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Title: Vulnerable Domains for Cross-Linguistic Influence in L2 Acquisition of Greek

Vulnerable Domains for Cross-Linguistic Influence in L2 Acquisition of Greek

by Sviatlana Karpava (Author)
©2016 Thesis 450 Pages
Linguistics
Series: Inquiries in Language Learning, Volume 16

Summary

The book investigates adult second language (L2) acquisition of Greek by first language (L1) Russian speakers in the bi-dialectal setting of Cyprus. The participants all reside in Cyprus and came from former Soviet republics to Cyprus as young adults. The focus of the study is on the L2 acquisition of determiners, clitics and morphological agreement and relevant interpretable and uninterpretable features such as gender, person, number and case in both nominal and verbal domains. This explorative study of the real linguistic situation in Cyprus concerning adult second language/dialect acquisition tests theoretical hypotheses and provides insight into language development.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author(s)/editor(s)
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Preface
  • Vorwort
  • ΠΕΡΙΛΗΨΗ
  • Abstract
  • Acknowledgments
  • Table of Contents
  • List of Tables
  • List of Abbreviations
  • Chapter 1: Introduction
  • 1.1 Introduction: L2 acquisition theories
  • 1.2 Background to the study
  • 1.3 Research questions
  • 1.4 Contribution of the dissertation
  • 1.5 Dissertation organisation
  • Chapter 2: Second Language Acquisition Theories
  • 2.1 Internal/external focus on SLA
  • 2.2 Age factor and critical period in L2 acquisition
  • 2.3 External and internal factors in L2 acquisition
  • 2.4 L1/L2 and adult/child processing
  • 2.5 L1/L2 and cross-linguistic transfer
  • 2.6 L2 acquisition vs. second dialect acquisition
  • 2.7 The role of UG in L2 acquisition
  • 2.7.1 Access to UG in L1 and L2
  • 2.7.2 Feature interpretability
  • 2.7.3 Move F. Movement: covert/overt. Features: strong/weak
  • 2.7.4 Agree by feature matching
  • 2.7.5 Agree by feature sharing
  • 2.7.6 Functional categories and inflectional morphology in L2
  • Chapter 3: Methodology
  • 3.1 Type of research
  • 3.2 Data collection, validity and reliability of research
  • 3.3 L2 corpus
  • 3.4 Sampling
  • 3.5 Ethical considerations/Procedure
  • 3.6 Participants
  • 3.7 Materials/Procedure
  • 3.7.1 Questionnaire
  • 3.7.2 Interviews
  • 3.7.3 Observation
  • 3.7.4 Oral data elicitation
  • 3.8 Data transcription, coding and analysis
  • Chapter 4: L2 Greek Clitic Acquisition
  • 4.1 Clitics cross-linguistically
  • 4.2 Greek clitics
  • 4.2.1 CG vs. SMG
  • 4.2.2 CG vs. SMG clitics
  • 4.2.3 Clitic omission cross-linguistically
  • 4.2.4 L1 acquisition of Greek clitics
  • 4.2.5 L2 acquisition of Greek clitics and determiners
  • 4.3 Predictions: L1 Russian speakers acquire L2 Greek clitics
  • 4.4 Object clitic acquisition study
  • 4.4.1 Methodology
  • 4.4.2 Object clitic omission/substitution
  • 4.4.3 Syntactic environments of object clitics
  • 4.4.4 Person feature of object clitics
  • 4.4.5 3rd person object clitics and gender feature
  • 4.4.6 Overt object clitics and distance/referentiality
  • 4.4.7 Comparison of omitted and overt object clitics
  • 4.5 Extralinguistic variables and clitic production
  • 4.5.1 Age factor and object clitic production
  • 4.5.2 LoR factor and object clitic production
  • 4.5.3 AoO factor and object clitic production
