Universals of Word Formation Processes: Noun Incorporation in the Acquisition of Samoan as a Second...

Language Learning 44:4, December 1994, pp. 569-615

Universals of Word Formation Processes: Noun Incorporation in the Acquisition of

Samoan as a Second Language

Peter Robinson University of Queensland

This study examines the influence of a proposed implicational hierarchy (Mithun, 1984) and constraints of Universal Grammar (Baker, 1988) on the acquisition of noun incorporation processes by 29 adult learners of Sa- moan, compared to the performance of a control group of 11 native Samoan speakers. The methodology involved reaction time, grammaticality judgment and response certainty measures of the processing difficulty and acceptability of examples of noun incorporation for English speaking learners of Samoan, with the latter measure giving the clearest support for two hypothesized orders of difficulty.

Despite recent claims that lexical knowledge can trigger the

I am grateful to William O'Grady of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii, who encouraged this project as a term paper for his course on syntactic analysis, and to the following for their comments: Dean Mellow, Robert Bley-Vroman, and John Mayer. Versions of this paper were presented at the American Association of Applied Linguistics conference, held in Seattle, Washington during March 1992, and Second Language Research Forum, held in East Lansing, Michigan during April 1992.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to the author at Centre for Language Teaching and Research, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072 Australia. Telephone (07) 365-6897. E-mail: [email protected]

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570 Language Learning Vol. 44, No. 4

realization that particular syntactic configurations apply in a language (Clahsen, 1992; Pinker, 1989; Randall, 1992), there has been little research into the relationship between language universals and the acquisition of lexical processes. In particular, developmental studies of the acquisition of word formation processes in first language acquisition (e.g., Bowerman, 1974, 1976; Clark, 1981,1982; Clark & Berman, 1984; Downing, 1977) have been based on descriptive classifications (e.g., Adams, 1973; Marchand, 1969) that have had little t o say about the question of markedness and universals from either a typological (e.g., Ander- son, 1985; Greenberg, 1966; Comrie, 1989) or a Chomskyan perspective (Chomsky, 1981). However, at the level of syntax and phrase structure, notions ofmarkedness and universals have been central t o the issue of learnability (e.g., Pinker, 1989) and specu- lation about the mechanisms necessary for acquiring knowledge of language (e.g., Benvick, 1985; Borer & Wexler, 1987; Williams, 1981).

No doubt this orientation partly reflects the fact that, t o date, little work in descriptive or theoretical linguistics has motivated universal-theoretic approaches to word formation acquisition. (Although this position is now changing; see Baker, 1988; Di Sciullo & Williams, 1987.) Instead, explanations for the emer- gence of word formation abilities in child language have been motivated by appeal either t o the general processing complexity of the operations involved in interpreting and producing new forms or to input factors such as frequency of use of a word formation device in parental speech.

Specifically, explanation of the degree of difficulty of acquiring L1 word formation patterns has focused on (a) the relative simplicity of different word-forms, (b) their semantic transparency of meaning, and (c) their productivity or frequency of use (Clark, 1981, 1983, 1993). For example, semantic transparency (the principle that known elements with one-to-one form-meaning mappings will be preferred in forming new words) accurately predicts, in child L1 development, that new nouns will initially be formed by compounding already known nouns (Downing, 1977).

Robinson 571

At a later stage, word formation processes make use of potentially ambiguous morphemes, like agentive er, only after they have been functionally distinguished from possibly confusing morphemes, such as comparative er. Children also seem to progressively complexify the innovations they produce, making as few “formal” changes as possible in new word forms-to the extent of keeping the base forms of new words intact (e.g., saying pompous-ity, instead of pompos-ity, or electrik-ity instead of electric-ity ; cf. Aitchison, 1987; Romaine, 19831, and t o favor those formation processes that appear t o be most “productive” in adult speech, for example using ness to form nouns, rather than the less common ity (Aitchison, 1987; Clark, 1993; Clark & Berman, 1984). Children’s coinage of new verb forms typically begins at a stage about the age of 2, when novel verbs are used intransitively, with an ador role, o r transitively, with agent and patient roles. Subsequently, the discovery of other properties of verbs, notably causativity, leads to an expansion of forms for describing actions, often constructed from nouns (Bowerman, 1974; Clark, 1993).

Few researchers have studied the second language acquisition of word formation processes, but what studies there are (e.g., Olshtain, 1987; Broeder, Extra, Van Hout, & Voionmaa, 1993) make no reference t o notions of markedness and universals. Their motivation for developmental predictions is basically quantitative, and they usually hypothesize that increased passive recognition and productive use of novel word forms will increase with increased target language proficiency. In contrast, this paper examines evidence for the influence of (a) a markedness hierarchy (Mithun, 1984,1986); and (b) Universal Grammar (Baker, 1988) on the acquisition of one example of a word formation process, that of noun incorporation (NI) by English-speaking learners of Sa- moan as a second language.

Noun Incorporation and Implicational Universals

Baker (1988) argued that noun incorporation is a syntactic process that involves moving a noun from an independent base


structure position t o combine with the verb in the surface syntax. True NI occurs in languages like Onondaga and Southern Tiwa, where the resulting noun-verb compounds function as the main verbs of their clause. This is distinct from the process of noun-verb compounding in English; for example, Pat is a hopeless money- loser, where the resulting compounds are deverbal nouns (Baker, 1988, p. 78). Mithun (1984, pp. 870-8721, in contrast, has argued that noun incorporation is not syntactic, and has proposed a discourse-functional explanation for the evolution of NI across languages and identified a resulting implicational hierarchy.' She claimed that once NI appears in a language, it develops along an invariant path. Stage 1 involves lexical compounding in which a noun and verb combine t o form an intransitive verb. Stage 2 allows an oblique argument t o assume the syntactic role vacated by the incorporated noun. At Stage 3, nouns reflecting known information are incorporated t o narrow the scope of the verb, fulfilling a discourse organizing function. Finally, in Stage 4 a generic noun is incorporated to qualify the verb, along with a more specific NP that identifies the implied referent. Occurrence of Stage 4 processes in a language implies occurrence of all the others. Each stage, then, in the evolution of NI in a language corresponds to the development of a particular type of incorporation. For example, in Stage 1 a verb and noun are combined t o form an intransitive predicate (Type 1 incorporation). The incorporated noun no longer has referential status, and loses marking for number and definite- ness; for example:

l a . Gu bea chuwqiy ea mareaw I PRES buy CONN copra I am buying copra

lb. Gu bea chuwaay' mareaw I PRES buy copra I am copra-buying

(Yapese: from Mithun, 1984, p. 850)

At Stage 2, NI involves a change in case relations, as in the following example, where in the unincorporated sentence (Ex- ample Za) the direct object is face, marked by -yos-, whereas in

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Example 2b, the direct object, after incorporation, has changed to the owner of the face:

2a. s-opa a-yos-ey his-face I-it-wash I washed his face

I-him-face-wash I face-washed him

2b. a-s-opa-ey

(Tupinamba: from Mithun, 1984, p. 857)

Stage 3 involves the same process of incorporation as in Stages 1 and 2, but the motive and context for the incorporation are different. Here the object NP is incorporated for the purpose of backgrounding it as information. In the following example, meat is originally unincorporated but subsequent reference t o meat is incorporated-an index of the speaker/writer’s decision t o reduce its prominence as known information in the discourse. (See Giv6n, 1984; Haiman, 1985, for similar analyses.)

3. askeman ti-’-kwa nakatl. nu’ ipanima ni-naka-kwa. never you-it-eat meat I always 1-meat-eat.

