Second language acquisition of Bulgarian object clitics

216 Pages·2016·1.52 MB·English

University of Iowa
Iowa Research Online
Theses and Dissertations
Summer 2009
Second language acquisition of Bulgarian object
clitics: a test case for the interface hypothesis
Ivan Prodanov Ivanov
University of Iowa
Copyright 2009 Ivan Prodanov Ivanov
This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/300
Recommended Citation
Ivanov, Ivan Prodanov. "Second language acquisition of Bulgarian object clitics: a test case for the interface hypothesis." PhD (Doctor
of Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2009.
https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.077u4o4q
Follow this and additional works at:https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd
Part of theLinguistics Commons
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF BULGARIAN
OBJECT CLITICS: A TEST CASE FOR
THE INTERFACE HYPOTHESIS

by

Ivan Prodanov Ivanov

An Abstract

Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the Doctor of
Philosophy degree in Linguistics
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa

July 2009
1

Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Roumyana Slabakova
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ABSTRACT

The primary objective of this dissertation is to expand the testing ground of the
Interface Hypothesis, which states that interface properties involving the syntax and other
cognitive domains (such as discourse) may trigger residual optionality effects at the end-
state. The target of investigation were Bulgarian object clitics whose syntactic and
discursive properties provide a good testing ground for theoretical approaches to second
language acquisition. Ten advanced and 14 intermediate L2 speakers of Bulgarian, as
well as a control group of Bulgarian native speakers, participated in the study. The test
materials included a proficiency test, a grammaticality judgment task to check syntactic
knowledge of clitics, and a pragmatic felicity task. The latter was aimed at investigating
the degree to which L2 learners of Bulgarian, with English as their L1, had acquired a
syntax-discourse interface property of Bulgarian, namely the pragmatic function of clitic
doubling. In Bulgarian, clitic doubling serves as an overt marker of topicality and
‘undoubled’ object topics are deemed infelicitous.
The results of the experiments in this dissertation present a challenge to some
theoretical approaches to second language acquisition, namely the Interpretability
Hypothesis and the Interface Hypothesis. The results showed that the intermediate
participants did not differentiate between the felicitous and the infelicitous options in the
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pragmatic felicity task in a target-like manner as their responses either did not exhibit
statistically significant difference or favored the response closest to the L1. However, the
advanced L2 learners of Bulgarian had successfully acquired the syntax of clitics as well
as the pragmatic meaning of clitic doubling in Bulgarian. They displayed target-like
convergence with respect to the syntactic properties of Bulgarian object clitics and
distinguished between the felicitous and the infelicitous options in the pragmatic task in a
native-like manner.
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The study highlights the fact that successful learning at the syntax-discourse
interface cannot be excluded and a lot more research, exploring as many interface
conditions as possible, needs to be done in order to validate the Interface Hypothesis as a
legitimate constraint which permanently hinders native-like performance.

Abstract Approved: _______________________________________________________
Thesis Supervisor

_______________________________________________________
Title and Department

_______________________________________________________
Date

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SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF BULGARIAN
OBJECT CLITICS: A TEST CASE FOR
THE INTERFACE HYPOTHESIS

by

Ivan Prodanov Ivanov

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the Doctor of
Philosophy degree in Linguistics
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa

July 2009
1

Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Roumyana Slabakova
Graduate College
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa

CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL

_______________________

PH.D. THESIS

_______________

This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis of

Ivan Prodanov Ivanov

has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Doctor
of Philosophy degree in Linguistics at the July 2009 graduation.

Thesis Committee: ________________________________________
Roumyana Slabakova, Thesis Supervisor

________________________________________
William D. Davies

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________________________________________
Elena Gavruseva