  • 4.5.4 Country of origin and object clitic production
  • 4.5.5 Level of education and object clitic production
  • 4.5.6 Professional level and object clitic production
  • 4.5.7 Learning of Greek and object clitic production
  • 4.5.8 MLU word and object clitic production
  • 4.5.9 Independent proficiency rating and object clitic production
  • 4.6 Summary
  • Chapter 5: Acquisition of L2 Greek Determiners
  • 5.1 Determiners cross-linguistically
  • 5.2 Acquisition of determiners
  • 5.2.1 Studies on L2 acquisition of determiners cross-linguistically
  • 5.3 Greek determiners
  • 5.3.1 L2 acquisition of Greek determiners
  • 5.4 Results of the determiner acquisition study
  • 5.4.1 Methodology
  • 5.5 Indefinite determiners
  • 5.5.1 Overt indefinite determiners
  • 5.5.2 Omission of indefinite determiners
  • 5.5.3 Comparison of omitted and omitted indefinite determiners
  • 5.6 Definite determiners
  • 5.6.1 Overt definite determiners
  • 5.6.2 Omitted definite determiners
  • 5.6.3 Comparison of the overt and omitted definite determiners
  • 5.7 Comparison of indefinite and definite determiners
  • 5.8 Extralinguistic variables and determiner production
  • 5.8.1 Age factor and production of indefinite/definite determiners
  • 5.8.2 LoR factor and production of definite/indefinite determiners
  • 5.8.3 AoO factor and production of definite/indefinite determiners
  • 5.8.4 Country of origin factor and production of definite/indefinite determiners
  • 5.8.5 Level of education and production of definite/indefinite determiners
  • 5.8.6 Profession and production of definite/indefinite determiners
  • 5.8.7 Learning of Greek and production of definite/indefinite determiners
  • 5.8.8 MLU word and production of definite/indefinite determiners
  • 5.8.9 Independent proficiency rating and object clitic production
  • 5.9 Summary
  • Chapter 6: Acquisition of L2 Greek Agreement
  • 6.1 Morphological agreement
  • 6.1.1 Agree/L2 studies on L2 agreement acquisition
  • 6.1.2 Greek/Russian morphological agreement
  • 6.1.3 L2 Greek agreement acquisition
  • 6.2 Gender, number and person features and morphological agreement
  • 6.2.1 L2 studies on the acquisition of gender assignment and gender agreement
  • 6.2.2 Greek gender
  • 6.2.3 Studies on L2 Greek gender acquisition
  • 6.2.4 Russian gender
  • 6.3 Case/L2 studies on case acquisition
  • 6.3.1 Greek vs. Russian case, L2 Greek acquisition issues
  • 6.4 Results of the L2 Greek morphological agreement study
  • 6.4.1 Methodology
  • 6.4.2 Agreement mismatches within DP domain
  • 6.4.3 Possessive clitic agreement mismatches
  • 6.4.4 Agreement mismatches on object clitics
  • 6.4.5 Verbal domain subject–verb agreement errors
  • 6.4.6 Subject+adjective predicate agreement errors
  • 6.4.7 Agreement errors overall
  • 6.5 Extralinguistic factors and agreement errors
  • 6.5.1 Age factor and agreement errors
  • 6.5.2 LoR factor and agreement errors
  • 6.5.3 AoO factor and agreement errors
  • 6.5.4 Country of origin and agreement errors
  • 6.5.5 Level of education and agreement errors
  • 6.5.6 Profession and agreement errors
  • 6.5.7 Greek language learning and agreement errors
  • 6.5.8 MLU and agreement errors
  • 6.5.9 Independent proficiency rating and object clitic production
  • 6.6 Summary
  • Chapter 7: Discussion
  • Chapter 8: Conclusions
  • Appendices
  • Appendix 1
  • Appendix 2
  • Appendix 3
  • Appendix 4
  • References

