Previous studies attest that early bilinguals can modify their perceptual identification according to the fine-grained phonetic detail of the language they believe they are hearing. Following Gonzales, Byers-Heinlein, and Lotto (2019), we replicate the double phonemic boundary effect in late learners (LBs) using conceptual-based cueing. We administered a forced choice identification task to 169 native English adult learners of Spanish in two sessions. In both sessions participants identified the same /b/-/p/ voicing continuum, but language context was cued conceptually via the instructions. The data were analyzed using Bayesian multilevel regression. Learners categorized the continuum in a similar manner when they believed they were hearing English. However, when they believed they were hearing Spanish, ‘voiceless’ responses increased as a function of L2 proficiency. This research demonstrates the double phonemic boundary effect can be conceptually cued in LBs and supports accounts positing selective activation of independent perception grammars in L2 learning.
In research on intra-sentential pronominal anaphora resolution in null subject languages, it has been argued that null pronouns tend to be biased towards subject antecedents, whereas overt pronouns tend to prefer object antecedents, as predicted by Carminati’s ‘Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis’. However, these studies have mainly focused on only one of the two possible clause orders (main-subordinate or subordinate-main), which have not been overtly contrasted. This paper investigates the effects of clause order on the interpretation of third-person subject pronouns in globally ambiguous intra-sentential contexts by 49 native speakers of Spanish. The results of an acceptability judgment task explicitly comparing both clause orders indicate that relative clause order is a key factor affecting the interpretation of pronouns: while a preference of overt pronouns for object antecedents holds across clause orders, null pronouns show a bias towards subject antecedents only in subordinate-main sequences. These findings refine the Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis predictions by restricting them to subordinate-main complex sentences.
Previous studies attest that early bilinguals can modify their perceptual identification according to the fine-grained phonetic detail of the language they believe they are hearing. Following Gonzales et al. (2019), we replicate the double phonemic boundary effect in late learners (LBs) using conceptual-based cueing. We administered a forced choice identification task to 169 native English adult learners of Spanish in two sessions. In both sessions, participants identified the same /b/-/p/ voicing continuum, but language context was cued conceptually using the instructions. The data were analyzed using Bayesian multilevel regression. Learners categorized the continuum in a similar manner when they believed they were hearing English. However, when they believed they were hearing Spanish, “voiceless” responses increased as a function of L2 proficiency. This research demonstrates the double phonemic boundary effect can be conceptually cued in LBs and supports accounts positing selective activation of independent perception grammars in L2 learning.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.