The subject realization in L2 Spanish by German L1 speakers: A corpus study

Anna Kocher

doi:10.5565/rev/isogloss.437

The subject realization in L2 Spanish by German L1 speakers

A corpus study

Authors

Anna Kocher KU Eichstätt-Inglostadt https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7121-6007

PDF

Abstract

This article deals with the realization of referential subjects in the L2 Spanish of German (adult) native speakers. The acquisition of a null subject grammar by speakers of a non-null subject language has drawn considerable attention in generative approaches to L2 acquisition. This article revisits the issue and compares the predictions made by the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace 2005, 2011, Sorace and Filiaci 2006, Tsimpli and Sorace 2006) to an alternative, the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere 2008, Slabakova 2013 Cho and Slabakova 2014). Relying on corpus data, the study presents a novel empirical approach and applies an innovate statistical analysis procedure from learner corpus research. The results of the study corroborate previous empirical findings, namely that pronouns, yet not null subjects, are problematic, but also brings in new insights, in particular that issues with pronouns are consistent and go beyond the contexts predicted by the Interface Hypothesis. The contrasts between L1 and L2 subject realization found in the data therefore can only in part be explained to result from interface issues. The Feature Reassembly Hypothesis offers a suitable additional explanation relating the issues to the properties of the L1 and L2 learnability.

Keywords

null subjects, pronouns, L2 acquisition, interface, Spanish

References

BBallester, Elisabeth Pladevall. 2010. Child L2 development of syntactic and discourse properties of Spanish subjects. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 185–216.

Bel, Aurora, and Estela García-Alcaraz. 2015. Subject Pronouns in the L2 Spanish of Moroccan Arabic Speakers. The Acquisition of Spanish in Understudied Language Pairings, 201–32.

Bessett, Ryan M. 2018. Testing English Influence on First Person Singular ‘Yo’ Subject Pronoun Expression in Sonoran Spanish. Contemporary Trends in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics.

Bosch, Peter, Tom Rozario, and Yufan Zhao. 2003. Demonstrative Pronouns and Personal Pronouns: German Der vs Er. In Proceedings of the 2003 EACL Workshop on the Computational Treatment of Anaphora.

Breiman, Leo. 2001. Random Forests. Machine Learning 45:5–32.

Brucart, José M. 1987. La Elisión Sintáctica En Español. Univ. Autònoma de Barcelona.

Carminati, Maria Nella. 2002. The Processing of Italian Subject Pronouns. PhD Thesis, University of Massachsetts.

Cho, Jacee, and Roumyana Slabakova. 2014. Interpreting Definiteness in a Second Language without Articles: The Case of L2 Russian. Second Language Research 30 (2): 159–90.

Clements, Maria, and Laura Domínguez. 2017. Reexamining the Acquisition of Null Subject Pronouns in a Second Language: Focus on Referential and Pragmatic Constraints. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 7 (1): 33–62.

Cruschina, Silvio. 2019. Focus Fronting in Spanish: Mirative Implicature and Information Structure. Probus 31 (1): 119–46.

Domínguez, Laura. 2013. Understanding Interfaces. Lald.55. John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://benjamins.com/catalog/lald.55.

Domínguez, Laura, and María J Arche. 2014. Subject Inversion in Non-Native Spanish. Lingua 145:243–65.

Domínguez, Laura, and María J. Arche. 2022. Early Use of Null and Overt Subjects in L2 Spanish: Evidence from Two Oral Tasks. In Kevin McManus and Monika S. Schmid (eds.), How Special Are Early Birds?: Foreign Language Teaching and Learning, 189–224. Berlin: Language Science Press. https://zenodo.org/record/6811471.

Dufter, Andreas, and Christoph Gabriel. 2016. Information Structure, Prosody, and Word Order. In Susann Fischer and Christoph Gabriel (eds.), Manual of Grammatical Interfaces in Romance, 419–56. Amsterdam: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110311860-017.

Etxebarria Zuluaga, Eider. 2022. Development of Pronominal Expression in School-Age Children: Basque-Spanish Contact. PhD Thesis, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

García-Alcaraz, Estela, and Aurora Bel. 2019. Does Empirical Data from Bilingual and Native Spanish Corpora Meet Linguistic Theory? The Role of Discourse Context in Variation of Subject Expression. Applied Linguistics Review 10 (4): 491–515. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2017-0101.

Granfeldt, Jonas. 2008. Speaking and Writing in L2 French: Exploring Effects on Fluency, Accuracy and Complexity. In Proceedings of the Conference on Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency in Second Language Use, Learning and Teaching, 87–98. Koninklijke Vlaamse Academi Brussels.

Gries, Stefan Th. 2020. On Classification Trees and Random Forests in Corpus Linguistics: Some Words of Caution and Suggestions for Improvement. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 16 (3): 517–647.

