GRS LX 700 Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theory

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Week 12.Language Universals, and the

beginnings of a model

GRS LX 700Language Acquisition

andLinguistic Theory

Typological universalsn 1960’s and 1970’s saw a lot of activity

aimed at identifying language universals,properties of Language.

n Class of possible languages is smaller thanyou might think.

n If a language has one property (A), it willnecessarily have another (B).n +A+B, –A–B, –A+B but never +A–B.

(Typological) universals

n All languages have vowels.

n If a language has VSO as its basic word order,then it has prepositions (vs. postpositions).

JapaneseNonePostpositionsEnglishWelshPrepositions

NoYesVSO?Adposition type

Markedness

n Having duals implies having pluralsn Having plurals says nothing about having duals.

n Having duals is marked—infrequent, morecomplex. Having plurals is (relative to havingduals) unmarked.

n Generally markedness is in terms of comparabledimensions, but you could also say that being VSOis marked relative to having prepositions.

Markedness

n “Markedness” actually has been used ina couple of different ways, althoughthey share a common core.

n Marked: More unlikely, in some sense.n Unmarked: More likely, in some sense.

n You have to “mark” something marked;unmarked is what you get if you don’tsay anything extra.

“Unlikeliness”n Typological/crosslinguistic infrequency.n VOS word order is marked.

n More complex constructions.n [ts] is more marked than [t].

n The non-default setting of a parameter.n Non-null subjects?

n Language-specific/idiosyncratic features.n Vs. UG/universal features…?

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Berlin & Kay 1969: Color termsn (On the boundaries of psychophysics,

linguistics, anthropology, and with issuesabout its interpretation, but still…)

n Basic color terms across languages.n It turns out that languages differ in how

many color terms count as basic. (blueish,salmon-colored, crimson, blond, … are notbasic).

Berlin & Kay 1969: Color terms

n The segmentation of experience by speech symbols is essentiallyarbitrary. The different sets of words for color in variouslanguages are perhaps the best ready evidence for suchessential arbitrariness. For example, in a high percentageof African languages, there are only three “color words,”corresponding to our white, black, red, which neverthelessdivide up the entire spectrum. In the Tarahumaralanguage of Mexico, there are five basic color words, andhere “blue” and “green” are subsumed under a singleterm.n Eugene Nida (1959)

Berlin & Kay 1969: Color terms

n Arabic (Lebanon)n Bulgarian (Bulgaria)n Catalan (Spain)n Cantonese (China)n Mandarin (China)n English (US)n Hebrew (Israel)n Hungarian (Hungary)n Ibibo (Nigeria)n Indonesian (Indonesia)

n Japanese (Japan)n Korean (Korea)n Pomo (California)n Spanish (Mexico)n Swahili (East Africa)n Tagalog (Philippines)n Thai (Thailand)n Tzeltal (Southern Mexico)n Urdu (India)n Vietnamese (Vietnam)

Eleven possible basic colorterms

n White, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown,purple, pink, orange, gray.

n All languages contain term for white and black.n Has 3 terms, contains a term for red.n Has 4 terms, contains green or yellow.n Has 5 terms, contains both green and yellow.n Has 6 terms, contains blue.n Has 7 terms, contains brown.n Has 8 or more terms, chosen from {purple, pink,

orange, gray}

Color hierarchyn White, blackn Redn Green, yellown Bluen Brownn Purple, pink, orange, gray

n Even assuming these 11 basic color terms, there shouldbe 2048 possible sets—but only 22 (1%) are attested.

Color terms

n BW Jalé (New Guinea) ‘brilliant’ vs. ‘dull’n BWR Tiv (Nigeria), Australian aboriginals in

Seven Rivers District, Queensland.n BWRG Ibibo (Nigeria), Hanunóo (Philippines)n BWRY Ibo (Nigeria), Fitzroy River people (Queensland)n BWRYG Tzeltal (Mexico), Daza (eastern Nigeria)n BWRYGU Plains Tamil (South India), Nupe (Nigeria), Mandarin?n BWRYGUO Nez Perce (Washington), Malayalam (southern India)

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Color terms

n Interesting questions abound, includingwhy this order, why these eleven—and thereare potential reasons for it that can bedrawn from the perception of color spaceswhich we will not attempt here.

n The point is: This is a fact about Language:If you have a basic color term for blue, youalso have basic color terms for black, white,red, green, and yellow.

Implicational hierarchy

n This is a ranking of markedness or an implicationalhierarchy.

n Having blue is more marked than having (any orall of) yellow, green, red, white, and black.

n Having green is more marked than having red…n Like a set of implicational universals…

n Blue implies yellow Brown implies bluen Blue implies green Pink implies brownn Yellow or green imply red Orange implies brownn Red implies black Gray implies brownn Red implies white Purple implies brown

L2A?

n Our overarching theme:How much is L2/IL like a L1?

n Do IL/L2 languages obey the languageuniversals that hold of native languages?

n This question is slightly less theory-ladenthan the questions we were asking aboutprinciples and parameters, although it’ssimilar…

n To my knowledge nobody has studied L2acquisitions of color terms…

Question formation

n Declarative: John will buy coffee.

n Wh-inversion: What will John buy?n Wh-fronting: What will John buy?n Yes/No-inversion: Will John buy coffee?

n Greenberg (1963):n Wh-inversion implies Wh-fronting.n Yes/No-inversion implies Wh-inversion.

Wh-inversionÆWh-fronting

n English, German: Both.n What will John buy?

n Japanese Korean: neither.n John will buy what?

n Finnish: Wh-fronting only.n What John will buy?

n Unattested: Wh-inversion only.n *Will John buy what?

Y/N-inversionÆWh-inversionn English: Bothn Will John buy coffee? What will John buy?

n Japanese: Neithern John will buy coffee? John will buy what?

n Lithuanian: Wh-inversion only.n John will buy coffee? What will John buy?

n Unattested: Y/N-inversion only.n Will John buy coffee? What John will buy?

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Eckman, Moravcsik, Wirth(1989)

n L1: Korean (4), Japanese (6), Turkish (4)n L2: English

n Note L1s chosen because they areneither/neither type languages, to avoidquestions of transfer.

n Subjects tried to determine what wasgoing on in a scene by asking questions.


n Example Y/N Qs:n Did she finished two bottle wine?n Is Lou and Patty known each other?n Sue does drink orange juice?n Her parents are rich?n Is this story is chronological in a order?n Does Joan has a husband?n Yesterday is Sue did drink two bottles of

wine?


n Example Wh-Qs:n Why Sue didn’t look solution for her

problem?n Where Sue is living?n Why did Sue stops drinking?n Why is Patty’s going robbing the bank?n What they are radicals?n What Sue and Patty connection?n Why she was angry?

Eckman etal. (1989)

wh-invÆwh-

fronting?

resultsYES100YES100JYKYES100YES100KTMYES100YES100JSTYES100YES100TMAYES100YES100TGYES100YES95JSIYES100YES95TNEYES100YES95JMHYES100YES95JKOYES100NO88JROYES100NO80KMKYES100NO70JTSYES100NO54TUAYES100NO25KSMWhfr%Whinv%

Eckman etal. (1989)

YN-inv.Æwh-inv.?

resultsYES100YES100JSTYES95YES100JSIYES95YES100TNEYES95YES95JMHYES95YES93JKONO54YES91TUAYES100NO88TMAYES100NO86TBGNO88NO85JROYES100NO83KTMNO70NO67JTSYES100NO51JYKNO80NO38KMKNO25NO8KSMWHinv%YNinv% Eckman, Moravcsik, Wirth

(1989)

41No (SV)

45Yes (VS)

No (SV)Yes (VS)Yes/no inversionWh-inversion

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Eckman’s MarkednessDifferential Hypothesis

n Markedness. A phenomenon or structure X in somelanguage is relatively more marked than some otherphenomenon or structure Y if cross-linguistically thepresence of X in a language implies the presence of Y,but the presence of Y does not imply the presence of X.

n Duals imply plurals.n Wh-inversion implies wh-fronting.n Blue implies red.

Markedness DifferentialHypothesis

n MDH: The areas of difficulty that a secondlanguage learner will have can be predicted on thebasis of a comparison of the NL and TL such that:n Those areas of the TL that are different from the NL and

are relatively more marked than in the NL will bedifficult;

n The degree of difficulty associated with those aspects ofthe TL that are different and more marked than in theNL corresponds to the relative degree of markednessassociated with those aspects;

n Those areas of the TL that are different than the NL butare not relatively more marked than in the NL will notbe difficult.

MDH example:Word-final segments

n Voiced obstruents most marked Surgen Voiceless obstruents Coken Sonorant consonants Mountainn Vowels least marked Coffee

n All Ls allow vowels word-finally—some only allowvowels. Some (e.g., Mandarin, Japanese) allow onlyvowels and sonorants. Some (e.g., Polish) allow vowels,sonorants, but only voiceless obstruents. English allows allfour types.