(Nahuatl: from Mithun, 1984, p. 860)

These three types of incorporation, then, all involve altering the argument structure of the verb so that an internal argument is satisfied within the verb. Where the verb only takes one internal argument, this results in a detransitivization of the verb (Type 1). Where it takes two internal arguments, then incorporation of direct object frees the oblique t o receive accusative case (Type 2). The motive for both ofthese types ofincorporation can bediscoursal, so that a previously unincorporated Np is subsequently incorporated as a way of backgrounding already known information (Type 3). However, in the fourth Stage of NI the incorporated noun does not satisfy an argument of the verb; it serves only t o classify semantically the direct object NP. The classifier noun is a more general superordinate term, as in the following example:

4. bene-dulg-nun mangaralaljmayn they.two-tree-saw cashew.nut They saw a cashew tree


In this case the incorporated noun tree serves to classify the object "cashew. Mithun's( 1984) hierarchy isthusTypdStage 1<2<3<4.

Noun Incorporation and Universal Grammar

Linguists working within the Chomskyan framework of Uni- versal Grammar take a different perspective on language universals. Recent work in this framework has proposed that lexical processes like word formation are sensitive to the same restrictions that govern the acceptability of larger syntactic structures of a language. In particular, Baker (1988) claimed that incorporated forms are derived from deep structure via a syntactic process of head movement that conforms t o the Empty Category Principle (ECP): that is, a moved element must c-command its trace, and there must be no barriers along the c-command path (Chomsky, 1981). For instance, the following examples, from Onondaga (see Baker, 1988, p. 76) are thematic paraphrases, with the verb assigning accusative case to money, but they differ in that in Example 5b the direct object has been incorporated into the verb stem, whereas in Example 5a it is a separate word.

5a. Pet wa? -ha-htu-? t-a? ne? o-hwist-a? Pat PAST-3MS/3N-lost-CAUS-ASP the PRE- money-SUF Pat lost the money

Pat PAST-3MS-money-lost-CAUS-ASP Pat lost money

5b. Pet wa? -ha-hwist-ahtu-? t-a?

Because the two sentences display the same thematic assignment relationship, then, following the Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis (Baker, 1988, p. 46) that N P s receiving the same theta roles must occupy the same position in deep structure, the deep structure for both the sentences must be:

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6. S - N P VP

Pat v I

V htu-?t

lose

N P I

N' N

hwist money

For Example 5a, the unincorporated version, inflectional morphology is added t o produce the surface form of the sentence; but for Example 5b an additional movement adjoins the structurally lower NP t o the verb. The Projection Principle (Chomsky, 1981; Baker, 1988, p. 34) states that movement cannot destroy themati- cally relevant structure, so the surface structure for Example 5b is:

7. S - N P VP

Pat v A

Ni + V hwist- htu-?t money-lose

N P I

N' Ni t i

For the surface structure to be well-formed, the movement must conform t o the ECP; that is, a trace must be properly governed. For A, the moved element, t o properly govern B, the trace, A and B must be co-indexed. A must also c-command B, and there must be no barriers on the c-command path. An X P is a barrier if it is not a complement of A, and if it has a head distinct from the head of the moved element. In the example above, the ECP is satisfied. A, the


moved element, and B, its trace, are co-indexed by antecedent indexing. A c-commands B, and the only potential barrier t o government, NP, is a complement and has a head, N, identical with that of the moved element. The ECP would be violated if incorporation were from the subject NP, as in Example 8, where c- command between A and B does not hold:

8. *S - NP VP I -

N v NP I ”

I A

N Ni I Ni + V

t Pat- lose money

I In the following section, I introduce examples of incorpora-

tion in Samoan and locate them in relation to (a) the implicational hierarchyofMithun(1984), and(b) theprinciplesofwell-formedness underlying proposals about Universal Grammar discussed above; that is, conformity to the ECP. I then describe a study of the acquisition of Samoan word formation, using grammaticality judgments and reaction times as measures, and discuss the results in the light of the above, proposed, universal constraints on such processes.

Noun Incorporation in Samoan

Samoan word order. Samoan is a verb initial language, although “the order ofpost verbal phrases is very free”(Hovdhaugen, 1985, p. 861, with a preference for VSO in literary forms.3 Samoan is an ergative language, in which NPs serving as the subject of transitive verbs are marked with e when they follow the verb. Intransitive subjects following the verb, and all direct objects, receive no casemarking (Ochs, 1985; Trask, 197914 The verb can combine with up t o three NPs and a number of temporal phrases

Robinson 577

whose position is not fixed. Sproat (1985) has proposed an analysis of verb initial languages in which they are derived from deep structure SVO order by movement ofthe verb to Infl, then to Comp. This analysis is adopted and illustrated in the following section.

Grammatical Noun Incorporation in Samoan

Lexical compounding. Mithun’s (1984) first category of incorporation, detransitivizing noun compounding, is very productive in Samoan. It leaves an empty NP after incorporation, giving the DS in Example 10 for Example l l a below.

9. CP DS A

C IP A

NP I‘ A A

det “ I VP

the boy PST v N I

A V NP

drive A det N

N the car

le tama ave le taavale

The surface structure ofthe incorporated sentence in Example 1 lb below is derived by a series of head movement operations, as shown in the structure of Example 10.


10. CP ss - C IP

PST,+V,+Ni Idriue-car xN ~ I' 0

det N' VP I

the boy PST,+Vi + N i v A

Vj ;N, NP n

na'ave-taavale le tama

First, the noun cur is moved from its position as complement of V t o attach t o the verb (Chomsky adjunction: Chomsky, 1986). Then V+N are moved up to I d , where they attach to PST, giving PST+v+n. Finally Infl is moved up to the empty C position. Each of these movements satisfies the ECP, so the traces are properly governed. The resulting order of morphemes in the h a l incorporated verb, PST-V-N reflects the sequence of movement operations via which the surface structure was derived, thus conforming t o the Mirror Principle (Baker, 1985,1988, p. 13). The same analysis applies to all other examples of Samoan noun incorporation given below.

1 la.

1 lb.

12a.

12b.

13a.

13b.

nu 'ave e le tama le taauale PST drive the boy the car nu 'ave-taauale le tuna PST drive-car the boy nu fana e le tama le lupe PST shoot the boy the dove nu fana-lupe le tama PST shoot-dove the boy nu inu e le tama le pia PST drink the boy the beer nu inu-pia le tama PST drink-beer the boy

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14a. nu ai e le teine le mago PST eat the girl the mango

14b. nu ai-mago le teine PST eat-mango the girl

15a. nu faitau e le tama le tusi PST read the boy the book

15b. nu faitau-tusi le tama PST read-book the boy

16a. sa fau e le tama le fale PST build the boy the house

16b. sa fau-fale le tama PST build-house the boy

Classifier incorporation. The occurrence of classifier incorporation (CI) (Mithun’s, 1984, Type 4) in a language implies the occurrence of all the other forms of incorporation discussed previously. However CI is not characteristic of Samoan; all of the following examples having been judged unacceptable by native speaker^.^

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

*naia fualaau-fofoe le fai PST he fruit-peeled the banana *na la aina-ai le keke PST he meal-ate a cake *na inu-faafau le pia PST she drink-bought the beer *sa manu-faatau le maile PST I animal-bought a dog *sa laau-vaai i le mago PST I tree-saw a mango *sa ou ofu-su’i pulepule PST I dress-made a polka dotted one

In Research Questions and Hypotheses below, I discuss the motivation for, and implications of, using examples of this type in grammaticality judgment and reaction-time measures in light of such examples’ nonoccurrence in Samoan.

Ungrammatical Noun Incorporation in Samoan

Incorporation from a complement. According to Baker (19881,


incorporation of a noun from a prepositional complement violates the ECP because the trace has a head distinct from the moved element. The following analysis shows why, in Baker’s theory, movement from a prepositional complement violates the ECP.

23. *CP DS n

C IP

NP I‘ - - de t N‘ I VP

N I the boy v

A

A V PP

V + Ni P NP A n

watch-television I N Ni

In this analysis, the first movement operation is blocked. The moved element c-commands its trace, but there is a barrier to government because the head of the X P above B (PP) has a head (PI that is distinct from that of the moved element. Because this movement is blocked, incorporation cannot take place into V, making Example 24b below ungrammatical.

24a.

24b.

25a.

25b.

26a.

26b.

0100 matamata le tama i le televise PRES watch the boy aWto the television *oleo matamata-televise le tama PRES watch-television the boy sa tao le moa i le ogaumu PST roast the chicken in the oven *sa tao-oguamu le moa PST roast-oven the chicken sa latou malaga mai i le va’a PST they travelled in the boat *sa latou malaga-va’a rnai PST they travelled-boat

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27a. sa nofo le tama i le nofoe PST sit the boy in the chair

27b. *sa nofo-nofoa le tama PST sit-chair the boy

28a. sa taalo le tama i le paka PST play the boy in the park

28b. *sa taalo-paka le tama PST play-park the boy

29a. sa nofo le teine i le laulau PST stand the girl on the table

29b. *sa nofo-laulau le teine PST stand-table the girl

Incorporation from a modifier. According to Baker (1988, p. SS), another reason for an ECP violation is when incorporation is from a modifier. Because the following all contain incorporations from time phrases, which are modifiers, they should all violate the ECP.

30. *CP DS e C IP -

NP I' n A

det N' I VP I N PST

v\ the boy - V NP NP A ,-.I

V + Ni det N P I drink-yesterday N N'

N Ni the beer t

31a.

31b.

32a.

nu inu e le tama le pia ananafi PST drank the boy the beer yesterday *na inu-ananafi e le tama le pia PST drank-yesterday the boy the beer sa leoleo le tama i le PO PST guard the boy at the night

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32b.

33a.

33b.

34a.

34b.

35a.

35b.

Language Learning Vol. 44, No. 4

*sa leoleo-po le tama PST night-watch the boy E alu i le lotu i le Assosa PRES he goes to church on Sunday *E ah-assosa i le lotu PRES he goes-Sunday to church E faitautusi nanei PRES he reads tonight *E faitautusi-nanei PRES he reads-tonight sa matou malolo anapo PST we rested last night *sa matou malolo-anapo PST we rested-last night

Research Questions and Hypotheses

I wished t o investigate seven types of sentences. The seven types, as previously discussed, relate t o two distinct claims about the influence of language universals on knowledge of second language word formation rules. Types 1 t o 3 are motivated by research questions concerning the influence of the implicational hierarchy proposed by Mithun (1984,19861, and are summarized in Table 1 below. Type 1 is an unincorporated sentence. Type 2 corresponds t o the first type of incorporation Mithun discusses, which is very productive in Samoan, detransitivizing noun compounding (see above). Type 3 corresponds to the most marked form of noun incorporation discussed by Mithun, classifier incorporation. Types 4-7 are motivated by research questions concerning the influence of Universal Grammar and ECP violations and are summarized in Table 2 below. Type 4 sentences are unincorporated sentences with complements, and Type 5 sentences are the counterpart ECP violations in which incorporation has taken place from a complement. Type 6 sentences are unincorporated sentences with modifiers, and Type 7 sentences are the counterpart ECP violations in which incorporation has taken place from a modifier.

Tabl

e 1

Impl

icat

iona

lly M

otiv

ated

Sen

tenc

e Ty

pes

Type

1

c Ty

pe 2

<

Type

3

-inco

rpor

atio

n +i

ncor

pora

tion

+inc

orpo

ratio

n +o

ccur

ring

+occ

urrin

g -o

ccur

ring

-E

CP

viol

atio

n -E

CP

viol

atio

n -E

CP

viol

atio

n un

inco

rpor

ated

em

pty

NP

inco

rpor

atio

n cl

assi

fier i

ncor

pora

tion

Tabl

e 2

Uni

vers

al G

ram

mar

Mot

ivat

ed S

ente

nce

Type

s

Type

4

Type

5

Type

6

Type

7

-inco

rpor

atio

n +i

ncor

pora

tion

-inco

rpor

atio

n +i

ncor

pora

tion

(fro

m c

ompl

emen

t) (f

rom

mod

ifier

) +o

ccur

ring

-occ

urri

ng

+occ

urrin

g -o

ccur

ring

-E

CP

viol

atio

n +E

CP

viol

atio

n -E

CP

viol

atio

n +E

CP

viol

atio

n

com

plem

ent

stru

ctur

e in

corp

orat

ed

com

plem

ent

mod

ifier

st

ruct

ure

inco

rpor

ated

m

odifi

er


Implicationally Motivated Sentence Types

Some results from research on implicational universals, of the type identified for noun incorporation by Mithun (19841, appear to support claims that more marked structures correlate with apparent areas of difficulty in second language acquisition. (See, e.g., Doughty, 1991; Eckman, Bell, & Nelson, 1988; Gass, 1979; Pavesi, 1986; on the acquisition of relative clause formation and the influence of the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy.) Eckman’s (1977, 1985) markedness differential hypothesis predicts that the more marked incorporation processes on Mithun’s hierarchy will be more difficult t o acquire for an L2 learner whose L1 has no productive examples of noun-verb incorporation (as in English). But would the degree of difficulty suggested by the implicational relations in fact be reflected in reaction time, certainty, and accuracy measures to implicational type sentences?

Universal Grammar Motivated Sentence Types

There are contrary views of the influence of Universal Gram- mar on the development of second language syntactic knowledge. Bley-Vroman’s (1989) fundamental difference hypothesis claimed that access t o initial UG principles is cut off for adult second language learners, so claims about difficulty and stages of acquisition based on UG are of no relevance. On the other hand, both Flynn (1987, 1993) and White (1989), among others, claim that there is evidence to support the continued availability of UG in second language acquisition, and that therefore difficulties and stages in L2 acquisition can be predicted successfully by UG theory. This hypothesis could be tested by such sentence types as those illustrated in Table 2 above.

Research Hypotheses

In all cases it is expected that NS responses will be faster, more certain and more accurate than NNS responses.

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The first set of hypotheses attempts t o predict the effect of implicational relations on judgments:

Hypothesis 1. More marked examples, that is, Type 3 sentences, will elicit slower reaction times than Type 2 and Type 1 as an index of processing difficulty.

Hypothesis 2. Type 3 sentences will also elicit a greater number of uncertain responses than Type 2, and Type 2 will elicit a greater number than Type 1, because learners are more likely to avoid categorical judgments in the case of difficult, marked items than they are where the items are less difficult and marked.

Hypothesis 3. More marked Type 3 sentences will also elicit a greater number of inaccurate responses than Type 2 sentences, with Type 1 sentences being most accurate.

The second set of hypotheses bears on the effect of ECP violations on judgments:

Hypothesis 4. The ECP violations, Types 5 and 7, will elicit slower reaction times than Types 4 and 6 as an index of processing difficulty.

Hypothesis 5. The ECP violations, Types 5 and 7, will elicit a greater number of uncertain responses than Types 4 and 6 as an index of the difficulty of matching these sentences with possible structures in the language.

Types 5 and 7 will elicit a greater number of inaccurate responses than Types 4 and 6, in proportion t o the degree to which learners are sensitive to the UG violations in those sentences, great inaccuracy being evidence for no sensitivity, marginal inaccuracy being evidence for sensitivity.

Hypothesis 6.

Method

Participants

The participants were 29 native speakers of English who had been enrolled for between two and three semesters in Samoan


language programs at the University of Hawaii a t Manoa. There was a control group of 11 native Samoan speakers. The native speakers came from a variety of backgrounds. All had been brought up in Samoa, then had come to live in Hawaii, where they maintained their language through contact with other expatriate native speakers. The NS participants had much less exposure to the written form of Samoan than had the NNS students, who had daily exposure for at least two semesters through their instructional materials. Noun incorporation is not explicitly taught as part of the curriculum for the Samoan students, though the instructional materials do contain numerous examples of compound words formed through NI.

