Zusammenhänge zwischen Wortstellungen und Subjekt-Verb-Kongruenz in der lernersprachlichen Entwicklung bei L2-Lernern des Deutschen

Abstract

The present work deals with production difficulties associated with German word order rules and examines how word order and subject-verb agreement relate to one another in the interlanguage development of learners of German as a second language, paying particular attention to the perspective of the learner regarding their language production. It will be argued that the production difficulties with subject-verb inversion (INVERSION) and verb-final placement in subordinate clauses (V-FINAL) as well as the tendency in learners to produce SVO structures instead of INVERSION and V-FINAL, are consequences caused by a specific way of processing used by the leaner in trying to realize the subject-verb agreement that is typical of German. Over the course of the interlanguage development, the processing of word order, in turn, influences the processing of subject-verb agreement so that learners rarely produce subjectverb agreement errors in structures having SVO word order, while on the other hand, they occur frequently in structures that deviate from SVO word order. It is assumed that factors such as the acquisition context (natural/instructed), transfer from previously acquired languages and age-related, cognitive maturity play an important role in the acquisition of subject-verb agreement.

Teaching the form-function mapping of German ‘prefield’ elements using Concept-Based Instruction

“…Differences in processing effort as suggested by Lee (2012aLee ( , 2012b; see the discussion in section 2) may still play a role. If declarative sentences with nonsubject prefields are indeed harder to process than SVX structures because of the interaction of subject-verb agreement and constituent order (cf.…”

South Korean immigrant workers in Germany: L2 German verb placement and sociolinguistic factors

“…According to the ZISA study account, V2 is difficult to acquire because the sentence-internal restructuring demands higher processing capacity as it requires the separation of the tight verbcomplement unit (see Clahsen et al, 1983, p. 162, for arguments from child L1 acquisition and UG). Lee (2010Lee ( , 2012aLee ( , 2012b argues that separation of the subject-verb sequence requires high processing costs, which appears plausible given that SVO is acquired first and therefore likely most automatized. Furthermore, the learner has the option of a less complex alternative by preposing (frame-setting, linking, or sentence) adverbials to a basic SVO structure without changing the order (XSVO), leading to V3, which is acquired at an earlier stage.…”