Gries, Stefan Th. 2022. MuPDAR for Corpus-Based Learner and Variety Studies: Two (More) Suggestions for Improvement. In Susanne Flach and Martin Hilpert (eds.), Broadening the Spectrum of Corpus Linguistics. New Approaches to Variability and Change, 257–83. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Gries, Stefan Th., and Sandra C. Deshors. 2020. There’s More to Alternations than the Main Diagonal of a 2×2 Confusion Matrix: Improvements of MuPDAR and Other Classificatory Alternation Studies. ICAME Journal 44:69–96.

Grimshaw, Jane, and Vieri Samek-Lodovici. 1998. Optimal Subjects and Subject Universals. In Pilar Barbosa, Danny Fox, Paul Hagstrom, Martha McGinnis, and David Pesetsky (eds.), Is the Best Good Enough? Optimality and Competition in Syntax, 193–219. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Herbeck, Peter. 2022. Variable First Person Singular Subject Expression in Spoken Valencian Catalan. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 21 (December):129–57. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/catjl.380.

Höhn, Georg. Demonstratives and personal pronouns. Cambridge occasional papers in Linguistics 8 (2015): 84-105.

Hothorn, Torsten, Kurt Hornik, and Achim Zeileis. 2006. Unbiased Recursive Partitioning: A Conditional Inference Framework. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics 15 (3): 651–74.

Kuiken, Folkert, Ineke Vedder, and P. Robinson. 2011. Task Complexity and Linguistic Performance in L2 Writing and Speaking. Second Language Task Complexity. https://www.torrossa.com/gs/resourceProxy?an=5016555&publisher=FZ4850#page=104.

Lardiere, Donna. 2008. Feature Assembly in Second Language Acquisition. In The Role of Formal Features in Second Language Acquisition. Routledge.

Laufer, Batia, and Stig Eliasson. 1993. What Causes Avoidance in L2 Learning: L1-L2 Difference, L1-L2 Similarity, or L2 Complexity? Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15 (1): 35–48.

Liceras, Juana M. 1989. On Some Properties of the ‘pro-Drop’ Parameter: Looking for Missing Subjects in Non-Native Spanish. In Jacquelyn Schachter and Susan M. Gass (eds.), Linguistic Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition, 109–33. Cambridge Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139524544.009.

Liceras, Juana M., and Lourdes Díaz. 1999. Topic-Drop versus pro-Drop: Null Subjects and Pronominal Subjects in the Spanish L2 of Chinese, English, French, German and Japanese Speakers. Second Language Research 15 (1): 1–40.

Lozano, Cristóbal. 2002. The Interpretation of Overt and Null Pronouns in Non-Native Spanish. In H. Marsden, S. Pourcel & M. Whong-Bharr (eds.), Durham Working Papers in Linguistics 8, 53–66. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Lozano, Cristóbal. 2009. Selective Deficits at the Syntax-Discourse Interface: Evidence from the CEDEL2 Corpus. https://digibug.ugr.es/handle/10481/22165.

Lozano, Cristóbal. 2022. CEDEL2: Design, Compilation and Web Interface of an Online Corpus for L2 Spanish Acquisition Research. Second Language Research 38 (4): 965–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/02676583211050522.

Mayol, Laia. 2010. Contrastive Pronouns in Null-Subject Romance Languages. Lingua 120:2497–2514.

Mitchell, Rosamond, Laura Domínguez, María J. Arche, Florence Myles, and Emma Marsden. 2008. SPLLOC: A New Database for Spanish Second Language Acquisition Research. EUROSLA Yearbook 8 (1): 287–304. https://doi.org/10.1075/eurosla.8.15smit.

Molnar, Christoph. 2019. Interpretable Machine Learning. A Guide for Making Black Box Models Explainable. https://christophm.github.io/interpretable-ml-book.

Montrul, Silvina, and Celeste Rodríguez Louro. 2006. Beyond the Syntax of the Null Subject Parameter. In Linda Escobar and Vicent Torrens (eds.), The Acquisition of Syntax in Romance Languages, 401–18. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Orozco, Rafael, and Luz Marcela Hurtado. 2021. A Variationist Study of Subject Pronoun Expression in Medellín, Colombia. Languages 6 (1): 5. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6010005.

Pérez-Leroux, Ana T., and William R. Glass. 1999. Null Anaphora in Spanish Second Language Acquisition: Probabilistic versus Generative Approaches. Second Language Research 15 (2): 220–49.

Phinney, Marianne. 1987. The Pro-Drop Parameter in Second Language Acquisition. In Thomas Roeper and Edwin Williams (eds.), Parameter Setting, 221–38. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3727-7_10.

Quesada, Margaret Lubbers. 2015. The L2 Acquisition of Spanish Subjects. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Rothman, Jason. 2008. Pragmatic Deficits with Syntactic Consequences?: L2 Pronominal Subjects and the Syntax–Pragmatics Interface. Journal of Pragmatics 41:951–73.

Rothman, Jason, and Michael Iverson. 2007. The Syntax of Null Subjects in L2 Spanish: Comparing Two L2 Populations under Different Exposure. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada 20:185–216.

Schepens, Job J., Frans Van der Slik, and Roeland Van Hout. 2016. L1 and L2 Distance Effects in Learning L3 Dutch. Language Learning 66 (1): 224–56.

Schmitz, Katrin, Marisa Patuto, and Natascha Müller. 2012. The Null-Subject Parameter at the Interface between Syntax and Pragmatics: Evidence from Bilingual German-Italian, German-French and French-Italian Children. First Language 32 (1–2): 205–38.

Schmitz, Katrin, Laura Di Venanzio, and Anna-Lena Scherger. 2016. Null and Overt Subjects in Italian and Spanish Heritage Speakers in Germany. Lingua 180:101–23.

Serratrice, Ludovica. 2007. Cross-Linguistic Influence in the Interpretation of Anaphoric and Cataphoric Pronouns in English–Italian Bilingual Children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 10 (3): 225–38.

Serratrice, Ludovica. 2008. Null and Overt Subjects at the Syntax-Discourse Interface: Evidence from Monolingual and Bilingual Acquisition. LOT Occasional Series, 181–200.

Shin, Naomi Lapidus, and Daniel Erker. 2015. The Emergence of Structured Variability in Morphosyntax: Childhood Acquisition of Spanish Subject Pronouns. Subject Pronoun Expression in Spanish: A Cross-Dialectal Perspective 1696190.

Slabakova, Roumyana. 2013. What Is Easy and What Is Hard to Acquire in a Second Language: A Generative Perspective. In María del Pilar García Mayo, María Juncal Gutiérrez Mangado, and María Martínez-Adrián (eds.), Contemporary Approaches to Second Language Acquisition, 5–28. AILA Applied Linguistics Series. John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.9.04ch1.

Sorace, Antonella. 2005. Selective Optionality in Language Development. In Leonie Cornips and Karen P. Corrigan (eds.), Syntax and Variation,55–80. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Sorace, Antonella. 2011. Pinning down the Concept of ‘Interface’ in Bilingualism. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 1 (1): 1–33.

Sorace, Antonella, and Francesca Filiaci. 2006. Anaphora Resolution in Near-Native Speakers of Italian. Second Language Research 22:339–68.

Sorace, Antonella, and Ludovica Serratrice. 2009. Internal and External Interfaces in Bilingual Language Development: Beyond Structural Overlap. International Journal of Bilingualism 13 (2): 195–210.

Strobl, Carolin, James Malley, and Gerhard Tutz. 2009. An Introduction to Recursive Partitioning: Rationale, Application, and Characteristics of Classification and Regression Trees, Bagging, and Random Forests. Psychological Methods 14 (4): 323–48.

Tagliamonte, Sali A., and Harald R. Baayen. 2012. Models, Forests, and Trees of York English: “Was/Were” Variation as a Case Study for Statistical Practice. Language Variation and Change 24 (2): 135–78.

Torres Cacoullos, Rena, and Catherine E. Travis. 2011. Testing Convergence via Code-Switching: Priming and the Structure of Variable Subject Expression. International Journal of Bilingualism 15 (3): 241–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006910371025.

Torres Cacoullos, Rena, and Catherine E. Travis. 2019. Variationist Typology: Shared Probabilistic Constraints across (Non-)Null Subject Languages. Linguistics 57 (3): 653–92. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2019-0011.

Travis, Catherine E., and Rena Torres Cacoullos,. 2012. What Do Subject Pronouns Do in Discourse? Cognitive, Mechanical and Constructional Factors in Variation. Cognitive Linguistics 23 (4): 711–48. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2012-0022.

Trutkowski, Ewa. 2010. Referential Null Subjects in German. In Chris Cummings, Chi-Hé Elder, Thomas Godard, Morgan Macleon, Elaine Schmidt, and George Walkden (eds.), CamLing 2010: Proceedings of the Sixth Cambridge Postgraduate Conference in Language Research,, 206–217. Cambridge: Cambridge Institute of Language Research (CILR).

Trutkowski, Ewa. 2016. Topic Drop and Null Subjects in German. Topic Drop and Null Subjects in German. Berlin: de Gruyter.

Tsimpli, Ianthi-Maria, and Antonella Sorace. 2006. Differentiating Interfaces: L2 Performance in Syntax-Semantics and Syntax-Discourse Phenomena. In David Bamman, Tatiana Magnitskaia and Colleen Zaller (eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BU), 653–64. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Tsimpli, Ianthi-Maria, Antonella Sorace, Caroline Heycock, and Francesca Filiaci. 2004. First Language Attrition and Syntactic Subjects: A Study of Greek and Italian near-Native Speakers of English. International Journal of Bilingualism 8:257–77.

Vallduví, Enric. 1992. The Information Component. New York: Garland.

Vande, An Casteele, and Alejandro Palomares Ortiz. 2022. An Exploratory Study on Pro-Drop in a Written Description Task in L2 Spanish. International Review of Applied Linguistics 60 (2): 437–62.

Weiß, Helmut, and Volodina, Anna. 2018. Referential null subjects in German: Dialects and diachronic continuity. In Federica Cognola and Jan Casalicchio (eds.), Null Subjects in Generative Grammar: A Synchronic and Diachronic Perspective, 261-284. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wilson, Frances. 2009. Processing at the Syntax-Discourse Interface in Second Language Acquisition. PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh.