Preposition stranding and pied-piping in second language acquisition
نویسنده
چکیده
The present paper endeavours to investigate whether L1 Persian speakers are sensitive to a ‘poverty of the stimulus’ situation in English: the asymmetrical constraint on piedpiping and stranding constructions. Both prepositions and particles can be stranded in interrogatives and relative clauses, but only prepositional phrases can appear in piedpiping structures. In contrast, Persian licenses pied-piping with prepositional phrases, but stranding is disallowed. The main study tested L1 Persian speakers of L2 English at three proficiency levels: elementary (n=18), intermediate (n=25), advanced (n=22). The L2 speakers and 14 native controls completed a 56-item grammaticality preference task. The findings demonstrate the fact that L2 learners are sensitive to the underdetermined distinction between the constituency status of prepositions and their DP complements on the one hand and the lack of the constituency status of the particles and their superficial DP complements on the other. Moreover, the results indicate that the L2 learners can acquire preposition stranding, a typologically marked construction, earlier than the unmarked pied-piping structures. This is a clear case in which input saliency overrides other factors involved in the SLA process.
منابع مشابه
Variable vs. Categorical Effects Preposition Pied Piping and Stranding in British English Relative Clauses
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