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Overt Pronouon Constraint Effects in Second Lanugage Japanese

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Overt Pronouon Constraint Effects in Second Lanugage Japanese Overt Pronoun Constraint effects in second language Japanese Tokiko Okuma Department of Linguistics McGill University Montreal, Quebec April 2, 2015 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY © Copyright by Tokiko Okuma 2014 All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates the applicability of the Full Transfer/Full Access hypothesis (FT/FA) (Schwartz & Sprouse, 1994, 1996) by investigating the interpretation of the Japanese pronoun (kare ‘he’) by adult English and Spanish speaking learners of Japanese. The Japanese, Spanish, and English languages differ with respect to interpretive properties of pronouns. In Japanese and Spanish, overt pronouns disallow a bound variable interpretation in subject and object positions. By contrast, In English, overt pronouns may have a bound variable interpretation in these positions. This is called the Overt Pronoun Constraint (OPC) (Montalbetti, 1984). The FT/FA model suggests that the initial state of L2 grammar is the end state of L1 grammar and that the restructuring of L2 grammar occurs with L2 input. This hypothesis predicts that L1 English speakers of L2 Japanese would initially allow a bound variable interpretation of Japanese pronouns in subject and object positions, transferring from their L1s. Nevertheless, they will successfully come to disallow a bound variable interpretation as their proficiency improves. In contrast, L1 Spanish speakers of L2 Japanese would correctly disallow a bound variable interpretation of Japanese pronouns in subject and object positions from the beginning. In order to test these predictions, L1 English and L1 Spanish speakers of L2 Japanese at intermediate and advanced levels of proficiency were compared with native Japanese speakers in their interpretations of pronouns with quantified i antecedents in two tasks. To make the comparison, the interpretation of pronouns with referential antecedents, which do not obey the constraint, was also investigated. The results support the FT/FA hypothesis in two respects. First, the intermediate English group accepted a bound variable interpretation of subject pronouns more often than the native Japanese speakers while the intermediate Spanish group did not. Moreover, the intermediate English group was not sensitive to the referential/quantified antecedent asymmetry in interpreting subject pronouns while the intermediate Spanish group showed sensitivity. These differences are attributable to their L1s, English, which does not demonstrate the OPC effects, and Spanish, which does, just like Japanese. Second, the advanced English group as well as the advanced Spanish group showed evidence of a target-like grammar, suggesting the OPC effects in their grammars. Given that the OPC effects are underdetermined in input, these results suggest that Universal Grammar (UG) is operative in L2 acquisition. ii ABRÉGÉ Cette dissertation examine l'applicabilité de l'hypothèse du transfert/plein accès (TF/PA) (Schwarts & Sprouce, 1994, 1996) en examinant l'interprétation du pronom japonais (Kare 'il') par des adultes parlant anglais et espagnol apprenant le japonais. Les langues, japonais, espagnol et anglais, diffèrent selon les propriétés interprétatives des pronoms. En japonais et en espagnol, les pronoms visibles ne permettent pas une interprétation de variable liée en position de sujet et d'objet. Par contre, en anglais, les pronoms visibles peuvent avoir une interprétation de variable liée dans ces positions. On appelle ceci la contrainte du pronom visible (CPV) Montalbetti, 1984). Le modèle TF/PA suggère que l'état initial de la grammaire de L2 est l'état terminal de la grammaire de L1 et que la restructuration de la grammaire de L2 se fait par input de L2. Cette hypothèse prédit que les locuteurs d'anglais comme L1 parlant le japonais comme L2 permettraient initialement une interprétation de variable liée des pronoms japonais en position de sujet et d'objet, transférant ceci de leur L1. Néanmoins, ils abandonneront avec succès une interprétation de variable liée à mesure que leur compétence augmentera. Par contre, les locuteurs d'espagnol comme L1, parlant le japonais comme L2, d'emblée, comme il se doit, n'accepteraient pas une interprétation de variable liée des pronoms japonais. Afin de vérifier ces prédictions, des locuteurs d'anglais et d'espagnol comme L1 parlant le japonais aux niveaux de compétence intermédiaire et avancé ont été comparés à des locuteurs natifs du japonais dans leur interprétation des iii pronoms avec des antécédents quantifiés dans deux tâches. Pour faire la comparaison, l'interprétation de pronoms avec antécédents référentiels, qui ne sont pas sujets à la contrainte, a également été examinée. Les résultats soutiennent l'hypothèse TF/PA sur deux points. Premièrement, le groupe anglais intermédiaire acceptait une interprétation de variable liée de pronoms sujets plus souvent que les locuteurs natifs du japonais tandis que le groupe espagnol intermédiaire ne l'acceptaient pas. De plus, le groupe anglais intermédiaire n'était pas sensible à l'asymétrie des antécédents référentiels/quantifiés en interprétant les pronoms sujets tandis que le groupe espagnol y était sensible. Ces différences sont attribuables à leur L1, l'anglais qui ne démontre pas les effets CPV, et l'espagnol qui les démontre, tout comme le japonais. Deuxièmement. le groupe anglais avancé de même que le groupe espagnol avancé ont démontré qu'ils possédaient une grammaire semblable à la cible, suggérant les effets CPV dans leur grammaire. Etant donné que les effets CPV sons sous-déterminés dans le input, ces résultats suggèrent que la grammaire Universelle (GU) est opérationnelle en L2. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to all those who made it possible for me to complete this dissertation. My greatest respect and deepest thanks go to my supervisor, Lydia White. I thank Lydia for being a pioneering researcher of the generative approaches to L2 acquisition. She showed us how to create a new path in academia and has been lighting that path so that we do not fall into chaos. I also thank Lydia for being the best teacher and supervisor to me and for consistently providing me with the ideal environment for my studies. She has been crystal clear in every class and she inspired us by describing the types of questions we could investigate, how to investigate them, and why the work is worth doing. This clarity and helpfulness continued when I was fortunate enough to have her as my supervisor. She guided me at every step of this dissertation (and two evaluation papers) with unlimited patience. She read my drafts with stunning swiftness countless times and provided specific ideas to form one coherent dissertation out of my disjointed thoughts. Her dedication always made me forget that she had an extremely busy schedule as Associate Provost at McGill. Working with a professor who is a genuine intellectual and truly willing to help students has taught me what it is to be a professional more than anything else I have learned at McGill. I also thank Lydia for giving me many unforgettable happy memories of my student life, like the drives to conferences and restaurants and going to her house where we saw a beautiful real(!) Christmas tree, and for the warm hugs after the oral defense. Thank you very much for everything, Lydia; I have always felt so comfortable studying with you and that makes it difficult for me to leave Canada. v I am also grateful to Junko Shimoyama and Luis Alonso-Ovalle, who kindly agreed to be my committee members and who provided valuable comments on my drafts. Junko gave me the idea of investigating so-series in Japanese, which added depth and layer to this dissertation. Luis generously spent extra time explaining pronouns in his semantics class so that I would have the information I needed for my work. He also always provided warm encouragement, not only when my research went well but also when it did not. This dissertation has been benefited from their expertise, which I greatly appreciate. I would like to express my gratitude to other professors from the McGill Department of Linguistics for influencing my research and thought. I am particularly grateful to Heather Goad for her helpful guidance and support as the supervisor of my second evaluation paper on L2 acquisition of Japanese accents. Working with her taught me the joy of the creative exploration of sounds, and helped broaden my perspectives on research. I thank Brendan Gillon, Bernhard Schwartz, Glyne Piggot and Michael Wagner for their interesting lectures on semantics and phonology. I also appreciate Michel Paradis for kindly helping me with the French translation of this dissertation abstract. I extend my appreciation to linguists outside of McGill. I especially thank Roger Hawkins, who supervised my MA thesis at the University of Essex, UK, for introducing me to the field of L2 acquisition. I also thank Cristóbal Lozano for teaching me statistics for L2 acquisition research at the University of Essex. My sincere thanks go to Nobuo Okada at Kansai Foreign Language University and Isao Ueda at Osaka University for helping me gain admittance to McGill. I also thank Bonnie Schwartz at the University of Hawaii for giving me thoughtful suggestions when I presented earlier versions of this dissertation at conferences. Special thanks go to Heather Marsden at the University of York for kindly sending me her MA and PhD dissertations. I also thank Anna Gavarró at the vi Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona for giving me helpful advice on collecting data at her university. I also would like to thank linguists who were former students at McGill. I thank Ayse Gürel, Roumyana Slabakova, Makiko Hirakawa, Mari Umeda, Alexandra Simonenko and Öner Özçelik, for teaching me many things through their excellent theses. I also thank Silvina Montrul, Theres Grüter, Elena Valenzuela and Joyce Bruhn de Garavito for giving me helpful advice when I met them at conferences. Many thanks go to Moti Liberman and Larissa Nossalik for providing me with exciting opportunities to work as a teaching assistant and grader for their classes.
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