Eckman (1981)

[blidIn]Bleeding[let r]Letter[sIk]Sick[dek]Deck[w t]Wet[w t]Wet[ret]Red[ænd ]And[b bi]Bobby[tæg ]Tag[b p]BobIL formGlossIL formGloss

Mandarin L1Spanish L1

cc

e

ee

e

e

MDH example:Word-final segments


n Idea: Mandarin has neither voiceless nor voiced obstruents inthe L1—using a voiceless obstruent in place of a TL voicedobstruent is still not L1 compliant and is a big markednessjump. Adding a vowel is L1 compliant. Spanish has voicelessobstruents, to using a voiceless obstruent for a TL voicedobstruent is L1 compliant.

MDH and ILn The MDH presupposes that the IL obeys

the implicational universals too.n Eckman et al. (1989) suggests that this is at

least reasonable.n The MDH suggests that there is a natural

order of L2A along a markedness scale(stepping to the next level of markedness iseasiest).

n Let’s consider what it means that an ILobeys implicational universals…

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MDH and IL

n IL obeys implicational universals.n That is, we know that IL is a language.n So, we know that languages are such that

having word-final voiceless obstruentsimplies that you also have word-finalsonorant consonants, among other things.

n What would happen if we taught Japanese L2learners of English only—and at theoutset—voiced obstruents?

Generalizing with markednessscales


n Japanese learner of English will have an easier time ateach step learning voiceless obstruents and then voicedobstruents.

n But—if taught voiced obstruents immediately, the factthat the IL obeys implicational (markedness) universalsmeans that voiceless obstruents “come for free.”

Nifty!

n Does it work? Does it help?n Answers seem to be:n Yes, it seems to at least sort of work.n Maybe it helps.

n Learning a marked structure is harder. So, ifyou learn a marked structure, you canautomatically generalize to the less markedstructures, but was it faster than learningthe easier steps in succession would havebeen?

Change from pre- to post-testEckman, Bell, & Nelson (1988)

012345678

Subj Obj O.P.

Subj GroupObj GroupO.P. GroupControls

The Noun Phrase AccessibilityHierarchy

n Keenan & Comrie (1977) observed a hierarchy among thekinds of relative clauses that languages allow.

n The astronaut [(that) I met yesterday].n Head noun: astronautn Modifying clause:

(that/who) I met — yesterday.n Compare: I met the astronaut yesterday.n This is an object relative because the place where the head

noun would be in the simple sentence version is the object.


n There are several kinds of relative clauses, based onwhere the head noun “comes from” in themodifying clause:

n The astronaut…n [I met — yesterday] objectn [who — met me yesterday] subjectn [I gave a book to —] indirect objectn [I was talking about —] obj. of Pn [whose house I like —] Genitive (possessor)n [I am braver than —] obj. of comparative

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n Turns out: Languages differ in whatpositions they allow relative clauses to beformed on.

n English allows all the positions mentionedto be used to make relative clauses.

n Arabic allows relative clauses to beformed only with subjects.

n Greek allows relative clauses to be formedonly with subjects or objects.

Resumptive pronounsn The guy who they don’t know whether he wants

to come.n A student who I can’t make any sense out of the

papers he writes.n The actress who Tom wondered whether her

father was rich.

n In cases where relative clause formation is notallowed, it can sometimes be salvaged by meansof a pronoun in the position that the head noun isto be associated with.

NPAH and resumptivepronouns

n Generally speaking, it turns out that in languages which donot allow relative clauses to be formed off a certainposition, they will instead allow relative clauses with aresumptive pronoun in that position.

n Arabic: allows only subject relative clauses. But for allother positions allows a resumptive pronoun construction,analogous to:n The book that John bought it.n The tree that John is standing by it.n The astronaut that John gave him a present.

NPAH

n The positions off which you can relativizeappears to be an implicational hierarchy.

(+)––+DO

+–+?+IO

+–+?+OP

++/ –++GEN

+–Persian–Japanese

+–Greek+–ArabicOCOMPSUBLang.

Noun Phrase AccessibilityHierarchy

n More generally, there seems to be ahierarchy of “difficulty” (or“(in)accessibility”) in the types of relativeclauses.

n A language which allows this…

n Subj > Obj > IO > OPrep > Poss > OComp



n A language which allows this…n Will also allow these.


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n A language which allows this…n Will also allow these. But not these…


Relation to L2A?n Suppose that KoL includes where the target

language is on the NPAH.n Do L2’ers learn the easy/unmarked/simple

relative clauses before the others?n Do L2’ers transfer the position of their L1 first?n Does a L2’ers interlanguage grammar obey this

typological generalization (if they can relativizea particular point on the NPAH, can theyrelativize everything higher too?)?

