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The Dative Alternation in English As a Second Language

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The Dative Alternation in English As a Second Language The Dative Alternation in English as a Second Language Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie (Dr. phil.) durch die Philosophische Fakultät der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf vorgelegt von Katja Jäschke Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Ingo Plag Prof. Dr. Marcus Callies Eingereicht am 21. März 2016 Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 5. Juli 2016 ii D61 Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem holz- und säurefreiem Papier. Für Stefan Acknowledgements Writing a dissertation is a huge project and I am not sure whether I would have ever fin- ished it if it was not for the support of so many people, whom I would like to thank. First of all, Ingo Plag, who was the best supervisor I could have asked for. He provided feedback and invaluable input at all stages of this project, and was never tired to listen to a new idea, discuss yet another statistical model, or comment on chapters I had written. He gave me time and freedom to work, and also deadlines when I needed them. He took me under his wing for my entire academic education until now and has taught me more than I can say. Without him, this book would not have been written. I would also like to thank Marcus Callies for his helpful review of my dissertation and for offering his support, as well as the other members of my dissertation committee, Hei- drun Dorgeloh and Ruben van de Vijver for their time and expertise. Along the way, I was supported by so many friends, colleagues and student assistants who provided feedback, discussed problems with me, edited texts, participated in exper- iments, coded data, or simply cheered me up when it was necessary. It is not possible to mention all of them by their name, but I am especially indebted to Sabine Arndt-Lappe for hosting me in her house and supporting me in many different ways, Christine Günther for providing feedback on parts of this book and patiently answering all of my syntax- related questions, Ulrike Kayser for being the warmhearted person she is, Gero Kunter for helping me to defeat ‘R’ and ‘Latex’ and discussing all kinds of problems with me, Sven Kotowski for critical comments on parts of this book, and Julia Muschalik for going through this together with me, for being supportive in so many ways and for being there in good and bad times. I also wish to thank my colleagues Sonia Ben Hedia ,Annika Schebesta, Christian Uff- mann, Lea Kawaletz, Julia Zimmermann, and Holden Härtl, Marco Benincasa, and Laura Sievers for their support in Kassel. I further would like to thank our student assistants Yannick Lauter, Fabian Koglin, and Mandy Rilke for proofreading parts of this book and especially, Elena Girardi, who sup- ported me at various stages of this project. Needless to say that all remaining errors are entirely my own. I am deeply grateful for having a loving family, who supported me during all that time vii and who were there for me, whenever I needed them. Most of all, I am thankful to my husband Stefan. He never complained when I spent entire weekends working, but always reminded me that a dissertation is not the most important thing in life. This book could not have been written without him. viii Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 The Dative Alternation 7 2.1 The Dative Alternation in English as a L1 ................. 7 2.2 The Dative Alternation in English as a L2 ................. 12 2.3 Additional Factors: Native Language and Proficiency ........... 20 2.4 German Dative Constructions ........................ 25 2.5 Unanswered Questions ........................... 27 3 Research Questions and Methodology 29 3.1 Research Questions and Methods ...................... 29 3.1.1 Linguistic Factors .......................... 30 3.1.2 The Role of the Native Language and the PP Preference ..... 33 3.1.3 Processing of Dative Constructions ................ 35 3.2 Coding .................................... 37 3.3 Mixed Models and the Dative Alternation ................. 40 3.4 Summary .................................. 45 4 Split Rating Task 47 4.1 Methodology ................................ 47 4.1.1 Materials and Participants ..................... 47 4.2 Results .................................... 52 4.2.1 General Preference and Individual Variation ............ 52 4.2.2 Determinants of the Dative Alternation in German-English Inter- language .............................. 56 4.2.3 Statistical Analysis ......................... 57 4.2.4 Monofactorial Analyses ...................... 58 4.2.5 Multifactorial Analysis ....................... 59 4.3 Summary and Discussion .......................... 63 4.3.1 Summary of Results ........................ 63 4.3.2 Theoretical Implications ...................... 