Elif Bamyacı

Coding causal–noncausal verb alternations: A form–frequency correspondence explanation

We propose, and provide corpus-based support for, a usage-based explanation for cross-linguistic trends in the coding of causal–noncausal verb pairs, such as raise/rise, break (tr.)/ break (intr.). While English mostly uses the same verb form both for the causal and the noncausal sense (labile coding), most languages have extra coding for the causal verb (causative coding) and/or for the noncausal verb (anticausative coding). Causative and anticausative coding is not randomly distributed (Haspelmath 1993): Some verb meanings, such as ‘freeze’, ‘dry’ and ‘melt’, tend to be coded as causatives, while others, such as ‘break’, ‘open’ and ‘split’, tend to be coded as anticausatives. We propose an explanation of these coding tendencies on the basis of the form–frequency correspondence principle, which is a general efficiency principle that is responsible for many grammatical asymmetries, ultimately grounded in predictability of frequently expressed meanings. In corpus data from seven languages, we find that verb pairs for which the noncausal member is more frequent tend to be coded as anticausatives, while verb pairs for which the causal member is more frequent tend to be coded as causatives. Our approach implies that linguists should not rely on form–meaning parallelism when trying to explain cross-linguistic or language-particular patterns in this domain.

A characterization of verb use in Turkish agrammatic narrative speech.

ABSTRACT This study investigates the characteristics of narrative-speech production and the use of verbs in Turkish agrammatic speakers (n = 10) compared to non-brain-damaged controls (n = 10). To elicit narrative-speech samples, personal interviews and storytelling tasks were conducted. Turkish has a large and regular verb inflection paradigm where verbs are inflected for evidentiality (i.e. direct versus indirect evidence available to the speaker). Particularly, we explored the general characteristics of the speech samples (e.g. utterance length) and the uses of lexical, finite and non-finite verbs and direct and indirect evidentials. The results show that speech rate is slow, verbs per utterance are lower than normal and the verb diversity is reduced in the agrammatic speakers. Verb inflection is relatively intact; however, a trade-off pattern between inflection for direct evidentials and verb diversity is found. The implications of the data are discussed in connection with narrative-speech production studies on other languages.

Measuring Effects of Topicality on Verb Number Marking: A Pragmatics-Morphosyntax Interface Phenomenon

This chapter investigates various pragmatic and discourse factors that have been previously argued to increase or decrease the likelihood of the use of overt verb number marking (plural marking) in sentences with human plural subjects and the processing of these pragmatic constraints by monolingual and heritage speakers of Turkish. Previous descriptions of Turkish suggest various properties of the subjects, such as referentiality, salience, agentivity, definiteness, distinctness, or givenness in discourse to interact with the verb number marking. Here I experimentally investigate the givenness factor with its varying degrees and measure its influence on the use of overt verb number marking on verbs in sentences with human plural subjects. I present the pragmatic factors that motivate the use of overt verb number marking in Turkish in Sect. 6.1. In that section it becomes evident that information structural concepts influence the use of overt plural marking on the verb. Section 6.2 then informs on such information structural values of plural subjects in Turkish. Section 6.3 presents crosslinguistic views regarding this interaction and discusses switch-reference systems as this typology accurately characterizes the discourse-pragmatic properties of verb number marking in Turkish. Subsequently, I present an experimental investigation of this phenomenon in monolingual and bilingual speakers, respectively.

Supporting Evidence from Categorical Data

The studies presented in the previous two chapters of the book measured perceived-well-formedness of sentences regarding the two interfaces and provided solid findings. Taking the claims of the studies that have investigated the cognitive aspects of bilingualism into consideration, it is reasonable to raise the question as to whether the bilingual speakers showed higher sensitivity to the semantic and pragmatic constraints because the grammaticality judgment task encouraged them to do so and provided them with sufficient means to express themselves freely. Indeed, previous research suggested that bilingual speakers develop a higher degree of metalinguistic awareness, which can be defined as ‘explicit knowledge of linguistic structure and the ability to access it intentionally’ (Bialystok 1979, 1982; Bialystok et al. 2004, 2007). This indicates that bilingual speakers do not have higher levels of linguistic knowledge, but that they are highly capable of performing processes that require access to certain types of knowledge that might be supported by their attentional advantage in selectivity and inhibition (Bialystok 2001, Bialystok and Craik 2010). We can therefore expect the same advantages to result in success only in grammaticality judgment tasks. The question that arises at this point is whether bilinguals would perform poorer (i.e., provide random responses, or else stick to the default form) once they are forced to produce a structure, the use of which is context dependent and optional. In order to respond to this suspicion, a forced-choice experiment, which is often called as a semi-production task in the language acquisition literature, is designed to check the validity of the monolingual and bilingual data yielded by the two studies presented in Chaps. 5 and 6. As such, the experiment in this chapter ultimately aims at controlling for task effects to reach more generalizable results.

General Discussion and Conclusions

The experimental results on bilingual speakers presented in this book lead to various research outcomes.

