Loes Oldenkamp, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands

1. The interpretation of inflectional suffixes by low-educated L2 Dutch learners SLRF, Pittsburgh, October 2012 • Loes Oldenkamp, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands

2. Background • L2 forms (3sg): • kom – t • *kom –Ø • *kom – ə(n) • *kom– ət • *kom– tə vader *komet met zijn dochter *fietset father come-3sg with his daughter cycle-3sg

3. Low-Educated Second Language & Literacy Acquisition (LESLLA) • Learners have onlyreceived(someyearsof) primaryeducation in their home country. • Oftennon-literatein the Latin script (Moroccanand Chinese learners). • Little support of writtenlanguagefor most learners. • No knowledge of otherlanguagethantheirL1. • They have no (or few) metalinguisticskills. • Language acquisitionproceeds (often) slowly.

4. Background • L1 acquisition • Inflectional morphology is acquired smoothly. • L2 acquisition • Acquisition of inflectional morphology appears to be a persistent problem.

5. Dutch inflectional morphemes • V-VerbN-Noun • Ø • t ə(n) • ə(n) s

6. Dutch inflectional morphemes • Properties: • Theyconsist of a coronal (/t/, /s/) or a schwa • They are invisible for stress • Adding these morphemeslead to complex word forms: • Adding a schwa to the stem of a word leads to polysyllabic words • e.g. loop + schwa = lope(n) • adding a coronal to the stem leads to a final consonant cluster • e.g. loop + /t/ = loopt

7. Avoidance strategies • The L2 learneravoidswordsending in a /t/-final consonant cluster andpolysyllabicwordsending in schwa: • /t/-final consonant cluster:polysyllabicwordsending in schwa: • /t/ deletion at the end of a word - deletion of schwa • e.g. loopinstead of loopt e.g. loopinstead of loope(n) • schwainsertion • e.g. loopetorloopteinstead of loopt

8. Possible sources • L1 morphosyntax • L1 phonology

9. Similarities and dissimilarities between Dutch, Turkish (TU), Moroccan Arabic (MA) and Mandarin Chinese (CHIN) • Dutch TU MA CHIN • phonology • -consonant cluster in coda + +/- - - • - word-finalschwa + +/- - - • morphosyntax • - word order SVO/ SOV SOV SVO/ VSO SVO • - verbal morphology +/- + + - • - nominalmorphology (plural) + +/- + -

10. L2 learners have difficultiesproducinginflectionalmorphologycorrectly, • but: • Do L2 learners have difficulties in interpretinginflectionalmorphologycorrectly as well?

11. Method (participants) • Picture selectiontask: participants are orallyprovidedwith a stimulus and have to select the corresponding picture. • 44 Turkish, 44 Moroccan Arabic and 42 Mandarin Chinese learners of Dutch participated in the experiment. • No more thanthreeyears of secondaryeducation in their home country. • Level A1 (Basic User: Breakthrough), A2 (Basic User: Waystage) and B1 (Independent User: Threshold), (CEF).

12. Method (materials) • 110 items: 54 target items and 56 distracter items. • Target items: nouns (singular vs. plural) and verbs (3rd person singular vs. 3rd person plural). • The only cue tointerpret the utterancecorrectly is the inflectionalending. • - Ze kust een jongen. • she kiss-3sg.presa boy • Ze kussen een jongen. • she kiss-3pl.presa boy • - de kip the chicken-sg • de kippen the chicken-pl

13. Categories • lexical items, nouns • e.g. de pop/ de kip • the doll-SING/ the chicken-SING • lexical items, verbs • e.g. ze koopt een boek./ ze kust een jongen. • shebuy-3SG.PRES a book/ she kiss- 3SG.PRES a boy •  Lexical items: constructed to test whether participants knew the vocabulary of the nouns and verbs that were used in the experiment. • 3. inflectional items, nouns • e.g. de kat/ de katten • the cat- SING/ the cat-PLUR • 4. inflectional items, verbs • e.g. ze wast een auto./ ze wassen een auto. • she wash-3SG.PRES a car/ she wash-3PLUR.PRES a car •  Inflectional items: constructed to test nominal inflection (singular vs. plural) and verbal inflection (3rd person singular vs. 3rd person plural, present tense).