Materials

Reaction times, accuracy, and certainty data were collected on responses t o 42 sentences, randomized for each participant. There were six examples of each ofthe seven types described above (though subsequently one example of a Type 6 and one example of a Type 7 sentence were removed from the analyses after it was decided they had been wrongly classified). The sentence stimuli were constructed in consultation with two native speakers of Samoan, and the NNS students’ teacher of Samoan, both to ensure the validity ofthe grammaticaYungrammatical distinctions andto ensure that the NNSs would all be familiar with the lexical items used in each sentence. Lexical items used were, accordingly, all common words that the students had been exposed t o in their Samoan language classes. Sentences were controlled for complexity and length t o the extent that each consisted of a verb and two arguments.6 The software used was Mindlab. A Macintosh SE computer was used for the data collection.

Procedures

The participants were seated at the computer and told that These they were t o see some sentences written in Samoan.

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sentences would appear individually. They were told to respond to each sentence by using one of three options, n for not sure, rn for mistake or ungrammatical, and c for correct or grammatical. I explained to them the convention for joining two words together into a single word using a hyphen. I told them that some of the words they would see in the sentences would be joined by a hyphen and that this indicated the two words had been joined together into one word. I gave an example from English to make this clearer: The words snow and flake have different meanings; however, they can be joined together into one word, and this can be shown by joining the words with a hyphen as in snow-flake. I told them to ignore what they thought might be spelling mistakes in making their answers, and to concentrate on deciding if the sentences were grammatical. They were required t o press the space bar three times in the course of the pretest instructions before the first stimuli appeared. Each stimulus sentence remained on screen until the participant responded with a keystroke, whereaer it was replaced by the next sentence.

Measures

I took reaction time and accuracy measures of the participants’ responses. Researchers have claimed that in L1 sentence-matching experiments reaction time corresponded to degree of processing difficulty (Crain & Fodor, 1987; Freedman & Forster, 1985) and that differences in reaction time could be explained as indices ofthe time taken to mentally parse compared sentences. Where one of the sentences is ungrammatical, then normal parsing procedures are disrupted, resulting in a processing, and consequently a response delay. The use of reaction time data in the present study, however, is more similar t o that used by Cook (1990) than t o that used by Freedman and Forster (1985) and Crain and Fodor (1987). Bley-Vroman and Masterson (1989) have argued for the use of reaction time measures as a supplement to grammaticality judgments in examining degree of processing difficultyin L2 rule application. Both Cook (1990) and Ellis (1991)


have claimed that longer response times are indicative of greater degrees of difficulty in L2 grammaticality judgments.

Arguments have been put forward for trimming the data in reaction time studies to avoid analyses based on skewed distributions (Heathcote, Pophiel, & Mewhort, 19911, though it is acknowledged that trimming can threaten the validity of conclusions drawn from the analyses. For this reason, I analyzed untrimmed data in this study. Others have drawn attention t o the fact that reaction time data can mask differences in individual or group strategies on certain tasks (Marquar & Pereira, 1990) urging that reaction time should be accompanied by other measures.’

The other measure I used was a grammaticality judgment measure, with a not sure option to provide a measure of certainty. Grammaticality judgment measures have traditionally been used in studies of L2 competence (e.g., studies reported in White, 1989) though doubts have been raised as to whether these measures reflect the operation of the computational mechanisms dedicated t o language processing, or whether other influences such as general problem-solving strategies (Ellis, 1991) or judgments influenced by degree of previous exposure t o the same or similar examples (Birdsong, 1989; Nagata, 1988; Robinson, 1993; Robinson & Ha, 1993) may be compounded with grammaticality judgments.

Response-certainty options have been used in a number of previous L2 studies. (See Chaudron, 1983; Ellis, 1991 for a review.) The present study uses them as a control for problems associated with grammaticality judgments that require binary “correctjincorrect” responses. Sorace (1988) has observed that forcing this categorical distinction “may provide inaccurate or deceptive information about the learner’s state of interlanguage competence, particularly if the object of investigation is an indeter- minate structure” (p. 140; see also Schacter, Tyson, & Diffley, 1976). The not sure option response leaves people free t o express their uncertainty directly. If this option were not provided, it would be more difficult to claim that differences in response time were solely an index of processing difficulty, as I claim here. In other words, one needs to avoid forcing learners to hesitate in

Robinson 589

choosing between two unsatisfactory alternatives, corred/incorrect, so that one can, with more conviction, claim that response delay is an index of the processing complexity of deciding on grammaticality where intuitions are clear and determinate.

Results

Main Analyses

NS I NNS Comparisons

To determine whether NSs would be faster, more accurate, and more certain than NNSs, a repeated measures ANOVA of NS/ NNS response times t o sentence types was performed. Percentage scores for correct, incorrect, and not sure responses to the grammaticality judgment test were also calculated for each sentence type. Results of the repeated measures ANOVA show a significant main effect for NS/"S group [F(1,38)=8.48,p<.0061 and a significant main effect for the repeated measure of responses to sentence types W(6, 228)=4.91, p<.00011 with no significant interactions. Means and standard deviations for NS and NNS responses measured in milliseconds are illustrated in Figures 1 and 2 below. These show consistently higher mean reaction times for NNS than for NS responses across all sentence types.

Results of the comparisons of percentage scores for accurate and not sure responses for NS and NNS groups also confirm the hypothesized superiority of NSs. As Figure 3 shows NS responses to all sentence types are more accurate than NNS responses. Accuracy is at 80% or over for NS responses to five of the sentence types and at 75% or over for the remaining two types. NNS responses are above 75% accuracy on only two types of sentence. As Figure 4 shows NNS responses t o each sentence type are also less certain than NS responses. Means for reaction times to sentence types for each group, along with percentage correct, incorrect and unsure are summarized in Table 3 below.


7799 7336 L4l9 7540

6513

0 5 800 s

700

C .-

7166 7218

A 500

400 C 0 -2 300

3 200

8320

6529

-5109

3752 3689 3342

2922

" 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Sentence Types Figure 1. Mean reaction times and standard deviations for native speaker responses.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Sentence Types

Figure 2. Mean reaction times and standard deviations for nonnative speaker responses.

Robinson 591

I . -

2 0 7 4 Native Speakers --- Nonnative Speakers

0% ' 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Sentence Types Figure 3: Percentage scores for correct responses by native and nonnative speakers.

$ 15%

--- Native Speakers 3 Nonnative Speakers / \

lf \ 17 A

'14 \ \ / '\' /

8

0 0 2 6v

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Sentence Types

Figure 4: Percentage scores for not sure responses by native and nonnative speakers.

NNS Responses

Hypothesis 1. Results of the repeated measures ANOVA for NNS responses to the seven sentence types show a significant main effect for the repeated measure [F(6, 168)=2.69, pc.0161. However, results of post-hoc comparisons ofresponses to the three implicationally motivated sentence types for this group using Fisher's Least Significant Difference Procedure (Fisher's LSDP) show no significant differences among them at thepc.05 level of significance. Hypothesis 1 for NNS participants is therefore not supported; responses to Type 1 sentences are not significantly

Tabl

e 3

Sum

mar

y of

Mea

n R

eact

ion

Tim

es an

d Pe

rcen

tage

Cor

rect

, Inc

orre

ct, a

nd N

ot S

ure

Res

pons

es to

E

ach

Sent

ence

op

e by

NS

and

NN

S G

roup

s

Mea

sure

s T

aken

R

eact

ion

Tim

e G

ram

mat

ical

ity Ju

dgm

ent

NN

S N

S N

NS/

NS

NN

SIN

S N

NSI

NS

Typ

es

M

SD

M

SD

% c

orre

ct

% in

corr

ect

% n

ot s

ure

Typ

e 1

7072

.4

2706

.7

3752

.0

1659

.3

85

100

11

0 4

0 T

ype

2 77

99.4

25

98.2

60

05.0

31

39.8

46

75

37

20

17

5

Typ

e 3

7540

.4

1726

.6

6049

.0

3427

.7

57

89

14

11

29

0 T

ype

4 61

85.0

23

03.7

44

12.5

21

39.9

77

86

17

10

6

4 T

ype 5

7419

.3

1810

.9

6266

.0

4109

.5

59

79

24

19

17

2 T

ype

6 72

18.2

24

75.5

50

02.0

15

33.3

67

84

25

16

8

0 T

ype

7 71

66.7

24

52.9

51

09.4

28

39.9

56

76

30

24

14

0

Robinson 593

faster than responses t o Type 2 sentences, and these in turn are not significantly faster than responses to Type 3 sentences.

