The clause-initial position in L2 Swedish declaratives: Word order variation and discourse pragmatics

Abstract

In a recent study of the clause-initial position in verb-second declaratives (the prefield), Bohnacker & Rosén (2008) found significant differences between native Swedish and German concerning the frequencies with which constituents occurred in the prefield, as well as qualitative differences concerning the mapping of information structure and linear word order: Swedish exhibited a stronger tendency than German to place new information, the so-called rheme, later in the clause. Swedish-speaking learners of German transferred these patterns from their L1 to German. Their sentences were syntactically well-formed but had Swedish-style prefield frequencies and a strong pattern of Rheme Later, which native Germans perceive as unidiomatic, as an acceptability judgment and a rewrite-L2texts task showed. The present study extends Bohnacker & Rosén's work in three ways. Learners of the reverse language combination (L1 German, L2 Swedish) are investigated to see whether similar phenomena also manifest themselves there. Secondly, written and oral data from highly advanced learners are examined to see whether the learners' persistent problems can be overcome by extensive immersion (3, 6 and 9 years of L2 exposure). Thirdly, besides investigating theme-rheme (old vs. new information), some consideration is given to another information-structural level, background vs. focus. The learners are found to overuse the prefield at first, with non-Swedish, German-style frequency patterns (e.g. low proportions of clause-initial expletives and high proportions of clause-initial rhematic elements). This is interpreted as evidence for L1 transfer of informationstructural or discourse-pragmatic preferences. After 6 and 9 years, a substantial increase in clause-initial expletive subjects, clefts and lightweight given elements is indicative of development towards the target. The findings are related to current generative theorizing on the syntax-pragmatics interface, where it is often maintained that the integration of multiple types of information is one of the hardest areas for L2 learners to master.

Functional motivations behind direct object fronting in written Swedish: A corpus-distributional account

“…In line with the discussion presented in Section 2.1, direct object fronting in Swedish is most commonly assumed to be used when it is the object, rather than the subject, that is topical and therefore highly discourse prominent (Teleman & Wieselgren 1970;Teleman et al 1999 (4): 432;Rahkonen 2006;Bohnacker & Rosen 2008;Bohnacker 2010). Discourse prominent NPs are given and often definite.…”

“…The present study will investigate whether this also holds in written Swedish. More specifically, I will investigate whether topicalisation is the only motivation for positioning the object in the sentence-initial position, as implied by earlier investigations of object-fronting in written Swedish (Rahkonen 2006;Bohnacker & Rosen 2008;Bohnacker 2010). Before presenting these previous findings on object fronting in Swedish, I first give a summary of studies investigating whether speakers and writers adapt their productions in order to avoid ambiguities, and provide a short presentation of relevant aspects of Swedish grammar.…”

“…Object-initial word order is particularly common when the object consists of a neuter pronominal or demonstrative object (i.e., det and detta -'that' -henceforth referred to as text deictic objects) that refer back to a proposition in the immediate left context (Rahkonen 2006;Bohnacker & Rosen 2008;Bohnacker 2010). In Example (11), for instance, the sentence-initial pronominal object det refers back to the proposition of the previous sentence.…”

Theme and thematic progression in learner English: A literature review

“…Bohnacker (2010) found a substantial increase in clauseinitial expletive subjects, clefts, and lightweight given elements in Swedish learner English, which was thought to be indicative of development towards the target language in a study investigating Theme-Rheme (old vs. new information) in L2 Swedish writings. Wei (2013a) found that English learners became better at making Theme choices and moved closer to native speakers in topical Themes, textual Themes, and Theme markedness with increased length of time learning English in a study investigating the development of Theme choices in learner English speech from a lower language proficiency level to a higher language proficiency level.…”

Frequency at the syntax–discourse interface: A bidirectional study on fronting options in L1/L2 German and L1/L2 English

“…As for fronted arguments, German strongly prefers topicalization over clefting. Object-initial main clauses account for approximately 10% of all declaratives in German (Bader et al, 2017), while clefts are much rarer (Bohnacker, 2010). English, however, prefers object clefts over topicalization.…”