Transcript PowerPoint

GRS LX 700
Language Acquisition
and
Linguistic Theory
Week 9.
Parameter settings and transfer
Parameters
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Languages differ in the settings of parameters (and in
the pronunciations of the words, etc.).
To learn a second language (if the knowledge is
comparable to that held by a native speaker of the
target language) is to learn the parameter settings for
that language.
Where do you keep the parameters from the second,
third, etc. language? You don’t have a single
parameter set two different ways, do you?

Almost certainly not. Also: “parameter resetting” doesn’t
mean monkeying with your L1 parameter settings, it means
setting your L2 parameter to its appropriate setting.
Four views on the role of L1
parameters
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UG is still around to constrain L2/IL, parameter
settings of L1 are adopted at first, then
parameters are reset to match L2.
UG does not constrain L2/IL but L1 does, L2 can
adopt properties of L1 but can’t reset the
parameters (except perhaps in the face of
brutally direct evidence, e.g., headedness).
IL cannot be described in terms of parameter
settings—it is not UG-constrained.
UG works the same in L1A and L2A. L1
shouldn’t have any effect.
Some parameters that have
been looked at in L2A
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Pro drop (null subject) parameter
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Head parameter
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*Who did you say that t left? English: yes, Dutch: no
Subjacency/bounding nodes
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head-complement order in X-bar structure; Japanese
head-final, English head-initial
ECP/that-trace effect
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empty subjects allowed? Spanish yes, English no
English: DP and IP, Italian/French: DP and CP
Verb movement
Binding theory parameters
Verb movement and negation
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French moves (tensed) verbs to T.
Jean (ne) mange pas du chocolat.
 Jean (n’)est pas bête.
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English leaves verbs (but auxiliaries) in VP
John does not eat chocolate.
 John is not dumb.
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So French has set the V-to-T parameter on,
English has set it off (except for be and
have).
Verb movement and adverbs
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This also predicts adverb order.
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In English, you can never have an adverb
between the verb and its object.
*John [eats often chocolate].
 John often [eats chocolate].