HypothesisZ. Results ofthe percentage totals of responses for not sure responses illustrated in Figure 4 show Hypothesis 2 to be supported. There are more uncertain responses for Type 2 than for Type 1 sentences, and more uncertain responses for Type 3 than for Type 2 sentences, thus confirming the hypothesized order of difficulty of these Types.

Hypothesis 3. Results of the percentage totals of accurate responses illustrated in Figure 3 show Hypothesis 3 t o be only partly supported. Although accuracy is higher on Type 1 sentences than on Type 2 and Type 3 sentences, accuracy on Type 2 sentences is lower than on Type 3 sentences,

Hypothesis 4. Hypothesis 4 is only partly proven by the reaction time data. Post-hoc comparisons show significant differences between response times to Type 4 sentences and Type 5,6, and 7 sentences (Fisher’s Projected Least Significant Difference procedure, ~ ~ 0 5 ) . Although, as Hypothesis 4 predicts, Type 4 sentences are significantly faster than Type 5 and Type 7 sentences, Type 6 sentences are not. Responses to Type 6 sentences are therefore slower than predicted.

Hypothesis 5. Hypothesis 5 is confirmed for the NNS group. Responses to Type 5 and Type 7 sentences containing ECP violations are more uncertain than responses to Type 4 and Type 6 sentences containing no ECP violations (Figure 4).

Hypothesis 6. Hypothesis 6 is confirmed by the accuracy data. Responses t o sentence Types 4 and 6 are more accurate than responses to sentence Types 5 and 7 (see Figure 3). Figure 5 further illustrates the relationship between correct, incorrect and not sure responses for NNSs. Table 3 gives means and percentages for all measures taken for NNS, and Table 4 summarizes the results of the main Hypotheses for both NS and NNS groups.

NS Responses

Hypothesis 1. Results of the repeated measures ANOVA for


% 100%- % Correct

3 % Not Sure

80%- 85 -0 0- %Incorrect

60%-

4 5 407-

m ---

56

24 E

6 4, 14 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Sentence Types

0%

Figure 5: Percentage scores for correct, incorrect, and not sure responses for nonnative speakers.

89 2 100% loo 86 79 84 -76

m

% Correct --- % Not Sure

3 60%

-16/ 24 19 8 20%- 6

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0%

Sentence Types Figure 6: Percentage scores for correct, incorrect, and not sure responses for native speakers.

NS responses to the seven sentence types also show a significant main effect for the repeated measure W(6, 60)=3.88, p<.0021. Results of post-hoc comparisons of responses to individual sentence types for this group show significant differences between Type 1 sentences and Types 2 and 3 (using Fisher’s Protected Least Significant Difference procedure, a t the pe.05 level of significance). Mean responses to Type 1 sentences are lower than for all other sentences. Means and standard deviations for responses to each sentence Type for the NS group are summarized in Table 3. Hypothesis 1 for NS participants is therefore only partly sup-

Tabl

e 4

Sum

mar

y of

the

Res

ults

of t

he M

ain

Hyp

othe

ses

Impl

icat

iona

l Hyp

othe

ses

Uni

vers

al G

ram

mar

Hyp

othe

ses

H1

H2

H3

H4

H5

H6

Rea

ctio

n T

ime

Cer

tain

ty

Acc

urac

y R

eact

ion

Tim

e C

erta

inty

A

ccur

acy

NN

S ns

S

PS

PS

S S

NS

PS

PS

PS

PS

ns

S

ns=n

ot su

ppor

ted;

ps=p

artly

supp

orte

d; s=

supp

orte

d

Tabl

e 5

Sum

mar

y of

the R

esul

ts of

the

Fur

ther

Ana

lyse

s

Effe

ct o

f EC

P V

iola

tions

Ef

fect

of I

ncor

pora

tion

H1

H2

H3

H4

H5

H6

Rea

ctio

n T

ime

Cer

tain

ty

Acc

urac

y R

eact

ion

Tim

e C

erta

inty

A

ccur

acy

~~ NN

S ns

ns

ns

ns

S

S

NS

ns

ns

ns

S ns

PS

~~~

~~

~~~

ns=n

ot su

ppor

ted;

ps=p

artly

supp

orte

d; s=

supp

orte

d


ported by these results. Responses t o Type 1 sentences are significantly faster than responses to Type 2 and Type 3 sentences, but there is no significant difference in responses t o Type 2 and Type 3 sentences.

Hypothesis2. The results ofthe percentage scores for not sure responses by NS participants given in Figure 4 only partly support Hypothesis 2 for NSs. Althoughresponses to Type 1 sentences are more certain than responses t o Type 2 sentences, responses t o Type 2 sentences are less certain than responses to Type 3 sentences.

Hypothesis 3. As with the results for Hypothesis 2, Hypoth- esis 3 is only partly confirmed. Although NS responses are more accurate for Type 1 sentences than for Type 2 and 3 sentences, responses t o Type 3 sentences are more accurate than responsesto Type 2 sentences (Figure 3).

Hypothesis 4. Hypothesis 4 is only partly proven because the post-hoc analyses show significant differences only between Type 4 sentences and Type 5 sentences. There are no significant differences between reaction time t o Type 4 versus Type 7 sentences, or between reaction time to Type 6 versus Type 5 and 7 sentences.

Hypothesis 5. Hypothesis 5 is not supported for NS participants. Responses t o Type 5 and Type 7 sentences are not less certain than responses t o Type 4 and Type 6 sentences (Figure 3).

Hypothesis 6. Hypothesis 6 is supported. NS responses to Type 4 and Type 6 sentences are more accurate than responses to Type 5 and Type 7 sentences (see Figure 4). Figure 6 illustrates the relationship between correct, incorrect and not sure responses for NSs. Table 3 presents means and percentage scores for all measures taken on the two groups for each sentence type and Table 4 summarizes the results of the main hypotheses.

Summary

Although, as predicted, the native speaker control group was significantly faster, more accurate, and more certain than the

Robinson 597

nonnative speakers, there is no conclusive support for the implicationally motivated hypotheses or the Universal Grammar motivated hypotheses from all three measures used in the present study for either of the two groups.

For the nonnative speakers, only response certainty measures clearly support the two hypothesized orders of difficulty, thus confirming Hypothesis 2 and Hypothesis 5. With regard to the accuracy measures for NNSs, responses to Type 2 sentences are less accurate than responses to Type 3 sentences, thus leading t o only partial support for Hypothesis 3. However accuracy measures do confirm Hypothesis 6 regarding the effects of ECP violations, because responses to Types 4 and 6, which do not contain ECP violations, are more accurate than responses to Types 5 and 7, which do contain violations (a percentage accurate score of 77% and 67% for Type 4 and 6 vs. 59% and 56% for Types 5 and 7; Table 3). Reaction time measures for nonnative speakers do not support the implicationally motivated hypothesis, Hypothesis 1, and only partly support the Universal Grammar hypothesis, Hypothesis 4, because although Type 4 sentences are significantly faster for this group, there is no significant difference between response time t o Type 6 sentences and Type 5 and 7 sentences.

