How students acquire things you never teach them

Robert KluenderDepartment of Linguistics, UCSDUCCLLT Workshop on Grammar and Language TeachingJune 20, 2004

Is L2 acquisition like L1 acquisition?The results of critical period research: there is a definite decline in ultimate

attainment with age across childhood it affects L1A more than L2A unclear how much of it is biological phonology correlates better with AoA

than morphosyntax (but accentless non-native speakers seem to exist)

Is L2 acquisition like L1 acquisition? Often it is assumed that L2A differs

from L1A most in terms of implicit learning

However, there is also very clear evidence of implicit learning in L2A

What would constitute proof? The best evidence for implicit learning

in L1A is reorganization We identify L1 reorganization by a

temporary increase in systematic errors, the “U-shaped” learning curve

Is there any evidence for a U-shaped learning curve in L2 acquisition?

The strange case of unaccusativesWhy unaccusative verbs are a good test

case for implicit learning: they are found in every language, i.e.

are a well-attested linguistic universal they behave systematically they are not theory-dependent nobody knows about them, so they

can’t possibly be explicitly taught

An aside/exhortation from my hobbyhorse soapbox bully pulpit

An aside/exhortation from my hobbyhorse soapbox bully pulpit “Stop drilling!” (BVP)

An aside/exhortation from my hobbyhorse soapbox bully pulpit “Stop drilling for UG!” (RK)

An aside/exhortation from my hobbyhorse soapbox bully pulpit “Stop drilling for Universal Grammar!”

An aside/exhortation from my

hobbyhorse soapbox bully pulpit “Stop drilling for L2 evidence of wh-

movement constraints !”

An aside/exhortation from my hobbyhorse soapbox bully pulpit Even assuming that they are part of

Universal Grammar, wh-movement constraints are a moving target as to

– their overall status in the theory – their current theoretical formulation Accumulating evidence that they are

instead a processing phenomenon

The strange case of unaccusatives native speakers are naturally unaware

of this phenomenon in their 1st language

it’s never taught to them in school 2nd language learners are never exposed

to it, because 2nd language teachers don’t know about it, either

2nd language learners acquire it nonetheless

What are “unaccusative” verbs? the unfortunate name stems from

Perlmutter (1977), who first discussed the phenomenon

unaccusatives are intransitive verbs whose subject is the undergoer

(also called “patient” or “theme”) rather than the agent of the action

Two types of intransitive verbsunergative verbssubject is

AGENT

She left. She lay down. She hid.

unaccusative verbssubject is

UNDERGOER

She arrived. She fell. She disappeared.

Some unaccusative verbs have transitive counterparts transitive form: The heat melted the butter. unaccusative form: The butter melted. transitive form: The children broke the vase. unaccusative form: The vase broke.

Some unaccusative verbs have transitive counterparts transitive form: The heat melted the butter. unaccusative form: The butter melted. transitive form: The children broke the vase. unaccusative form: The vase broke.

Tests for unaccusativity: agentive -er suffixation in English

She arrived. She fell. She disappeared.

*arriver *faller *disappearer

Tests for unaccusativity Italian: auxiliary selection in passato prossimo

(Lei) è arrivata / caduta / sparita. she is arrived fallen disappeared *ha arrivata / caduta / sparita. has arrived fallen disappeared

Tests for unaccusativity Italian passive and reflexive verbs

also take essere (‘to be’) as auxiliary in passato prossimo

This means that all undergoer subjects take essere as auxiliary in Italian passato prossimo

Tests for unaccusativityOf all the Romance languages, Italian has best retained the Latin

distinction between esse and habere, French has retained it to some degree

but lost other parts of it, while the other Romance languages

have lost it altogether

Tests for unaccusativity German and Dutch make very similar

distinctions in the perfect tenses (e.g. Sie ist hingefallen in German)

The distinction used to exist in English, but now is found only in archaic usage (e.g. Christian hymns)

– “Joy to the world, the Lord is come” – “Alleluia, He is risen”

Another appeal for the inclusion of linguistic knowledge in L2 teaching Consider how torturous it is using

traditional grammar to explain which verbs take ‘be’ as auxiliary in perfect tenses of European languages,

and then consider how much easier your life might be in this regard if you referred to the L2 literature on unaccusative verbs (Sorace 1993a)

Tests for unaccusativityItalian: ne-cliticization transitive verbs: Mario ha letto molte lettere Mario has read many letters

Mario ne ha letto molte Mario of=them has read many

Tests for unaccusativityItalian: ne-cliticization intransitive (unergative) verbs: Hanno lavorato molte persone have worked many persons

*Ne hanno lavorato molte

of=them have worked many

Tests for unaccusativityItalian: ne-cliticization intransitive (unaccusative) verbs: Sono arrivate molte persone are arrived many persons

Ne sono arrivate molte

of=them are arrived many

Tests for unaccusativityItalian: ne-cliticization transitive verbs: Mario ha letto molte lettere Mario has read many letters

Mario ne ha letto molte Mario of=them has read many

Generalizations from our tests English unaccusatives do not allow

agentive -er suffixation because they do not take agent arguments

only verbs with undergoer subjects (unaccusative, passive, and reflexive) take essere as auxiliary in Italian

only verbs with undergoer arguments (i.e. transitive objects & unaccusative subjects) allow Italian ne-cliticization

Preliminary conclusions Unaccusative verbs have undergoer

subjects Remarkably enough, L2 learners

unconsciously seem to pick up on this

The unaccusative hierarchy (Sorace 1993a/2000) change of location [selects BE ] change of state/condition continuation of a pre-existing state existence of state/condition change of state-transitive counterpart uncontrolled process controlled process (motional) controlled process (non-motional) [selects HAVE ]

The unaccusative hierarchy (Sorace 2000) arrive, fall [selects BE ] change of state/condition continuation of a pre-existing state existence of state/condition change of state-transitive counterpart uncontrolled process controlled process (motional) controlled process (non-motional) [selects HAVE ]

The unaccusative hierarchy (Sorace 2000) arrive, fall [selects BE ] become, disappear, die continuation of a pre-existing state existence of state/condition change of state-transitive counterpart uncontrolled process controlled process (motional) controlled process (non-motional) [selects HAVE ]

The unaccusative hierarchy (Sorace 2000) arrive, fall [selects BE ] become, disappear, die stay, remain existence of state/condition change of state-transitive counterpart uncontrolled process controlled process (motional) controlled process (non-motional) [selects HAVE ]

The unaccusative hierarchy (Sorace 2000) arrive, fall [selects BE ] become, disappear, die stay, remain be, seem change of state-transitive counterpart uncontrolled process controlled process (motional) controlled process (non-motional) [selects HAVE ]

The unaccusative hierarchy (Sorace 2000) arrive, fall [selects BE ] become, disappear, die stay, remain be, seem break, melt, sink uncontrolled process controlled process (motional) controlled process (non-motional) [selects HAVE ]

The unaccusative hierarchy (Sorace 2000) arrive, fall [selects BE ] become, disappear, die stay, remain be, seem break, melt, sink blush, tremble, shine controlled process (motional) controlled process (non-motional) [selects HAVE ]

The unaccusative hierarchy (Sorace 2000) arrive, fall [selects BE ] become, disappear, die stay, remain be, seem break, melt, sink blush, tremble, shine run, dance, swim controlled process (non-motional) [selects HAVE ]

The unaccusative hierarchy (Sorace 2000) arrive, fall [selects BE ] become, disappear, die stay, remain be, seem break, melt, sink blush, tremble, shine run, dance, swim talk, work [selects HAVE ]

The unaccusative hierarchy(Sorace 1993a)

“The hierarchy embodies the fact that the notion of dynamic change, whose most concrete manifestation is change of location, is at the root of unaccusativity, and identifies verbs of directed motion as core cases for essere/être-selection.”

(Sorace 1993a: 81)

L2 sensitivity to semantic aspects of unaccusativity (Sorace 1993b) Subjects – English/French near-native speakers

of Italian in Italy, no Italian origins – began learning after age 15 (18-27),

average 9 years of exposure (5-15) Materials and Procedure – acceptability judgements on auxiliary

selection with unaccusative verbs

L2 sensitivity to semantic aspects of unaccusativity (Sorace 1993b)

L2 sensitivity to semantic aspects of unaccusativity (Sorace 1993b) L2 speakers were sensitive to

unaccusative hierarchy categories Only native speakers had significantly

different judgements between the two auxiliaries in every category

L2 speakers had significantly different judgements between auxiliaries only at the high end of the hierarchy (two highest categories)

L2 sensitivity to semantic aspects of unaccusativity (Sorace 1993b)

L2 sensitivity to unaccusativity L2 learners are sensitive to the

unaccusative hierarchy and the semantic distinctions between verb subtypes that it represents

Is this only because these are highly advanced, near-native learners?

Is there any evidence for a U-shaped learning curve in L2A? L2 learners passivize unaccusatives *He was arrived early. *My mother was died when I was just a

baby. *This problem is existed for many

years. *Most of people are fallen in love and

marry with somebody.