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List of Tables

Table 1: Descriptive statistics of participants’ age, AoO and LoR

Table 2: Descriptive statistics of participants’ level of education

Table 3: Results of the screening tests of L2 adult learners of Greek

Table 4: Utterances produced by L2 adult learners of Greek

Table 5: Greek system of strong and weak pronouns

Table 6: Greek definite article paradigm

Table 7: Case syncretism among Russian pronouns (McShane 2005: 51)

Table 8: Elliptical patterns for DO (MCShane 2005:46)

Table 9: Descriptive statistics of object clitics by L2 learners

Table 10: Object clitic, strong pronouns and DP production

Table 11: Syntactic environments of overt and omitted object clitics

Table 12: Syntactic environments of pre-verbal and post-verbal object clitics

Table 13: Person feature instantiation in overt and omitted object clitics

Table 14: Person feature instantiation in overt and omitted object clitics

Table 15: Gender feature in overt and omitted clitics

Table 16: Locality agreement: omitted vs. overt clitics

Table 17: Agreement distance: overt vs. omitted object clitics

Table 18: Definiteness in English

Table 19: Predictions of determiner use by L2 learners

Table 20: Greek determiners

Table 21: Gender, number, case features in overt indefinite determiners

Table 22: Gender feature in overt indefinite determiners

Table 23: Case feature in overt indefinite determiners

Table 24: Omitted indefinite determiners

Table 25: Gender feature of omitted indefinite determiners ← 23 | 24 →

Table 26: Case feature of omitted indefinite determiners

Table 27: Omitted vs. overt indefinite determiners

Table 28: Gender feature: overt vs. omitted indefinite determiners

Table 29: Case feature of overt and omitted indefinite determiners

Table 30: Overt definite determiners, gender, number and case features

Table 31: Overt definite determiners and gender feature

Table 32: Case feature of overt definite determiners

Table 33: Number feature in overt definite determiners

Table 34: Omitted definite determiners, gender, case and number features

Table 35: Gender feature of omitted definite determiners

Table 36: Case feature in omitted definite determiners

Table 37: Number feature of omitted definite determiners

Table 38: Gender, case and number features of omitted definite determiners

Table 39: Overt vs. omitted definite determiners

Table 40: Gender feature of omitted and overt definite determiners

Table 41: Case feature of overt and omitted definite determiners

Table 42: Number feature of overt vs. omitted definite determiners

Table 43: Omitted/overt definite/indefinite determiners

Table 44: Gender feature of omitted/overt definite/indefinite determiners

Table 45: Case feature in overt/omitted and definite/indefinite determiners

Table 46: Greek noun classes (based on Holton et al. 1999: 70)

Table 47: Noun inflectional classes (ICs) based on Ralli’s (2002) distinctions

Table 48: IC, gender, case contrast and number of singular word-forms

Table 49: IC1, IC2, IC3 triptota vs. diptota

Table 50: Gender agreement in Russian

Table 51: Russian inflection class 1: masculine

Table 52: Russian inflection class 2: feminine, masculine

Table 53: Russian inflection class 3: feminine

Table 54: Russian inflection class 4: neuter ← 24 | 25 →

Table 55: Gender, case, number features of Det+N agreement errors

Table 56: Gender, case and number features of Adj+N agreement errors

Table 57: Gender, case and number agreement in Det+Adj+N agreement

Table 58: Gender, case and number feature in agreement errors on N

Table 59: Features in agreement mismatches of DP domain

Table 60: Agreement errors of locality between possessive clitics and DP antecedent

Table 61: Features in agreement errors between possessive clitic and DP antecedent

Table 62: Locality in agreement errors between object clitics and DP antecedent

Table 63: Features of agreement errors between object clitics and DP antecedents

Table 64: Subject+verb agreement with null/overt subject

Table 65: Features of subject+verb agreement errors

Table 66: Agreement errors in subject+adjective predicate with null and overt subject

Table 67: Features in subject+predicate agreement errors

Table 68: Overt vs. null subjects

Table 69: Agreement mismatches in nominal and verbal domain

Table 70: Noun endings vs. non-target gender production

List of Abbreviations

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Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Introduction: L2 acquisition theories

This dissertation investigates adult second language acquisition of Greek determiners, clitics and morphological agreement, syntactic, morphological and discourse properties, which provide a good testing ground for L2 acquisition theories. The experimental data analysis will specifically focus on testing the Interpretability Hypothesis (Tsimpli 2003), the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (Lardiere 1998; Prévost & White 2000), the Full Transfer/Full Access Hypothesis (Schwartz & Sprouse 1994) and the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace 2006) and will explain learnability problems of interface linguistic phenomena and uninterpretable features.

Details

Pages
450
Publication Year
2016
ISBN (PDF)
9783653060317
ISBN (MOBI)
9783653949421
ISBN (ePUB)
9783653949438
ISBN (Hardcover)
9783631665879
DOI
10.3726/978-3-653-06031-7
Language
English
Publication date
2015 (October)
Keywords
Syntax Morphology Morphological Agreement Language Acquisition
Published
Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2015. 450 pp., 11 b/w ill., 70 tables
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Sviatlana Karpava (Author)

Sviatlana Karpava is a Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Central Lancashire, Cyprus. Her area of research is theoretical and applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, syntax and semantics, first and second language acquisition, bilingualism, multilingualism and dialect acquisition.

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Title: Vulnerable Domains for Cross-Linguistic Influence in L2 Acquisition of Greek