Cascadilla Proceedings Project: Paper 1280


Home page

List of proceedings

Enter a document #:
Enter search terms:




Info for readers

Info for authors

Info for editors

Info for libraries



Order form

Shopping cart

Selected Proceedings of the 7th Conference on the Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese as First and Second Languages
edited by Carol A. Klee and Timothy L. Face

ISBN 1-57473-409-1 library binding
vi + 194 pages
publication date: 2006
published by Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, MA, USA

Table of contents



Abstract

Eve Zyzik
Learners' Overgeneralization of Dative Clitics to Accusative Contexts: Evidence for Prototype Effects in SLA
122-134 (complete pdf)

This paper investigates the acquisition of the dative case by L2 learners of Spanish within the framework of Cognitive Grammar. Oral production data show that third-person dative clitics first emerge as part of rote-learned chunks with high frequency verbs like dar and gustar. Furthermore, certain thematic roles (e.g., Recipient, Experiencer) emerge earlier and are used more consistently then others (e.g., Source, Beneficiary). The results also show a clear pattern of overgeneralization of dative clitics to accusative contexts, primarily when the referent is animate. This finding suggests that learners are sensitive to the correlation between animacy and dative case marking, which may lead them to construct a mental schema of the prototypical dative participant.


Copyright © 2005 Cascadilla Proceedings Project. All rights reserved. To request permission to copy any elements from our pages, or to send comments or questions about our pages, please write to webmaster@cascadilla.com and make sure to provide the URL of the particular page. This page last updated 16 December 2005.