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In French, you put adverbs between the verb
and the object.
Jean mange souvent [— du chocolat].
 *Jean souvent [mange du chocolat].
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Interlanguage and UG
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A major question we’re asking is:
Are IL grammars constrained by UG?
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That is, are people, as they learn a second
language, “allowed to” posit
rules/constraints in the IL that do not
conform to UG—that is, that could not
appear in any natural (native) language?
Why parameters seem to be a
good place to look
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One crucial property of the parameters (in the
Principles and Parameters model) is that a single
setting of the parameter can have effects in
several places in the grammar of a language.
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So verb-movement (V to T), which is set to “yes”
in French, is responsible for:
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The relative position of negation and the finite verb
The relative position of manner adverbs and the finite
verb
Why parameters seem to be a
good place to look
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In general, we have to say that (full) knowledge
of the L2 is going to involve setting the
parameters to the appropriate settings for the
target language.
So, we can also look for the cluster of effects
that are supposed to arise from a single
parameter setting.
Is it the case that once a second language
learner gets the verb-adverb order right, s/he
also gets the verb-negation order right? If only
one kind of verb (finite vs. nonfinite) moves to T,
is it the finite verb?
White (1991)
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White observes that even sticking to adverbs,
there is a small “cluster of properties” tied to
the verb raising parameter:
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In French (where V moves to T):
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S Adv V order is disallowed
S V Adv Obj order is allowed.
In English (where V does not move to T):
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S Adv V order is allowed
S V Adv Obj order is disallowed.
White (1991)
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Given this, it should be sufficient for a
learner to learn the one which is allowed
(e.g., in English that S Adv V order is
allowed)—the V-to-T parameter can then
be set (to off for English), and then the
impossibility of the one which is disallowed
(e.g., *S V Adv Obj order in English)
should follow automatically if they’ve set
the parameter in their IL.
White (1991)
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White’s study involved native speakers of
French learning English.
Her subjects were children in grades 5
(average age 11) and 6 (average age 12)
with very little prior English exposure and
have very little English exposure outside the
classroom.
The children entered a 5-month intensive
ESL program where their schooling was
devoted entirely to ESL.
White (1991)
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The subjects were divided into two groups, based
on whether the ESL instruction included specific
teaching on English adverb placement (the other
group was taught question-formation instead).
Three months in, students took a “pretest” on
adverb placement, after which the adverb group
was trained on adverbs. After the teaching period,
students took a test, then another at the end of
the ESL program (about 5 weeks later). Finally,
the (originally) 5th graders were retested a year
later.
White (1991)
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Grammaticality judgment: Cartoon story with
captions; if student thought caption was incorrect,
they drew arrows to repair the word order.
Preference task: Students were given a sentence
in two possible orders and asked to respond if
both were good, neither was good, or only one
(and which one) was good.
Manipulation task: Students were given cards with
words on them and told to line them up to form a
sentence; then asked if they could form another
with the same cards, until they couldn’t continue.
White (1991) results
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Grammaticality judgment task:
Adverb group went from very high acceptance to SVAO to
very low (native-speaker-like) levels at the first post-test,
and remained there for the second one. The question
group remained high throughout.
Adverb group when from moderate use of SAV to high
(nearly native-speaker-like) levels at the first post-test, and
remained there for the second one. The question group
remained at moderate use throughout.
Results—judgments
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The effect of instruction was pretty dramatic in the first
and second post-tests. Explicit instruction helped.
(SVAO score, SAV score) (Preference task—same).
12
5
4.5
10
4
3.5
8
3
Pre
Post-1
Post-2
2.5
2
6
4
1.5
1
2
0.5
0
AdvG
QG
Contr
0
AdvG
QG
Contr
White (1991) results
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A couple of things to notice:
The question group was getting basically positive evidence
only (adverb position was not explicitly taught). And they
didn’t fare well on the tests.
The adverb group was getting explicit negative evidence and
it seemed to help a lot.
Even the adverb group, while rejecting *SVAO, would not
accept SAV as often/reliably as the native speakers—an
apparent failure of predicted clustering.
White suggested essentially that for L2’ers verb raising is
optional, but this doesn’t really get at the *SVAO result.
The one-year-later test
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…A startling result when testing those kids who were helped so
dramatically by instruction: the knowledge they gained didn’t
last. Again, it doesn’t feel like a new parameter setting.
(SVAO score)
5
4.5
4
3.5
3
Pre
Post-1
Post-2
1yrlater
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
AdvG
Unins
White (1991)
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In fact, White also observed that while her Adverb group
correctly ruled out *SVAO sentences in English after explicit
instruction, they seemed to have incorrectly generalized this to
also rule out SVAPP:
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Mary walks quickly to school.
Mary quickly walks to school.
A 1992 article by Schwartz and Gubala-Ryzak discusses this
and points out that this is not something that is possible in a
natural language via parameter setting—this behavior can’t be
the result of mis-set parameters, it must be some kind of
prescriptive rule. White, in her response, basically agrees with
respect to her particular subjects.
White (1991)
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In any event, White’s (1991) study didn’t show
the strong support for parameter setting that it
might have.
White’s study also seems to show that negative
evidence seems to only have a very short-term
effect on learning.
This leads us (and later White [1992] too) to
guess that what the kids were learning was
prescriptive rule-type knowledge, and not some
kind of reorganization of their grammatical
system (by setting a parameter).
Types of input
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What White (1991) was trying to test was the effects of
different kinds of input; negative input via explicit
instruction on adverbs vs. positive input via exposure
(without concentrating on adverbs specifically). In her
“positive evidence” (question) group, very little advance
was made—is positive evidence ineffectual?
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White speculated that the kids in the question condition
might not have actually heard many adverbs, after
listening to some tapes of the classes. Perhaps they just
didn’t have enough positive evidence?
Flooding
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White and Trahey set out to test this by
getting together another group of students
and subjecting them to a “input flood” of
adverb material—no explicit teaching of
adverbs, but lots of examples of proper
adverb placement in English. Then they
ran basically the same tests on the kids as
in the other experiment, including the “one
year later” experiment. (Trahey 1996)
Flooding results
preference task
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The effect of the input flood appears to have been an
increase in the flood group’s use of SAVO, but no real
change in anything else (in particular *SVAO).
10
16
14
8
12
10
6
8
4
6
4
2
2
0
0
ASVO
SAVO
SVAO
Pre Post-1 Post-2 1yrlater
SVOA
ASVO
SAVO
Flood Adverb
SVAO
Uninstructed
SVOA
Control
Flooding
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The flooding experiment seems to have shown:
That the knowledge gained by flooding seems to be more
persistent than the knowledge gained by explicit instruction
(i.e. adverb group).
That acceptance of SAVO and rejection of SVAO appear to
be independent—the flooding group learned that SAVO was
allowed and retained this knowledge, but still didn’t reject
SVAO (actually a well-known persistent error in L2 English
from French). This isn’t expected if the “knowledge” is a
parameter setting that is supposed to have both effects.
Asymmetry?

In earlier research, White actually did some
tests going both directions, and found that
native English speakers learning French
(that is, going the other way) appear to
“catch on” to the allowability of SVAO,
while—as we’ve seen—native French
speakers learning English seem to hang on
to SVAO indefinitely. Again, if this is a binary
parameter, this appears to be a bit
unexpected—is it easier to set one way
than another?
Hawkins et al. (1993)
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Hawkins et al. (1993) looked at this a little
bit more closely (with the assistance of
advances in theoretical syntax since
White’s original study), looking in particular
at English speakers learning French.
In particular, the question Hawkins et al.
were asking was: Do English speakers
learning French really manage to set the Vto-T parameter, given that it seems to be so
difficult the other way?
Hawkins et al. (1993)

They found some evidence for a staged
progression, where
The least advanced of their subjects could
correctly place the verb with respect to negation
(but not with respect to adverbs)
 The more advanced subjects could correctly place
the verb with respect to both negation and
adverbs.
 The rate correct for tous ‘all’ placement (cf. The
students all went home) was lower than for the
other two.

Hawkins et al. (1993)
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Hawkins et al. suggest that this is
compatible with a view in which the
English speakers never really do set the Vto-T parameter to on, but instead rely on
other mechanisms by which the English
speakers can “fake” French.
Hawkins et al. (1993)
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First stage: L2’ers seem to have the relative position of
negation (pas) and the verb correct.
Hypothesis: They are treat pas it as if it were attached to
the verb to begin with, rather than in the canonical
“negation” slot; hence the verb will always appear to its
left), regardless of whether the verb raises.
Some evidence: *Ne mange pas-t-il de… accepted (vs.
grammatical Ne mange-t-il pas de…); *Ne voir pas son
amie est un supplice pour lui… accepted (vs. grammatical
Ne pas voir…).
And: This means the relative position of verbs and adverbs
is not necessarily predicted to be correct. This basically has
nothing to do with verb movement in the IL.
Hawkins et al. (1993)
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Second stage: English speakers start to allow SVAO order in
French (without the difficulty encountered by French
speakers in disallowing it).
Hypothesis: It is a generalization of Heavy NP Shift, already
possible in English, which allows postposing of “heavy” NPs,
such as:
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The boy ate — quickly
[the hot soup his mother had made especially for him].
*The boy ate quickly it.
That’s a way to get a grammatical SVAO sentence in English
under special circumstances. So, perhaps these L2’ers are
“shifting the object rightward” (not moving the verb to T).
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Evidence(?): About 40% of I group accept both SVAO and SAVO.
How are we doing?
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It seems like the case for a UG-constrained IL grammar
(“full access”) is not very strong at this point, despite White
and Trahey’s best efforts. We’ve seen several things which
did not seem to “set a parameter value” (explicit negative
evidence, positive evidence even if in a flood), one of
which was so temporary as to suggest that the knowledge
was basically prescriptive. We’ve seen that even in cases
where it looked like a parameter value was “set”, closer
inspection revealed that it didn’t act parameter-like—it
didn’t show the cluster of properties.

We have yet to really see any reason to believe that a
parameter can be set in L2A.
Parameters

This clustering aspect of parametric
settings is very important—if a L2’ers IL
shows one “symptom” of a parameter
setting but fails to show others, then this is
quite good evidence that the parameter
was not set, but that there is something
else going on

or, alternatively, that something else is
blocking the other “symptoms” which should
correlate.
The null subject parameter
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Adult languages differ in whether they
require overt subjects or not.
English does:
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*Go to the movies tonight.
Italian and Spanish do not:
Vado al cinema stasera.
(Italian)
 Voy al cine esta noche.
(Spanish)
‘(I) go to the movies tonight.’

The null subject parameter
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There is a significant cluster of properties that
seems to go along with be a “null subject”
(a.k.a. “pro drop”) language..

Subject pronouns can be omitted in tensed
clauses.

(And generally are except to indicate contrast)
Expletive subjects are null. (it rains).
 Subjects may be postposed. (ha telefonato
Gianni)
 There is no that-trace effect.