14. Lexical item, noun Stimulus: de pop the doll-sing

15. Lexical item, verb Stimulus: Ze kust een jongen. She kiss-3sg.pres a boy ‘She kisses a boy.’ boy

16. Inflectional item, noun Stimulus: de katten the cat-plur

17. Inflectional item, verb Stimulus: Ze wast een auto. she wash-3sg pres a carr ‘She washes a car.’

18. Results (overall)

19. 1 = lexical item pairs 2= inflectional item pairs

20. Results (per category) • Separate analyses on the 4 different item types • lexical items, nouns; • lexical items, verbs; • inflectional items, nouns; • inflectional items, verbs. • UnivariateANOVAswith ‘proportions accurate responses’ as dependentvariableand ‘L1 background’ (Turkish, MoroccanArabic or Mandarin Chinese) and ‘L2 proficiency level’ (A1, A2 or B1) as independent, fixed factors.

21. Lexical items, nouns • Participants performed very well on these items. • No significant effectsfor ‘L1 background’ (F (2, 119) = 1.14, n.s.) and ‘L2 proficiency’ (F (2, 119) = 1.72, n.s.). and did not differ from each other with respect to ‘L1 background’ and ‘L2 proficiency’.

22. Lexical items, verbs • Participantsperformedvery well on these item types. • Significant maineffectsforboth ‘L1 background’ (F (2, 119) = 6.07, p < .01, η2 = .093)and ‘L2 proficiency’ (F (2, 119) = 6.76, p < .01, η2 = .102). • No significant interaction(F (4, 19) = .994, n.s.)

23. Inflectional items, nouns • Significant effect for ‘L1 background’ (F (2, 119) = 8.69, p< .000, η2 = .127): • Chinese participants performed worse than Turkish and Moroccan participants. • Turkish and Moroccan participants did not differ from each other. • Significant effect for ‘L2 proficiency’ (F (2, 119) = 6.87, p= .000, η2 = .104): • Participants with level B1 performed better than participants with level A1, but not better than participants with level A2. • A1 and A2 did not differ. • No interaction

24. Inflectional items, verbs • Significant effect for ‘L2 proficiency’(F (2, 119) = 16.47, p< .000, η2 = .217). • No effect for ‘L1 background’: all participant groupsappearedto have difficultiesinterpreting these items.

25. Conclusions (1) • Participants have more difficulties in the interpretation of inflectional items than in the interpretation of lexical items. •  Redundant information is oftenavailable in the input. Learners are not used to focusing on the inflectional ending and having the inflectional ending as the only cue in interpreting the stimulus correctly. • e.g. a. de stoel • the chair • b. de stoel-en • the chair-plur • => No redundant information available. • a. één stoel • onechair • b. drie stoel-en • three chair-plur • =>The numeralséénanddrie make the pluralmorpheme redundant.

26. Conclusions (2) • Participants have more problemsinterpretingverbalinflection (= contextualinflection) correctlythan in interpretingnominalinflection (= inherent inflection).  Nounsandverbsdiffer in semanticcomplexity: The nominal plural morpheme only expresses number; the 3rd person singular, present tense and 3rd person plural, present tense morphemes express person, number and tense.

27. Conclusions (3) • L2 proficiency level clearlyplays a role: The interpretation of morphological elements improves with proficiency, in all groups of learners.

28. Conclusions (4) • L1 background plays a role. •  Mandarin Chinese participants had more difficultiesinterpretinginflectionalendingsthanTurkishandMoroccanArabicparticipants, but not in verbs. All participant groupsappearedto have difficulties in verbalinflection.

29. Loes Oldenkamp • Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands • L.Oldenkamp@let.ru.nl