65 ix 5 Continuous Lexical Decision Task 67 5.1 Methodology ................................ 68 5.1.1 Hypotheses ............................. 68 5.1.2 Participants ............................. 76 5.1.3 Materials .............................. 77 5.1.4 Procedure .............................. 81 5.1.5 Differences between this Study and the Original by Bresnan and Ford (2010) ............................. 82 5.2 Statistical Analysis and Results ....................... 83 5.2.1 Overview .............................. 83 5.2.2 Testing Hypotheses I and II - Analysis and Results ........ 85 5.2.3 Testing Hypothesis III: Mean PP Ratings Predict the RTs ..... 91 5.3 Summary and Discussion .......................... 92 5.4 Conclusion ................................. 94 6 Corpus Study 97 6.1 Methodology ................................ 97 6.2 Learner Data ................................ 97 6.2.1 ICLE-International Corpus of Learner English .......... 97 6.2.2 Data Collection and Cleaning ................... 98 6.3 Statistical Analysis and Results .......................110 6.3.1 Overview ..............................110 6.3.2 Statistical Analysis and Results – L2 Data .............114 6.4 Mixed Data Set ...............................128 6.4.1 Comparing the L1 and L2 Data Sets ................129 6.4.2 Statistical Analysis and Results: Mixed Data Set .........130 6.4.3 "What would a native speaker say?" ................136 6.5 The Influence of the Native Language ...................147 6.5.1 Ditransitive Constructions in other Languages ...........152 6.5.2 The Influence of the Native Language ...............166 6.6 Summary and Discussion ..........................167 6.7 Conclusion .................................173 7 Summary and Outlook 175 Bibliography 182 x 8 Appendix 195 8.1 Chapter 4 - Split Rating Task ........................195 8.1.1 Instructions .............................195 8.2 Chapter 5 - Continuous Lexical Decision Task ...............197 8.2.1 Instructions .............................197 8.2.2 Personal Details ..........................199 8.3 Chapter 6 ..................................200 xi List of Tables 4.1 Data distribution in the split-rating task .................. 50 4.2 Results of monofactorial analysis ...................... 59 4.3 Fixed-effect coefficients in the initial mixed-effects model ........ 60 4.4 Fixed-effect coefficients in the final mixed-effects model ......... 60 4.5 Comparison of significant effects across L1 and L2 speakers ....... 63 5.1 Predictors in the L1 data set ‘dative’ .................... 72 5.2 Restructured L1 data ............................ 73 5.3 Effects in the logistic regression model - L1 data (‘dative’) ........ 73 5.4 Effects in the general linear models for NPs which come from DO datives. 74 5.5 General Linear models for NPs which come from PP datives. ....... 74 5.6 Predictors in the continuous lexical decision task ............. 80 5.7 Distribution of values ............................ 81 5.8 Distribution of reading times on to and reading times on the word preced- ing to. .................................... 84 5.9 Fixed-effect coefficients in the initial mixed-effects model ........ 87 5.10 Fixed-effect coefficients in the final mixed-effects model ......... 88 5.11 Fixed-effect coefficients in the final mixed-effects model after post-fitting 89 5.12 Fixed-effect coefficients in the mixed-effects model predicting the influ- ence of the PP-Rating ............................ 91 6.1 L1 speakers and country of residence ....................103 6.2 Factors which were coded in the ICLE ...................104 6.3 Coded Factors ................................105 6.4 Data Distribution ICLE Data ........................111 6.5 Verb biases .................................112 6.6 Dative constructions per L1 .........................113 6.7 Observation per L1 – stay abroad: yes vs. no ...............113 6.8 Observation per L1 – short vs. long time abroad ..............114 6.9 L1 data distribution (Treebank Wall Street Journal collection) .......115 6.10 Fixed-effect coefficients in the initial mixed-effects model – L2 Data (ICLE)118 xiii 6.11 Fixed-effect coefficients in the final mixed-effects model – L2 Data (ICLE) 119 6.12 Contrasts between learners of different L1 backgrounds ..........124 6.13 Contrasts between learners of different language families .........125 6.14 Fixed-effect coefficients in the final mixed-effects model – language fam- ily – L2 Data (ICLE) ............................126 6.15 Contrasts between language families ....................127 6.16 Comparison of the distribution in the L1 and L2 data sets .........130 6.17 Final model – L1 and L2 data ........................131 6.18 Final model– testing interactions – mixed data set .............132 6.19 Fixed-effect coefficients in the final mixed-effects model – NATIVELAN- GUAGE – mixed data set ..........................134
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