White (1985, 1986)
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Compared two groups of subjects learning English:
 32 native speakers of (Latin American) Spanish and
2 native speakers of Italian
 37 native speakers of Québec French

Did a test of grammaticality judgments, as well as a
question formation test:
 Mary believes that Fred will call his mother.
 Who does Mary believe that Fred will call?
 Mary believes that Fred will call his mother.
 Who does Mary believe will call his mother?
Null subject parameter
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Spanish (+NS) L1 learning English (–NS)
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An error constituting transfer of +NS would be
omitting a subject in an English sentence, which
requires a subject.
English (–NS) L1 learning Spanish (+NS)

Transfer of –NS? Trickier—have to look for context
where Spanish would definitely drop the subject, and
see if English speakers incorrectly retain the subject.
Even then, does that mean the Spanish learner
doesn’t have the parameter down, or just hasn’t
worked out the pragmatics of where a subject should
be dropped?
Null subject
parameter
White (1985), GJ
task
Sentence type
Spanish
French
Subjectless U
61
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89
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Subjectful G
90
97
VS U
91
96
SV G
81
85
that-trace U
23
35
other mmts G
79
79
Percent correct at
identifying ungrammatical
(U) as ungrammatical
and grammatical (G) as
grammatical.
Spanish is +NS, French
is –NS,
English –NS
Probable methodological
problems with VS, SV,
and that-trace sentences.

VS order best with
unaccusatives and
needs a discourse
context. For that-t
sentences, vocabulary
not controlled for and
100% could be achieved
by a yes-machine.
Null subject parameter
White (1985), Q formation
correct
thattrace
other
errs
Spanish (n=22)
17
71
12
French (n=30)
20
42
38
Spanish (+NS)
learning
English (–NS)
were more
likely to make
that-trace
errors.
Elizabeth believes that her sister will be late.
Who does Elizabeth believe (*that) t will be late?
Null subject parameter
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So, these +NS Spanish speakers accepted
subjectless English sentences around 40% of
the time (vs. 10% for French speakers), they
produced that-trace errors 70% of the time (vs.
40% for French speakers).
There is some effect at least of the ±NS setting
of the L1.
Is it transfer of the parameter value? Well, if so,
there should be “clustering”—is there?

Seems like “no”—VS rejected by both groups. Error in
methodology? Should have been unaccusative? Not
actually a consequence of the NS parm after all?
Null subject parameter
Phinney (1987)

English->Spanish and Spanish->English

Perhaps questionable methodology (written,
exam in one case, class composition
assignment in the other, Spanish speakers
had English in school—perhaps not entirely
learned as an adult, English speakers only
had exposure in college), but…
Null subject parameter
Phinney (1987)
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ESL2
SSL1
SSL2
referential
13
6
83
65
pleonastic
56
76
100
100
Omission of pleonastic pronoun subjects.
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% omission of
ESL1
pronoun subjects
can’t be omitted in English, must be omitted in Spanish.
English->Spanish (SSL) always omitted pleonastic.
Spanish->English (ESL) sometimes omitted pleonastic.
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Spanish: Carrying over [+NS] from L1.
English: Not carrying over [–NS] from L1.
Null subject parameter
Phinney (1987)
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ESL1
ESL2
SSL1
SSL2
referential
13
6
83
65
pleonastic
56
76
100
100
Why would [+NS] be transferred and not [–NS]?
Perhaps there is a default (first setting) of the null subject
parameter: [+NS]. (cf. last week)
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Learners of a [–NS] language need to change that parameter.
Learners of a [+NS] language already have it right.
Null subject parameter
Phinney (1987)

ESL1
ESL2
SSL1
SSL2
referential
13
6
83
65
pleonastic
56
76
100
100
If [+NS] is the default, occurrence of overt pleonastic
pronouns could serve as evidence that the language is [–
NS]; the non-default (marked) value can be learned.

Since the more obvious “is the subject missing?” predicts a default
the other way—assume [-NS] until contrary evidence arrives.
A supplement: White, Travis,
Maclachlan (1992)

wh-question formation Malagasy->English L2’ers.

Malagasy: subject-object asymmetry from English
appears to be reversed (which can be explained by
reference to the syntax of this VOS language):
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*Who does Rasoa believe [t will be buying rice]?
Who was [that t will be buying rice] believed by Rosoa
In fact only the subject can be extracted in simple whquestions:
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
Who t buys rice for the children?
*What does the man buy t for the children?
What is bought t for the children by the man?
WTM 1992
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Question: Do M->E
L2’ers get the
English restrictions?
The restrictions differ
in both directions;
just learning object
extraction is ok in
English won’t be
enough.
E
<Complex DPs *
<Adjuncts
*
<Subject CP
*
<Subject DP
*
<Object CP
√
<Object DP
√
Subject t
*/√
Object t
√
M
*
*
√
*
*
*
√
*
WTM 1992

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38 adult M speakers taking English.
Broken by course level and professor ratings
into high intermediate (18) and low intermediate
(20).
Grammaticality judgment task, and question
formation task:

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
Sam believes that Ann stole his car.
*What does Sam believe the claim that Ann stole?
What does Sam believe that Ann stole?
WTM 1992

Results: High intermediates were nearly as good
as the controls at accepting grammatical
sentences and rejecting ungrammatical ones (and
avoiding violations when forming questions).

One place a big difference appeared is in
accepting/producing that-trace violations
(compared to controls) in production, yet in GJ
task, controls actually accepted about 30% of the
that-trace violations—so maybe this is a
preference issue (controls prefer not to “violate
that-trace”, L2’ers haven’t got that preference yet)
WTM 1992 conclude…

Carrying over the settings from L1 won’t explain
how the Malagasy speakers get the English
grammaticality facts so closely (since the pattern
is reversed, in places, but not everywhere).

The idea: There is still some “access to UG”—the
options concerning what kinds of languages there
can be re: wh-extraction are still around.
Word order parameters

Japanese is head-final (SOVIC)
 [CP [IP

English is head-initial (CSIVO)
 [CP

S [VP O V ] I ] C ]
C [IP S I [VP V O ] ]
This is a parameter by which languages
differ—but it should be pretty obvious to
the L2 learner.
Word order parameters
Clahsen and Muysken (1986)




Arguing for a non-UG-based view of L2A: L1A of
German and L2A of German are different.
(L1) kids get SOV order right away.
L2 learners coming from Romance use SVO
order (not just V2), but this isn’t even transfer,
since L2 learners coming from Turkish also use
SVO order (not SOV).
To the extent that people learn the SOV German
order, it’s due to (unnatural) rules transforming
underlying SVO structures to the SOV forms.
Word order parameters (*UG)
Clahsen & Muysken



Used naturalistic production data.
They suggest that L2 learners extract the
“canonical” order (SVO) and stick with that
(later learning to move non-finite verbs to
the end).
White: But how do they arrive at the
canonical order? How can they tell that the
Adv-V-S-O order is non-canonical?
Word order parameters
(*UG?)
Clahsen & Muysken



L2 learners do seem to have assumed SVO,
producing things like Adv-SVO, SV±FinO, …
“canonical order”??
Most languages are uniform with respect to
headedness—but German isn’t. CP is head initial,
while VP is head-final (IP could be either).
German has mixed headedness (CSIOV)
 [CP

C [IP S I [VP O V ] ]
Learner of German could easily assume German
is head-initial—that is, misanalyze it as SVO.
So…

The V-to-T parameter seems to be hard to “reset”—perhaps it even can’t be re-set.

The null subject parameter has given us less
than striking results—they don’t move directly
together.

Possible that except for obvious differences in
word order, misanalysis (failure to re-set) occurs.
Binding Theory: once more
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)


John saw himself.
*Himself saw John.
*John said Mary saw himself.
*John said himself saw Mary.
*John saw him.
John said Mary saw him.
John said he saw Mary.
Binding Theory. Principle A: Anaphors (like himself) need an
“earlier” antecedent within its binding domain. Principle B:
Pronouns (like him) cannot have an “earlier” antecedent
within its binding domain.
Parameter: Binding domain = sentence containing
Binding Theory parameter:
the domain for anaphors
24)
Sam believes [that Harry overestimates himself]
25)
Sam-wa [Harry-ga zibun-o tunet-ta to] it-ta]
Sam-top Harry-nom self-acc pinch-past-that say-past
‘Sam said that Harry pinched (him)self.’
More advances in BT

This parameter of binding domain has been
studied rather extensively in both theoretical
linguistics and second language acquisition.

