Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-zpzq9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-09T13:37:48.125Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Morphosyntactic adaptation in adult L2 processing: Exposure and the processing of case and tense violations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2020

Holger Hopp Open the ORCID record for Holger Hopp [Opens in a new window]
Holger Hopp*
Affiliation:
Technische Universität Braunschweig
*
Corresponding author: Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper investigates morphosyntactic adaptation in second language (L2) sentence processing. In a pre-/posttest control group design, two experiments with intermediate to advanced German–English learners examine whether massed exposure to informative input leads to adaptation in L2 processing in that L2 readers come to integrate inflection in real-time comprehension. Experiment 1 on case marking shows that input causing prediction error and flagging the target parse leads to nativelike integration of case in the reanalysis of garden-path sentences. Experiment 2 shows partially nativelike processing of adverbial–verb tense mismatches after exposure to target input. Adaptation was selective to the experimental versus the control group in processing, yet it did not generalize to offline, explicit performance. We conclude that morphosyntactic adaptation constitutes an implicit learning mechanism in L2 processing, and we discuss its implications for models of L2 processing and acquisition.

Keywords

adaptationinflectional variabilitymorphosyntaxpredictionsecond language processing
Type
Original Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , May 2020 , pp. 627 - 656
Check for updates
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Andrews, C., Dillon, B., & Staub, A. (2019). Fool me once: Readers Adapt to NP/Z garden paths but not ORCs. Poster presented at the 32nd Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Boulder, CO, March 2019.Google Scholar
Arai, M. (2016). Importance of making (prediction) errors in L2 processing. Poster presented at the 22nd Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing, Bilbao, Spain, September 2016.Google Scholar
Baggio, G. (2008). Processing temporal constraints: An ERP study. Language Learning, 58, 35–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barr, D. J., Levy, R., Scheepers, C., & Tily, H. J. (2013). Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory & Language, 68, 255–278.10.1016/j.jml.2012.11.001CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beatty-Martínez, A. L., & Dussias, P. E. (2018). Tuning to languages: Experience-based approaches to the language science of bilingualism. Linguistics Vanguard, 2018, 20170034Google Scholar
Christiansen, M. H., & Chater, N. (2016). The Now-or-Never bottleneck: A fundamental constraint on language. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, e62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2006). Grammatical processing in language learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 3–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2018). Some notes on the shallow structure hypothesis. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 40, 693–706.10.1017/S0272263117000250CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunnings, I. (2017). Parsing and working memory in bilingual sentence processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20, 659–678.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dell, G. S., & Chang, F. (2014). The P-chain: Relating sentence production and its disorders to comprehension and acquisition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 369, 1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dussias, P. E., Valdés Kroff, J. R., Guzzardo Tamargo, R. E., & Gerfen, C. (2013). When gender and looking go hand in hand: Grammatical gender processing in L2 Spanish. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 35, 353–387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, R., Loewen, S., Elder, C., Reinders, H., Erlan, R., & Philip, J. (2009). Implicit and explicit knowledge in second language learning, testing and teaching (Vol. 42). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Fine, A. B., Jaeger, T. F., Farmer, T. A., & Qian, T. (2013). Rapid expectation adaptation during syntactic comprehension. PLOS ONE, 8, 1e18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, J. D., & Inoue, A. (2000). Syntactic features in reanalysis: Positive and negative symptoms. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 29, 25–36.10.1371/journal.pone.0077661CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gambi, C., Pickering, M. J., & Rabagliati, H. (2016). Beyond associations: Sensitivity to structure in pre-schoolers’ linguistic predictions. Cognition, 157, 340–351.10.1023/A:1005168206061CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grüter, T., Rohde, H., & Schafer, A. J. (2017). Coreference and discourse coherence in L2. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 7, 199–229.10.1016/j.cognition.2016.10.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrington Stack, C., James, A., & Watson, D. G. (2018). A failure to replicate rapid syntactic adaptation in comprehension. Memory and Cognition, 46, 864–877.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hartsuiker, R. J., Beerts, S., Loncke, M., Desmet, T., & Bernolet, S. (2016). Cross-linguistic structural priming in multilinguals: Further evidence for shared syntax. Journal of Memory and Language, 90, 14–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Havron, N., de Carvalho, A., Fiévet, A. C., & Christophe, A. (2019). Three- to four-year-old children rapidly adapt their predictions and use them to learn novel word meanings. Child Development, 90, 82–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hawkins, R., & Chan, C. Y. H. (1997). The partial availability of Universal Grammar in second language acquisition: The “failed functional features hypothesis.” Second Language Research, 13, 187–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henry, N., Hopp, H., & Jackson, C. N. (2017). Cue additivity and adaptivity in predictive processing. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 32, 1229–1249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopp, H. (2006). Syntactic features and reanalysis in near-native processing. Second Language Research, 22, 369–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopp, H. (2010). Ultimate attainment in L2 inflectional morphology: Performance similarities between non-native and native speakers. Lingua, 120, 901–931.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopp, H. (2013). Grammatical gender in adult L2 acquisition: Relations between lexical and syntactic variability. Second Language Research, 29, 33–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopp, H. (2014). Individual differences in the L2 processing of object-subject ambiguities. Applied Psycholinguistics, 36, 129–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopp, H. (2015). Semantics and morphosyntax in predictive L2 sentence processing. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 53, 277–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopp, H. (2016). Learning (not) to predict: Grammatical gender processing in second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 32, 277–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoshino, N., Dussias, P. E., & Kroll, J. F. (2010). Processing subject–verb agreement in a second language depends on proficiency. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13, 87–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huettig, F., & Mani, N. (2016). Is prediction necessary to understand language? Probably not. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 31, 19–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hulstijn, J. H. (2005). Theoretical and empirical issues in the study of implicit and explicit second-language learning: Introduction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 129–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ito, A., Pickering, M. J., & Corley, M. (2018). Investigating the time-course of phonological prediction in native and non-native speakers of English: A visual world eye-tracking study. Journal of Memory and Language, 98, 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, C. N., & Dussias, P. E. (2009). Cross-linguistic differences and their impact on L2 sentence processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12, 65–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, C. N., & Ruf, H. T. (2016). The priming of word order in second language German. Applied Psycholinguistics, 38, 315–345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaeger, T. F., & Snider, N. E. (2013). Alignment as a consequence of expectation adaptation: Syntactic priming is affected by the prime’s prediction error given both prior and recent experience. Cognition, 127, 57–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jiang, N. (2007). Selective integration of linguistic knowledge in adult second language learning. Language Learning, 57, 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaan, E. (2014). Predictive sentence processing in L2 and L1: What is different? Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 4, 257–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaan, E., & Chun, E. (2018a). Priming and adaptation in native speakers and second-language learners. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 21, 228−242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaan, E., & Chun, E. (2018b). Syntactic adaptation. Current Topics in Language, 68, 85–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaan, E., Futch, C., Fuertes, R. F., Mujcinovic, S., & de la Fuente, E. Á. (2019). Adaptation to syntactic structures in native and nonnative sentence comprehension. Applied Psycholinguistics, 40, 3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamide, Y., Scheepers, C., & Altmann, G. T. (2003). Integration of syntactic and semantic information in predictive processing: Cross-linguistic evidence from German and English. Journal of psycholinguistic research, 32, 37–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kamide, Y. (2012). Learning individual talkers’ structural preferences. Cognition, 124, 66–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaschak, M. P., Kutta, T. J., & Coyle, J. M. (2014). Long and short term cumulative structural priming effects. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 29, 728–743.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kleinschmidt, D. F., & Jaeger, T. F. (2015). Robust speech perception: Recognize the familiar, generalize to the similar, and adapt to the novel. Psychological Review, 122, 148–203.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kroczek, L. O. H., & Gunter, T. C. (2017). Communicative predictions can overrule linguistic priors. Scientific Reports, 7, 17581.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kuperberg, G. R., & Jaeger, T. F. (2016). What do we mean by prediction in language comprehension? Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 31, 32–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lemhöfer, K., & Broersma, M. (2012). Introducing LexTALE: A quick and valid lexical test for advanced learners of English. Behavioral Research, 44, 325–343.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2007). Young children learning Spanish make rapid use of grammatical gender in spoken word recognition. Psychological Science, 18, 193–198.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2010). Real-time processing of gender-marked articles by native and non-native Spanish speakers. Journal of Memory and Language, 63, 447–464.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lukyanenko, C., & Fisher, C. (2016). Where are the cookies? Two- and three-year-olds use number-marked verbs to anticipate upcoming nouns. Cognition, 146, 349–370.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacWhinney, B. (1997). Second language acquisition and the competition model. In de Groot, A. M. B. & Kroll, J. F. (Eds.), Tutorials in bilingualism: Psycholinguistic perspectives (pp. 113–142). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Mani, N., & Huettig, F. (2012). Prediction during language processing is a piece of cake—But only for skilled producers. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 38, 843.Google ScholarPubMed