NPAH and L2A?n Probably: The higher something is on the NPAH,

the easier (faster) it is to learn.n So, it might be easier to start by teaching subject

relatives, then object, then indirect object, etc. Ateach step, the difficulty would be low.

n But, it might be more efficient to teach the (hard)object of a comparison—because if L2’ersinterlanguage grammar includes whatever theNPAH describes, knowing that OCOMP is possibleimplies that everything (higher) on the NPAH ispossible too. That is, they might know it withoutinstruction. (Same issue as before with thephonology)

NPAH in L2An Very widely studied implicational

universal in L2A—many people haveaddressed the question of whether the ILobeys the NPAH and whether teaching aamarked structure can help.

n Eckman et al. (1989) was about this secondquestion…

Change from pre- to post-testEckman, Bell, & Nelson (1988)

012345678

Subj Obj O.P.

Subj GroupObj GroupO.P. GroupControls

Doughty (1991)n Investigating several issues at once:n Effectiveness of type of instructionn Meaning orientedn Rule oriented

n Effectiveness of teaching “down themarkedness hierarchy” (teaching amarked structure and allowing learner-internal generalization to an unmarkedstructure).

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Doughty (1991)n Subjects: 20 international students taking

intensive ESL courses, without much priorknowledge of relative clauses. Averagelength of stay in the US was 3.7 months.

n Tasks:n Grammaticality judgmentn Sentence completion

Doughty (1991)

n Subjects were pretested, then over two weeks (10weekdays) they came in to a computer lab to takea “language lesson”. Then, immediatelyafterwards, subjects were posttested.

n In the language lessons, one of three possiblethings happened:n Subject got the “meaning oriented treatment”n Subject got the “rule oriented treatment”n Subject got the “control treatment”

Doughty (1991)n Daily lessons were a text of 5-6 sentences

(of a two-week long “story”) containing anrelative clause formed on the object of apreposition.n This is the book that I was looking for.

n Recall: Noun phrase accessibilityhierarchy:SU > DO > IO> OP > GEN > OCOMP

Procedure…n Three steps:

n Skimn Reading for understanding (experimental section)n Scan

n Skim: Subjects saw the text for 30 seconds, withtitle, first sentence and last sentencehighlighted—this is to “get the idea” of whatthe text is about.

Procedure…n Reading for understanding: Each sentence

displayed consecutively at the top of the screen.Three different possibilities:n MOG: Also saw dictionary help (2m) and semantic

explanations (referents, synonyms) (2m), includingrelationship between head noun and relativepronoun.

n ROG: Saw a little animated presentation of deriving aOPREP sentence from two sentences (This is the book,I was looking for the book, This is the book which Iwas looking for)

n COG: Saw each sentence, 2.5 minutes.

Procedure…

n Scan. Re-scan paragraph in order to beable to answer two questions about it,then write out a summary (NL).

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Pretest

------1-----+4-----+6-----+2-----+7--+--+21--+--+5----++3

OCGEOPIOdoSUS

------16------14------19-----+15-----+20-+--++17

OCGEOPIOdoSUS

------11------12-----+13-----+10-++-++8-+++++9

OCGEOPIOdoSUS

MOGROG

CoG Posttest

----++1-----+4--++++6--++++2++++++7++++++21++++++5++++++3

OCGEOPIOdoSUS

-----+16-----+14--++++19----++15+++-++20++++++17

OCGEOPIOdoSUS

------11-----+12-+---+13--+-++10++++++8++++++9

OCGEOPIOdoSUS

MOGROG

CoG

Group mean gain scores

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

SU DO IO OP GEN OC

MOGROGCoG

Results

n Both experimental groups showed strong positive effects(“Second Language Instruction Does Make a Difference”).

n The control group did too (simply from exposure) but notas dramatic.

n Both types of instruction appear to be equally effectivewith respect to gain in relativization ability.

n Comprehension-wise, MOG scored 70.01 vs. ROG’s 43.68and CoG’s 40.64. Significant.

n Subjects improved basically following the NPAH by beingtaught just a marked position.

Comments

n Note that:n ROG subjects improved in their ability to

relativize, yet didn’t do so well on thecomprehension tests—meaning isn’t utmostin getting the structural rules.

n MOG subjects got the structural propertieseven though not directly instructed in them(meaning didn’t get in the way).

What about markedness-basedshortcuts?

n It looks like training them on OPREPsuccessfully brought subjects to be able torelativize on everything higher (Subj., Dir. Obj.,Indir. Obj.).

n But mysteriously, many people also seemed toget OCOMP by the post-test.

n Interlanguage grammars do seem to obey thetypological requirements on languages (NPAH).

n Is genitive mis-analyzed in the NPAHtypological work, given that it seems to begotten early…?

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Transfer, markedness, …

n Do (2002) looked at the NPAH going theother way, EnglishÆKorean.n English: Relativizes on all 6 positions.n Korean: Relativizes on 5 (not OCOMP)

n Found a very similarpattern to what wesaw from Doughty’sexperiment.

-++++14

-----20----+31---++29--+++16

+++++13

GEOPIOdoSUS

Transfer, markedness, …n The original question Do was looking at

was: Do English speakers transfer theirposition on the NPAH to the IL Korean?

n But look: If English allows all 6 positions,why do some of the learners onlyrelativize down to DO, some to IO, someto OPREP?

n We haven’t even reached the question oftransfer yet—it looks like they start over.

Subset principle?

n Null subject parametern Option (a): Null subjects are permitted.n Option (b): Null subjects are not permitted.

n Italian = option a, English = option b.

E

IA tempting analogy… in somecases, parameters seem to beranked in terms of howpermissive each setting is.

Reminder: Subset Principlen The idea is

n If one has only positive evidence, andn If parameters are organized in terms of

permissiveness,n Then for a parameter setting to be learnable,

the starting point needs to be the subset settingof the parameter.

n The Subset principle says that learnersshould start with the English setting ofthe null subject parameter and move to theItalian setting if evidence appears.

E

I

Reminder: Subset Principle

n The Subset Principle is basically that learnersare conservative—they only assume a grammarsufficient to generate the sentences they hear,allowing positive evidence to serve to movethem to a different parameter setting.

n Applied to L2: Given a choice, the L2’erassumes a grammatical option that generates asubset of the what the alternative generates.

n Does this describe L2A?n Is this a useful sense of markedness?

Subset principle andmarkedness

n Based on the Subset principle, we’d expect theunmarked values (in a UG where languages arelearnable) to be the ones which produce the“smallest” grammars.

n Given that in L1A we don’t seem to see any“misset” parameters, we have at least indirectevidence that the Subset principle is at work. Isthere any evidence for it in L2A? Do theseNPAH results constitute such evidence?

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Subset vs. Transfern The Subset Principle, if it operating, would say

that L2A starts with all of the defaults, themaximally conservative grammar.

n Another, mutually exclusive possibility (parameterby parameter, anyway) is that L2A starts with theL1 setting.n This means that for certain pairs of L1 and L2, where

the L1 has the marked (superset) value and L2 has theunmarked (subset) value, only negative evidence couldmove the L2’er to the right setting.

n Or, some mixture of the two in different areas.

NPAH and processing?n At least a plausible alternative to the NPAH results

following from the Subset Principle is just thatrelative clauses formed on positions lower in thehierarchy are harder to process. Consider:

n The astronaut…n who [IP t met me yesterday] SUBn who [IP I [VP met t yesterday]] DOn who [IP I [VP gave a book [PP to t ]]] IOn who [IP I was [VP talking [PP about t ]]] OPREPn whose house [IP I [VP like [DP t ’s house]]] GENn who [IP I am [AP brave [degP -er [thanP than t ]]]] OCOMP

NPAH and processing?

n If it’s about processing, then the reasonL2’ers progress through the “hierarchy”might be that initially they have limitedprocessing room—they’re working too hardat the L2 to be able to process such deepextractions.

n Why are they working so hard?n (Well, maybe L2A is like learning calculus?)

NPAH and processing?n Is the NPAH itself simply a result of processing?n The NPAH is a typological generalization about

languages not about the course of acquisition.n Does Arabic have a lower threshhold for

processing difficulty than English? Doubtful.n The NPAH may still be real, still be a

markedness hierarchy based in somethinggrammatical, but it turns out to be confounded byprocessing.

n So finding evidence of NPAH position transfer isvery difficult.

Subset problems?n One problem, though, is that many of the

parameters of variation we think of today don’tseem to be really in a subset-superset relation. Sothere has to be something else going on in thesecases anyway.n VÆT

n Yes: √SVAO, *SAVOn No: *SVAO, √SAVO

n Anaphor typen Monomorphemic: √LD, *Non-subjectn Polymorphemic: *LD, √Non-subject

Mazurkewich (1984)n John gave a book to Mary “unmarked”n John gave Mary a book. “marked”

n To whom did John give a book? “unmarked”?n Who did John give a book to? “marked”

n Assuming that the second of each pair is marked,Mazurkewich asked about timing of each in L2A.

n But although maybe more languages allow the first of eachpair than the second, the pied-piping example shouldmake us suspicious. Sounds kind of stilted for being theunmarked option…

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Mazurkewich (1984)

n French-->English and Inuktitut-->Englishn French lacks pied-piping and double-object

constructions.n Inuktitut is different enough that it is hard to

find an analog to either the marked orunmarked constructions. (or so it is claimed)

n Did the L2’ers prefer the unmarkedstructures? Did they acquire them first?

