Toward Second Language Acquisition: A Study of Null-Prep

275 Pages·1993·21.18 MB·English

by  Elaine C. Klein (auth.)

TOWARD SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
STUDIES IN THEORETICAL PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
VOLUME 17
Managing Editors
Thomas Roeper, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Kenneth Wexler, Dept. ofB rain and Cognitive Science, MIT, Cambridge, Mass.
Editorial Board
Robert Berwick, Artifical Intelligence Laboratory, MIT, Cambridge, Mass.
Manfred Bierwisch, Zentralinstitutfiir Sprachwissenschaft, Akademie der
Wissenschaften, Berlin
Merrill Garrett, University ofA rizona, Tucson
Lila Gleitman, School of Education, University of Pennsylvania
Mary-Louise Kean, University of California at Irvine
Howard Lasnik, University of Connecticut at Storrs
John Marshall, Neuropsychology Unit, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford
Daniel Osherson, MI. T., Cambridge, Mass.
Yukio Otsu, Keio University, Tokyo
Edwin Williams, Princeton University
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
TOWARD SECOND
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
A Study of Null-Prep
by
ELAINE C. KLEIN
Queens College
and The Graduate School and University Center,
City University of New York
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Klein, Elaine C.
Toward second language acquisition a study of nul I-prep / by
Elaine C. Klein.
p. cm. -- (Studies in theoretical psycholinquistics ; v. 17)
Inc I udes index.
ISBN 978-94-010-4902-3 ISBN 978-94-011-2038-8 (eBook)
DOl 10.1007/978-94-011-2038-8
1. Second language acquisition. 2. Grammar, Comparative and
general--Prepositions. 3. Grammar, ComparativS and general--Syntax.
4. Markedness (LinguistiCs) 1. Title. II. Series.
P118.2.K56 1993
401' .93--dc20 93-28052
ISBN 978-94-010-4902-3
Printed on acid-free paper
Typesetting by Richard E.C. White, Queens College, CUNY
All Rights Reserved
© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishersi in 1993
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1993
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
To Janet, for putting up with me,
and
To Bob, for putting up without me
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND SYNTACTIC THEORY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi
CHAPTER 1. MARKEDNESS THEORY AND SECOND :r,.ANGUAGE
ACQUISITION 1
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Overview 7
1.2 Markedness Theory 8
1.2.1 Background 8
1.2.2 Typological Markedness 11
1.2.3 Syntactic Markedness 12
1.2.4 The Subset Principle 15
1.3 Markedness Theory in L2 Acquisition 15
Notes 21
CHAPTER 2. PIED-PIPING AND PREPOSITION STRANDING 23
2. Introduction 23
2.1 Establishing Markedness Values for Pied-Piping and
Preposition Stranding 23
2.1.1 Typological Criteria 23
2.1.2 Syntactic Criteria 24
2.1.3 The Subset Principle 28
2.2 Pied-Piping and Preposition Stranding in L2 Acquisition 34
2.2.1 L2 Studies of Languages Other than English 35
2.2.2 L2 Studies of English 41
Notes 48
CHAPTER 3. THE NULL-PREP PHENOMENON 51
3. Introduction 51
3.1 Null-Prep in L 1 Acquisition: preliminary findings 52
3.2 Null-Prep in L2 Acquisition: preliminary findings 63
Notes 66
CHAPTER 4. NULL-PREP: L2 EXPERIMENTAL DATA 70
4. Introduction 70
4.1 Research Questions 71
4.2 Methods 72
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
4.2.1 Subjects 72
4.2.2 Materials 75
4.2.3 Procedures 85
4.3 Results 87
4.3.1 Scoring of the data 87
4.3.2 Analyses 90
4.3.3 Summary 118
Notes 120
CHAPTER 5. NULL-PREP: CROSS-LINGUISTIC DATA 124
5. Introduction 124
5.1 Cross-Linguistic Distribution of Null-Prep 126
5.1.1 Types of Languages Exhibiting Null-Prep 126
5. 1.2 Identity Conditions on Null-Prep 131
5.1.3 Constructions in Which Null-Prep Appears 141
5. 1.4 Null-Prep in Local Contexts 143
Notes 145
CHAPTER 6. THE SYNTAX OF NULL-PREP 148
6. Introduction 148
6.1 Null-Prep in Greek 150
6.1.1 The Status of pu as a Complementizer 151
6. 1.2 Greek Prepositions 152
6.1.3 The Rule of Object Pronoun Drop 155
6.1.4 The Rule of Preposition Deletion 157
6.2 Null-Prep in Brazilian Portuguese 160
6.2.1 The Status of que as a Complementizer 162
6.2.2 The Rule of Object Drop 165
6.2.3The PP-Chopping Variant 166
6.3 Linguistic Analysis of Null-Prep 168
6.3.1 Some Generalizations about Null-Prep 169
6.3.2 The Syntactic Reality of Null-Prep 174
6.3.3 The Internal Structure of Null-Prep 176
6.3.4 The Object ofP as pro: Licensing and Identification
Considerations 178
6.3.5 The Object of P as trace: Licensing and Identification
Considerations 182
6.3.6 The Cliticization of the Licensing P 183
6.3.7The Null-Prep Parameters 184
Notes 187
TABLE OF CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER 7. ENGLISH PREPOSmONS AND THE RELATIVE
CLAUSE PARAMETERS 194
7. Introduction 194
7.1 Evidence of Preposition Omission in English 194
7.2 Analysis of Preposition Omission in English 198
7.2.1 Bare NPs in Questions 200
7.2.2Bare NPs in Headed Relatives 203
7.2.3 Preposition Omission in Free Relatives 209
7.3 Concluding Discussion 217
7.3.1 Setting the Relative Clause Parameters 218
7.3.2Learnability Considerations 226
7.3.3 Bare NPs and Markedness 229
Notes 230
CHAPTER 8. EXPLAINING NULL-PREP IN THE L2 GRAMMAR 236
8. Introduction 236
8.1 Revising the UG Questions 237
8.2 UG Explanations for the Null-Prep phenomenon in L2
Acquisition 240
8.2.1 The non-movement hypothesis for null-prep 241
8.2.2The movement hypothesis: null-prep in core grammar 247
8.2.3 The movement hypothesis: overgeneralization from the
periphery 251
8.2.4 Conclusion 252
8.3 Directions for future research 253
8.3.1 Linguistic research 253
8.3.2Acquisition research 254
Notes 257
APPENDIX 1: Target and Filler Sentences 259
APPENDIX 2: Types of Errors and Corrections Coded 262
REFERENCES 265
INDEX OF NAMES 277
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 279
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND SYNTACTIC THEORY