Reversing the Approach to Null Subjects: A Perspective from Language Acquisition

Duguine, Maia

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00027

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Therefore, the final learner group included 338 participants. Learners were assigned to four categories according to the values of the null subject parameter (NSP) as established in the current generative literature (e.g., Roberts & Holmberg, 2010), with two important differences (which we will explain below): (a) consistent prodrop languages—such as Italian, Greek, Turkish, and Arabic—are those that feature null subjects in all persons and tenses; (b) partial prodrop languages license null subjects only in some persons of the verb, for example, Finnish and Brazilian Portuguese third subject pronouns cannot be null, whereas third impersonal pronouns can be null; (c) discourse (radical) pro-drop languages—such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean—allow non-expression of both pronominal subjects and objects and lack verb morphology; (iv) non-prodrop languages are languages—such as English, German, French, and Icelandic—in which pronominal subjects are expressed by pronouns in subject position that are normally if not obligatorily present (Dryer, 2013, see Duguine, 2017 for discussion).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aboutness in a second language text: A large-scale study on topic reactivation by L2 Italian learners

Rastelli

2022

International Journal of Bilingualism

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Objectives: The study reports adult L2 Italian learners’ and native speakers’ (NS) choices between null and overt subject pronouns in a written illustrated story. The aim of the study is to ascertain whether learners have different perceptions of the aboutness topic compared with NS. Methodology: A total of 338 adult L2 Italian learners having different L1s filled in the blanks of a written story by choosing between the null pronoun and the third-person pronoun lui “he.” Data and analysis: The outcome variable was learners’ and NS’ choices between null and overt pronominal subject. Independent variables were: “anaphora” (“null” or “pronominal”) and “position” (“intrasentential,” when the antecedent and the gap were in the same sentence, and “intersentential,” when the antecedent and the gap were in two separate sentences). Findings: When the antecedent and the gap occurred in adjacent scenes of the story separated by punctuation, L2 learners—unlike NS—tended to reactivate the overt subject pronoun. Learners’ proficiency, L1, length of instruction, and knowledge of verb morphology significantly modulated the results. Originality: Punctuation in written texts strongly affects the likelihood that L2 learners use anaphoric means to reactivate the topic. L2 learners’ perception of aboutness in discourse is less robust and more affected by topic shifts and interruptions. Implications: Null subjects in texts should be dealt with upfront in second language instruction. Syllabi should deal with the difference between the use of overt and null pronouns in discourse.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aboutness in a second language text: A large-scale study on topic reactivation by L2 Italian learners

Rastelli

2022

International Journal of Bilingualism

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“…En general, muchos teóricos generativistas asumen que los sujetos expresos son la condición por defecto; sin embargo, una propuesta alternativa ha sido formulada por Duguine (2017). La autora formula el «enfoque inverso», que apunta al ajuste de la omisión de sujetos (pro-drop) como la condición gramatical por defecto.…”

Section: Escuela-dat Ir-prog-1sgunclassified

Sujetos nulos: tipología lingüística, adquisición y contacto de lenguas

Yacomelo

2020

Forma. func.

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El siguiente artículo ofrece un recuento de las principales propuestas y modelos formulados para explicar la variación en la expresión de sujeto a través de las lenguas. El tema es abordado desde las perspectivas de la teoría lingüística, la lingüística tipológica, la adquisición de primeras y segundas lenguas, y el contacto de lenguas. En él se incluyen también nuevas hipótesis junto a posibles formas de comprobarlas, así como posibles implicaciones que estas pueden tener para la lingüística y las disciplinas afines. En particular, este artículo puede ser de utilidad para que investigadores de diversas disciplinas se familiaricen con el estado del arte de la expresión de sujeto, conozcan nuevas direcciones de investigación y se animen a ser parte de proyectos relacionados.

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“…In Chinese and Basque, so-called radical argument-drop languages, dropping or ellipsis is allowed with any argument, if recoverable from discourse (Barbosa 2019;Huang 1984) or from rich verbal inflection (Duguine 2017). Chinese has the syntactic feature f nowhere, while in Basque this feature is specified everywhere in the grammar.…”

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confidence: 99%

AAiMLL: Acquisition Advantages in MultiLingual Learners: The Case of the Multilingual Child

Müller

2023

Languages

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Cognitive science has demonstrated that multilinguals (including children) show a cognitive advantage over monolinguals. Linguistics has provided evidence that multilinguals (including children) are able to successfully separate their lexicons and grammars and negotiate multilingual environments. Apart from these achievements, linguistics has generally failed to demonstrate a multilingual advantage related to the multilingual’s linguistic proficiency. The present article summarizes the current literature, which shows that there are first indications of an acceleration effect in multilingual children. This effect is discernable if the languages radically differ, if the child uses a ‘weak’ language (often a minority language), if the child acquires more than two languages from birth, and if contact with the language exhibiting the acceleration effect is delayed until kindergarten age. This kind of acceleration effect represents an explanation gap under current theorizing in cognitive science and linguistics, and calls for a new language acquisition theory, a best-of-breed solution for further research in language acquisition. AAiMLL (Acquisition Advantages in MultiLingual Learners) combines cognitive and linguistic aspects with a threshold theory. It is claimed here that the multilingual child learns from two cognitive acquisition strategies. One is fed by grammatical features, and requires the child to (re-)use already acquired knowledge by generalizing to new domains. The other strategy enables the child to consider rejected alternatives of earlier decisions in one language, for use in the other language. An acceleration effect related to the multilingual’s linguistic proficiency is indicative of the success of both strategies. The success of the strategies is argued to be related to a threshold of language usage from a quantitative or a qualitative perspective.

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Reversing the Approach to Null Subjects: A Perspective from Language Acquisition

Cited by 10 publications

References 57 publications

Aboutness in a second language text: A large-scale study on topic reactivation by L2 Italian learners

Aboutness in a second language text: A large-scale study on topic reactivation by L2 Italian learners

Sujetos nulos: tipología lingüística, adquisición y contacto de lenguas

AAiMLL: Acquisition Advantages in MultiLingual Learners: The Case of the Multilingual Child

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