Putting Things into a Frame

The aim of this chapter is to put the findings presented in the previous chapters of the book into a processing-based linguistic framework. To that end, I adopt the Modular On-line Growth and Use of Language (MOGUL) framework proposed by Sharwood-Smith and Truscott (2014). The processing-based perspective in this framework (or research program) provides the basis for building theories on language processing, production, and acquisition regarding both monolingual and bilingual minds (MOGUL also accounts for multilinguals as it does for bilingual speakers. The terms bilingual and multilingual are used interchangeably throughout this section). The ultimate objective of MOGUL is to bring insight into how the mind accommodates more than one language and how these various linguistic systems share space and interact with each other within the same mind (Sharwood-Smith and Truscott 2014, p. 3). Based on previous theoretical accounts on the internal organization of the linguistic system (e.g., Chomsky 1995; Jackendoff 2002) (presented and discussed at length in Sect. 2.1), MOGUL presents a theory accounting for both language acquisition and language maintenance in monolingual and bilingual minds. Thus, MOGUL provides a sound basis allowing interpretation of the patterns that emerge in the bilingual grammar regarding the interface phenomena. In this book I re-evaluate earlier findings of previous research on linguistic interface phenomena presented and discussed in Chaps. 3 and 4 within this framework, and follow the same approach in the interpretation of the new data I provide. The chapter has two parts. The first presents the basics of MOGUL framework in Sect. 8.1 and the second presents the acquisition and maintenance of first and second languages in MOGUL terms in Sect. 8.2. Where necessary, comparisons are made to the previous theory on mind and language (e.g., Fodor 1983; Chomsky 1995; Jackendoff 2002).

Measuring Animacy Effects on Verb Number Marking: A Semantics-Morphosyntax Interface Phenomenon

Sezer (1978) reported an asymmetry regarding the animacy of the plural subjects as they interact with the verb number in Turkish. Overt plural marking on the verb is allowed when a sentential subject denotes an animate entity, whereas this is not allowed when the subject denotes an inanimate entity. This is in line with the crosslinguistic tendency that languages mark number on the verb if the subject denotes an animate entity as opposed to an inanimate entity (Comrie 1989, p. 191). There is, however, no empirical evidence in support of these arguments and the previous descriptions are based on the intuitions of the researchers regarding the animacy and verb number interaction. The experimental study presented here is the first systematic investigation on optionality in verb number marking. In this study, I take Turkish optional verb number marking as a test case and provide empirical evidence to support typologically-attested main and sub-animacy categories through an experimental investigation, where intuitions of Turkish monolingual native speakers as well as a group of Turkish heritage speakers in Germany are measured. The chapter is organized in the following way. Section 5.1 discusses the interaction between animacy and number marking on verbs from a typological perspective. Section 5.2 presents the intricacies of optional verb number marking in Turkish and its interplay with semantic factors. In Sect. 5.3 the experimental approach that this book follows is provided. The following sections present the research objectives and the results of the two experiments that tested a group of monolingual native speakers (Experiment I) and a group of heritage speakers (Experiment II), respectively. In the last two sections I discuss the broader implications of the findings regarding the optionality and variability of the verb number phenomenon under investigation, and provide an account of the non-native-like patterns in HS grammar observed in the experimental data.

Theoretical and Empirical Accounts of the “Modular Mind”

Research on bilingualism has focused on the areas of grammar that require greater effort to reach native-like attainment. It questioned whether simultaneous or sequential bilingual acquirers can achieve linguistic knowledge and language processing strategies to a similar extent as monolingual speakers who are exposed to efficient and continuous linguistic input and, if not, which areas of grammar are more demanding in this regard. Various bilingual groups have been tested in an attempt to identify the areas of grammar that are prone to: CLI effects, language dominance and quality and quantity of input in simultaneous and sequential bilingual acquisition (Hulk and Muller 2000; Muller and Hulk 2001; Argyri and Sorace 2007; Paradis and Navarro 2003; Hacohen and Schaeffer 2007), Language attrition effects (Gurel 2004; Tsimpli et al. 2004) Difficulties for near-native level attainment in L2 learners (Sorace and Filiaci 2006; Sorace 1999) The common denominator in the outcome of these studies is bilinguals’ non-native-like behavior in structures that require the integration of grammatical knowledge into contextual settings, i.e., at semantics-syntax and pragmatics-syntax interfaces. Before presenting these bilingual studies in the following chapter, this chapter first provides various theoretical assumptions on the modular mind and the interface phenomenon and then presents earlier research on the interface phenomenon in child and agrammatic speech as well as the theoretical accounts that resulted from these investigations. This chapter presents the theoretical assumptions on the function and the internal organization of the mind in Sect. 2.1, and informs on Fodorian modularity thesis, Chomskian ideas on the Language Acquisition Device, and Jackendoff’s parallel architecture module. In Sect. 2.2 it presents previous research on child and agrammatic speech which investigated linguistic interfaces.

Linguistic Interfaces in Bilingualism Research

Previous studies on bilingualism attempted to determine the problematic linguistic structures in bilingual attainment and investigated interface syntax with a focus on structures at the pragmatics-syntax interface. In particular, they aimed at understanding which structures are difficult to acquire, acquired with a delay, open to effects of attrition, to CLI or to non-target-like treatment of the speakers. In the following I review the questions that have been addressed in bilingualism research regarding the interface syntax, and discuss the findings for each bilingual group in turn: bilingual children in Sect. 3.1, L1 attriters in Sect. 3.2, and near-native L2 speakers in Sect. 3.3. The sections within Sect. 3.3 present a critical evaluation of the claims formulated in view of the findings of these studies.

Review of Research on Heritage Bilingual Speakers

Because I investigated a morphosyntactic structure relevant to the interface syntax in bilingual speakers of L1 Turkish, who characterize as heritage bilinguals, I present general characteristics of heritage bilinguals in Sect. 4.1, various approaches that attempt to understand the characteristics of heritage language grammars in Sect. 4.2 and conclude the chapter with aims of the book in Sect. 4.3.