Mitsugi, S., & MacWhinney, B. (2016). The use of case marking for predictive processing in second language Japanese. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19, 19–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan-Short, K., Sanz, C., Steinhauer, K., & Ullman, M. T. (2010). Second language acquisition of gender agreement in explicit and implicit training conditions: An event-related potential study. Language Learning, 60, 154–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myslín, M., & Levy, R. (2016). Comprehension priming as rational expectation for repetition: Evidence from syntactic processing. Cognition, 147, 29–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Phillips, C., & Ehrenhofer, L. (2015). The role of language processing in language acquisition. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 5, 409–453.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickering, M. J., & Gambi, C. (2018). Predicting while comprehending language: A theory and review. Psychological Bulletin, 144, 1002–1044.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pickering, M. J., & Garrod, S. (2013). An integrated theory of language production and comprehension. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36, 329–347.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rabagliati, H., Gambi, C., & Pickering, M. J. (2015). Learning to predict or predicting to learn? Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 31, 94–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rayner, K. (1998). Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 372–422.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
R Core Team. (2018). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from http://www.R-project.org/.Google Scholar
Rebuschat, P., & Williams, J. N. (Eds.) (2012). Statistical learning and language acquisition (Vol. 1). Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Reichenbach, H. (1947). The tenses of verbs. Time: From concept to narrative construct: A reader. Göttingen: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Roberts, L., & Liszka, S. A. (2013). Processing tense/aspect-agreement violations on-line in the second language: A self-paced reading study with French and German L2 learners of English. Second Language Research, 29, 413–439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothstein, B. (2008). The perfect time span: On the present perfect in German, Swedish and English (Vol. 125). Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryskin, R. A., Qi, Z., Duff, M. C., & Brown-Schmidt, S. (2017). Verb biases are shaped through lifelong learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 43, 781.Google ScholarPubMed
Schneider, W., Eschman, A., & Zuccolotto, A. (2002). E-Prime reference guide. Pittsburgh, PA: Psychology Software Tools.Google Scholar
Staub, A. (2007). The parser doesn’t ignore intransitivity, after all. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33, 550–569.Google Scholar
Staub, A., & Rayner, K. (2007). Eye movements and on-line comprehension processes. In Gaskell, G. (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 327–342). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Steinhauer, K., & Ullman, M. T. (2002). Consecutive ERP effects of morpho-phonology and morpho-syntax. Brain and Language, 83, 62–65.Google Scholar
Traxler, M. J. (2002). Plausibility and subcategorization preference in children's processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences: Evidence from self-paced reading. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Section A, 55, 75–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Traxler, M. J., & Pickering, M. J. (1996). Case marking in the parsing of complement sentences: Evidence from eye movements. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49A, 991–1004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsimpli, I. M., & Dimitrakopoulou, M. (2007). The interpretability hypothesis: Evidence from wh-interrogatives in second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 23, 215–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Heugten, M., & Shi, R. (2009). French-learning toddlers use gender information on determiners during word recognition. Developmental Science, 12, 419–425.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Westfall, J., Kenny, D. A., & Judd, C. M. (2014). Statistical power and optimal design in experiments in which samples of participants respond to samples of stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 2020–2045.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wicha, N. Y., Moreno, E. M., & Kutas, M. (2004). Anticipating words and their gender: An event-related brain potential study of semantic integration, gender expectancy, and gender agreement in Spanish sentence reading. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16, 1272–1288.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yan, S., Farmer, T. A., & Jaeger, T. F. (2019). Syntactic adaptation in natural reading. Unpublished manuscript, University of Rochester.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Hopp supplementary material

Hopp supplementary material

Download Hopp supplementary material(File)
File 41.2 KB