The Emergence of Second Language Syntax: A Case Study of the Acquisition of Relative Clauses

Abstract

One of the great puzzles of language acquisition has been described as poverty of the stimulus: how are complex aspects of language acquired when they appear to be rare or even non-occurring in the input that a learner receives and comprehends? This article presents an emergentist solution to one aspect of this puzzle (involving relative clauses) by examining the longitudinal development of meaningful discourse produced by Ana, a 12-year-old Spanish learner of English. Relative clause constructions are considered in terms of learnable, non-abstract linguistic analyses (lexicalist signs and constructions; dependencies), informed by emergentist syntax (O'Grady 2005), analyses within Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (Sag 1997), and a comprehensive corpus grammar (Biber et al. 1999). The data show that complex aspects of language gradually emerged from item-based and compositional learning processes that interacted with the learner's environment, including input frequency and the functional purposes for which language is used. Item-based, sign-based, and compositional analyses of constructions are valuable for syllabus design (for synthetic syllabi) and for the evaluation of language proficiency (i.e. testing and measurement).

Syntactic modification at early stages of L2 German writing development: A longitudinal learner corpus study

“…Finally, and most importantly for this study, subordinate clauses are a heterogeneous category because they encompass verb complements (complement clauses), verb modifiers (adverbial clauses), noun modifiers (relative clauses), and even these subordinate clause types can be further divided into subtypes. It is revealing that studies that explore specific subordination types show different developmental profiles for different types (e.g., Byrnes & Sinicrope, 2008;Grant & Ginther, 2000;Hirschmann, in press;Mellow, 2006;. All of the above may be reasons for the mixed results across studies based on differing proficiency stages, L1s, genres, and subordination types.…”

The emergence of complex syntax: A longitudinal case study of the ESL development of dependency resolution

“…The particular version of emergentism that I adopt holds that acquisition is item-based and construction-based. Within an item-based approach (rather than a principle-based approach), learners are hypothesized to begin with a small number of tokens of particular linguistic constructions (Ellis, 2003;MacWhinney, 1982MacWhinney, , 2004Mellow, 2006a;Tomasello, 2003). Over time, learners process and produce a large number and range of construction types, including increasingly complex constructions.…”

“…Within a construction-based approach, language is hypothesized to be composed of a large number of types and subtypes of constructions that have specific combinatorial properties (e.g., subtypes of relative clauses, subtypes of complements that have noncanonical subjects: Ellis, 2003;Goldberg, 2003;Mellow, 2006a;Sag, 1997;Tomasello, 2003). Tomasello (2003:100) defined a construction as ''a unit of language that comprises multiple linguistic elements used together for a relatively coherent communicative function, with sub-functions being performed by the elements as well.''…”

The Acquisition of Complex Structures: The Case of Child ESL

“…However, most of the previous studies are experimental and few observational studies on this issue have been conducted. While the use of English subordinate clauses in children's spontaneous speech in L1 acquisition has been examined to some extent (e.g., Bowerman, 1979;Bloom, 1991;Diessel, 2004), longitudinal studies on the development of subordinate clauses by L2 learners (e.g., Mellow, 2006;Schumann, 1980) are rare. Also, a majority of previous studies analyzed the acquisition of relative clauses in terms of noun phrase accessibility hierarchy (Keenan & Comrie, 1977).…”