The Development of the Grammatical System in Early Second Language Acquisition: The Multiple Constraints Hypothesis

301 Pages·2013·1.44 MB·English

by  Anke Lenzing

The Development of the Grammatical System
in Early Second Language Acquisition
Processability Approaches to Language
Acquisition Research & Teaching (PALART)
Processability Theory (PT) as developed by Manfred Piene mann is a prominent
theory of second language acquisition. PT serves as a framework for a wide range of
research cover ing issues such as L2 processing, interlanguage variation, typological
effects on SLA, L1 transfer, linguistic profiling and L2 assessment, stabilisation/
fossilisation and teachability. The PALART series serves as a platform for making
current research within the PT framework and its application to measurement and
teaching, as well as the interdisciplinary discussion of PT accessible to both research­
ers and graduate students in the field. PALART is designed to provide a thematic
platform for the presentation of current high­quality work within the PT framework.
The thematic scope of the series reflects the wide scope of theoretical, empirical and
practical aspects of PT.
For an overview of all books published in this series, please see
http://benjamins.com/catalog/palart
Editors
Manfred Pienemann Bruno Di Biase Jörg-U. Keßler
University of Paderborn & University of Western Sydney Ludwigsburg University of
Newcastle University Education
Advisory Board
Jonas Granfeldt Gisela Håkansson
Lund University, Sweden Lund University, Sweden
Angela Hahn Camilla Bettoni
Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich, Verona University, Italy
Germany
Satomi Kawaguchi
Ingo Plag University of Western Sydney, Australia
Siegen University, Germany
Yanyin Zhang
Matti Rahkonen Australian National University, Australia
Jyväskylä University, Finland
Volume 3
The Development of the Grammatical System in Early Second Language
Acquisition. The Multiple Constraints Hypothesis
by Anke Lenzing
The Development
of the Grammatical System in
Early Second Language Acquisition
The Multiple Constraints Hypothesis
Anke Lenzing
University of Paderborn
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48­1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lenzing, Anke.
The Development of the Grammatical System in Early Second Language Acquisition :
The Multiple Constraints Hypothesis / Anke Lenzing.
p. cm. (Processability Approaches to Language Acquisition Research & Teaching,
issn 2210­6480 ; v. 3)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Second language acquisition­­Study and teaching. 2. Language arts (Early childhood)
3. Bilingualism in children. 4. Children­­Language. I. Title.
P118.2.L455 2013
401’.93­­dc23 2013018482
isbn 978 90 272 0303 8 (Hb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 7169 3 (Eb)
© 2013 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
To Peter, Benjamin & Lola

Table of contents
List of abbreviations xi
List of figures xiii
List of tables xvii
Acknowledgements xix
chapter 1
Introduction 1
1.1 Lexical-Functional Grammar – an introduction 4
1.2 Processability Theory – an introduction 5
1.3 The Multiple Constraints Hypothesis 7
1.4 L1 transfer 11
1.4.1 Different perspectives on transfer and the L2 initial state 11
1.5 Outline 14
chapter 2
Lexical-Functional Grammar 17
2.1 Design principles of Lexical-Functional Grammar 21
2.2 Levels of representation 22
2.2.1 F(unctional)-structure 23
Grammatical functions and their classification 23
Formal representation of f-structure 28
Feature unification 29
Well-formedness conditions on f-structures 31
2.2.2 C(onstituent)-structure 34
C-structure categories and X-Bar Theory 34
Lexocentricity and S 37
Economy of expression and lexical integrity 38
2.2.3 Mapping principles from c-structure to f-structure 39
Functional annotations 40
Lexical entries 42
viii The Development of the Grammatical System in Early Second Language Acquisition
2.2.4 A(rgument)-structure 44
The function of a-structure 45
Information encoded in a-structure 45
2.2.5 Lexical Mapping Theory 48
2.3 Psychological and typological plausibility 52
chapter 3
Developmental patterns in SLA 55
3.1 The Morpheme Order Studies 55
3.2 Criticism of the Morpheme Order Studies 58
3.3 Developmental sequences of acquisition –
the Multidimensional Model and the Strategies Approach 61
3.4 Criticism of the Multidimensional Model and the Strategies Approach 66
chapter 4
Processability Theory 69
4.1 The psycholinguistic basis of PT 71
4.1.1 Levelt’s Blueprint for the Speaker 71
Conceptualiser and formulator 73
The lexicon 74
4.1.2 Key psychological factors in language processing 76
4.2 Incremental language generation 79
4.3 The Processability Theory hierarchy of processing procedures 81
4.4 A processability hierarchy for English as L2 84
4.5 Hypothesis Space 91
4.6 Extended Processability Theory 93
4.6.1 Linear mapping and the Unmarked Alignment Hypothesis 94
4.6.2 Linguistic non-linearity and the mapping of c-structure
to f-structure – the Topic Hypothesis 96
4.6.3 Linguistic non-linearity and the mapping of a-structure
to f-structure – the Lexical Mapping Hypothesis 102
chapter 5
The role of transfer in SLA 107
5.1 Some early views on language transfer – Contrastive Analysis
and Error Analysis 108
5.2 Transfer – an outdated concept? 111
5.3 UG-based approaches to language transfer 112
5.3.1 The Full Transfer/Full Access Model 114
5.3.2 Partial Transfer/Full Access: the Minimal Trees Hypothesis 115
Table of contents ix
5.3.3 Partial Transfer/Full Access: the Valueless Features Hypothesis 117
5.3.4 Minimal Transfer/Full Access: the Initial Hypothesis of Syntax 119
5.3.5 Indirect access to UG: the ‘No-Parameter Resetting’
perspective 121
5.3.6 Evaluation of UG-based approaches to transfer 123
5.4 The Competition Model 129
5.5 The Developmentally Moderated Transfer Hypothesis 133
5.5.1 Common misconceptions of the DMTH 139
chapter 6
The study: Design and data collection 143
6.1 Communicative tasks and the Steadiness Hypothesis 143
6.2 Tasks for the interviews 146
6.3 Data collection 149
6.4 Data analysis – methodological principles 150
6.4.1 Distributional analysis 150
6.4.2 The emergence criterion 151
chapter 7
Testing the Multiple Constraints Hypothesis: Data analysis and results 155
7.1 Developmental stages – grade 3 157
7.1.1 Results for syntax – grade 3 157
Results for syntax: structures not categorisable
by Processability Theory – grade 3 171
7.1.2 Results for morphology – grade 3 178
7.1.3 Summary – stages of acquisition grade 3 180
7.2 Developmental stages – grade 4 183
7.2.1 Results for syntax – grade 4 183
Results syntax: structures not categorisable
by Processability Theory – grade 4 190
7.2.2 Results for morphology – grade 4 197
7.2.3 Summary – stages of acquisition grade 4 203
7.3 Comparison of L2 development: grade 3 – grade 4 207
7.4 Results a(rgument)-structure 211
7.4.1 A-structure in questions – grade 3 213
7.4.2 A-structure in statements – grade 3 218
7.4.3 A-structure in questions – grade 4 223
7.4.4 A-structure grade 4 – statements 227
7.4.5 Comparison results grade 3 – grade 4 231