For the native speaker group, no single measure provides support for both hypotheses. The reaction time measure does not support any of the hypotheses. Mean reaction times to Type 2 sentences are slower than reaction times to Type 3 sentences, contrary t o Hypothesis 1. Similarly, although Type 4 sentences are significantly faster than Type 5 sentences for this group, Type 6 sentences are not, and neither Type 4 or Type 6 sentences are significantly faster than Type 7 sentences. Unlike the nonnative speakers, native speakers made very little use of the not sure option, and the results of this measure do not support Hypothesis 2 o r Hypothesis 5. Only the greater response accuracy on sentences conforming t o the ECP, versus sentences violating the ECP, confirms one of the main hypotheses for this group, Hypothesis 6. Accurate responses to Type 4 and 6, versus Type 5 and 7 sentences, are in line with the research hypotheses (86% and 84%, respec-


tively, for Types 4 and 6 vs. 79% and 76%, respectively, for Types 5 and 7; Table 3).

In summary, then, neither the implicationally motivated hypotheses or the Universal Grammar motivated hypotheses are fully supported by results of all of the measures taken in the present study for either native or nonnative speaker groups. Response certainty measures do confirm both hypotheses for the nonnative speaker group. Only Hypothesis 6 receives support from both groups using the same measure, that of accuracy. Reaction time measures do not provide support for either hypothesis for either group.

Further Analyses

It is possible, however, that the comparisons made between performance on sentence types which were used to address Hy- potheses 4, 5, and 6, may have obscured the effects on these measures attributable to ECP violations. This is because the Types contrasted t o test these hypotheses differ with respect to more than just ECP violations. As Table 2 shows, Type 4 and Type 6 sentences not only differ from Types 5 and 7 along the dimension of +/- the ECP, but also with respect to +I- incorporation. A clearer contrast, then, would involve comparing performance on Type 2 sentences alone, which have incorporation but no ECP violations, with performance on Type 5 and 7 sentences, which also have incorporation but which additionally violate the ECP. With this in mind, I further interpreted reaction time, accuracy and certainty data in the light of these contrasts for the two groups. The modifications t o the main hypotheses for these further analyses, for both NS and NNS groups, are as follows:

Hypothesis i : Responses to Type 5 and Type 7 sentences will be slower than responses to Type 2 sentences as an index of processing difficulty attributable t o the ECP violations in those sentences.

Hypothesis ii: Responses to Type 5 and 7 sentences will be less certain than responses to Type 2 sentences as an index of the

Robinson 599

difficulty of matching these sentences with possible forms in the language.

Hypothesis iii: Responses t o Type 5 and 7 sentences will be less accurate than responses to Type 2 sentences to the extent that learners are not sensitive to the constraints imposed by the ECP.

It is also possible that the results reported above reflect neither the influence of processing difficulties imposed by ECP violations, nor processing difficulties resulting from implicationally ordered hierarchies of noun incorporation, but simply reflect the relative difficulty of judging incorporated versus nonincorporated sentences.8 It may be, that is, that the lack of clear results on the three measures for the main hypotheses reflects the fact that it is simply incorporation that caused learners and native speakers difficulties in making grammaticality judgments. To address this possibility, I compared performance on incorporated Types 2,3,4, and 5 versus performance on unincorporated Types 1,4, and 6 for each group in the light of the data from the three measures reported above. The modifications to the main hypotheses for these further analyses, for both NS and NNS groups, are as follows:

Hypothesis i: Responses to Type 2, 3, 5, and 7 sentences will be slower than responses to Type 1, 4, and 6 sentences as an index of processing difficulty attributable to the incorporation in those sentences.

Hypothesis ii: Responses t o Type 2,3,5, and 7 sentences will be less certain than responses to Type 1, 4, and 6 sentences as an index of the greater indeterminacy of intuitions and explicit knowledge regarding sentences containing incorporation.

Hypothesis iii: Responses to Type 2,3,5, and 7 sentences will be less accurate than responses t o Type 1,4, and 6 sentences as a consequence of the difficulty in making grammaticality judgments posed by sentences containing incorporation.


The Effect of ECP Violations

Hypothesis i. This is not supported by the reaction time data for either NSs or NNSs. As the results of post-hoc comparisons reported above showed, there are no significant differences between reaction time to Type 2 sentences versus Types 5 and 7 for either group (Table 3).

Hypothesis ii. This is not supported by the certainty data for either group. Type 2 and 5 are equivalent in uncertainty for NS subjects, whereas Type 7 is more certain than either of them. There is no clear difference in certainty t o the three types for NNS subjects either (Table 3).

Hypothesis iii. The accuracy data reported in Table 3 does not support the predictions of this hypothesis for either NSs or NNSs. For both groups, responses t o Types 5 and 7 are more accurate than responses to Type 2 sentences.

The Effect of Incorporation

Hypothesis i. The results of the earlier reported post-hoc comparisons of reaction time to sentence types for the NNSs do not support this hypothesis. Responses to Type 4 sentences are significantly faster than responses to all other sentences for this group. However, for NSs the earlier reported post-hoc comparisons appear t o support this hypothesis. Responses t o unincorporated Type 1 sentences are significantly faster than for all the incorporated Type 2, 3, 5, and 7 sentences, whereas responses t o unincorporated Type 4 sentences are also significantly faster than responses t o incorporated Type 2, 3, and 5 sentences. Mean responses for unincorporated Type 6 sentences, although not significantly different, are lower than responses t o Type 2,3, and 5 sentences, in line with this hypothesis (Table 3).

Hypothesis ii. Results of the certainty data do not support this hypothesis for the NSs, but do support it for the NNSs. For NNSs, the percentage of not sure responses was much lower for unincorporated Types 1,4, and 6 (4%, 6%, and 8%, respectively)

Robinson 601

than for incorporated sentence Types 2,3,5, and 7 (17%, 29%, 17%, and 14%, respectively; Table 3).

Hypothesis iii. Results of the accuracy data partly support this hypothesis for the NS participants, because with the exception of incorporated Type 3 sentences (89% accuracy) the other incorporated sentence Types 2,5, and 7 all have lower accuracy than their unincorporated counterpart Types 1,4, and 6 (Table 3). This hypothesis is clearly supported for the NNSs. Unincorporated sentence Types 1,4, and 6 all receive more accurate responses than their incorporated counterparts (Table 3).

Summary

The results of the hypotheses for the further analyses are summarized in Table 5 above and show no support for effects attributable t o ECP violations for either NS or NNS groups, using the three measures taken ofgrammaticality judgments. However, there are clear effects attributable to differences between responses to incorporated versus unincorporated sentences. Further, these effeds are shown using different measures for each NS and NNS group. Compared t o performance on unincorporated sentences, performance on incorporated sentences results in slower reaction times for the NSs, and lower accuracy and more uncertainty for the NNSs. Some consequences of the apparent differential sensitivity of these measures for NS and NNS groups are further discussed below.

