Polarity-item "anything" in L3 English : Where does transfer come from when the L1 is Catalan and the L2 is Spanish?

This study explores the source of transfer in third language (L3) English by two distinct groups of Catalan–Spanish bilinguals, simultaneous bilinguals and late bilinguals. Our study addresses two research questions: (1) Does transfer come from the first language (L1), the second language (L2), or both? and (2) Does age of acquisition of the L2 affect how transfer occurs? We compare beginner and advanced English speakers from both L3 groups with beginner and advanced L1-Spanish L2-English speakers, and find that, on an acceptablity judgment task that investigates knowledge of the distribution of polarity item anything, the two L3 groups demonstrate a different response pattern from the L2 group. The results suggest that both L3 groups transfer from Catalan, and not from their L2, Spanish. Additionally, the cross-sectional nature of the study shows that negative transfer from the initial stages of acquisition is overcome to different extents by the L3 vs. the L2 groups. We conclude that the results show strong evidence against the L2 status factor (Bardel and Falk, 2007, 2012) and the cumulative enhancement (Flynn et al., 2004) models of L3 acquisition, while they can be accounted for by the typological primacy model (Rothman, 2010, 2011, 2015), although other models that predict L1 transfer in L3 acquisition are not ruled out. Further, our findings show no effect of age of acquisition of the L2 on L3 development

Polarity in L3 English: the initial stages and beyond

The main goal of this dissertation is to understand how L3/Ln acquisition unfolds and how studying it transitions to the bigger field of non-native acquisition as well as theoretical proposals for grammatical properties. In an attempt to do so, the compilation of four studies help us answer the three over-arching questions that guide this doctoral dissertation, as presented below: I. What can the study of multilingualism tell us about the cognitive processes underlying the initial stages and beyond of any instance of non-native acquisition? II. What do methodological practices in the field of L3/Ln acquisition tell us about the variability found in the literature? III. How can the study of multilingualism help us to understand the nature of certain linguistic domains? In summary, the first study examines the knowledge of Negative Concord Items and Differential Object Marking in the grammar of highly proficient early bilinguals in Catalan and Spanish; and the role language dominance has for the interaction of the languages in early bilingualism. The results show that (a) remaining dominant in the L1 contributes to the maintenance of target-line behavior in the language and (b) that different domains of grammar are affected in different ways. The second study provides an analytical panoramic view of the field of L3/Ln acquisition by reviewing the majority of available L3 morphosyntactic studies published between 2004 and 2018 systematically, examining (and showing) how the methodological practices can explain some of the variability we find in the literature. In the third study, we provide a snapshot of the initial stages of acquisition and we show how confounding proficiency and exposure can introduce potential noise into the study of transfer. In the fourth study we arrive at the culmination of the dissertation by examining the grammars vi of ab initio L3 learners of English who are Catalan-Spanish bilinguals. The results show that holistic structural similarity is the most deterministic factor for transfer selection in the case of early bilinguals acquiring a third language. More importantly, results of the longitudinal design reveal that developmental sequencing after initial stages transfer is dynamic and nonuniform depending on language dominance in the previous acquired languages. The overall picture of the results of the four studies show that holistic structural similarity plays a role at the initial stages of L3/Ln acquisition, that language dominance plays an important role for L3 development, that certain methodological practices are to be adopted in L3/Ln acquisition and that the study of multilingualism can give answers to the formalization of Negative Concord Items more generally

On the status of NCIs : An experimental investigation on so-called Strict NC languages

Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UABPublished online by Cambridge University Press: 25 August 2023. First ViewThis paper investigates the status of Negative Concord Items (NCIs) in three so-called Strict Negative Concord (NC) languages (namely, Greek, Romanian, and Russian). An experimental study was designed to gather evidence concerning the speakers' acceptability and interpretation of sequences with argumental NCIs in subject, object, and both positions when dhen/nu/ne were not present. Our results show that NCIs are negative indefinites whose presence in a clausal domain is enough to assign a single negation reading to the whole sequence, thus arguing in support of the hypothesis that in NC structures the minimal semantic requirement to convey single negation is that one or more NCIs encoding a negative feature appear within a sentential domain. We argue that in these structures dhen/nu/ne are the instantiations of a negative feature [neg] disembodied from an indefinite negative NCI in order to obey a syntax-phonology interface constraint

A systematic review of transfer studies in third language acquisition

The present systematic review examines what factors determine when, how and to what extent previous linguistic experience (from the L1, L2 or both languages) affects the initial stages and beyond of adult L3 acquisition. In doing so, we address what a bird’s eye view of the data tells us regarding competing theoretical accounts of L3 morphosyntactic transfer. Data couple together to suggest that some factors are more influential than others. As discussed, the systematic review transcends the field of adult multilingualism precisely because of what it reveals, as a prima facie example in behavioral research, in terms of how different types of methodological considerations impact the way data are interpreted to support or not particular claims

Low proficiency does not mean ab initio: A methodological footnote for linguistic transfer studies

The goal of this brief article is to highlight a specific methodological consideration pertaining to the examination of linguistic transfer in sequential language acquisition: When and how can transfer be meaningfully disentangled from issues pertaining to developmental trajectories of the target language? While this methodological issue is relevant for all transfer studies irrespective of learner type or linguistic domain of inquiry, herein we focus on a set of third language acquisition data. We examine the domain of negative quantifiers nobody/nothing and negative polarity items anybody/anything by Catalan-Spanish early bilinguals learning English as the L3 in adulthood. We offer two group analyses. The first is the superset of low beginner proficiency speakers (all participants taking part in a specially designed English course) and then a subset group (only those who were true ab initio L3 learners—that is, with no previous study of English). The analyses combine to show that exposure matters beyond proficiency—even when proficiency is held constant at very low levels, low proficiency L3 learners who have had some instruction/exposure to an L3 pattern differently from truly ab initio L3 learners. We discuss how this reality complicates isolating L3 transfer proper from effects of L3 development/acquisition and thus, by extension, to all cases of transfer such as adult and child L2

Low proficiency does not mean ab initio: A methodological footnote for linguistic transfer studies

The goal of this brief article is to highlight a specific methodological consideration pertaining to the examination of linguistic transfer in sequential language acquisition: When and how can transfer be meaningfully disentangled from issues pertaining to developmental trajectories of the target language? While this methodological issue is relevant for all transfer studies irrespective of learner type or linguistic domain of inquiry, herein we focus on a set of third language acquisition data. We examine the domain of negative quantifiers nobody/nothing and negative polarity items anybody/anything by Catalan-Spanish early bilinguals learning English as the L3 in adulthood. We offer two group analyses. The first is the superset of low beginner proficiency speakers (all participants taking part in a specially designed English course) and then a subset group (only those who were true ab initio L3 learners—that is, with no previous study of English). The analyses combine to show that exposure matters beyond proficiency—even when proficiency is held constant at very low levels, low proficiency L3 learners who have had some instruction/exposure to an L3 pattern differently from truly ab initio L3 learners. We discuss how this reality complicates isolating L3 transfer proper from effects of L3 development/acquisition and thus, by extension, to all cases of transfer such as adult and child L2