The interpretation of inflectional suffixes by low-educated L2 Dutch learners

SLRF, Pittsburgh, October 2012

Loes Oldenkamp, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Background

vader *komet met zijn dochter *fietset father come-3sg with his daughter cycle-3sg

L2 forms (3sg):- kom – t -*kom – Ø-*kom – ə(n)-*kom – ət-*kom – tə

Low-Educated Second Language & Literacy Acquisition (LESLLA)

• Learners have only received (some years of) primary education in their home country.

• Often non-literate in the Latin script (Moroccan and Chinese learners).

• Little support of written language for most learners.

• No knowledge of other language than their L1.

• They have no (or few) metalinguistic skills.

• Language acquisition proceeds (often) slowly.

Background

•L1 acquisitionInflectional morphology is acquired smoothly.

•L2 acquisition Acquisition of inflectional morphology appears to be a persistent problem.

Dutch inflectional morphemes

V-Verb N-Noun

Øt ə(n)ə(n) s

Dutch inflectional morphemes

Properties:

1.They consist of a coronal (/t/, /s/) or a schwa2.They are invisible for stress

Adding these morphemes lead to complex word forms:

Adding a schwa to the stem of a word leads to polysyllabic words e.g. loop + schwa = lope(n) adding a coronal to the stem leads to a final consonant cluster

e.g. loop + /t/ = loopt

Avoidance strategies

The L2 learner avoids words ending in a /t/-final consonant cluster and polysyllabic words ending in schwa:

/t/-final consonant cluster: polysyllabic words ending in schwa:

-/t/ deletion at the end of a word - deletion of schwa e.g. loop instead of loopt e.g. loop instead of loope(n)- schwa insertion e.g. loopet or loopte instead of loopt

Possible sources

•L1 morphosyntax

•L1 phonology

Similarities and dissimilarities between Dutch, Turkish (TU), Moroccan Arabic (MA) and Mandarin Chinese (CHIN)

Dutch TU MA CHIN•phonology - consonant cluster in coda + +/- - - - word-final schwa + +/- - -

•morphosyntax - word order SVO/ SOV SOV SVO/ VSO SVO - verbal morphology +/- + + - - nominal morphology (plural) + +/- + -

L2 learners have difficulties producing inflectional morphology correctly,but:

Do L2 learners have difficulties in interpreting inflectional morphology correctly as well?

Method (participants)

• Picture selection task: participants are orally provided with a stimulus and have to select the corresponding picture.

• 44 Turkish, 44 Moroccan Arabic and 42 Mandarin Chinese learners of Dutch participated in the experiment.

• No more than three years of secondary education in their home country.

• Level A1 (Basic User: Breakthrough), A2 (Basic User: Waystage) and B1 (Independent User: Threshold), (CEF).

Method (materials)

• 110 items: 54 target items and 56 distracter items.

• Target items: nouns (singular vs. plural) and verbs (3rd person singular vs. 3rd person plural).

• The only cue to interpret the utterance correctly is the inflectional ending.- Ze kust een jongen.

she kiss-3SG.PRES a boy

Ze kussen een jongen. she kiss-3PL.PRES a boy

- de kip the chicken-SG de kippen the chicken-PL

Categories 1. lexical items, nouns

e.g. de pop/ de kip the doll-SING/ the chicken-SING

2. lexical items, verbse.g. ze koopt een boek./ ze kust een jongen. she buy-3SG.PRES a book/ she kiss- 3SG.PRES a boy

Lexical items: constructed to test whether participants knew the vocabulary of the nouns and verbs that were used in the experiment.

3. inflectional items, nounse.g. de kat/ de katten the cat- SING/ the cat-PLUR

4. inflectional items, verbs e.g. ze wast een auto./ ze wassen een auto. she wash-3SG.PRES a car/ she wash-3PLUR.PRES a car

Inflectional items: constructed to test nominal inflection (singular vs. plural) and verbal inflection (3rd person singular vs. 3rd person plural, present tense).

Lexical item, noun

Stimulus: de pop the doll-SING

Lexical item, verb

Stimulus: Ze kust een jongen. She kiss-3SG.PRES a boy

‘She kisses a boy.’ boy

Inflectional item, noun

Stimulus: de katten the cat-PLUR

Inflectional item, verb

Stimulus: Ze wast een auto. she wash-3SG PRES a carr ‘She washes a car.’

Results (overall)

    Mean Example of item pairs 

Lexical (k=24) noun (k=14)

verb (k=10)

total (k=24)

.968

.916

.942

de pop / de kat (‘the doll / the cat’)

ze loopt / ze lacht (‘she walks / she laughs’ )

 

Inflection (k=25) noun (k=14)

verb (k=11)

total (k=25)

.723

.326

.524

de pop / de poppen (‘the doll / the dolls’)

ze loopt / ze lopen (‘she walks / they walk’)

Mean noun (k=28)

verb (k=21)

Mean (k=49)

.845

.621

.733

 

1 = lexical item pairs2= inflectional item pairs

Results (per category)

• Separate analyses on the 4 different item types lexical items, nouns; lexical items, verbs; inflectional items, nouns; inflectional items, verbs.

• Univariate ANOVAs with ‘proportions accurate responses’ as dependent variable and ‘L1 background’ (Turkish, Moroccan Arabic or Mandarin Chinese) and ‘L2 proficiency level’ (A1, A2 or B1) as independent, fixed factors.

  A1 A2 B1 Mean

Turkish .943 .944 .990 .959

Moroccan .962 .964 .976 .968

Chinese .975 .981 .976 .977

Mean .959 .964 .981 .968

• Participants performed very well on these items.

• No significant effects for ‘L1 background’ (F (2, 119) = 1.14, n.s.) and ‘L2 proficiency’ (F (2, 119) = 1.72, n.s.). and did not differ from each other with respect to ‘L1 background’ and ‘L2 proficiency’.

Lexical items, nouns

Lexical items, verbs

  A1 A2 B1 Mean

Turkish .913 .943 .979 .944

Moroccan .907 .936 .933 .925

Chinese .814 .900 .925 .878

Mean .880 .926 .946 .916

• Participants performed very well on these item types.

• Significant main effects for both ‘L1 background’ (F (2, 119) = 6.07, p < .01, η2 = .093) and ‘L2 proficiency’ (F (2, 119) = 6.76, p < .01, η2 = .102).

• No significant interaction (F (4, 19) = .994, n.s.)

Inflectional items, nouns

  A1 A2 B1 Mean

Turkish .662 .745 .924 .774

Moroccan .691 .832 .852 .791

Chinese .531 .595 .673 .596

Mean .630 .721 .824 .723

• Significant effect for ‘L1 background’ (F (2, 119) = 8.69, p< .000, η2

= .127):• Chinese participants performed worse than Turkish and

Moroccan participants.• Turkish and Moroccan participants did not differ from each

other.

• Significant effect for ‘L2 proficiency’ (F (2, 119) = 6.87, p= .000, η2 = .104):• Participants with level B1 performed better than participants with level A1,

but not better than participants with level A2.• A1 and A2 did not differ.

• No interaction

Inflectional items, verbs

  A1 A2 B1 Mean

Turkish .220 .286 .501 .336

Moroccan .161 .297 .565 .341

Chinese .211 .295 .397 .301

Mean .197 .293 .488 .326

• Significant effect for ‘L2 proficiency’ (F (2, 119) = 16.47, p< .000, η2 = .217).

• No effect for ‘L1 background’: all participant groups appeared to have difficulties interpreting these items.

Conclusions (1)

• Participants have more difficulties in the interpretation of inflectional items than in the interpretation of lexical items.

Redundant information is often available in the input. Learners are not used to focusing on the inflectional ending and having the inflectional ending as the only cue in interpreting the stimulus correctly.

e.g. a. de stoel the chairb. de stoel-en the chair-PLUR=> No redundant information available.

a. één stoel one chairb. drie stoel-en three chair-PLUR

=>The numerals één and drie make the plural morpheme redundant.

Conclusions (2)

• Participants have more problems interpreting verbal inflection (= contextual inflection) correctly than in interpreting nominal inflection (= inherent inflection).

Nouns and verbs differ in semantic complexity: The nominal plural morpheme only expresses number; the 3rd person singular, present tense and 3rd person plural, present tense morphemes express person, number and tense.

Conclusions (3)

• L2 proficiency level clearly plays a role: The interpretation of morphological elements improves with proficiency, in all groups of learners.

Conclusions (4)

• L1 background plays a role.

Mandarin Chinese participants had more difficulties interpreting inflectional endings than Turkish and Moroccan Arabic participants, but not in verbs. All participant groups appeared to have difficulties in verbal inflection.

Loes OldenkampRadboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands

L.Oldenkamp@let.ru.nl