SATO AYANE

YASUNAGA  DAICHI

紀要類(bulletin)departmental bulletin pape

YASUNAGA, DAICHI

SATO, AYANE

Tohoku University Repository (TOUR) / 東北大学機関リポジトリ

Tohoku Psychologica Folia2016, 75, 35−42This study investigated how L2 learners of  German (Japanese L1) process an embedded clause in which the subject follows the object (OS order) when reading German sentence. The results of  the self-paced reading experiment showed that the OS order clause required a longer reading time than the clause in which the subject precedes the object (SO order) in good learners of  German, while the effect of  the word order was not observed in poor learners. The longer reading time for the OS order is regarded as attributed to the extra processing cost such as constructing filler-gap dependency in non-canonical word order. This suggests that the way learners process OS order sentences is similar to that of  the native speakers of  German along with their progress of  the literacy of  German.IntroductionIn the psycholinguistic field, the one of  the main purposes of  the study of  second language learning is to uncover the processing mechanism of  a second language and the effect of  the native language of  the learner and the influence of  the human language competence. This study aims to examine how learners of  a second language process a sentence in which the subject follows the object (OS order) when reading. As shown in (1) below, Japanese grammar permits the word order not only (1a) — the subject precedes the object (SO order) —, but also (1b) — the subject follows the object. Basically, they both have the same meaning, but they are analyzed as having different syntactic structures (Hoji, 1985; Saito, 1985). Many studies have analyzed that (1a) has the simplest syntactic structure and the structure of  (1b) is derived from (1a), with the object preceding the subject and leaving a gap in the original object position.(1) a. [S Hiro-ga [VP robotto-o suku-u]].   b.  [S Robottoi-o [S Hiro-ga [VP gapi suku-u]]].     Hiro-NOM     robot-ACC  save            robot-ACC       Hiro-NOM            save  "Hiro saves a robot."        "Hiro saves a robot."Much of  the psycholinguistic literature of  Japanese has reported that the OS order induces a greater processing cost than the SO order (Hagiwara, Soshi, Ishihara, & Imamura, 1.  Faculty of  Letters, Kanazawa University, Kakuma-machi, Kanazawa, JAPAN, 920-1192 E-mail: daichi.y@staff.kanazawa-u.ac.jp2.  A graduate of  School of  Humanities, Kanazawa UniversityProcessing object-subject word order by L2 learners of GermanDAICHI YASUNAGA （安永大地）1  AND  AYANE SATO （佐藤文音）236 Yasunaga, D. and Sato, A.2007; Mazuka, Itoh, & Kondo, 2002; Tamaoka et al., 2005). When native Japanese speakers first read an OS order sentence such as (1b), when they read Robotto-o 'robot-acc', and especially observe the accusative marker -o, they may notice that this marker indicates an object noun, not a subject. Next, they read Hiro-ga 'Hiro-nom' with the subject marker -ga. Here, they posit a gap that will be associated with a sentence initial accusative marked noun and a more complex structure that includes filler-gap dependency. Finally, when they read the verb as expected, Robotto-o is associated with the gap as a filler. Such a series of  processing is called gap-filling parsing. Due to this gap-filling parsing, a greater processing cost is required for the OS order than for the SO order in Japanese (Miyamoto, 2008 for review). These SO order preferences are also observed in many other languages (Kaiser & Trueswell, 2004 for Finnish; Kim, 2012 for Korean; Sekerina, 1997 for Russian; Tamaoka, Kanduboda, & Sakai, 2011 for Sinhalese)3.Regarding how the learners of  a second language process OS order sentences, Tamaoka (2005) measured reaction times for a grammaticality judgment task and their correction rates of  the L2 learners of  Japanese (Chinese L1). Tamaoka (2005) reported that the SO order sentences were judged faster and more correctly than the OS order sentences. These results were interpreted as the learners of  Japanese processing the OS order sentences to the same way as the native speakers of  Japanese, and the gap-filling processing eliciting a larger processing cost than the SO order sentences.Jackson (2008) focused on L2 learners of  German (English L1). She studied how native speakers of  English learning German comprehend SO word order sentences and OS word order sentences. She compared the reading time of  the SO order of  German with that of  the OS order with transitive verbs in subordinate clauses. The advanced learner of  German read the SO order sentences faster and more correctly than the OS order sentences. Based on these results, Jackson (2008) concluded that the OS dispreference is attributed to the learners' appropriate knowledge to the case marking of  German. Because the advanced learner of  German can use the knowledge of  the German case marking system correctly, the definite accusative case marker den causes the learner to find unfamiliar word order, and then the processing cost becomes greater for at least the advanced learner of  German.To sum up these two previous studies, although learners of  a second language experience difficulties in reading the OS sentences even in Japanese and German, the source of  difficulty is stated differently between Tamaoka (2005) and Jackson (2008). Tamaoka's discussion detailed that leaners apply gap- filling parsing to OS word order sentences and this extra parsing procedure leads to a greater processing cost in the OS order, which is called as the Filler-Gap Hypothesis (FGH), hereafter. Jasckson's discussion states that the unfamiliar order of  the input enlarges the processing difficulty, which is called as the UnFamiliar Hypothesis (UFH), hereafter. Now let us consider about the mother tongues of  these studies — Chinese in Tamaoka (2005) and English in Jackson (2008). The OS order is basically ungrammatical 3.  Some languages indicate OS order preference, such as Kaqchikel Maya, due to the canonical syntactic structure (see Yasunaga et al., 2015). 37OS word order processing by learnersand is, therefore, hardly seen in both languages. Thus, both FGH and UFH predict that SO order is preferred in languages in which the OS order is ungrammatical. To determine which of  these two hypotheses is valid, it is necessary to examine the case for which the two hypotheses offer different predictions, namely, the mother language that permits the OS word order grammatically.Contrary to Chinese and English, Japanese permits the OS word order and has a more complex syntactic structure including filler-gap dependency as in (1). Therefore, the FGH predicts a greater processing cost for the OS order of  the second language, while the UFH does not predict a difference in the processing cost between the SO order and the OS order. To address which hypothesis is more valid, we conducted a self-paced reading experiment targeting L2 learners of  German (Japanese L1).ExperimentMaterialsRegarding the grammar of  German, the definite article has some ambiguity in terms of  its case and gender. For example, der indicates not only the nominative case of  masculine nouns but also the dative or genitive case of  feminine nouns. To minimize this ambiguity as much as possible, we used the noun for which gender bears explicitly. In German, many of  the -er ending nouns bear the masculine gender and many of  the -erin ending nouns bear the feminine gender shown in (2). The der N-er provides strong evidence that it is a nominative masculine noun, because the -er ending noun has a high likelihood of  being a masculine noun.(2) a. -er ending noun: Lehrer (male teacher), Schüler (male student) etc. b. -erin ending noun: Lehrerin (female teacher), Schülerin (female student) etc.(3) a. S[mas]-O order  Ich glaube,  dass der Künstler  den Arbeiter  malt.   I      think       that  the:NOM artist  the:ACC worker  paints.  "I think that the artist paints the worker." b. O-S[mas] order  Ich glaube,  dass den Arbeiter  der Künstler  malt.   I     think       that  the:ACC worker  the:NOM artist   paints. c. S[fem]-O order  Ich glaube,  dass die Künstlerin  den Arbeiter  malt.   I      think      that the:NOM female artist the:ACC worker   paints.  "I think that the female artist paints the worker." d. O-S[fem] order  Ich glaube,  dass den Arbeiter  die Künstlerin    malt.  I      think      that  the:ACC worker  the:NOM female artist  paints.38 Yasunaga, D. and Sato, A.Twelve sets of  sentences yielding a total of  48 target sentences were prepared as shown in (3). Half  of  them are paid attention to the case ambiguity that is mentioned above using a masculine noun as the subject and a masculine noun as the object. The other half  of  sentences include ambiguous definite case markers such as die — indicating both nominative and accusative cases of  feminine nouns — as the subject and unambiguous accusative masculine nouns as the object. All sentences include psych verbs, such as glauben 'think', and wissen 'know' as matrix verbs and have an embedded dass 'that' clause in which the word order of  the embedded subject and object varies. Another 48 sentences added as distractor stimulus. All materials were checked in terms of  naturalness and grammaticality by a native speaker of  German4. In total 96 sentences were presented in randomized order to each participant.ProcedureThe experiment consisted of  two stages. First, a stage of  measuring the participants' literacy of  German, the participants were asked to consider the meaning and the grammatical