Mazurkewich (1984)

n French-L1 beginners do appear to “prefer” theunmarked structures (2-to-1), and the markedstructures gain ground as L2’ers become moreadvanced.

n But French lacks the marked structure; did they“start with the unmarked structure” or did they“start with the structure of their L1”?

n As for Inuktitut, they weakly “preferred” theunmarked structures (beginners 77% to 98%).

n Not very dramatic, not very convincing.

Mazurkewich (1984)n Worse, on a different task (“question the

italicized phrase”), although the French speakersshowed a moderate preference for “unmarked”(pied-piping) structures, the Inuktitut speakersshowed a preference for the marked structure.

n However, it could be that the whole experimentisn’t getting at what we want. The controlspreferred the marked structure 3 or 4-to-1, sothese “unmarked” structures seem to be markedfrom a language-internal perspective. Plus, thisgives the learner a lot of evidence.

Problems so farn If L1 has an “unmarked” value for

something and L2 has a “marked” value, ifthe L2’er prefers (or, better, learns morequickly) the “unmarked” value, it could beeither transfer or reverting to an unmarkedvalue.

n The actual marked/unmarked set must beconvincingly chosen—means nothing ifwe aren’t actually looking atmarked/unmarked.

Best test would be…n Find a convincing marked vs. unmarked

pair, …n Find an L2 which allows only the marked

option, …n Test speakers of an L1 which also only

allows the marked option, …

n …and see if L2’ers use/accept theunmarked option early on.

Liceras (1985, 1986)

n Another potential marked/unmarked pair:n Allows Ø comp. (marked; English)n Disallows Ø comp. (unmarked; Spanish)

n EnglishÆSpanishn Beginners: 49% acceptance of Ø comp.n Intermediate: 25% acceptance.n Advanced: 9% acceptance.

n Looks like transfer (not initialunmarkedness) (contra Liceras’ hypothesis)

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Schwartz (1993)n Back to the questions:

n How is a L2 acquired?n Is L2 knowledge like native knowledge?n Supposing it is, then knowing the rules isn’t really part of

knowing the language.

n Of course, you can learn the rules and consciously followthem. But is that knowing English?n Prepositions are things you don’t end a sentence with.n Strive to not split your infinitives.n Don’t be so immodest as to say I and John left; say John and I

left instead.n Impact is not a verb.

Schwartz (1993)

n Schwartz distinguishes two kinds of knowledge:

n Learned linguistic knowledgen I want to definitely avoid splitting my infinitives.

n Competencen *Who did John laugh after asking whether I spread the

rumor that bought the coffee?

L1An UG (the range of possible languages/grammars)n LAD (a system for getting from the data to the

particular parameter setting for the targetlanguage—not a conscious process, nor available toconscious introspection)

n PLD (positive input)n Would it help the LAD to get rules explicitly?

(“Use do to avoid stranding tense in Infl”; “Don’t extractan embedded subject out from under an overtcomplementizer”; “You want the other spoon.”)

L2A

n If L1AD can’t really use this information, whywould we necessarily think that the rules we learnin French class are in the right form to “beabsorbed” by the L2AD, if such a thing exists…?

n That is: L2 has things about it which can only belearned with the help of negative evidence (or anL2AD). Yet this doesn’t guarantee that negativeevidence will help.

How can we tell the differencebetween LLK and competence?

n (Well-formulated) parameters have wide-ranging effects. For example, verb raising:n *X: F question can’t use do-support.n Y: F adverbs ok between V and Obj.

n Train subjects on *X. If they reset theparameter, a) they should “automatically”know Y as well, and b) they can usenegative evidence.

Schwartz’s model

LAD KoL

blah blah blah

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So why does it seem to beuseful to be taught the rules?

n Perhaps—knowing the rules (though it isLLK) allows you in a way to generate yourown PLD. It’s that PLD, the output ofusing the rules, which the “L2AD” canmake use of when constructing KoL.

n This might explain the apparent truth thatpracticing helps a lot more than justmemorizing the rules…?

Krashen’s “Monitor Model”n An early and influential model of second

language acquisition was the “MonitorModel”, based on five basic hypotheses:n The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesisn The Monitor Hypothesisn The Natural Order Hypothesisn The Input Hypothesisn The Affective Filter Hypothesis

The Acquisition-LearningHypothesis

n Acquisition and Learning are different.n Acquisition refers to the (subconscious) internalizing of

implicit rules, the result of meaningful naturalisticinteraction using the language.

n Learning refers to the conscious process that results inknowing about the language, e.g., the result of classroomexperience with explicit rules. (LLK)

n That is, you can learn without acquiring (or acquirewithout learning).

n Krashen hypothesizes that learned and acquired rules arestored differently; one cannot eventually be converted intothe other; they are simply different.n Perhaps, or maybe the speculation on the previous slide was right.

The Natural Order Hypothesisn Acquisition proceeds in a “natural order” (i.e.

the order of morpheme acquisition discussedearlier).

n This says nothing about learning, onlyacquisition.

n Also: Krashen’s actual hypothesis is based on post-hoc analysis of the order L2’er do seem to acquirethese morphemes—there’s no underlying theoreticalmachinery. That’s not to say that there couldn’t besome, of course.

The Monitor Hypothesisn A linguistic expression originates in the

system of acquired knowledge, but priorto output a “Monitor” checks it againstconsciously known rules and may modifythe expression before it is uttered.

Acquiredcompetence

Learnedcompetence(the Monitor)

output

The Monitor Hypothesisn For the Monitor to work, you need to

n Be able to focus on the form (time, attention)n Know the rule

n So, under pressure (e.g., time pressure), theMonitor may not be operating…

Acquiredcompetence


output

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The Monitor Hypothesisn The Monitor would probably be the place

where things like “don’t split infinitives”and “don’t end a sentence with apreposition” live as well.

Acquiredcompetence


output

The Input Hypothesisn The Input Hypothesis draws on the

Natural Order Hypothesis; the idea is thatthere is a natural order of acquisition, butin order to advance from one step to thenext, a learner needs to get comprehensibleinput, input which provides evidence forthe stage one level past the learners’current level. The idea is that only thislevel of input is useful for theadvancement of acquisition.

The Input Hypothesisn Krashen’s view on acquisition: Speaking does

not cause acquisition, it is the result ofacquisition, having built competence on thebasis of comprehensible input.

n If input is at the right level and comes insufficient quantity, the necessary grammar isautomatically acquired.

n The language teacher’s main role, then, is toprovide adequate amounts of comprehensibleinput for the language learners.n Let’s stick to the model and not the politics here…

Input ≠ intake

n Inuktitut—input:n Qasuiirsarvigssarsingitluinarnarpuqn ‘Someone did not find a completely suitable

resting place.’

tired cause.be suitable not someoneQasu-iir-sar-vig-ssar-si-ngit-luinar-nar-puq not place.for find completely 3sg

Input ≠ intake

n After three long nights of gripning, John finallyfound his slipwoggle.

n Knowing so much about the rest of the sentencecan tell us quite a bit about the parts we don’tknow yet. (Slipwoggle is a noun, a possessiblething; to gripen(?) is a verb, a process that one canperform over an extended period of time). We canthen make use of this to build our languageknowledge (here, vocabulary).

Input ≠ intake

n (Krashen) Learner must get comprehensibleinput (mixture of structures acquired andstructures not yet acquired) to advance.

n Input: What is available to the learner.n Intake: Input that is used in grammar-

building.

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What makes input into intake?n Apperception: Recognizing the gap between what L2’er

knows and what there is to know.

n Comprehensibility: Either the semantic meaning isdeterminable or the relevant structural aspects aredeterminable.

n Attention: Selecting aspects of the knowledge to belearned (from among many other possible things) forprocessing.

n Output: Forcing a structural hypothesis, elsewhere usedto shape input into a form useful for intake.

Input Æ apperceptionn Some input is apperceived, some isn’t.n That which isn’t is thought of as blocked by

various “filters”:n Time pressuren Frequency non-extremesn Affective (status, motivation, attitude, …)n Prior knowledge (grounding, analyzability)n Salience (drawing attention)

The Affective FilterHypothesis

n Another aspect of the need forcomprehensible input is that it must be“let in” by the learner. Various “affective”factors like motivation, anxiety, can“block” input and keep it from effectivelyproducing acquisition.

The overall model

n Although Krashen’s “Monitor Model”suffers from a lack of specific testabledetails, it has had a significant impact onL2A research, and has an intuitive appeal.

An interesting idea(courtesy of Carol Neidle)

n If you were to learn French, you would betaught conjugations of regular andirregular verbs. Regular -er verbs have apattern that looks like this:n Infinitive: donner ‘give’n 1sg je donne 1pl nous donnonsn 2sg tu donnes 2pl vous donnezn 3sg il donne 3pl ils donnent

Some French “irregulars”n Infinitive: donner ‘give’n 1sg je donne 1pl nous donnonsn 2sg tu donnes 2pl vous donnezn 3sg il donne 3pl ils donnent

n Another class of verbs including acheter ‘buy’ isclassified as irregular, because the vowel qualitychanges through the paradigm.n Infinitive: ceder ‘yield’n 1sg je cède 1pl nous cédonsn 2sg tu cèdes 2pl vous cédezn 3sg il cède 3pl ils cèdent

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Some French “irregulars”n Infinitive: donner ‘give’n 1sg je donne 1pl nous donnonsn 2sg tu donnes 2pl vous donnezn 3sg il donne 3pl ils donnent

n The way it’s usually taught, you just have tomemorize that in the nous and vous form you have“é” and in the others you have “è”.n Infinitive: ceder ‘yield’n 1sg je cète 1pl nous cédonsn 2sg tu cètes 2pl vous cédezn 3sg il cète 3pl ils cèdent

Some French “irregulars”n However, the pattern makes perfect phonological sense in

French—if you have a closed syllable (CVC), you get è,otherwise you get é.

n [sed] (cède) [se.de] (cédez)n So why is this considered irregular?n Because in English, you think of the sounds in cédez as

[sed.de], due to the rules of English phonology.n Infinitive: ceder ‘yield’n 1sg je cède 1pl nous cédonsn 2sg tu cèdes 2pl vous cédezn 3sg il cède 3pl ils cèdent

Some French “irregulars”n Because in English, you think of the sounds in cédez as

[sed.de], due to the rules of English phonology.n Since in all of these cases, English phonology would have

closed syllables, there’s no generalization to bedrawn—sometimes closed syllables have é and sometimesthey have è.

n What could we do?n Infinitive: ceder ‘yield’n 1sg je cède [sed] 1pl nous cédons [sed.dõ]n 2sg tu cèdes [sed] 2pl vous cédez [sed.de]n 3sg il cède [sed] 3pl ils cèdent [sed]

Some French “irregulars”n If people are really “built for language” and are able to

pick up language implicitly (as seems to be the case fromeverything we’ve been looking at), then if people areprovided with the right linguistic data, they will more orless automatically learn the generalization.

n Problem is: The English filter on the French data isobscuring the pattern, and hiding the generalization.n Infinitive: ceder ‘yield’n 1sg je cède [sed] 1pl nous cédons [sed.dõ]n 2sg tu cèdes [sed] 2pl vous cédez [sed.de]n 3sg il cède [sed] 3pl ils cèdent [sed]

Some French “irregulars”n Something to try: Provide people with the right data, see if

they pick up the pronunciation. Perhaps: exaggeratesyllabification. (attention) Perhaps try to instill this aspectof the phonology first.

n Et voilà. Perhaps this will make these “irregulars” as easyto learn as regulars!n The downside: I have no idea if this would actually work.

n Infinitive: ceder ‘yield’n 1sg je cède “sed” 1pl nous cédons “se—dõ”n 2sg tu cèdes “sed” 2pl vous cédez “se—de”n 3sg il cède “sed” 3pl ils cèdent “sed”

“Incomprehensible input”

n So this is another way in which inputmight be “incomprehensible”—not that itis inherently incomprehensible (i.e. notthat it would be incomprehensible to aL1’er), but that the prism of the L1 is gettingin the way of seeing the data for what itreally is.

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Some critiques on record re:the Monitor Model

n Are acquired and learned rules really stored so separatelythat they cannot interact? Gass & Selinker’s textbookpoints out that “it is counterintuitive to hypothesize thatnothing learned in a formal situation can be a candidatefor [fluent, unconscious speech]”.

n But this doesn’t seem to be a very persuasiveobjection—First, counterintuitiveness is not an argument.Second, even if formal, learned rules are stored completelyseparately, nothing prevents the use of these rules inproduction from providing input to the acquisition system,providing an indirect “conversion” of knowledge.


n G&S also observe (attributing the objection to Gregg)that in Krashen’s model, the Monitor only affects output(speech, writing), but anecdotal evidence for use offormally learned rules in decoding heard utterances iseasy to come by.

n Perhaps this is true of Krashen’s particular statement,but there seems to be no need to toss out all aspects ofhis hypotheses based on an oversight of this sort—itseems easily repairable by extending the model to allowlearned competence to also monitor input and provideinput to the acquired competence.n Of course, Krashen may have meant it, but that’s irrelevant. He’s

one guy with good ideas and bad ideas like anyone.


n Most of the objections to the Monitor Model focus on theimpreciseness of the hypotheses; although Krashen maynot have treated them this way, they clearly must beused only as a starting point, a way to think about theprocess of L2A.

n Further research in this direction needs to be focused ontrying to refine the existing “hypotheses” to yieldtestable (falsifiable) hypotheses with a higher degree ofspecificity.

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GRS LX 700 Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theory

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