Discussion

Reaction Time Measures

The results of reaction time measures do not support the main hypotheses for the present study for either group. However, these measures do reflect the greater difficulty posed to the NSs by incorporated sentences versus unincorporated sentences as re- vealed in the further analyses reported above. The only main


hypothesis supported for the NSs also lends support to the conclusion that their major difficulty in judging these sentences was that posed by the occurrence of noun incorporation. Native speakers, that is, were more accurate on sentences without ECP violations (and without incorporation, Types 4 and 6) compared to their accuracy on sentences violating the ECP (and containing incorporation, Types 5 and 71, aresult that wastakento confirmHypothesis 6, but that also supports the further analyses of the difficulty posed by incorporation. Although reaction time measures do distinguish NSs (fast performance) from NNSs (slower performance) on all sentences, the variation in mean reaction time across sentence types appears similar for both groups. For both groups Type 3 sentences, classifier incorporation, evoked longer response times than the monotransitive, unincorporated Type 1 sentences. How- ever, NNSs tooklongest over Type 2, the occurring andgrammatical examples of lexical compounding, and for NSs the response time to Type 2 sentences is almost equivalent to that for Type 3 sentences. This pattern is strange for the NS group, particularly, because Type 2 sentences occur widely in Samoan. Birdsong (19891, though, has noted (citing work on metalinguistic judgments of their L1 by native speaker illiterates, reported by Scribner & Cole, 1981) that naive native speakers tend to make grammaticality judgments based on acceptability, or previous experience of the occurrence of the stimuli in natural contexts, rejecting those stimuli that although grammatical seem unacceptable simply because never previously encountered. If it is this, and not grammaticality per se, that determines speed of responses in the case of some of the occurring and grammatical sentences, Types 1, 2,4, and 6, it is still strange that responses to Type 2 sentences are slow for both groups. One would expect responses t o Type 3 sentences to be slower, because these sentences do not occur.

Accuracy and Certainty

In contrast to the reaction time data, the results for certainty data illustrated in Figure 4 follow the pattern predicted by the

Robinson 603

main research hypotheses. First, very few of the NSs indicated uncertainty, whereas many of the NNSs did, thus confirming the predicted difference between them. The main analyses showed that the uncertainty responses for the NNS group precisely matched the pattern predicted by the implicational hypothesis and the Universal Grammar hypothesis. There is an increase in uncertainty from Type 1 to Type 3, following the implicational ordering suggested by Mithun (19841, and Type 5 and Type 7 sentences elicit greater uncertainty than Types 4 and 6, as predicted by the ECP violations in 5 and 7.

The accuracy data also show clear differences between NS and NNS participants on responses t o all sentence types. Accuracy is highest for both groups on Type 1 sentences and lowest on Type 2 sentences. A s with the results for reaction time, this latter result is odd, for the NSs particularly, because, as previously stated, Type 2 sentences commonly occur in Samoan. Like the NNSs, NSs also tended to judge Type 7 sentences as grammatical, when they are not. However, because many of the modifiers in this set are temporal phrases, like yesterday or at night or on Sunday, and because Hovdhaugen (1985, p. 86) has observed that the position oftemporal phrases in Samoan is relatively unfixed, it may be that native speakers consider this less of a violation than the incorporation from a complement in Type 5 sentences. (For recent work on degrees of grammaticality in government and binding theory, see Epstein, 1990.) It is also true that this form of incorporation causes much less alteration to the word order of the incorporated forms than does the incorporation illustrated by Type 2, 3, or 5 sentences. This may have led both native and nonnative speakers to wrongly accept them as grammatical and to overlook the fact that some words had been joined by a hyphen, following the convention for illustrating compound forms that had been explained t o them.

The Sensitiuity of Response Certainty Measures

Although the results of this study demonstrate once again (cf.

604 Language Learning V O l . 44, No. 4

Birdsong, 1989; Bley-Vroman & Masterson, 1989) the difficulty of making inferences about representations on the basis of reaction time data, results of the main analyses do suggest that certainty judgments are more sensitive to markedness and well-formedness than the other two measures for NNSs. Although the NSs were consistently faster and more accurate than the NNSs across types of sentence, only decisions about response certainty clearly distinguish the NS and NNS groups. Sorace’s (1988) objection to response certainty measures, that “learners tend t o fall into two major groups: those who choose the neutral category most of the time in order not t o commit them selves to a definite judgment and those who do not choose it, as they feel reluctant to make their uncertainty explicit” (p. 188) was not supported by the present study. Selection of the not sure option was distributed across NNSs’ responses as shown in Figure 7, with only six avoiding the not sure option, and all others making as many as 18 selections. In contrast t o the earlier findings of Bley-Vroman, Felix, & Ioup (19881, who reported minimal use of the not sure option in their study, and of Ellis (19911, who reported that only 1.1% of responses in a grammaticality judgment test of dative alternations made use of the not sure option, substantial numbers of not sure responses were recorded in this study, ranging from 3% for Type 1 sentences t o 30% for Type 3 sentences (Figure 4).

Certainty, Speed, and Automaticity

As the results for the main analyses showed, NNSs displayed type-related differences in certainty, and low overall reaction time relative t o the NSs who were more certain and faster. One interpretation of these results is that the NNSs’ uncertainty reflects conflicts some of them encountered in matching conscious rule-based knowledge (induced from exposure t o examples during classroom instruction) against the individual examples presented during the grammaticality judgment test. Logan has suggested (Logan, 1988; Logan & Klapp, 1991), that decision-making during the early phases of skill acquisition is algorithm-driven. Such

Robinson 605

Number of Not Sure Selections Figure 7 Distribution of not sure responses among nonnative speakers.

processing is eventually superseded at later stages of skill development by fast, automatized decisions based on memory for previously encountered instances (Robinson & Ha, 1993). This latter knowledge base, if we follow Logan’s logic, could be respon- sible for the skilled NSs’generally faster and more certain responses. One would expect, in comparison (as this present study appears t o confirm), that response times for NNSs would be slow over all sentence types, because making grammaticality judgments in the early stages of second language acquisition involves accessing nonautomatized rule-based knowledge and slow algorithm-driven processing. One would also expect that NNSs’ certainty measures would vary to the extent that they reflect the problematicity of applying wrongly induced rules t o particular sentences.

Lexical Markedness, Lexical Syntax and Second Language Acquisition

Contrasts between the certainty of NNS responses to sentences constructed t o address the main hypotheses of the present study lend some support to the claims that native English-speaking learners of Samoan are sensitive t o implicationally and Universal Grammar motivated distinctions between types of word formation. Examples of more marked forms of word formation process on Mithun’s (1984) hierarchy elicited greater uncertainty than less marked forms, and examples of word formation that violated the Empty Category Principle of Universal Grammar


(Baker, 1988) elicited greater uncertainty than examples that did not violate the ECP. The conclusion drawn from the analyses for the main hypotheses, however, must be balanced by the findings from the further analyses, which suggest that ECP violations do not significantly influence judgments with respect to accuracy, certainty, or response time for NSs or NNSs. Further analyses, based on a different set of contrasts t o those motivated by the main hypotheses, showed that, in fact, the occurrence of incorporation proved most problematic to the NNSs, as reflected in lower accuracy and greater uncertainty on incorporated sentences, and that incorporation led to slower response times for NSs. The clearest conclusion that can be drawn from the present study, then, is that noun incorporation itself was the most problematic feature of the sentence types presented, and that this was indexed by accuracy and certainty for NNSs and by reaction time for NSs.

As acknowledged in the introduction t o this paper, the extent of the influence of implicational universals, and of Universal Grammar theoretic syntactic constraints, on the acquisition of lexical knowledge in the L2 is an area little researched. However, research in this area would have a number of potentially important consequences for SLA theory and pedagogy, particularly regarding the role of vocabulary instruction. For example, other areas of lexical knowledge may be implicationally ordered, as Mithun (1984) has claimed is the case with the examples of word formation examined here. If so, an interesting question is whether teaching lexical items, in this case compounds, lower on the hierarchy will facilitate the acquisition of items higher up the hierarchy, as Eckman et al. (1988) have shown possible for relative clauses. Such information would contribute t o our knowledge of the relative difficulty of certain word forms for learners (Laufer, 19901, and go some way t o establishing psycholinguistic criteria for sequencing the presentation of lexical items to learners. Clark and Berman (1984), for example, argued that the formal simplicity of word forms directly affects their L1 learnability; “simpler forms are easier to acquire than more complex ones, where simplicity is measured by the degree of change in a form” (p. 548). From this it

Robinson 607

follows that word forms derived through extensive use of deriva- tional morphology are likely to be acquired with more difficulty and, possibly, later than those derived through compounding in English, which is additive and preserves the original form of the compounded words. However, although similar to compounding in this respect, NI is formally complex in other respects, because it is accompanied by changes in case marking and word order that should also contribute to L2 learning difficulty.