Eventually, it was noticed that anaphors which
seem to be able to get their referent “longdistance” tend also to be monomorphemic—this
is particularly clear for languages that have both
kinds of anaphors, like Dutch zich (LD) and
zichzelf (local), Norwegian seg (LD) and seg
selv (local), etc.
More advances in BT

One thing this tells us is that local vs. longdistance is not a parameter differentiating
languages—it’s some kind of parameter
differentiating anaphors, even in the same
language. Some languages only have one
kind (e.g., English, which has only
complex pronoun+self anaphors), but
some languages have both.
More advances in BT
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One fact about LD anaphors which seems
to be pretty robust is that LD anaphors are
subject-oriented—they can get their
reference from a long-distance subject, but
not from anything else outside of their
clause.
More advances in BT
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English himself (type 1)
 Fredi asked Johnj about himselfi,j.
Russian sebja ‘self’ (type 2)
 Ivani sprosil Borisaj o sebjei,*j.
 ‘Ivani asked Borisj about selfi,*j.’
Japanese zibun ‘self’ (type 3)
 Johni wa Maryj ni zibuni,*j no ayasin o
mise-ta.
 ‘Johni showed Maryj pictures of selfi,*j.’
More advances in BT
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So there are two things about LD
anaphors that differentiate them from local
anaphors pretty reliably:
LD anaphors are monomorphemic and
subject-oriented
 Local anaphors are neither.
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More advances in BT
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The last differentiation has to do with the
“distance” a LD anaphor can go to find its
referent. It turns out that some languages
with LD anaphors differentiate finite and
nonfinite (=with an infinitive) clauses, and
LD anaphors cannot look outside a finite
clause, only outside a nonfinite clause.
Examples follow.
-LD, +LD-finite, +LD±finite
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English himself (type 1)
Fredi believes Johnj to have hurt himself*i,j.
 Fredi believes that Johnj hurt himself*i,j.
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Russian sebja ‘self’ (type 2)
SaSai poprosila Marinuj narisovat’ sebjai,j.
‘Sashai asked Marinaj to draw selfi,j.’
 SaSai prosit, Ctoby Marinaj narisovala sebja*i,j.
‘Sashai requests that Marinaj draw self*i,j.’
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Japanese zibun ‘self’ (type 3)
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Alicei wa Suej ga zibuni,j o aisite iru to omotte iru
‘Alicei thinks that Suej loves selfi,j.’
More advances in BT
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It turns out that this difference (sensitivity to
finiteness) is a language-by-language
difference—a language with a LD anaphor only
has one kind of LD anaphor. This is a
parameter which differentiate languages.
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Incidentally, there is a theoretical explanation for
why LD parameters are both monomorphemic and
subject-oriented (roughly, they connect not to a prior
noun phrase, but to a verb which agrees with its
subject).
L2 research on BT
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There has been quite a bit of research into
L2’ers’ knowledge of BT, and it also provides an
area with “clustered” properties.
As expected, L2’ers weren’t always perfect;
learning English,
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many achieved (correct) type 1 (local) binding,
many others (generally an effect of transfer) spoke
English as if it were a type 3 (LD±fin) language.
some seemed to show an effect of ±finite on whether
an anaphor could be long distance—sounds a bit like
type 2 (LD-fin).
MacLaughlin 1998
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In an experiment to try to test this question
explicitly, MacLaughlin looked at speakers
of type 3 languages (5 native speakers of
Chinese, 10 native speakers of Japanese)
learning English (type 1) in various
settings. What she was specifically looking
to do is to classify each learner as “type
1,” “type 2,” or “type 3” to see in particular
if there are any that show up as type 2.
MacLaughlin 1998
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The significance of seeing a L2’er with a type 2
system is that it is neither a property of the L1
(hence it couldn’t have arisen due to transfer from
the L1) nor a property of the L2 (hence it couldn’t
have arisen simply due to positive evidence from
the L2). Rather, it is an option made available by
UG but taken by neither the L1 nor L2. This is a
strong type of evidence for the availability of UG
in the L2A process, since it shows that the
parameter options are still accessible.
MacLaughlin 1998
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The test itself was of the form:
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Tom thinks that John hates himself:
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Himself can be John
Himself can be Tom
Agree___ Disagree___
Agree___ Disagree___
Several types of sentences were tested, including
sentences with embedded finite clauses and
embedded infinitival clauses with both subjects
and non-subjects as potential antecedents.
MacLaughlin 1998
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E
L2
C
J
Learners’ responses were categorized and learners were
assigned to “types” according to whether they met either
80% or 100% expectations.
Type 1 (E)
80
100
18
16
6
4
3
2
3
2
Type 2 (R)
80
100
0
1
7
4
1
1
6
3
Type 3 (J)
80
100
0
0
2
5
1
1
1
4
Other
80
100
0
1
0
2
0
1
0
1
MacLaughlin 1998
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There are two parameters relevant to the type that a
learner is assigned to… We can see that type 2 is a not
surprising place for some learners to arrive at on the
way to the target type 1.
NL
T3
T2
T1
TL
+
+
+
+
Anaphor type
Monomorphemic
+
+
+
Polymorphemic
+
AGR (finite tense blocks LD relation)
+
So
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So, we’ve finally got something that
appears to be on the “UG side”—
The parameter of the anaphor and the
parameter (AGR) concerning the opacity
of finite tense seem to be able to be “reset” and moreover we see the predicted
intermediate point when only one but not
the other has been set to the target
setting.
White’s (2003) critique
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The Type 2 learners are the surprising ones. They
supposedly consider their anaphors to be
monomorphemic, but have set the AGR parameter.
The thing is: we don’t have any independent evidence
that the “Type 2’ers” take the anaphors to be
monomorphemic.
White notes that monomorphemic anaphors in L1s
don’t show person/number agreement. Do the “Type
2’ers” use himself, themselves, herself correctly? We
would expect not, if these are really Type 2 learners. A
separate study seems to indicate that J->E learners
are quite accurate. A full study remains to be done.
ECP: that-trace effects
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The setting of the head parameter should be
obvious in the primary data. Does the head come
before or after the complement?
The setting of the Null Subject parameter should
also be obvious. Are there pleonastic pronouns in
it’s raining?
ECP (that-trace) and Subjacency (bounding
nodes) are parameters which require much more
subtle evidence in order to be correctly set.
ECP: that-trace effects
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We know that the positive evidence won’t lead a
learner to the generalization that that is
disallowed when a subject is extracted from an
embedded sentence.
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John arrived yesterday.
Mary said John arrived yesterday.
Mary said that John arrived yesterday.
Who arrived yesterday?
Who did Mary say t arrived yesterday?
*Who did Mary say that t arrived yesterday?
ECP: that-trace effects
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that-trace is ok in Dutch.
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Wie denk je dat hem gisteren gezien heeft?
who think you that him yesterday see has
‘Who do you think t saw him yesterday?’
The parameter is supposed to be a property of C;
in Dutch C (dat) is a proper governor, and so a
trace in subject position in properly governed. In
English, C (that) is not a proper governor, hence
the that-trace effect.
If UG is available, Dutch->English learners should
be able to set the parameter properly on C
eventually. If not, we’d expect that to be forever
treated like dat.
ECP: that-trace effects
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Dutch->English learners given a preference task (how
is the sentence with that compared to the sentence
without that?). (White 1990). Some effect.
They seem to get the differential behavior between
subjects and objects, not expected based on Dutch—
except was this checked??
Control (n=30)
Dutch group (n=62)
+that
–that
same
+that
–that
same
subjects
0
98.5
1.5
6
82.5
11.5
objects
9
81
10
12.5
61
16.5
Subjacency and bounding
nodes
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A much more subtle parameter is the setting
of bounding nodes for Subjacency.
Subjacency: A single movement cannot
cross two bounding nodes.
English: Bounding nodes are DP and IP.
French/Italian: Bounding nodes are DP and
CP.
Subjacency and bounding
nodes
 *Whati [IP did Mary believe
[DP the story [CP ti that [IP John saw ti ]]]]?
 *Whati [IP did Mary wonder [CP whether
[IP John would do ti ]]]?
Bounding nodes
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French->English: Do they learn that IP is a
bounding node?
White (1988): Grammaticality judgments from
intermediate adult learners. Suggests that at
least one group hasn’t quite gotten IP yet—but
will?
control
group 1
group 2
CNP
96
80
81
wh-island
91
65
80
Parameters
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So, parameters seem like one of the best places
to look for evidence that UG still plays a role in
L2A.
Languages differ in the value of parameters.
During L1A, one setting is picked.
If only L1 can be consulted while learning L2, then
we might expect only that setting to be available.
(Transferred—and perhaps even kept, with
additional mechanisms to derive deviations).
If a L2 learner can reset a parameter (from either
a transferred setting or a default one), then this
means that the options are still there.
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