Grs LX 700 Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theory Week Transfer and the “initial state” for L2A. And other things

English speakers of Japanese (even highly proficient otherwise) either missed this contrast altogether or produced long consonants that were not native-like (too short).

An interesting idea (courtesy of Carol Neidle)

• If you were to learn French, you would be taught conjugations of regular and irregular verbs. Regular -er verbs have a pattern that looks like this:

• Infinitive: donner ‘give’
• 1sg je donne 1pl nous donnons
• 2sg tu donnes 2pl vous donnez
• 3sg il donne 3pl ils donnent

Some French “irregulars”

• Infinitive: donner ‘give’
• 1sg je donne 1pl nous donnons
• 2sg tu donnes 2pl vous donnez
• 3sg il donne 3pl ils donnent

• Another class of verbs including acheter ‘buy’ is classified as irregular, because the vowel quality changes through the paradigm.

• Infinitive: ceder ‘yield’
• 1sg je cède 1pl nous cédons
• 2sg tu cèdes 2pl vous cédez
• 3sg il cède 3pl ils cèdent

Some French “irregulars”

• Infinitive: donner ‘give’
• 1sg je donne 1pl nous donnons
• 2sg tu donnes 2pl vous donnez
• 3sg il donne 3pl ils donnent

• The way it’s usually taught, you just have to memorize that in the nous and vous form you have “é” and in the others you have “è”.

• Infinitive: ceder ‘yield’
• 1sg je cède 1pl nous cédons
• 2sg tu cèdes 2pl vous cédez
• 3sg il cède 3pl ils cèdent

Some French “irregulars”

• However, the pattern makes perfect phonological sense in French—if you have a closed syllable (CVC), you get è, otherwise you get é.

• [sd] (cède) [se.de] (cédez)

• So why is this considered irregular?

• Because in English, you think of the sounds in cédez as [sed.de], due to the rules of English phonology.

• Infinitive: ceder ‘yield’ viewed from English
• 1sg je cèd(e) 1pl nous céd.dõ(ns)
• 2sg tu cèd(es) 2pl vous céd.de(z)
• 3sg il cèd(e) 3pl ils cèd(ent)

Some French “irregulars”

• Because in English, you think of the sounds in cédez as [sed.de], due to the rules of English phonology.

• Since in all of these cases, English phonology would have closed syllables, there’s no generalization to be drawn—sometimes closed syllables have é and sometimes they have è.

• What could we do?

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

Some French “irregulars”

• If people are really “built for language” and are able to pick up language implicitly, then if people are provided with the right linguistic data, they will more or less automatically learn the generalization.

• Problem is: The English filter on the French data is obscuring the pattern, and hiding the generalization.

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

Some French “irregulars”

• Something to try: Provide people with the right data, see if they pick up the pronunciation. Perhaps: exaggerate syllabification (draw attention to it). Perhaps try to instill this aspect of the phonology first?

• Et voilà. Chances are good that this will make these “irregulars” as easy to learn as regulars!

• Does it work? I have no idea.
• Infinitive: ceder ‘yield’
• 1sg je cède “sed” 1pl nous cédons “se—dõ”
• 2sg tu cèdes “sed” 2pl vous cédez “se—de”
• 3sg il cède “sed” 3pl ils cèdent “sed”

Where we are

• We’re concerned with discovering to what extent linguistic theory (=theories of UG) bears on questions of L2A, with an eye toward the question: To what extent is knowledge of an L2 like knowledge of an L1?

• Do they conform to universal principles? (ECP, Subjacency)
• No? UG is not constraining L2. Yes? Consistent with UG constraining L2, but not evidence for it.
• Do they have a parameter setting different from the L1 (and all of the consequences following therefrom)?
• Yes? UG is constraining L2. No? Inconclusive for the general case.

Stepping back a bit

• Let’s take some time to look at a few results coming out of an earlier tradition, not strictly Principles & Parameters (and not covered by White) but still suggesting that to a certain extent L2 learners may know something (perhaps unconsciously) about “what Language is like” (which is a certain way we might characterize the content of UG).