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Mari Umeda
437-447 (complete pdf)
The present study deals with second language acquisition of wh-in-situ by English-speaking learners of Japanese. The focus of this paper is a scope-marking strategy used in Japanese which is not found in English wh-constructions. Nishigauchi (1990) noted that the scope of wh-phrases in-situ is determined by the position of the Q(uestion)-particle -ka. In English, on the other hand, the scope of wh-phrases is determined by the position of wh-phrases themselves, although wh-in-situ is also allowed in a limited number of constructions. The main concern of this paper is whether learners transfer their first language (L1) knowledge of wh-in-situ, and whether they can achieve target-like interpretations, even though the evidence they are exposed to underdetermines the target-like interpretations. The results from an experiment suggest that, at the low-intermediate level, learners transfer the wh-in-situ from their L1. At the high-intermediate and advanced levels, learners seem to go beyond L1 transfer; however, the majority of learners seem to have difficulties achieving the target-like interpretation. It is proposed that the problem lies in their difficulties integrating a semantic property (an operator-variable relation) with their newly acquired L2 syntax. The problem, however, disappears at the near-native level, when they are able to integrate the semantic property with the L2 syntax.
Published in:
Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition North America (GALANA)
edited by Alyona Belikova, Luisa Meroni, and Mari Umeda
Table of contents
ISBN 978-1-57473-419-5 library binding
vii + 490 pages
publication date: 2007
published by Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, MA, USA