________________________________________
Paula M. Kempchinsky

________________________________________
Jason Rothman
To my parents

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This is the section where I will try to refer to all those people that made my
journey through the Ph.D. program in linguistics at the University of Iowa possible. It
was not easy and I knew it was not going to be easy from the very beginning in the hot
and humid August of 2003. But all the effort has been worth it and now when I look back
in time, I realize that the number of people who have had a significant contribution to the
quality of my life in and outside of academia is huge.
Since this is the acknowledgement section of a dissertation, it will probably be
most appropriate to start with the person who made this dissertation possible - my advisor
Roumyana Slabakova. I have no words to express my gratitude for all the help she has
provided for me over the years – she was the reason I became interested in second
language acquisition, she was the reason I decided to continue into the Ph.D program and
she was the reason I have the opportunity to be writing an acknowledgment section in a
dissertation. Prof.Slabakova, thank you so much for all your patience and your belief in
my ability to see this through. I know that I was very often doing things at the last
moment and, sometimes, I felt discouraged by the difficulties I was facing with finding
participants for my experiments. You were always so patient and I guess, sometimes, you
believed in me more than I did in myself.
I also want to thank two of my professors in the Linguistics Department (also
members of my dissertation committee), who contributed significantly to my
development as a linguist – Bill Davies and Elena Gavruseva. Bill, that Syntax I class in
the fall of 2003 remains the ultimate coursework experience of my academic life. I have
been a student for 12 years (actually, I am not very proud of that, one MA should have
been enough) and I have taken tons of classes but I have never felt so excited about doing
my homework and reading my course books. I used to go home in the evenings after we
had that syntax class, hungry and tired, and look at the data we were given on that day
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without thinking about anything else. Elena, thank you so much for all the help with my
first comps paper and for the great class in L1 acquisition. I really liked that paper and the
experiment was so much fun.
There is one very special person for me in the Department of Linguistics that I
can never omit in this section – Rob Chametzky. This is one of the most amazing people I
have met in my life and when you have the chance to communicate with people like that,
you should feel just lucky. Having a conversation with Rob, or just listening to him
present his lectures is a treat that I wish everybody could experience.
I would also like to thank my committee members from the Spanish department,
Paula Kempchinsky and Jason Rothman, who were very helpful with their comments on
my dissertation.
Also, thanks to Dr. James Maxey who helped me with all the statistics in this
dissertation and whose lucid style of presenting statistics made it possible for someone
like me to understand it.
Big thanks to all my participants without whom my experimental data would not
have been possible. Some of them were extremely busy people, but they still managed to
find three hours for the completion of the tasks. And thanks to Zlatko, Roumyana’s
husband, who helped me find eligible subjects for the study through one of his friends in
Bulgaria and whose voice was in the recorded test items for one of the experiments.
When it comes to people who have made my life easier over all those years, I
should immediately start with my great friend Marta Tryzna and her amazing family –
Dominik, Kuba, Julia and little Olivia. I have no idea what I would have done if they
were not around to help me during all those years. They made me feel as if I was a part of
their family and I would never ever forget that.
Barbara Hermeier and Peter Rohrbough, the greatest Iowans I have ever known,
are the other two people who have made so much for me. Barb is the sweetest person
ever and whatever great things I say about her will be insufficient to capture her
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remarkable personality. Communicating with Peter (preferably, over some drink) on any
topic is such an enjoyable experience which will be sorely missed once I have to leave
Iowa. I think that for the rest of my life, every time I see or hear the word ‘Iowa’, Barb
and Peter will be the first ones that I will associate with it. I know that they (especially
Peter) are so proud of their Iowan heritage, but I think that Iowa should be very proud of
them, too.
My best friend Tsvetelina never stopped encouraging me and our phone
conversations lasted forever. And finally, we got my lovely Putt who brought something
different in my life and who was suffering with me over this thesis. Tsveti and Putt were
the happiest people after my defense and they knew better than anyone what it meant to
me.
I would also like to thank my roommate for 5 years, Tomomasa Sasa for all the
crazy moments we had over the years. He was the best roommate I could have had and he
had to suffer my shouting on the Saturday or Sunday early mornings when I woke up to
watch my soccer games. It was so much fun communicating with him and as we were
writing our dissertations at the same time, he was someone who could understand my
frustrations as well as my joys related to that better than anyone else.
Finally, I want to thank two of the professors from the Department of Linguistics,
Jill Beckman and Alice Davison, and all the students in that department whom I had the
privilege to know during my time in Iowa – Maria Fruit, Kristin Lily, Beth Rathe, Eileen
Cannon, Gonzalo Campos and his wife Maria-Laura, Jae-Young Shim, Kum-Young Lee,
Lalita Dhareshwar, Lauren Eby, Jane Gressang, Melissa Meisterheim, John Njue,
Vladimir Kulikov, Elena Kallestinova and Steven Schubert.

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