Input, triggering and poverty of the stimulus in the second language acquisition of Japanese passives

Abstract

This article adopts an input perspective in examining a poverty-of-the stimulus (POS) learning situation in second language acquisition (SLA). Analysis of grammaticality judgement data from 81 English-speaking and 85 Chinese-speaking learners of Japanese isolates triggering input that informed English learners of subtle semantic properties of the ni direct passive underdetermined by second language (L2) input. The study shows a sufficient correlation in the case of English learners between acquisition of the ni direct passive's triggering properties (available through input) and acquisition of its POS properties (unavailable through input). Importantly, those properties are direct consequences of affectivity, an underlying semantic property of the ni direct passive. That correlation does not obtain in the case of Chinese learners due to a positive first language (L1) effect. Additional corroborating evidence comes from acquisition of another Japanese passive, the ni yotte, for which no correlation was found between its non-triggering and non-POS properties for either English or Chinese learners as those properties are available through input. The article proposes that English learners' computation of a target-like conceptual representation of the triggering input leads to the restructuring of their lexical—conceptual representation of the ni direct passive.

The role of input revisited: Nativist versus usage-based models

“…Additional properties that have been investigated under the rubric of POS phenomena in SLA include Japanese passives (Hara, 2007), Spanish eventive and stative passives (Bruhn de Garavito & Valenzuela, 2008), French adjectival restrictions of wh-quantifiers (Dekydtspotter & Sprouse, 2001), and Spanish aspectual distinctions (Montrul & Slabakova, 2003). Interestingly, the nature of the POS argument put forth in these studies is different from that of previous work, especially the original POS argument for structure-dependency.…”

“…6 To justify treating this as a case of POS, Hara (2007: 443) argues that the restriction of the ni direct passive to perfective readings cannot be "directly inferred from the input." Crucially, the POS argument espoused by Hara (2007) never claims that the construction itself (the ni direct passive) is rare or infrequent in the input; instead, the focus is on restrictions that are assumed to be too obscure to be inferred by the learner.…”