The interpretation of inflectional suffixes by low- educated L2 Dutch learners SLRF, Pittsburgh, October 2012 Loes Oldenkamp, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Background vader *komet met zijn dochter *fietset father come-3sg with his daughter cycle-3sg L2 forms (3sg): - kom – t -*kom – Ø -*kom – ə(n) -*kom – ət -*kom – tə

Low-Educated Second Language & Literacy Acquisition (LESLLA) Learners have only received (some years of) primary education in their home country. Often non-literate in the Latin script (Moroccan and Chinese learners). Little support of written language for most learners. No knowledge of other language than their L1. They have no (or few) metalinguistic skills. Language acquisition proceeds (often) slowly.

Background L1 acquisition Inflectional morphology is acquired smoothly. L2 acquisition Acquisition of inflectional morphology appears to be a persistent problem.

Dutch inflectional morphemes V-VerbN-Noun Ø tə(n) ə(n)s

Dutch inflectional morphemes Properties: 1.They consist of a coronal (/t/, /s/) or a schwa 2.They are invisible for stress  Adding these morphemes lead to complex word forms:  Adding a schwa to the stem of a word leads to polysyllabic words e.g. loop + schwa = lope(n)  adding a coronal to the stem leads to a final consonant cluster e.g. loop + /t/ = loopt

Avoidance strategies The L2 learner avoids words ending in a /t/-final consonant cluster and polysyllabic words ending in schwa: /t/-final consonant cluster:polysyllabic words ending in schwa: -/t/ deletion at the end of a word- deletion of schwa e.g. loop instead of loopt e.g. loop instead of loope(n) - schwa insertion e.g. loopet or loopte instead of loopt

Possible sources L1 morphosyntax L1 phonology

Similarities and dissimilarities between Dutch, Turkish (TU), Moroccan Arabic (MA) and Mandarin Chinese (CHIN) DutchTUMACHIN phonology - consonant cluster in coda++/--- - word-final schwa++/--- morphosyntax - word orderSVO/ SOVSOVSVO/ VSOSVO - verbal morphology+/ nominal morphology (plural)++/-+-

L2 learners have difficulties producing inflectional morphology correctly, but: Do L2 learners have difficulties in interpreting inflectional morphology correctly as well?

Method (participants) Picture selection task: participants are orally provided with a stimulus and have to select the corresponding picture. 44 Turkish, 44 Moroccan Arabic and 42 Mandarin Chinese learners of Dutch participated in the experiment. No more than three years of secondary education in their home country. Level A1 (Basic User: Breakthrough), A2 (Basic User: Waystage) and B1 (Independent User: Threshold), (CEF).

Method (materials) 110 items: 54 target items and 56 distracter items. Target items: nouns (singular vs. plural) and verbs (3rd person singular vs. 3rd person plural). The only cue to interpret the utterance correctly is the inflectional ending. - Ze kust een jongen. she kiss-3 SG. PRES a boy Ze kussen een jongen. she kiss-3 PL. PRES a boy - de kipthe chicken- SG de kippenthe chicken- PL

Categories 1.lexical items, nouns e.g. de pop/ de kip the doll-SING/ the chicken-SING 2. lexical items, verbs e.g. ze koopt een boek./ ze kust een jongen. she buy-3SG.PRES a book/ she kiss- 3SG.PRES a boy  Lexical items: constructed to test whether participants knew the vocabulary of the nouns and verbs that were used in the experiment. 3. inflectional items, nouns e.g. de kat/ de katten the cat- SING/ the cat-PLUR 4. inflectional items, verbs e.g. ze wast een auto./ ze wassen een auto. she wash-3SG.PRES a car/ she wash-3PLUR.PRES a car  Inflectional items: constructed to test nominal inflection (singular vs. plural) and verbal inflection (3 rd person singular vs. 3 rd person plural, present tense).

