Second language acquisition of pragmatic inferences: Evidence from the Frenchc'est-cleft

Abstract

This paper examines the extent to which second language (L2) speakers of French acquire the semantic and pragmatic (or interpretive) properties associated with the c'est-cleft, specifically the exhaustive inference. This phenomenon is relevant to theories of language acquisition because it is situated at the interface of syntax and pragmatics. The results from a forced-choice task challenge the empirical adequacy of the interface hypothesis (Sorace, 2011, 2012; Sorace & Filiaci, 2006), which claims that external interfaces between a linguistic module and a cognitive module remain problematic even at the highest levels of L2 acquisition. The results from 40 L2 learners at three proficiency levels reveal development from nontargetlike to nativelike behavior. In particular, the high-proficiency group interprets the c'est-cleft, as well as canonical subject–verb–object sentences and sentences with exclusives (i.e., seul(ement) “only”), in a statistically identical way to the French native speaker control group.

Plasticity, Variability and Age in Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism

“…It is important to emphasize that, despite bilingualism effects, there are late L2 learners who resemble native monolinguals with respect to targeted aspects of the L2 (as opposed to bilinguals being indistinguishable from monolinguals in every measurable respect). Behavioral evidence ranges from acquisition of fine-grained phonetic features such as VOT to global pronunciation ( Bongaerts, 1999 ; Flege et al, 2002 ; Birdsong, 2007 ; Moyer, 2014 ) and from surface morphology to abstract features of syntax ( Birdsong, 1992 ; Birdsong and Molis, 2001 ; Donaldson, 2011 ; Destruel and Donaldson, 2017 ). In online tasks such as self-paced reading, late bilinguals show monolingual-like sensitivity to subtle and unique aspects of the L2 such as order of clitic pronouns ( Rossi et al, 2017 ).…”

It's Not What You Expected! The Surprising Nature of Cleft Alternatives in French and English

“…This is mainly due to the fact that French clefts are already rated fairly high in no contr. context (μ = 4.56), as opposed to the English clefts (μ = 3.39), which is expected given that clefts are the most natural way to signal focus in the former language, especially with grammatical subjects (as argued by Lambrecht, 1994 among others, and empirically substantiated in Destruel, 2013; Féry, 2013). Similarly to English though, canonical sentences behave differently from clefts: While being rated highly in non-contradictory contexts (μ = 5.64), their naturalness does not improve as the level of contrariness rises (μ = 5.03).…”

“…In general, it is often supposed that aspects of meaning which are “baked” into the conventional meaning of an expression should surface more robustly than aspects of meaning and use which are derived indirectly, and involve pragmatic reasoning. Based on this premise, prior experimental research (Byram-Washburn et al, 2013; Destruel, 2013) has suggested that exhaustivity is pragmatic. The pattern of data that we have reported on in the current paper might then also be taken to suggest that contrariness requirements are derived via some pragmatic process, since, our contrariness data resemble prior exhaustivity data in that we observed gradient differences in judgments across conditions, rather than clear categorical effects with sharp boundaries between felicitous and infelicitous uses of clefts.…”

“…The c'est -cleft, despite adding syntactic complexity, circumvents this prosodic restriction by creating an extra intonational boundary that can align with the focus constituent (Hamlaoui, 2008). Consequently, the c'est -cleft constitutes the default strategy to signal focus (also known as information focus), especially on grammatical subjects (Lambrecht, 1994; Destruel, 2013; Féry, 2013). Second, the French c'est -cleft can be used in focus contexts where the English cleft is prohibited; for instance to signal focus on the entire sentence rather than on a single element (i.e., broad focus).…”

A within-subjects comparison of the acquisition of quantity-related inferences

“…The implicature view is driven by the observation that actual inferences derived from it-cleft exhaustivity are often weaker than what would be predicted based on a purely semantic, presupposition-based account. Destruel (2013), for example, found cases where the exhaustivity inference in French c'est-clefts (which carry the same exhaustive interpretation as the English cleft structures (Destruel & Donaldson 2017)) is cancellable, and thus incompatible with its status as a presupposition. The alternative proposal put forth is that the exhaustivity inference in it-clefts, unlike exclusive items like "only", derives from an implicature, where the inference arises from Gricean reasoning (Grice 1975).…”