Unaccusative passivization errors (Oshita 1998/2000)

Unaccusative passivization errors(Oshita 1998/2000)

Is there any evidence for a U-shaped learning curve in L2A? Learners are never exposed to these

errors in input from native speakers They occur in the output of ESL

students of diverse L1 backgrounds They appear only at advanced or high

intermediate levels of L2 instruction Even at this level, L2 usage of

unaccusatives is 90% error-free

Why these particular errors? Recall that unaccusative verbs

pattern with passive verbs in Italian with regard to auxiliary selection, as both have undergoer subjects

Passive verbs in English also have undergoer subjects, and require passive verbal morphology

Why these particular errors? Sentence 3 Subject Verb phrase # 3 # Verb Direct object # # # # # # Robin killed Kelly AGENT PATIENT

Why these particular errors? Sentence 3 Subject Verb phrase # 3 # Verb Direct object # # # # # # was killed Kelly PATIENT

Why these particular errors? Sentence 3 Subject Verb phrase # 3 # Verb Direct object # # # # # # was killed Kelly PATIENT

Why these particular errors? Sentence 3 Subject Verb phrase # 3 # Verb Direct object # # # # # # Kelly was killed [ ] PATIENT

Why these particular errors? Sentence 3 Subject Verb phrase # 3 # Verb Direct object # # # # # # died Kelly PATIENT

Why these particular errors? Sentence 3 Subject Verb phrase # 3 # Verb Direct object # # # # # # died Kelly PATIENT

Why these particular errors? Sentence 3 Subject Verb phrase # 3 # Verb Direct object # # # # # # Kelly died [ ] PATIENT

Why these particular errors? Sentence 3 Subject Verb phrase # 3 # Verb Direct object # # # # # # Kelly *was died [ ] PATIENT

Why these particular errors? Sentence 3 Subject Verb phrase # 3 # Verb Direct object # # # # # # Kelly was killed [ ] PATIENT

Why these particular errors? By hypothesis, when learners

recognize that there is an undergoer (patient) in subject position,

they associate this with passive morphology on the verb (be),

and therefore passivize the verb even if it is not needed, as is the case

with unaccusative verbs (Oshita 1998/2000)

Why these particular errors? Note that this is a perfectly reasonable

mistake to be making: it shows unconscious sensitivity to the

presence of undergoer arguments in subject position,

and analogizes a known morpho-syntactic pattern for such subjects.

This is pretty sophisticated; presumably this is why it occurs late.

Is this a U-shaped learning curve? Oshita (1998/2000) claims that it is But there was no empirical evidence: The data show the middle of a slump,

but no early error-free period, and no subsequent recovery

So is this a U-shaped learning curve or just a nose dive that learners never pull out of?

Follow-up: Klieman & Kluender Corpus study of writing samples from

advanced ESL students in the Chinese Learner English Corpus

6% unaccusative passivization rate passivization more than twice as

frequent as other unaccusative errors more errors at intermediate levels,

but same % of passivization errors

Percentage of passivization errors

Percentage of passivization errors

Follow-up: Klieman & Kluender Spoken/written production, error

detection in Russian L2 speakers of English

modified ILR OPI no differences in spoken elicitation,

but errors only at level 2+ and below ability in error detection significantly

different by proficiency level

Error detection by proficiency level

Follow-up: Klieman & Kluender Spoken/written production, error

detection in Russian L2 speakers of English

no differences in spoken elicitation, but errors only at level 2+ and below

ability in error detection significantly different by proficiency level

Follow-up: Klieman & Kluender Spoken/written production,

error detection in Russian L2 speakers of English

no differences in spoken elicitation, but errors only at level 2+ and below

ability in error detection significantly different by proficiency level

written production errors only at level 2+ and below

Follow-up: Klieman & Kluender Clear evidence for recovery at level 3 But is this merely circular evidence? No unaccusative passivization errors

because “no systematic errors” of grammar at level 3 and above?

But unaccusativity is not targeted by, or even on the radar screen of OPI

In any case, the problem goes away

But is it a U-shaped learning curve? It’s at least a J-shaped learning curve Still no reliable data from early L2A:

Initial attempts to use the same procedures on low-proficiency Russian learners failed

At a minimum, there is evidence for implicit learning and reorganization

Summary: L2 sensitivity to unaccusativity L2 learners are sensitive to semantic

verb subtype distinctions on the unaccusative hierarchy (auxiliary selection in Italian)

L2 learners show sensitivity to the fact that unaccusative verbs take undergoer subjects by overgeneralizing passive morphology (passivization errors in English)

What would constitute proof? The best evidence for implicit learning

in L1A is reorganization We identify L1 reorganization by a

temporary increase in systematic errors, the “U-shaped” learning curve

Is there any evidence for a U-shaped learning curve in L2 acquisition?

Is L2 acquisition like L1 acquisition?L2 acquisition of unaccusativity: an indisputable language universal implicit learning with no explicit input overgeneralization low error rates eventual recovery