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The Bottleneck Hypothesis (Slabakova, 2008, 2013) proposes that acquiring properties of the functional morphology is the most challenging part of learning a second language. In the experiment presented here, the predictions of this hypothesis are tested in the second language (L2) English of Norwegian native speakers. Two constructions are investigated that do not match in English and Norwegian: One involving functional morphology, subject–verb (SV) agreement, which is obligatory in the L2 but non-existent in the first language (L1), and one involving syntax, verb-second (V2) word order, which is obligatory in the L1, but restricted to specific contexts in the L2. The results of an acceptability judgement task indicate that the participants struggled more with identifying ungrammatical SV agreement than ungrammatical word order. We conclude that the findings lend tentative support to the Bottleneck Hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: A number of studies on the acquisition of non-null subject languages in child grammars have suggested that while overt subjects are mainly used with finite forms, null subjects co-occur with non-finite forms. The purpose of this study is to explore the proposed relationship between subject realization and verbal morphology in a simultaneous bilingual context. Design/Methodology/Approach: Longitudinal case study Data and Analysis: The present study analyses longitudinal data from an English-Turkish bilingual child (2;4–3;9), with special reference to the distribution of finite forms and the suppliance of overt subjects on the one hand, and subject drop and the use of non-finite forms, on the other. The English/Turkish data comprise 37 recordings collected regularly for nearly 18 months. Findings/Conclusions: English-Turkish bilingual data show that the majority of the overt subjects in the English language of the bilingual child occur both with inflected and uninflected verb forms. At a time the child has consistent and productive suppliance of overt subjects in his English, he uses uninflected verb forms with overt subjects, suggesting that the proposed association discussed in the literature does not necessarily hold. Moreover, around the same time the bilingual child's Turkish presents robust evidence for the productive and systematic use of inflected forms as well as omission of subjects. Originality and significance/implications: These data, based on a less commonly studied language pair, English-Turkish, challenge previous research that postulates an association between overt subjects and finite forms versus null subjects and non-finite root forms. Overall, there appears to be a relationship between the acquisition of subject–verb agreement in the bilingual child's Turkish and the correct suppliance of overt subjects in his English, suggesting language-particular devices for the realization of person deixis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports the findings of a study in which we investigated the possible effects of word order on the acquisition of case marking. In linguistic typology (e.g. Greenberg, 1963) a very strong correlation has been shown between dominant SOV (subject object verb) word order and case marking. No such correlation exists for SVO (subject verb object) languages. It is possible then that the mind is more likely to expect case marking when confronted with a language with SOV word order but not necessarily so if the language has SVO word order. We tested this hypothesis with 54 naive learners of Latin with English as a first language (L1). The participants were divided into two groups. One received a 100-word input treatment in Latin that contained only simple SOV sentences, and the other received the same input treatment except that the word order of the treatment sentences was SVO. After the treatment, a surprise self-paced reading test that contained grammatical and ungrammatical case-marked sentences was administered. Participants read test items that matched the word order of the treatment they received (i.e. SOV learners read SOV sentences, and SVO learners read SOV sentences). Results showed a significant slowing down on ungrammatical sentences for the SOV group but not for the SVO group. However, on a test of basic sentence comprehension in which case marking was the cue to determine who did what to whom, we found no distinction between the groups. We discuss these findings in light of how typological universals work in languages and what they could mean for language acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines the tradeoff between the on-line construction of modifier-noun gender agreement and verb-subject person/number agreement vs. the automatization and entrenchment of agreement, through the study of bilingual speakers of Spanish and the Afro-Colombian creole language Palenquero, whose lexicon is highly cognate with Spanish, but which lacks morphological agreement. The study focuses on first language (L1) Spanish speakers who are acquiring Palenquero as a second language (L2), since when switching from the modifier- and verb-agreeing L1 to the agreement-less L2, the persistence or absence of agreement in cognate items can be taken as an indirect measure of the cost differential between producing morphosyntactic agreement and suppressing the carryover of obligatory agreement to the L2. The results of experiments, which was conducted with bilingual Spanish-Palenquero speakers in San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia, reveal the tenacity of Spanish gender agreement among L2 Palenquero speakers; heritage Palenquero speakers' retention of gender agreement falls between traditional speakers and L2 speakers. Spanish verb agreement, on the other hand, shows relatively little carry-over to Palenquero, suggesting that the suppression of L1 agreement during L2 acquisition is not a simple all-or-nothing matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate the effects of linguistic input training on second language (L2) syntactic representation entrenchment using English subject–verb agreement structures as the stimuli. Methodology: A pre-test/training/first-post/delayed post-test experimental design was adopted. Sixty Chinese (L1)–English (L2) adult learners participated in the experiments and were randomly assigned to the experimental group (EG) and the control group (CG). In training sessions, EG learned the subject–verb structures, and CG learned other syntactic structures. Data and analysis: Reaction time and comprehension accuracy data were analyzed using a repeated-measures analysis of variance. P2 and P3 signified the key positions of the verb and the word immediately following the verb in the experimental sentence, respectively. For example, the reading time indicator was the time for reading the key positions of the example sentence “The book under the newspaper was interesting”. The words “newspaper”, “was”, and “interesting” were marked as P1, P2, and P3, respectively. Findings/conclusions: At pre-test, there was no difference between the EG and the CG in processing the subject–verb agreement structures. After two sessions of intensive training, the first post-test indicated that the EG had significantly longer reading times for the P2 and P3 positions of the ungrammatical sentences than those of the grammatical versions. The CG showed no differences in reading times. At delayed post-test, the EG had significantly longer reading times for the P3 position for all of the ungrammatical sentences than for the grammatical ones. The CG exhibited no differences in reading times. The results indicated both short-term and long-term efficacy of input training and transfer effects of input on representation entrenchment. Originality: In adult L2 syntactic literature, the current study empirically and directly explored the role of input training in entrenching L2 syntactic representation. Significance: The study suggested that input training can entrench representation. These results support the usage-based theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different theoretical accounts of second language (L2) acquisition differ with respect to whether or not advanced learners are predicted to show native-like processing for features not instantiated in the native language (L1). We examined how native speakers of English, a language with number but not gender agreement, process number and gender agreement in Spanish. We compare agreement within a determiner phrase (órgano muy complejo ‘[DP organ-MASC-SG very complex-MASC-SG]’) and across a verb phrase (cuadro es auténtico ‘painting-MASC-SG [VP is authentic-MASC-SG]’) in order to investigate whether native-like processing is limited to local domains (e.g. within the phrase), in line with Clahsen and Felser (2006). We also examine whether morphological differences in how the L1 and L2 realize a shared feature impact processing by comparing number agreement between nouns and adjectives, where only Spanish instantiates agreement, and between demonstratives and nouns, where English also instantiates agreement. Similar to Spanish natives, advanced learners showed a P600 for both number and gender violations overall, in line with the Full Transfer / Full Access Hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1996), which predicts that learners can show native-like processing for novel features. Results also show that learners can establish syntactic dependencies outside of local domains, as suggested by the presence of a P600 for both within and across-phrase violations. Moreover, similar to native speakers, learners were impacted by the structural distance (number of intervening phrases) between the agreeing elements, as suggested by the more positive waveforms for within-phrase than across-phrase agreement overall. These results are consistent with the proposal that learners are sensitive to hierarchical structure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the findings of a longitudinal study in which two instructional methods to teach agreement features to first-year university students specializing in Spanish in Japan are compared. On the one hand, the control group was exposed to the traditional top-down teaching of agreement paradigms and were instructed to practice them through pattern repetition. On the other, a bottom-up move informed by Vygotsky and Gal’perin’s theories of conceptual formation was induced in the experimental group by using schemata and verbalization during the task of using agreement features. The data suggest that (a) the material expression of conceptual relationships (e.g. through schemata) and (b) the verbal rendition of rules or conceptual connections, and (c) the overall framing of the task as a bottom-up move actually helped acquirers in their mastery of gender and number agreement. The results of the intervention also support Kim and Kellogg (2006) and Centeno-Cortés and Jiménez Jiménez’s (2004) paradoxical view that L1 conceptual elaboration and organization aimed at solving L2 language tasks plays an important role in L2 acquisition. The data seem to indicate that there is room for encouraging learners’ hypothesis-making in the L1 under certain conditions, such as the kind of guided induction designed for this research and the one advanced by Herron and Tomasello (1992), and Tomasello and Herron’s (1988a, 1988b). L2 native instructors who dismiss or suppress acquirers’ talk in their L1 in their communication classes should assess if that talk is part of an important process of hypothesis-making or verbalization of language rules or not and act accordingly. L1 exchanges linked to hypothesis-making or task organization seem to foster L2 development and therefore should not be treated like a waste of time by ‘Communication’ instructors. In sum, the bottom-up move within Vygotsky’s ZPD is suggested as a feasible, although more elaborate intervention, as the findings on the intervention suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Loss of language-specific morphosyntactic structures, as well as the lexicon, is a hallmark of a `heritage language.' Specific to Russian, previous research suggested the lexicalization of grammatical aspect. This study investigated early stages of attrition in bilingual children with Russian as L1, using the narrative retelling paradigm. Narratives of 15 Russian-English bilingual subjects, between the ages of 4;0 and 10;11, were examined for signs of possible grammatical aspect restructuring as well as language-specific case and agreement errors. Fifteen monolingual Russian-speaking children within the same age range were tested in Moscow using the same methodology. Our results show only a few aspectual errors contextually, but none in morphological devices, among bilingual children. However, we found numerous lexical errors, as well as errors in the domain of morphosyntax. We conclude that L1 attrition takes place selectively with grammatical aspect spared in the initial process. An inverse correlation was found between the number of produced errors and the length of uninterrupted L1. Our results also suggest that consistent use of Russian at home and in extra-curricular activities, in addition to the length of uninterrupted L1, slows down the attrition of one's native language, especially in the presence of the dominant L2 language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates morphological vulnerability in incomplete bilingual L1 acquisition. It examines the production of L1 inflections by L2-dominant bilingual children, with the aim of exploring causes of difficulty in agreement marking. Spontaneous data (18 hours) from six Hungarian-English bilingual children, aged seven to nine, is used to compare the production of possessive inflections and verbal inflections, which are expressed by identical surface morphology in Hungarian. Drawing on recent analysis of Hungarian (Alberti, 1995; Szabolcsi, 1994), the paper asks where and why agreement morphology is susceptible to variability in bilingual children's weaker L1. Results indicate significant differences in the accuracy of agreement morphology. Inflections are almost error-free in possessive nominals and subject-verb agreement. However, they are frequently omitted in possessive be-clauses, which can be attributed to a combination of factors: (i) influence of semantic-syntactic properties of English have on Hungarian be possessive construction (transfer from L2); (ii) difficulty with long-distance agreement in Hungarian be-possessives (structural complexity of L1); and (iii) influence of Hungarian existential and locative constructions on possessive-be (ambiguity in L1). It is argued that morphological variability is selective, and the main source of vulnerability is the syntax-semantics interface where the weaker L1 is most susceptible to L2 influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, two accounts of the variable use of inflection in adult second language (L2) acquisition are examined. The Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH) proposes that L2 learners have unconscious knowledge of the functional projections and features underlying tense and agreement. However, learners sometimes have a problem with realization of surface morphology, such that they resort to non-finite forms (e.g. Haznedar and Schwartz, 1997; Prévost and White, 1999). The Impaired Representation Hypothesis (IRH) claims that L2 inflection is essentially impaired, due to lack of functional categories, features or feature strength (e.g. Eubank, 1993/94; Meisel, 1997). These views make different predictions for adult L2 acquisition. Spontaneous production data from two adult learners of French and two adult learners of German are examined. The data show that finite forms do not occur in non-finite contexts, that learners exhibit syntactic reflexes of finiteness and that inflected forms largely show accurate agreement. These results suggest that adult L2 learners represent finiteness and agreement at an abstract level, rather than being impaired in this domain, supporting the MSIH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the acquisition of tense and agreement by L2 learners of French. We looked at whether the features <:tns> and and the categories AGRP and TP emerged simultaneously or in sequence in the learners’ grammars. We conducted interviews with English-speaking children acquiring French as a second language and with grade-matched native-speaker controls once a year for three years. The data were analysed for the productive use of morphosyntax encoding tense and agreement. Results revealed that items encoding agreement emerged before items encoding tense, suggesting that the abstract grammatical structures associated with these morphosyntax items emerge in sequence. The findings are interpreted with respect to three prevailing views on the acquisition of functional phrase structure in L2 acquisition: the Lexical Transfer/Minimal Trees hypothesis (Vainikka and Young-Scholten, 1994; 1996a; 1996b), the Weak Transfer/Valueless Features hypothesis (Eubank, 1993/94; 1994; 1996) and the Full Transfer/Full Access hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994; 1996). Possible reasons for the existence of this acquisition sequence in French are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]