Nonnative Processing of Verbal Morphology: In Search of Regularity

Abstract

There is little agreement on the mechanisms involved in second language (L2) processing of regular and irregular inflectional morphology and on the exact role of age, amount, and type of exposure to L2 resulting in differences in L2 input and use. The article contributes to the ongoing debates by reporting the results of two experiments on Russian verb generation and recognition in a lexical decision task (LDT) with priming by highly proficient late L2 learners, early interrupted (heritage) learners, and adult native speakers of Russian. Inflected verbs varying in regularity, type, and token (lemma) frequency were used. The experiments document the role of obligatory decomposition and complex allomorphy involved in (de)composition and mapping as well as type and token frequency in L1 and L2 verb generation and lexical access, with no sharp division between regular and irregular verbs. The results are inconsistent with either the dualsystem or the single-system approach to morphological processing, and are compatible with "hybrid" theories combining rule-based decomposition and input-frequency-based probabilistic mechanisms. All of the verb types showed priming effects, both in native and nonnative lexical access. However, the degree of facilitation depended on decomposition costs for different verb types only in nonnative participants. The study also shows differences in early (heritage) and late L2 learners. In the production task, heritage speakers outperformed L2 learners in real, but not novel, verb generation and in the use of the regular default pattern, whereas L2 learners showed an advantage in This research was made possible with support from the Center for Advanced Study of Language (CASL) at the University of Maryland as part of a larger project on Linguistic Correlates of Proficiency. The authors are deeply indebted to Michael Long for guidance and helpful comments and our colleagues, Scott Jackson, Jennifer Koran, Tatyana Vdovina, and Vera Malyushenkova, for help with data collection and analysis. We also wanted to thank the anonymous reviewers of Nonnative Processing of Verbal Morphology the use of the cue-based complex morphological pattern. In the priming task, heritage speakers were faster than late L2 learners and insensitive to morphological complexity, whereas L2 learners showed longer latencies in response to the verbs with complex inflectional morphology. These differences are associated with the differences in their respective language learning backgrounds. It is tentatively suggested that these two groups of learners may rely on different processing mechanisms and, possibly, neural paths.

Contributions of linguistic typology to psycholinguistics

“…Orsolini et al (1998) reported more overapplication errors for irregular than for regular verbs forms in Italian children's production of past tense and past participle formation, which they interpreted as evidence against the view that children's overgeneralization errors largely rely on regular (and only rarely on irregular) morphological processes (Marcus et al 1992). Gor & Cook (2010) investigated what they called regular, semi-regular, and irregular types of Russian verb forms in an auditory lexical decision task and obtained parallel effects across the three conditions, which they took to be "inconsistent with either the dual-system or the single-system approach to morphological processing" (Gor & Cook 2010: 88) which would have predicted stronger effects for regular than for irregular forms. The relevant typological insight here is that -in addition to word formation (viz.…”

Typology in the classroom: Fostering Motion-Event awareness in Spanish-speaking ELLs

“…This lesson served the dual purpose of exposing students to target-like evidence of manner/path combinations, as well as to extend their range of manner verbs (Gor & Cook, 2010). 14 specific manner-of-motion verbs were selected and taught in this session so that students would have resources beyond the basic swim, jump, and run which dominated preintervention writing samples (please see Appendix A for a list of manner-of-motion verbs taught in this lesson).…”

“…Classes met three days a week for three hours per session with approximately 1.5 hours of instruction dedicated to motion-event expression. The concepts of explicit instruction and explanation (Gor & Cook, 2010), negative evidence (Izumi & Lakshmanan, 1998;Strapp, Helmik, Tonkovich, & Bleakney, 2011), and specific aspects of the Conceptual Approach (White, 2012) were incorporated into the instructional design. Prior to the start of the intervention, the instructor informed the students that they would be engaged in activities designed to increase their awareness of English motion-event expression.…”

“…• Can a pedagogical intervention focusing on negative evidence (Izumi & Lakshmanan, 1998;Strapp, Helmik, Tonkovich, & Bleakney, 2011) and explicit rule explanation (Gor, & Cook, 2010), paired with aspects of the Conceptual Approach (White, 2012), promote the targetlike use of verbs of motion in L1 Spanish ELLs? • Will increasing students' repertoire of manner-ofmotion verbs equate to more pervasive and targetlike use in post-intervention writing samples?…”

Can a connectionist model explain the processing of regularly and irregularly inflected words in German as L1 and L2?

“…However, L2 learners of German showed higher proficiency in the recognition of correct irregular verb participles as compared to regular verb participles. This difference might be the result of varying levels of processing automatization with lower levels in regular words and higher levels in irregular words in the L2 learners; potentially a result of formal instruction when learning regular and irregular verbs in German as L2 (Gor & Cook, 2010). As we selected L2 learners of German who had been residing in Germany for at least five years we expected to include a sample of learners with high competence in German (Birdsong, 2004).…”