Alison Gabriele

TRANSFER AND TRANSITION IN THE SLA OF ASPECT

Previous studies have shown that it is particularly diffi cult for second language (L2) learners to overcome the effects of transfer when they need to unlearn specifi c aspects of the native language in the absence of explicit input that indicates which properties of the fi rst language (L1) are ruled out by the L2 grammar (Inagaki, 2001 ; Westergaard, 2003 ; White, 1991a , 1991b ). The present study focuses on the effects of transfer in the domain of aspectual semantics through an investigation of the interpretation of the present progressive in L2 English and the imperfective marker te-iru in L2 Japanese and examines whether L2 learners can rule out interpretations available in the The research reported here is part of my dissertation work completed at the City University of New York Graduate Center in 2005. I am grateful to Gita Martohardjono and William McClure for their guidance at both early and later stages of this project as well as for many helpful discussions of the issues presented here. I thank Noriaki Yusa for hosting me at Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University in the fall of 2004 and for providing invaluable assistance and support in recruiting participants for this study. I also thank Chie Helinksi, Yukiko Katagiri, Naomi Nakada Larson, William McClure, Kyoko Selden, Robert Sukle, and John Whitman for their help in recruiting the L2 learners of Japanese. The Japanese experiment was developed in cooperation with Mamori Sugita. I thank Leigh Garrison for her help in data collection and analysis as well as Hia Datta for her artistic expertise. Various people have provided feedback at different stages of this work. I am grateful to Jose Aleman-Banon, Marcel den Dikken, Erika Troseth, Virginia Valian, Maria Luisa Zubizaretta, and the six anonymous SSLA reviewers for their helpful suggestions, which greatly

Morphosyntactic processing in advanced second language (L2) learners: An event-related potential investigation of the effects of L1–L2 similarity and structural distance

Different theoretical accounts of second language (L2) acquisition differ with respect to whether or not advanced learners are predicted to show native-like processing for features not instantiated in the native language (L1). We examined how native speakers of English, a language with number but not gender agreement, process number and gender agreement in Spanish. We compare agreement within a determiner phrase (órgano muy complejo ‘[DP organ-MASC-SG very complex-MASC-SG]’) and across a verb phrase (cuadro es auténtico ‘painting-MASC-SG [VP is authentic-MASC-SG]’) in order to investigate whether native-like processing is limited to local domains (e.g. within the phrase), in line with Clahsen and Felser (2006). We also examine whether morphological differences in how the L1 and L2 realize a shared feature impact processing by comparing number agreement between nouns and adjectives, where only Spanish instantiates agreement, and between demonstratives and nouns, where English also instantiates agreement. Similar to Spanish natives, advanced learners showed a P600 for both number and gender violations overall, in line with the Full Transfer / Full Access Hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1996), which predicts that learners can show native-like processing for novel features. Results also show that learners can establish syntactic dependencies outside of local domains, as suggested by the presence of a P600 for both within and across-phrase violations. Moreover, similar to native speakers, learners were impacted by the structural distance (number of intervening phrases) between the agreeing elements, as suggested by the more positive waveforms for within-phrase than across-phrase agreement overall. These results are consistent with the proposal that learners are sensitive to hierarchical structure.

The processing of number and gender agreement in Spanish: an event-related potential investigation of the effects of structural distance.

Previous research suggests that the processing of agreement is affected by the distance between the agreeing elements. However, the unique contribution of structural distance (number of intervening syntactic phrases) to the processing of agreement remains an open question, since previous investigations do not tease apart structural and linear distance (number of intervening words). We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the extent to which structural distance impacts the processing of Spanish number and gender agreement. Violations were realized both within the phrase and across the phrase. Across both levels of structural distance, linear distance was kept constant, as was the syntactic category of the agreeing elements. Number and gender agreement violations elicited a robust P600 between 400 and 900 ms, a component associated with morphosyntactic processing. No amplitude differences were observed between number and gender violations, suggesting that the two features are processed similarly at the brain level. Within-phrase agreement yielded more positive waveforms than across-phrase agreement, both for agreement violations and for grammatical sentences (no agreement by distance interaction). These effects can be interpreted as evidence that structural distance impacts the establishment of agreement overall, consistent with sentence processing models which predict that hierarchical structure impacts the processing of syntactic dependencies. However, due to the lack of an agreement by distance interaction, the possibility cannot be ruled out that these effects are driven by differences in syntactic predictability between the within-phrase and across-phrase configurations, notably the fact that the syntactic category of the critical word was more predictable in the within-phrase conditions.

Emergent literacy skills in bilingual children: evidence for the role of L1 syntactic comprehension

Abstract The study examines emergent literacy skills in a group of young English Language Learners who are dominant in their native language, Spanish. We investigate the relative contribution of syntactic comprehension in the L1 and L2 to the development of emergent reading skills in English. Participants were bilingual kindergarteners from two public schools in New York City. Two main tests were administered: a test of syntactic comprehension, given in both Spanish and English, and a test of literacy skills, specifically listening comprehension in both the L1 and L2 are significant predictors of performance on L2 listening comprehension, with L1 syntactic comprehension shown to be the stronger predictor. These findings provide support for the position that L1 knowledge may be accessible to facilitate comprehension in the L2, particularly in cases in which the learners are dominant in the L1 (cf. Riches & Genesee, 2006). We interpret our results as evidence that there are benefits to supporting the development of the native language in the homes and classrooms of ELLs.

Deriving meaning through context: Interpreting bare nominals in second language Japanese

Previous studies on the second language acquisition of telicity have suggested that learners can use morphosyntactic cues to interpret sentences as telic or atelic even in cases where the cues differ in the first language (L1) and second language (L2) (Slabakova, 2001, 2005; Gabriele, 2008; Kaku et al., 2008a, 2008b). The present study extends this line of research by focusing on a case in which learners cannot rely on morphosyntactic cues in order to reach the appropriate aspectual interpretation. We examine the acquisition of telicity by English-speaking learners of Japanese, focusing on how learners interpret bare count nouns such as kaado ‘card’ that obligatorily display count noun morphosyntax in English. In Japanese, a bare noun such as kaado is ambiguous with respect to number and therefore a verb phrase such as kaado-o kakimashita ‘wrote card’ can be interpreted as either telic ‘wrote the cards’ or atelic ‘wrote cards’ depending on the context. The results of two studies with both intermediate (Study 1: n = 38; Study 2: n = 38) and advanced (Study 1: n = 7; Study 2: n = 10) learners of Japanese show that there are learners at both levels of proficiency that have difficulty with the interpretation of bare count nouns and assign an exclusively telic reading to a verb phrase such as kaado-o kakimashita ‘wrote card’. We argue that this interpretation is due to the boundedness of count nouns in L1 English and propose that a retreat from negative transfer is difficult when there is variability in the native speaker input and when meaning has to be derived from context in the absence of morphosyntactic cues.

Syntactic Constraints and Individual Differences in Native and Non-Native Processing of Wh-Movement.

There is a debate as to whether second language (L2) learners show qualitatively similar processing profiles as native speakers or whether L2 learners are restricted in their ability to use syntactic information during online processing. In the realm of wh-dependency resolution, research has examined whether learners, similar to native speakers, attempt to resolve wh-dependencies in grammatically licensed contexts but avoid positing gaps in illicit contexts such as islands. Also at issue is whether the avoidance of gap filling in islands is due to adherence to syntactic constraints or whether islands simply present processing bottlenecks. One approach has been to examine the relationship between processing abilities and the establishment of wh-dependencies in islands. Grammatical accounts of islands do not predict such a relationship as the parser should simply not predict gaps in illicit contexts. In contrast, a pattern of results showing that individuals with more processing resources are better able to establish wh-dependencies in islands could conceivably be compatible with certain processing accounts. In a self-paced reading experiment which examines the processing of wh-dependencies, we address both questions, examining whether native English speakers and Korean learners of English show qualitatively similar patterns and whether there is a relationship between working memory, as measured by counting span and reading span, and processing in both island and non-island contexts. The results of the self-paced reading experiment suggest that learners can use syntactic information on the same timecourse as native speakers, showing qualitative similarity between the two groups. Results of regression analyses did not reveal a significant relationship between working memory and the establishment of wh-dependencies in islands but we did observe significant relationships between working memory and the processing of licit wh-dependencies. As the contexts in which these relationships emerged differed for learners and native speakers, our results call for further research examining individual differences in dependency resolution in both populations.

Individual differences in the processing of referential dependencies: Evidence from event-related potentials

The present study examines the processing of referential ambiguity and referential failure using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants read sentences with pronouns (he, she) which contained either one, two, or no potential gender-matching antecedents. Participants also took tests of working memory (Count Span/Reading Span) and attentional control (Number Stroop). In contexts of referential ambiguity with two potential gender-matching antecedents, two different responder types emerged, with some participants yielding a sustained negativity (Nref) and others a sustained positivity. For individuals who elicited Nref, the size of the effect was related to working memory such that higher Count Span scores were related to a larger Nref. For individuals who elicited a positivity, the effect was marginally related to attentional control such that better performance on the Stroop was related to a less positive, or increasingly negative-going ERP effect. Contexts of referential failure, with no gender-matching antecedents, yielded P600 for all participants, suggesting that participants may treat the failure of the pronoun to agree in gender with the antecedents as a violation despite the absence of an explicit acceptability judgment task.

Why Some Imperfectives Are Interpreted Imperfectly: A Study of Chinese Learners of Japanese

The study investigates whether advanced second language (L2) learners can extend beyond the grammatical properties of the first language (L1) to successfully acquire tense and aspect. We examine the acquisition of the semantics of the imperfective marker te-iru in Japanese by native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, a language that grammatically encodes aspect but not tense. The results of an interpretation task suggest that Chinese learners cannot extend beyond the properties of the L1. However, these results are interpreted in light of a series of related studies that show that Chinese learners can acquire tense and aspect in L2 English and that English native speakers also have difficulty with the imperfective in L2 Japanese. We argue that difficulty with the interpretation of imperfectives in L2 acquisition is not related solely to the properties of the L1, but rather to two properties of the target language: the specific morphological encoding of tense and aspect and the complexity of the semantic computation.

Using event-related potentials to track morphosyntactic development in second language learners: The processing of number and gender agreement in Spanish

We used event-related potentials to investigate morphosyntactic development in 78 adult English-speaking learners of Spanish as a second language (L2) across the proficiency spectrum. We examined how development is modulated by the similarity between the native language (L1) and the L2, by comparing number (a feature present in English) and gender agreement (novel feature). We also investigated how development is impacted by structural distance, manipulating the distance between the agreeing elements by probing both within-phrase (fruta muy jugosa “fruit-FEM-SG very juicy-FEM-SG”) and across-phrase agreement (fresa es ácida “strawberry-FEM-SG is tart-FEM-SG”). Regression analyses revealed that the learners’ overall proficiency, as measured by a standardized test, predicted their accuracy with the target properties in the grammaticality judgment task (GJT), but did not predict P600 magnitude to the violations. However, a relationship emerged between immersion in Spanish-speaking countries and P600 magnitude for gender. Our results also revealed a correlation between accuracy in the GJT and P600 magnitude, suggesting that behavioral sensitivity to the target property predicts neurophysiological sensitivity. Subsequent group analyses revealed that the highest-proficiency learners showed equally robust P600 effects for number and gender. This group also elicited more positive waveforms for within- than across-phrase agreement overall, similar to the native controls. The lowest-proficiency learners showed a P600 for number overall, but no effects for gender. Unlike the highest-proficiency learners, they also showed no sensitivity to structural distance, suggesting that sensitivity to such linguistic factors develops over time. Overall, these results suggest an important role for proficiency in morphosyntactic development, although differences emerged between behavioral and electrophysiological measures. While L2 proficiency predicted behavioral sensitivity to agreement, development with respect to the neurocognitive mechanisms recruited in processing only emerged when comparing the two extremes of the proficiency spectrum. Importantly, while both L1-L2 similarity and hierarchical structure impact development, they do not constrain it.

Can learners use morphosyntactic cues to facilitate processing? Evidence from a study of gender agreement in Hindi

ABSTRACT This study investigates L2 learners’ ability to use morphosyntactic gender as a predictive cue during the processing of Hindi agreement dependencies. Nine L2 learners of low-intermediate proficiency and nine highly proficient multilingual speakers who consider Hindi one of their dominant languages were tested using a speeded picture-selection task. Results indicate that both L2 learners and multilingual speakers of Hindi used gender information to rapidly facilitate access to a target noun during processing, although because the facilitative effects were at the target noun, rather than preceding it, these facilitative effects do not provide unambiguous evidence for prediction. Participants’ processing speed in a control condition was also correlated with sensitivity to the gender cue, which is in line with accounts that posit that the ability to use linguistic cues during processing is modulated by individual differences.