Lexical item, noun Stimulus: de pop the doll- SING

Lexical item, verb Stimulus: Ze kust een jongen. She kiss-3 SG. PRES a boy ‘She kisses a boy.’ boy

Inflectional item, noun Stimulus: de katten the cat- PLUR

Inflectional item, verb Stimulus: Ze wast een auto. she wash-3 SG PRES a carr ‘She washes a car.’

Results (overall) MeanExample of item pairs Lexical (k=24) noun (k=14) verb (k=10) total (k=24) de pop / de kat (‘the doll / the cat’) ze loopt / ze lacht (‘she walks / she laughs’ ) Inflection (k=25) noun (k=14) verb (k=11) total (k=25) de pop / de poppen (‘the doll / the dolls’) ze loopt / ze lopen (‘she walks / they walk’) Meannoun (k=28) verb (k=21) Mean (k=49)

1 = lexical item pairs 2= inflectional item pairs

Results (per category) Separate analyses on the 4 different item types lexical items, nouns; lexical items, verbs; inflectional items, nouns; inflectional items, verbs. Univariate ANOVAs with ‘proportions accurate responses’ as dependent variable and ‘L1 background’ (Turkish, Moroccan Arabic or Mandarin Chinese) and ‘L2 proficiency level’ (A1, A2 or B1) as independent, fixed factors.

A1A2B1Mean Turkish Moroccan Chinese Mean Participants performed very well on these items. No significant effects for ‘L1 background’ (F (2, 119) = 1.14, n.s.) and ‘L2 proficiency’ (F (2, 119) = 1.72, n.s.). and did not differ from each other with respect to ‘L1 background’ and ‘L2 proficiency’. Lexical items, nouns

Lexical items, verbs A1A2B1Mean Turkish Moroccan Chinese Mean Participants performed very well on these item types. Significant main effects for both ‘L1 background’ (F (2, 119) = 6.07, p <.01, η 2 =.093) and ‘L2 proficiency’ (F (2, 119) = 6.76, p <.01, η 2 =.102). No significant interaction (F (4, 19) =.994, n.s.)

Inflectional items, nouns A1A2B1Mean Turkish Moroccan Chinese Mean Significant effect for ‘L1 background’ (F (2, 119) = 8.69, p<.000, η 2 =.127): Chinese participants performed worse than Turkish and Moroccan participants. Turkish and Moroccan participants did not differ from each other. Significant effect for ‘L2 proficiency’ (F (2, 119) = 6.87, p=.000, η 2 =.104): Participants with level B1 performed better than participants with level A1, but not better than participants with level A2. A1 and A2 did not differ. No interaction

Inflectional items, verbs A1A2B1Mean Turkish Moroccan Chinese Mean Significant effect for ‘L2 proficiency’ (F (2, 119) = 16.47, p<.000, η 2 =.217). No effect for ‘L1 background’: all participant groups appeared to have difficulties interpreting these items.

Conclusions (1) Participants have more difficulties in the interpretation of inflectional items than in the interpretation of lexical items.  Redundant information is often available in the input. Learners are not used to focusing on the inflectional ending and having the inflectional ending as the only cue in interpreting the stimulus correctly. e.g. a. de stoel the chair b. de stoel-en the chair- PLUR => No redundant information available. a. één stoel one chair b. drie stoel-en three chair- PLUR =>The numerals één and drie make the plural morpheme redundant.

Conclusions (2) Participants have more problems interpreting verbal inflection (= contextual inflection) correctly than in interpreting nominal inflection (= inherent inflection).  Nouns and verbs differ in semantic complexity: The nominal plural morpheme only expresses number; the 3 rd person singular, present tense and 3 rd person plural, present tense morphemes express person, number and tense.

Conclusions (3) L2 proficiency level clearly plays a role: The interpretation of morphological elements improves with proficiency, in all groups of learners.

Conclusions (4) L1 background plays a role.  Mandarin Chinese participants had more difficulties interpreting inflectional endings than Turkish and Moroccan Arabic participants, but not in verbs. All participant groups appeared to have difficulties in verbal inflection.

Loes Oldenkamp Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands