Lee, S.-K., Miyata, M. & Ortega, L. (2008). A usage-based approach to overpassivization: The role of input and conceptualization biases. Paper presented at the 26th Second Language Research Forum, Honolulu, HI, October 17-19.

Copyright © Lee, Miyata, & Ortega, 2008

Please cite as:

Sang-Ki Lee, Munehiko Miyata, & Lourdes Ortega

University of Hawai‘i at MānoaSLRF 2008

Sunday, October 19th

A usage-based approach to overpassivization:

The role of input and conceptualization biases

(1) *The most memorable experience of my life was happened 15 years ago. (Arabic L1; Zobl, 1989)

(2) *Most of people are fallen in love and marry with somebody. (Japanese L1; Zobl, 1989)

(3) *Rush hour traffic can be vanished because working at home is a new version. (Chinese L1; Yip, 1995)

(1) *The most memorable experience of my life was happened 15 years ago. (Arabic L1; Zobl, 1989)

(2) *Most of people are fallen in love and marry with somebody. (Japanese L1; Zobl, 1989)

(3) *Rush hour traffic can be vanished because working at home is a new version. (Chinese L1; Yip, 1995)

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Overpassivization

Why happen but never *is happened?

unaccusative verb: S(patient)+V(active)

*Never occurs as transitive or in passive voice in the L1

“to happen”

Overpassivization

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Your Amazon.com order has shipped (#103-5354879-2596262)

Greetings from Amazon.com.

We thought you'd like to know that we shipped your item, and that this completes your order. 

Used as transitive, active or passive

Used as unaccusative, S(patient)+V(active)

“to ship”

Complications!

Why not “Your Amazon.com order has been shipped” ??

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What L2 learners need to learn

(Unaccusativity Hypothesis by Perlmutter, 1978)

Intransitives can be of several types

Alternating unaccusatives: Ship, change, close...

Non-alternating unaccusatives: happen, result...

L2 developmental route:

active passive

overpassivization unaccusativity

Unergatives: [S(agent)+Verb(action)] run, play...

Unaccusatives (a.k.a. ergatives): S(patient)+Verb(active)

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Studies of overpassivization are many:

Free production data: Zobl (1989), Oshita (2000), Yip (1995)

Elicited data (e.g., GJTs): Balcom (1997), Ju (2000), Hirawaka (2001), Kondo (2005), Sorace (1993, 1995; Sorace & Shomura, 2001), Montrul (1999, 2000, 2005), Zyzik (2006)

Both: Han (2000, 2006)

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Explanations are diverse:

Formal syntactic explanations: Prototypical semantic role+syntactic positions (Zobl, Yip, Oshita, Hirakawa, Montrul...)

Cognitive linguistic explanations: Conceptualizable agents (Ju, Kondo)

Usage-based explanations: (Zyzik)

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Input- and frequency-driven: What is learned reflects regularities in the input.

Usage-based L2 learning

(Robinson & Ellis, 2008)

Associative and emergent: L2 knowledge emerges from memory of instances/exemplars experienced.

Meaning-based and grounded: Knowledge is structured by world meanings as experienced by human body and mind.

Two input biases:

Frequency

Alternation

One conceptual bias:

Causation by conceptualizable

agentSLRF 2008

Input bias I – Frequency in the input

Low-frequency verbs (e.g., c. 20- per million)

High-frequency verbs (e.g., c. 100+ per million)

Learners will find unaccusativity more difficult to judge in low-frequency verbs than in high-frequency verbs

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Input bias II – Types of alternation

Learners will find alternating verbs more difficult to judge than non-alternating verbs

never appear in the input in the passive form

Alternating unaccusatives (“ship”-like verbs)

Non-alternating unaccusatives (“happen”-like verbs)

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8 high-frequency verbs

4 alternating verbs (change, close, increase, turn)

4 non-alternating verbs (appear, happen, remain, result)

8 low-frequency verbs

4 alternating verbs (bounce, explode, scatter, shatter)

4 non-alternating verbs (glisten, glow, progress, vanish)

16 target verbs selected from Brown Corpus (Kucera & Francis, 1967)

& American National Corpus (ANC) 2nd release (Reppen et al., 2005)

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A fighter jet shot at the ship.

The ship sank slowly.

The rusty old ship started breaking up.

The ship sank slowly.

External causation

Internal causation

Conceptual bias – Causation & conceptualizable agent

(Ju, 2000): External causation=agentMore difficult to accept an

unaccusative, more tempting to overpassive

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RQ1: Will frequencies of unaccusative verbs (high versus low) affect L2 learners’ judgments of unaccusativity?

RQ2: Will type of alternation (non-alternating versus alternating) affect L2 learners’ judgments of unaccusativity?

RQ3: Will causation type (internal versus external) affect L2 learners’ judgments of unaccusativity?

Research questions

RQ4: Will the three factors interact?

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- 63 adult learners of English with diverse L1 & major backgrounds

- 10 English native speakers (baseline)

Participants

Only the participants who had sufficient knowledge about English passivization

- 56 learners (24 males & 32 females)

Self-reported TOEFL score: M = 564.7 (SD = 57.2, min = 490, max = 667)

- 10 native speakers (6 males & 4 females)

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Example

The magician did a trick with a coin.

The coin was vanished instantly.

Example

The magician did a trick with a coin.

The coin was vanished instantly.

LEAST ACCEPTABLE MOST ACCEPTABLE

1 2 3 4 5 6

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low-frequency

& non-alternating verb

external causation

Scaled Grammaticality Judgment Task

(Bard, Robertson, & Sorace, 1996)

Full design of scaled grammaticality judgment task

8 high-frequency verbs

4 alternating verbs

4 non-alternating verbs

8 low-frequency verbs

4 alternating verbs

4 non-alternating verbs

10 transitive predicates (distracters)

Each word generated two test items, one involving an external causation event and the other an internal causation event.

Therefore, k = 52

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Screening

The reliability of the scaled GJT instrument was reasonable (Cronbach’s

alpha: 0.84) ...

The NS baseline data showed expected responses...

So, we proceeded to analyze the NNS results

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Results

Descriptive statistics for NNSs data

Input frequency

Types of unaccusatives

Causation types

Mean SD n

High

Non-alternatingInternal 4.23 1.06 56

External 4.09 0.97 56

AlternatingInternal 3.81 1.01 56

External 4.10 0.97 56

Low

Non-alternatingInternal 3.90 1.13 56

External 3.89 1.16 56

AlternatingInternal 3.67 1.01 56

External 3.83 0.95 56

Note. 1=most incorrect response; 6=most correct response SLRF 2008

Low

Alternating

Alternating

External

External

External

External

cf. NS data

5.90

5.65

5.81

5.57

5.80

5.70

5.87

5.75

cf. NS data

0.24

0.34

0.30

0.33

0.27

0.36

0.27

0.31

- A 2 x 2 x 2 analysis of variance

- Three within-subjects factors:

1) input frequency (high vs. low)

2) alternation type (non-alternating vs. alternating)

3) causation type (internal vs. external)

- DV: scaled GJT scores

Analysis

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Results (cont’d)

Factors Sum of Squares

df Mean Square

F Sig. eta2

Main effects

IF 6.15 1 6.15 9.50 0.01* 0.15

Error 35.61 55 0.65

U 3.48 1 3.48 4.92 0.03* 0.08

Error 38.94 55 0.71

C 0.68 1 0.68 1.56 0.21 0.03

Error 23.80 55 0.33

Summary of three-way ANOVA

Note. IF = High/low frequency; U: Non-alternating/alternating; C = Internal/external

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Results (cont’d)

It is likely that L2 learners had been exposed to the target verbs in the high-frequency group more often, so that they had built a more solid knowledge of the usage of those words.

RQ1: Main effect of input frequency (p = 0.01, eta2 = 0.15)

Discussion

Usage-based approaches

High-frequency verbs > Low-frequency verbs

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Non-alternating verbs > Alternating verbs

RQ2: Main effect of alternation type (p = 0.03, eta2 = 0.08)

Usage-based approaches

Accurate performance of L2 learners is influenced by their experience with the language input.

appear only as unaccusatives in active form in actual input

appear in active/ unaccusative/passive in actual input

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Discussion (cont’d)

RQ3: Non-significant main effect of causation type

(p = 0.21, eta2 = 0.03)

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Discussion (cont’d)

RQ4: Alternation type X Causation type (p = 0.03, eta2 = 0.08)

Interactions?

Yes, between alternation & causation:

Having an internal causation (no agent) made the judging of non-alternating verbs easier.

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Discussion (cont’d)

Conclusion

• Facilitative effects of biases in the input: high-frequency and non-alternating exemplars were judged more accurately.

• Conceptual bias may work only in interaction with input bias: when non-alternating verbs appeared in internal causation events, they were easier to accept as unaccusatives.

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Conclusion (cont’d)

• Some support for the claim that things are learned first with high-frequency items (as in lexis-specific learning) and then the learning extends to low-frequency items and to more abstract constructions (as in construction-based generalization of patterns).

• Usage-based approaches to SLA offer promising explanatory power in the study of the processing and subsequent development of linguistic knowledge of the L2. SLRF 2008

Input DOES Matter in Second Language Learning!

Mahalo!Mahalo!sangki@hawaii.edu

miyatam@hawaii.edu

lortega@hawaii.edu

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