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Poster D51, Wednesday, August 21, 2019, 5:15 – 7:00 pm, Restaurant Hall

Markedness modulates person agreement differently in L1 and L2 speakers: An ERP study

José Alemán Bañón1, David Miller2, Jason Rothman3;1Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University, 2Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago, 3UiT The Arctic University of Norway

INTRODUCTION: Current theoretical models of L2 acquisition make different claims regarding how adult L2ers represent and utilize syntactic features. For example, McCarthy (2008) argues that adult L2ers cannot acquire the full specification of morphological features due to a representational deficit, and instead overuse morphological defaults, such as supplying third-person verbal morphology with first-person subjects, even at high levels of proficiency. Other proposals (Grüter et al., 2012) assume that adult L2ers can represent L2 features in a native-like manner, but may have reduced ability to access them online and use them predictively. STUDY/METHODS: We address these issues in an ERP study investigating how markedness modulates person agreement processing in L1-English L2-Spanish learners. The study builds on previous work by Alemán Bañón & Rothman (2019) with L1 Spanish speakers. In that study, we manipulated person markedness by probing both first-person singular subjects (marked for person: speaker; 1a) and third-person singular ones (unmarked: default person; 2a). Agreement was manipulated by crossing first-person subjects with third-person verbs (1b) and vice-versa (2b). STIMULI: (1a) Yo a menudo lloro en las películas (I often cry-1ST-PERSON-SG in the movies) (1b) Yo a menudo *llora… (I often cry-3RD-PERSON-SG...) (2a) La viuda a menudo llora en la capilla (the widow often cry-3RD-PERSON-SG in the chapel) (2b) La viuda a menudo *lloro… (the widow often cry-1ST-PERSON-SG...). The study included 40 items/condition (RSVP: 450/300ms). RESULTS/DISCUSSION: Native speakers (n=28) showed a P600 (500-1000ms) for both error types relative to grammatical sentences. “Marked subject + unmarked verb” errors (1b) yielded a larger P600 than the reverse error type (2b). Since the P600 is argued to reflect the reanalysis processes triggered by violations of top-down expectations, we interpreted these findings as evidence that person-marked subjects allow the parser to generate stronger predictions regarding the form of upcoming verbs, via feature activation (Nevins et al., 2007). When that prediction is unmet, the result is a larger P600. The same design was used with 22 English-speaking learners of Spanish (intermediate/advanced). Similar to L1 speakers (Alemán Bañón & Rothman, 2019), learners elicited a P600 for both error types. Unlike L1 speakers, the P600 was reduced for “marked subject + unmarked verb” errors (1b) relative to the opposite error type (2b), failing to provide evidence for markedness-driven predictive processing. Although the reduced P600 for “marked subject + unmarked verb” errors appears consistent with claims that L2ers over-rely on defaults (McCarthy, 2008), regression analyses showed that P600-size for this violation type increased as a function of development (score in standardized proficiency test), speaking against permanent representational deficits. These results suggest that markedness modulates both L1 and L2 processing, but differently. In natives, person markedness at the subject allows the parser to generate predictions regarding upcoming verbs (stronger predictions than with unmarked subjects), a mechanism that L2ers are less likely to use. In L2ers, markedness impacts (but does not constrain) agreement when the dependency is established (at the verb). Overall, this is more consistent with claims that L2ers can fully represent features but are less likely to use them predictively.

Themes: Multilingualism, Morphology
Method: Electrophysiology (MEG/EEG/ECOG)

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