The acquisition of differential object marking in Hindi as a foreign language

Abstract

This article explores a grammatical structure - differential object marking (DOM) - that is particularly difficult for L2 learners to acquire. DOM is a phenomenon in which some direct objects are morphologically marked and others are not. In Hindi, animate direct objects are always marked with the objective case marker ko, whereas specific direct objects are only optionally marked with ko. Inanimate and non-specific direct objects are never marked with ko and take the unmarked nominative form. DOM in Hindi has been found to pose a problem to heritage speakers of Hindi. The present study investigates whether similar difficulties exist for foreign language learners. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 31 foreign language learners of Hindi completing an oral production task. The results suggest that the learners do not have difficulties with the concept of DOM in itself – they know that not every direct object needs to be marked –, but rather with the variable conditions under which DOM occurs. The study defines five developmental profiles, which reflect a gradual accumulation of contexts appropriately marked with the objective case

Case Marking in Hindi as the Weaker Language

“…Two early studies on the L2 acquisition of Hindi by English-speaking learners (Hansen, 1986; Lakshmanan, 1999) reported comprehension errors with subject and object relative clauses because the learners ignored (did not process) case marking (accusative - ko ). Baten and Verbeke (2015) and Baten et al (2016) found that Dutch L2 learners of Hindi have difficulty with ergative and DOM marking in oral production. While there is some independent evidence that the acquisition of Hindi morphology is problematic for both heritage speakers and L2 learners of Hindi, no study has directly compared the nature of L2 learners and heritage speakers’ difficulty using the same methodology.…”

“…Our study contributes to this critical debate and is unique in examining morphology in Hindi, an understudied language. We focus on case morphology because case marking is very vulnerable to erosion in heritage languages in general (Benmamoun et al, 2013; Putnam and Sánchez, 2013; Kim et al, 2016), and is similarly difficult to acquire for L2 learners whose L1 does not mark case overtly (Papadopoulou et al, 2011; Baten and Verbeke, 2015; Baten et al, 2016). Hindi is a split-ergative language with a complex system of morphological case marking, and presents a challenging learning task for bilinguals whose dominant language has a nominative-accusative case pattern and does not mark morphological case overtly, like English.…”

The acquisition of Hindi split-ergativity and differential object marking by Dutch L1 speakers: systematicity and variation

“…Note that we follow the common practice in SLA studies to use the term L1 for the native language(s) of a speaker, and the term L2 for any language that has been acquired after the L1(s). Recently there has also been a gradual rise in studies with adult speakers (Montrul et al 2012, Baten & Verbeke 2015, Ponnet et al 2016, Ranjan 2016, Montrul et al 2019a. The latter studies consider different learner populations and different linguistic areas.…”

“…Montrul et al (2012) examined the acquisition (and possible loss) of case and agreement among heritage speakers of Hindi in the US. Four studies have been performed with learners of Hindi as a Foreign Language, two on the development of the ergative case marker (Baten & Verbeke, 2015;Ranjan, 2016), one on the development of DOM (Ponnet et al 2016), and one on both case markers (Montrul et al 2019a). All of these studies focussed on oral language production.…”

“…Recent studies on HFL (Baten & Verbeke 2015;Ponnet et al 2016;Ranjan 2016;Montrul et al 2019a) have shown that case marking poses specific problems for FL learners. One explanation is that learners cannot solely rely on a one-to-one mapping between form and function but have to take into account multiple factors simultaneously.…”