null subject languages emerges later than that of null subject languages, this study aims at determining to what extent the same pattern of acquisition is observed in early child L2A in bilingual immersion settings where English and Spanish are both source and target languages. Using an elicited oral judgment and correction task, L1 English/L2 Spanish and L1 Spanish/L2 English 5-year-olds with the same age of onset, namely 3, are compared in their judgments of purely syntactic subject properties and discourse constraints on subject use. Results suggest that there is developmental asynchrony and that markedness effects might explain why L2 Spanish children generally display significantly more targetlike judgments than the L2 English group.

Different registers, different grammars? Subject expression in English conversation and narrative

AbstractAs a so-called non-null subject language, it has been proposed that in English, unexpressed subjects occur only in registers that have specific grammatical properties. We test this hypothesis through a comparison of the conditioning of subject expression for third-person singular human specific subjects in English conversation and narrative. Despite a stark difference in the rates of nonexpression (4% in conversation vs. 22% in narratives), there is no evidence of different grammars across the registers—in both, outside of coreferential clauses conjoined with a coordinating conjunction, unexpressed subjects only occur in prosodic initial position in main clause declaratives. Within the variable context, in both registers, expression is sensitive to accessibility, priming, and temporal sequentiality. A register effect is, however, evident in the contextual distribution, with a larger proportion of the narrative tokens occurring in contexts propitious to unexpressed subjects, and it is this that accounts for the higher rate of nonexpression in this register.

Pragmatically motivated null subjects in English: A relevance theory perspective

Despite English being traditionally classified as a non-null subject language, there are certain discourse contexts in which subject pronouns may be left non-overt. While previous analyses of this phenomenon have focused on syntactic explanations, each has acknowledged that pragmatics plays a vital role in understanding their production and interpretation. This paper takes up where the syntactic analyses leave off, and offers an analysis of the pragmatic motivation behind null subjects in non-null subject languages, focusing particularly on English. It is argued that, far from being exceptional, pragmatically motivated null subjects are not surprising on a relevance-theoretic approach to utterance production and interpretation (Sperber and Wilson, 1986/95). Three categories of null subject are identified, each driven by the balance between hearer's effort and cognitive effects, while allowing for the speaker's abilities and preferences. It is argued that pronouns encode procedural information which guides the hearer to the intended subject referent. Furthermore, the analysis of the discourse contexts in which these subjects may be optionally omitted sheds light not only on the nature of the pronouns themselves, but on the nature of the utterance interpretation process generally, and has important implications for the study of style.

Overt subjects in early Basque and other null subject languages

This study focuses on person marking in early Basque and other null subject languages. From very early on, person marking on the verb and quite regular, adult-like, null subject rates are attested across early acquisition studies on genetically related and unrelated pro-drop languages. We survey several studies on bilingual children simultaneously acquiring two languages with the opposite value for the pro-drop parameter. The conclusion drawn is that children display a monolingual-like pattern in the production of person marking, overt subjects, and personal pronouns in the null subject language, whereas, in the non-null subject language, bilinguals evidence delayed target person marking and overt subject production. These data are compatible with the view that children correctly set the default parametric value at early stages and separate the languages being acquired. However, it is argued that accounts based on the lexical learning of features in the functional category T(ense) may better account for the crosslinguistic data. Moreover, the accuracy observed in overt person inflection production leads to the proposal that (the spelling out of) the [person] or [D] feature in T(ense) is the first subject feature available to the language acquirer, previous to other candidates such as number or case.

The processing of subject–object ambiguities in native and near-native Mexican Spanish

This self-paced reading study first tested the prediction that the garden path effect previously observed during the processing of subject–object ambiguities in native English would not obtain in a null subject language like Spanish. The investigation then further explored whether the effect would be evident among near-native readers of Spanish whose native language was a non-null subject language like English. Twenty-three near-native and 33 native readers of Mexican Spanish read sentences like Cuando el escultor acabó/volvió la obra tenía tres metros de altura “When the sculptor finished/came back the piece was three meters in height”. The results suggest that (i) Spanish differs from English for this type of processing and (ii) native and near-native processing can be guided by largely similar principles, at least where lexical information like verb transitivity is concerned.

Anaphora resolution in near-native Italian grammars: Evidence from native speakers of Croatian

This paper reports the results of an experimental study on the resolution of intra-sentential anaphora in Italian, by native Italian speakers and near-native Italian speakers whose L1 is Croatian. In a picture-selection task, the two groups of speakers had to identify the antecedents of third person null and overt subject pronouns in ambiguous forward and backward anaphora sentences and their unambiguous counterparts. In all contexts under investigation, near-natives expressed native-like antecedent preferences, indicating that they have acquired not only the syntactic, but also the discourse-pragmatic constraints on the realisation of pronominal subjects in Italian. Given that Croatian and Italian do not differ with respect to the licensing and distribution of pronominal forms, the results provide additional evidence for an account attributing the well-attested tendency of bilingual speakers of a null subject language and a non-null subject language to overuse and misinterpret overt subjects in the null subject language to crosslinguistic influence.