category such as masculine noun, feminine noun, or verb of  the presented word. If  s/he did not know the word, the participant was urged to memorize the word. In the second part of  the experiment, a stage of  a self-paced reading task, the participants were required to read a German sentence and to answer a comprehension task. When the participants pressed the button of  the response box (Cedrus RB-530), the next region emerged in a moving-window manner. The participants had to press the button repeatedly to read an experimental sentence until the end of  the sentence. The interval of  the button pressing was recorded as a reading time of  that region (Figure 1A). In the comprehension task, participants had to choose a Japanese sentence with the most appropriate meaning of  the German sentence presented previously (Figure 1B).Participants The participants of  the experiment were thirty students from Kanazawa University who had been learning German for more than one year. Nine participants were rejected because of  a low correction rate in the comprehension task (less than 50 %). Twenty-one students (1 male and 20 females; mean age of  21.7 years-old, range 20–23) were selected as the participants of  the analysis. The written informed consent document used to manage the personal information was distributed to all participants prior to the experiment. They were given a bookstore gift card (¥1,000) for their participation. Based on the result of  the measuring of  their literacy of  German (the first part of  the experiment), participants were grouped into two categories. The participants who scored 85% or more were placed in the group of  good-learners, and who scored less than 85 % were in the group of  poor-learners.4.  We would like to thank Prof. Sabine Randhage (Kanazawa University) for her cooperation 39OS word order processing by learnersResultsThe experimental design was 2 × 2. The first factor was the word order (SO vs. OS) and the second factor was the case ambiguity of  the definite marker (ambiguous vs. unambiguous). The two-way repeated measures analysis of  variance (ANOVA) were used to statistically analyze the mean correction rate and reaction time of  the comprehension task (Table 1), and the reading time of  the self-paced reading task for good-learners and poor-learners respectively5 (Table 2).The correctness of  the comprehension task for SO order and OS order did not reveal significant differences in both good- and poor-leaners [good: F1(1,10)=1.41, n.s., F2(1,11)=1.00; A B  Figure 1. [A] An example of  the stimulus presentation. [B] An example of  the comprehension task.5.  All the main effects of  the case ambiguity and the interaction were not significant. To save the number of  pages and to clarify the main effect of  word order, these statistical results have been skipped.40 Yasunaga, D. and Sato, A.poor: F1(1,9)=0.03, n.s., F2(1,11)=0.01, n.s.]. In the reaction time of  the comprehension task, OS order took a longer reaction time than SO order in the good-learner group [F1(1,10)=10.03, p<.05, F2(1,11)=12.14, p<.01]. In the poor-learner group, the difference did not reach the significance [F1(1,9)=0.12, n.s., F2(1,11)=0.37, n.s.].   M SD M SD M SD M SDS[mas]-O 81.1 12.4 80.0 13.5 5,282 1,209 5,540 865S[fem]-O 78.0 9.6 72.5 12.9 5,806 1,905 6,093 1,531O-S[mas] 81.8 11.1 80.0 10.7 5,944 1,820 5,403 676O-S[fem] 85.6 8.8 73.3 12.3 6,305 1,578 6,069 953avg. 81.6 10.5 76.5 12.4 5,834 1,628 5,776 1,006poor-learnercorrecntion rate (%) reaction time (ms)good-learner poor-learner well-learnerM SD M SDS[mas]-O 5,320 1,647 8,041 2,977S[fem]-O 5,554 1,681 8,353 2,529O-S[mas] 5,613 1,547 8,091 1,691O-S[fem] 5,976 1,747 5,893 2,401avg. 5,616 1,656 7,595 2,400good-learner poor-learnerTable 1. The mean correction rate and reaction time of  the comprehension taskTable 2. The mean reading time of  the subordinate clause (ms)Figure 2. Reading time shift per phrase in subordinate clauses of  the good-learners (ms)   M SD M SD M SD M SDS[mas]-O 81.1 12.4 80.0 13.5 5,282 1,209 5,540 865S[fem]-O 78.0 9.6 72.5 12.9 5,806 1,905 6,093 1,531O-S[mas] 81.8 11.1 80.0 10.7 5,944 1,820 5,403 676O-S[fem] 85.6 8.8 73.3 12.3 6,305 1,578 6,069 953avg. 81.6 10.5 76.5 12.4 5,834 1,628 5,776 1,006poor-learnercorrecntion rate (%) reaction time (ms)good-learner poor-learner well-learnerM SD M SDS[mas]-O 5,320 1,647 8,041 2,977S[fem]-O 5,554 1,681 8,353 2,529O-S[mas] 5,613 1,547 8,091 1,691O-S[fem] 5,976 1,747 5,893 2,401avg. 5,616 1,656 7,595 2,400good-learner poor-learner 41OS word order processing by learnersIn the self-paced reading task, the mean reading time of  the subordinate clause of  the OS order showed a statistically longer reading time than that of  SO order in the good-learner group [F1(1,10)=10.51, p<.01, F2(1,11)= 0.48, p<.05]. In contrast, the same effect was not observed in the poor-learner group [F1(1,9)=0.09, n.s., F2 (1,11)=0.94, n.s.]