Finiteness and verb placement in second language acquisition

Abstract

The relationship between finiteness and verb placement has often been studied in both first language (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition and many studies claim that, while there is a correlation between finiteness and verb placement in L1 acquisition, these areas represent separate learning tasks in second language acquisition (SLA). The purpose of this article is to provide a new perspective on this elusive question, analysing data from speakers of Romance languages learning German as a second language (L2). Verbs are classified as thematic and nonthematic and analysed with respect to overt subject–verb agreement and verb placement as seen in negation patterns. A clear association between subject–verb agreement and verb placement is seen for nonthematic verbs: they are in most cases morphologically finite and show the syntactical distribution of finite verbs. These verbs are interpreted as a spell-out of agreement features, differing both from the speakers' L1 and from the L2, but conforming to a universal grammar (UG) option.

Light verbs and the acquisition of finiteness and negation in Dutch as a second language

“…Most researchers agree that light verbs such as copulae, modals, and auxiliaries are used in finite constructions earlier than lexical verbs. Parodi (2000) investigated data from Romance L2-learners of German and found that these learners used correct subject-verb agreement with auxiliaries, modals and the copula, while agreement marking on lexical verbs was absent or highly variable. Furthermore, Parodi looked at the position of the negator to find out whether verbs had been raised and found that learners consistently used post-verbal negation with light verbs, whereas they used pre-verbal negation with lexical verbs.…”

“…An exception to this is Parodi (1998Parodi ( , 2000 who investigated the acquisition of subject-verb agreement and negation in longitudinal data from Romance learners of German, distinguishing between light verbs such as modals, auxiliaries, and possessive 'have', on the one hand, and lexical verbs, on the other. Her results indicated that agreement with lexical verbs showed a slow development towards the target system, while agreement with light verbs was sudden and correct.…”

Differences or fundamental differences?

“…When the same data 1. The only exception is Parodi (2000), in which finite means 'correctly agreeing', and nonfinite either refers to infinitival forms, past participles, or non-agreeing finite forms. 2.…”

“…For example, the data of Philippe in Verrips & Weissenborn (1992) are not reported because the same data are analyzed by Pierce (1989). Likewise, the data from Meisel (1997) are not reported because they overlap with the data in Parodi (2000) and Pré-vost & White (1999, 2000. 4.…”

Le rôle de la complexité lexicale et syntaxique dans l’acquisition de la morphologie verbale : l’accord en nombre sujet-verbe en français langue seconde

“…Le phénomène a néanmoins été étudié pour différentes langues cibles. Ainsi, Prévost et White (2000) et Parodi (2000) ont étudié l'acquisition de l'accord sujet-verbe en allemand par des hispanophones et par des italophones et l'accord sujet-verbe en anglais et en turc a été étudié par Haznedar (2003). En français, le développement de l'accord sujet-verbe a été étudié par Ågren (2008) chez des apprenants suédophones et par Howard pour des apprenants anglophones.…”