The results of the present study could be interpreted as supporting the need for explicit instruction in the rules for Samoan word formation examined here. Such instruction had reportedly not taken place in the Samoan courses the NNSs were taking and, despite frequent exposure t o positive examples of Type 2 NI in their instructional materials, they were uncertain about the acceptability ofthese forms, and inaccurate in judgmg them. Because NI is a more marked word formation device than those in English, as Mithun’s (1984) hierarchy demonstrates, form-focused instruction in this area may have definite advantages for L2 learners compared t o the rate of learning achieved as a consequence of exposure alone, and may even be necessary for this comparatively marked form to be acquired (Long, in press). Choosing the most effective instructional option in this area of lexical acquisition is of course important because the ability to act on productive rules in producing novel lexical forms, or coinages, in a native-like manner is an aspect of second language lexical development that probably has consequences for estimates of the learner’s fluency (Lennon, 1990) and for the extent of their strategic competence (Faerch & Kasper, 1983).

Finally, Baker’s (1988) claim that noun incorporation is a syntactic process raises other potentially important issues for second language development and pedagogy; for example, the possibility of incidentally inducing structural knowledge of a second language via a primary focus on its lexical meanings and word forms. (See Hulstijn, 1990, and Robinson, 1994, for previous experimental work in this area.) If some forms of compounding are sensitive to the same restrictions governing the acceptability of


syntactic structures (e.g., the ECP, as Baker claims), might focus- ing attention on sets of acceptable and unacceptable lexical items be a way of indirectly facilitating awareness of the larger configu- rational restrictions on syntactic s t r~c ture?~ Answers to questions such as these regarding the nature of L2 lexical markedness and the nature of syntactic constraints on lexical processes, prompted by the theories of word formation examined in the present study, will be of great interest t o SLA theorists and SL practitioners alike.

Revised version accepted 26 September 1994

Notes

’This is a true typological hierarchy, with language types corresponding to the stages discussed above. Mithun’s (1984) claim is not aclaim about acquisition stages, though it is the intention of this paper to explore the relationship between the typological hierarchy and L2 learning difficulty. ZBaker (1988) views morphology as “a semi-independent system of principles rather than as . . . part of the lexicon proper“ (p. 74), and to this extent inflectional morphology is assigned after syntax, and not base generated and moved. See also Ouhalla (1990) for further discussion. 3hOchs(1985, p. 802)pointedout the preferredwordorderinSamoanisverb initial, with VS order for intransitives and either VOS or VSO for transitives. However, other orders are possible. Ochs claimed the second major preference is for SV and SVO word orders, which occur commonly. Less frequently used, but possible, word orders are OVS and SOV. The present study included sentence types conforming to VS, VSO, and SVO word orders. ‘In the present study, ergative markers were usedin all Type 1 sentences and in one example of Type 6 and Type 7 sentences (to be described later). Given the results reported here, which show that for both NSs and NNSs Type 1 sentences received more accurate, and relatively more certain and faster responses than responses to other sentence types, the presence of ergative particles appears to aid, rather than confuse participants in making syntactic judgments of sentences. Noun incorporation in Samoan is detransitivizing, so the occurrence of noun incorporation in Type 2 sentences results in the loss of the ergative marker, with the subject of the incorporated intransitive form becoming absolutive (Rosen, 1989, p. 310). “he difficulty both NSs and NNSs had in processing sentences with incorporation (see Results), could, to this extent, be associated with the absence of the visually salient ergative marker which indicates the subject of the verb. Nonnative speakers had received instruction in the rules for ergative marking in Samoan, and so were aware of the rule regulating its appearance. With respect to the L1 acquisition of ergativity, Ochs (1985, p, 822) observed that in informal spoken Samoan ergative markers are often dropped as an index ofintimacy, and they are only

Robinson 609

late acquired by Samoan children, perhaps as a consequence of their absence in the intimate speech directed to them by caregivers. As Ochs noted, the late acquisition ofergative marking doesnot indicate that the concept ofergativity, or ergative markers themselves, are somehow difficult to acquire, because children express ergative distinctions at a very early age, using word order conventions. 5As Mithun (1984) pointed out, there maybe lexical restrictions on items that can be classifiers and classifieds. Mithun commented that "a relatively general N stem is incorporated to narrow the scope of the V'" (p. 863). The lexical constraint on classifier nouns is that they are generic and able to narrow the scope of the verb in a useful way. For this reason, languages do not generally incorporate proper nouns. All of the classifier nouns in this group of sentences meet this condition. Only Example 33b contains an incorporated proper noun, Sunday. As Mithun noted, incorporated proper nouns do occur, but only rarely. 'This is true of all the stimuli sentences with the exception, however, of Examples 31a, 34a, and 35a above, which could be considered to consist of two arguments plus an adverbial modifier. 71nferences about representation based on differences in speed and accuracy of responses under different experimental conditions must first make reference to established baseline norms regarding the effects of manipulating these variables. However, as Chaudron (1983) has pointed out, such norms have yet to be established in many areas of psychological investigation of second language processing. Two issues are worth commenting on here: the relationship between speed and accuracy, and that between discriminability and speed. First, are errors faster, the same as, or slower than corresponding correct responses? Research on animal behavior, using pigeons, shows that in quick, difficult visual discriminations errors are faster than correct responses-the larger the error the fasteritis. For humans the opposite is true; errors are slower, and the slower the response the more likely i t is to be an error. Swensson (1977) reported that for humans errors are faster than correct responses when two conditions are met-the discrimination is easy and the pressure to be fast is substantial. It is not clear, though, that this equationbetweenspeedandaccuracyholdsfor secondlanguagegrammaticality judgments. Probably i t would be influenced by such factors as linguistic markedness, degree of violation of grammaticality, and extent of first language distance from the stimuli, though this has yet to be demonstrated in SLA studies. Second, a relationship between discriminability and speed has been identified in cognitive psychology with regard to visual discrimination tasks (Luce, 1986; Robinson, 1993). When the representation ofa signal is far from the criterion, as judged by confidence ratings, people exhibit a tendency to respond faster than when the signal is close to the criterion. The relationship between discriminability and speed is an important one for second language research to establish in the domain of second language processing. For example, some research on first language intuitions (Epstein, 1990) has suggested that there may be "degrees" of grammaticality, or

61 0 Language Learning Vol. 44, No. 4

violationsofprinciplesregulatingknowledgeof possible languages(Chomsky, 1981). It is necessary, in a second language context, to establish whether more serious violations elicit quicker responses than less serious, and therefore discriminable, violations, as the evidence from visual discrimination tasks would seem to imply. sI am grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers of this paper for pointing out the need for these further analyses. This is an implication ofBaker’s( 1985) Mirror Principle, which is an integral part of his explanation of the process of NI. This principle states that morphological derivationsmust directlyreflect syntactic derivations and that consequently, in the case of NI, the order of affixes incorporated into a verb reflects the order of corresponding syntactic processes which attach the affixes to the verb (see the structural analysis in Example 10 as an example of this correspondence). It is also implied by work in a very different framework, that of Pinker (1989) who, in contrast to Baker, argued that attending to the semantics of events in which verbs are used is the principle means by which L1 acquirers (and possibly L2 acquirers-see Bley-Vroman & Yoshinaga, 1992) learn the verb argument frames of narrow classes of verbs. Although they differ fundamentally over the role they attribute to grammatical function-changing rules (no role for Baker, a large role for Pinker), both theories provide a linguistically motivated perspective on the claim that L2 learners can pick up syntactic knowledge incidentally if they direct their attention to meaning and vocabulary development (e.g., Krashen, 1993).

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