. To examine the word order effect in the good-learner group in more detail, the comparison was made per phrase (Figure 2). In the region of  the first noun in the subordinate clause, the effect of  word order was not detected [F1(1,10)=2.59, n.s., F2(1,11)=4.74, p<.1]. In the second noun region of  the subordinate clause, the OS order required longer reading time than the SO order [F1(1,10)=9.58, p<.05, F2(1,11)=13.48, p<.01]. In the verb region of  the subordinate clause, no statistical effect was observed [F1(1,10)=2.62, n.s., F2(1,11)=3.15, n.s.].DiscussionThis study examined two types of  hypotheses to explain the source of  difficulty regarding processing OS word order sentence for the learners of  a second language. The filler-gap hypothesis (Tamaoka, 2005) accounts for the SO preference in terms of  the extra processing procedure to establish the filler-gap dependency. Thus, the SO preference of  the Japanese L2 learners of  German was predicted because the German OS word order includes filler-gap dependency. However, the unfamiliar hypothesis (Jackson, 2008) explains the difficulty of  the OS order in terms of  the unfamiliarity of  the input of  object preceding subject. This hypothesis did not predict the asymmetry of  the processing cost between the SO and the OS of  the Japanese L2 learners of  German, because the native speakers of  Japanese are familiar with the input of  the OS order. Based on the results of  the comprehension task and the self-paced reading task, the Japanese good L2 learners of  German experienced more difficulty in the OS word order than the SO word order. These results are consistent with the prediction influenced by the filler-gap hypothesis. This suggests that the learners' way of  processing OS order is similar to that of  the native speakers of  German, as well as their progress of  the literacy of  German.ReferencesHagiwara, H., Soshi, T., Ishihara, M., & Imanaka, K. (2007). A topographical study on the event-related potential correlates of  scrambled word order in Japanese complex sentences. Journal of  Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 175–193.Hoji, H. (1985). Logical Form constraints and configurational structures in Japanese, Doctoral dissertation, University of  Washington, Seattle.Jackson, C. N. (2008). Processing strategies and the comprehension of  sentence-level input by L2 learners of  German. System, 36, 388–406.Kaiser, E., & Trueswell, J. C. (2004). The role of  discourse context in the processing of  a flexible word-order language. Cognition, 94, 113–147.Kim, J. (2012). Kankokugo kakimazegojyunbun-no puraimingu kooka [Priming effects in scrambled sentences in 42 Yasunaga, D. and Sato, A.Korean]. Culture, 75, 141–156.Mazuka, R., Itoh K., & Kondo, T. (2002). Costs of  scrambling in Japanese sentence processing. Sentence processing in East Asian languages, ed. by Mineharu Nakayama, 131–166. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Miyamoto, E. T. (2008). Processing sentences in Japanese. In Miyagawa Shigeru and Saito Mamoru (eds.) The Oxford handbook of  Japanese linguistics, 217–249 Oxford: Oxford University Press.Saito, M. (1985). Some asymmetries in Japanese and their theoretical implications. Doctoral dissertation, MIT.Sekerina, I. A. (1997). The syntax and processing of  Russian scrambled constructions in Russian. Doctoral dissertation, City University of  New York.Tamaoka, K. (2005) Chuugokugo-o bogo-tosuru Nihongogakushuusha-niyoru seijun・kakimaze gojun-no noodoobun-to kanoobun-no rikai [Comprehension of  Japanese active and potential sentences with canonical and scrambled word orders by native Chinese speakers learning the Japanese language]. Nihongo Bunpoo [Journal of  Japanese Grammar] 5(2), 92–109.Tamaoka, K., Sakai, H., Kawahara, J., Miyaoka, Y., Hyunjung, L., & Koizumi, M. (2005). Priority information used for the processing of  Japanese sentences: Thematic roles, case particles or grammatical functions? Journal of  Psycholinguistic Research, 34, 273–324.Tamaoka, K., Kanduboda, P. B. A., & Sakai, H. (2011). Effects of  word order alternation on the sentence processing of  Sinhalese written and spoken forms. Open Journal of  Modern Linguistics, 1(2), 24–32.Yasunaga, D., Yano, M., Yasugi, Y., & Koizumi, M. (2015). Is the subject-before-object preference universal? An ERP study in Kaqchikel Maya, Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 30(9), 1209–1229. (Received December 29, 2016) (Accepted January 6, 2017)

Processing object-subject word order by L2 learners of German

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Tohoku University Repository (TOUR) / 東北大学機関リポジトリ

Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB)