Restrictions on definiteness in second language acquisition : affirmative and negative existentials in the L2 English of Turkish and Russian speakers

White, Lydia; Belikova, Alyona; Hagstrom, Paul; Kupisch, Tanja; Özçelik, Öner

Restrictions on definiteness in second language acquisition : affirmative and negative existentials in the L2 English of Turkish and Russian speakers

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Datum

2012

Autor:innen

White, Lydia

Belikova, Alyona

Hagstrom, Paul

Kupisch, Tanja

Özçelik, Öner

Open Access-Veröffentlichung

Open Access Green

Sammlungen

Linguistik

Publikationstyp

Zeitschriftenartikel

Publikationsstatus

Published

Erschienen in

Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism. 2012, 2(1), pp. 54-89. ISSN 1879-9272. Available under: doi: 10.1075/lab.2.1.03whi

Zusammenfassung

In this paper we investigate whether learners of L2 English show knowledge of the Definiteness Effect (Milsark, 1977), which restricts definite expressions from appearing in the existential there-insertion construction. There are cross-linguistic differences in how restrictions on definiteness play out. In English, definite expressions may not occur in either affirmative or negative existentials (e.g. There is a/*the mouse in my soup; There isn’t a/*the mouse in my soup). In Turkish and Russian, affirmative existentials observe a restriction similar to English, whereas negative existentials do not. We report on a series of experiments conducted with learners of English whose L1s are Turkish and Russian, of intermediate and advanced proficiency. Native speakers also took the test in English, Turkish, and Russian. The task involved acceptability judgments. Subjects were presented with short contexts, each followed by a sentence to be judged as natural/unnatural. Test items included affirmative and negative existentials, as well as items testing apparent exceptions to definiteness restrictions. Results show that both intermediate and advanced L2ers respond like English native speakers, crucially rejecting definites in negative existentials. A comparison with the groups taking the test in Russian and Turkish confirms that judgments in the L2 are quite different from the L1, suggesting that transfer cannot provide the explanation for learner success.

Fachgebiet (DDC)

400 Sprachwissenschaft, Linguistik

Schlagwörter

Definiteness Effect, existentials, Turkish, Russian

Zitieren

ISO 690

WHITE, Lydia, Alyona BELIKOVA, Paul HAGSTROM, Tanja KUPISCH, Öner ÖZÇELIK, 2012. Restrictions on definiteness in second language acquisition : affirmative and negative existentials in the L2 English of Turkish and Russian speakers. In: Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism. 2012, 2(1), pp. 54-89. ISSN 1879-9272. Available under: doi: 10.1075/lab.2.1.03whi

BibTex

@article{White2012Restr-37155,
  year={2012},
  doi={10.1075/lab.2.1.03whi},
  title={Restrictions on definiteness in second language acquisition : affirmative and negative existentials in the L2 English of Turkish and Russian speakers},
  number={1},
  volume={2},
  issn={1879-9272},
  journal={Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism},
  pages={54--89},
  author={White, Lydia and Belikova, Alyona and Hagstrom, Paul and Kupisch, Tanja and Özçelik, Öner}
}

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