Particle Placement in Learner Language

Abstract

This study presents the first multifactorial corpus‐based analysis of verb–particle constructions in a data sample comprising spoken and written productions by intermediate‐level learners of English as a second language from 17 language backgrounds. We annotated 4,911 attestations retrieved from native speaker and language learner corpora for 14 predictors, including syntactic complexity, rhythmic and segment alternation, and the verb framing of the speaker's native language. A multifactorial prediction and deviation analysis using regression (Gries & Deshors, 2014), which stacks multiple regression analyses to compare native speaker and learner productions in identical contexts, revealed a complex picture in which processing demands, input effects, and native language typology jointly shape the degree to which learners’ choices of constructions are nativelike or not.

Particle Placement in Hong Kong English: Independence from Great Britain as a Trigger of Structural Change?

“…• • segscore: a score showing how well the observed verb-particle construction meets principles of segment alternation in comparison to the alternative unobserved verb-particle construction (Wulff & Gries 2019); two transition points were considered for each verb-particle construction, that is, (a) one between the final segment of the verb and the first segment of the subsequent element (either the direct object or the particle) and (b) one between the final segment of the direct object or particle and the first segment of the subsequent direct object or particle. With the help of dictionary look-ups, the transition points were scored as follows: in case a strict consonant-vowel (C+V/V+C) alternation occurred, this transition was assigned the score of 0, in case two different consonants or two different vowels occurred (C 1 +C 2 /V 1 +V 2 ), the transition was scored with 1 and in case the same consonant or the same vowel occurred (C 1 +C 1 /V 1 +V 1 ), the transition was scored with 2.…”

“…The mean of segscore is 0.03727 with a standard deviation of 0.49. • • rhyscore: a score showing how compatible the sounds of neighboring elements of the observed verb-particle construction are with regard to principles of rhythmic alternation, that is, the steady repetition of strong and weak sound elements (Sweet 1913;Libermann 1975;Selkirk 1984), in comparison to said compatibility of the alternative unobserved verb-particle construction (Wulff & Gries 2019). For each observed and alternative unobserved verb-particle construction, the sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables as evident from dictionary look-ups was recorded and stress clashes, that is, two or more neighboring stressed syllables, and stress lapses, that is, three or more neighboring unstressed syllables, were normalized against the number of syllable transitions in the verbparticle construction.…”

“…Several variables measure the degree of accessibility, including the complexity, concreteness, definiteness, length, and idiomaticity of the direct object, as well as the surprisal of the particle given the verb of the particle construction. Research has shown that indefinite (3) and abstract (4) direct objects, as well as literal (as opposed to idiomatic) constructions (5) favor the vop construction (e.g., Gries 2003; Wulff & Gries 2019) because they are usually considered “less newsworthy” (Grafmiller & Szmrecsanyi 2018:390).…”

“…Furthermore, the choice of constructions generally follows the principle of end-weight (Behaghel 1909) with longer objects (6) favoring the vpo construction (e.g., Gries 2003; Grafmiller & Szmrecsanyi 2018; Wulff & Gries 2019), while simpler objects such as pronouns (7) more frequently occur in the vop construction (Gries 2003)—not least because pronouns are usually shorter than modified noun phrases, highlighting that the complexity of a direct object tends to correlate with its length. Lastly, Grafmiller and Szmrecsanyi (2018) found a high surprisal value of the particle given the verb of the particle construction to correlate with a frequent use of the vop construction since particles with higher surprisal values hold more information content and thus follow the direct object.…”

Animacy effects in the English genitive alternation: comparing native speakers and EFL learner judgments with corpus data

“…Recently, usage-based approaches to Second Language Acquisition (SLA) have investigated how learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) use the structural variants of alternation phenomena compared to native speakers (e.g. Jäschke & Plag, 2016;Kinne, 2020;Wulff & Gries, 2019). Usage-based approaches to SLA assume that language learning is driven by language experience (Ellis & Wulff, 2019, p. 41), and the same applies to the acquisition of the probabilistic constraints on the choice between alternating variants (Wulff & Gries, 2019, p. 880).…”