scholarly journals Failed gender agreement in L1 English L2 Spanish: Syntactic or lexical problem?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alena Kirova ◽  
José Camacho
Keyword(s):  
Critical Period ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Syntactic Features ◽  
L2 Spanish ◽  
And Control ◽  
L1 English ◽  
Do So

According to representational accounts (Hawkins & Franceschina, 2004), the inability to acquire abstract syntactic features after a critical period explains L2 difficulties with gender, while according to lexical accounts (Grüter et al. 2012; Hopp 2012), gender assignment issues – the inability to assigned to a target-like class accounts for these difficulties. We explore three potential agreement cues: 1) semantic gender relating to sex (e.g. ‘girl’ vs. ‘boy’) 2) morphophonological transparency cues, and 3) syntactic agreement cues. Semantic and morphophonological cues may facilitate gender agreement only for a subset of nouns, whereas agreement cues can do so for all nouns, including opaque gender nouns that do not have semantic gender. Seventeen low proficiency and sixteen high proficiency L1 English L2 Spanish speakers and seventeen native Spanish controls judged the grammaticality of 60 experimental sentences. We compared participants’ gender agreement accuracy and reaction times (RTs) on experimental items with and without semantic gender, and with and without transparent gender morphemes. Semantic gender did not serve as a cue for gender assignment/agreement; instead, it slowed down RTs in high proficiency and control participants. Morphophonological cues significantly increased accuracy and decreased RTs in all groups. Finally, agreement cues did not seem to help low proficiency learners, since their accuracy on opaque nouns was barely above chance. This suggests that they did not effectively use agreement cues to assign gender. By contrast, high proficiency learners exhibited native-like accuracy on opaque nouns. These findings support the lexical accounts of gender agreement difficulties, against the representational accounts.

Gender Assignment and Agreement in L2 Spanish: The Effects of Morphological Marking, Animacy, and Gender

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Irma V. Alarcón
Keyword(s):  
Production Task ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Correct Assignment ◽  
Meaningful Context ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Noun Class ◽  
L2 Spanish ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis study investigates the relationship between second language (L2) Spanish gender assignment and agreement and specific noun categories by distinguishing the effects of noun morphology (overt, non-overt, or deceptive), noun class (semantic or non-semantic), and gender (masculine or feminine). Specifically, assuming the correct acquisition of gender assignment, how do noun morphology, class and gender affect correct gender agreement when using the same type of noun? One hundred and seven English-speaking learners of Spanish at three proficiency levels completed an assignment and agreement written production task, in which they were first asked the gender of a noun (assignment), and then to provide an agreeing adjective in a meaningful context (agreement). Results showed that the probability of producing correct agreement given correct assignment was significantly higher with semantic than with non-semantic nouns, with overt rather than non-overt and/or deceptive nouns, and with masculine rather than feminine nouns. The discussion provides insights concerning how animacy (semantic gender) overrides morphology when establishing correct gender agreement in L2 Spanish.

Gender assignment strategies used by L1 and L2 speakers of Spanish

2019 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alyssa Martoccio
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Native Spanish Speakers ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Bare Nouns ◽  
And Gender ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
L1 English

Abstract This article compares gender assignment on known nouns by intermediate (n=15) and advanced (n=15) second language (L2) learners of Spanish (L1 English) and native Spanish speakers (n=15). Participants completed a written vocabulary task, which asked the meaning and gender of 63 nouns. Gender assignment scores revealed that only intermediate and native speaker groups scored significantly differently on known nouns, as shown by the vocabulary task. Results indicated that intermediate learners assigned the incorrect gender to known nouns significantly more than native speakers. Both L2 learner groups made errors on high frequency known nouns, whereas the few native speaker errors were on low frequency known nouns. Along with think-aloud data which showed the effectiveness of strategies that directly link the noun with its article, these results indicate that nouns need to be taught as units rather than bare nouns, using distributional co-occurrence relations.

The processing of gender assignment in Spanish

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 523-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ainara Imaz Agirre
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Native Spanish Speakers ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Assignment Accuracy ◽  
Bilingual Group ◽  
Accuracy Rates ◽  
Spanish Bilinguals

This paper reports on an experiment investigating the processing of accurate gender assignment in canonical and non-canonical inanimate nouns in Spanish by native speakers of Basque with nativelike proficiency in Spanish. 33 Basque/Spanish bilinguals and 32 native speakers of Spanish completed an online and an offline gender assignment task. Participants assigned gender to inanimate nouns with canonical (-o; -a) and non-canonical word endings (-e; consonants). The results revealed that the Basque/Spanish bilingual group obtained high accuracy scores in both tasks, similar to the Spanish native speaker group. Interestingly, unlike the Spanish group, the Basque speakers showed faster reaction times with feminine nouns than masculine ones. Canonicity seems to be a strong cue for both groups, since all participants were more accurate and faster with canonical word endings. Even though quantitatively Basque/Spanish bilinguals and Spanish monolinguals’ gender assignment accuracy rates do not differ, qualitatively, the Basque/Spanish bilinguals’ assignment patterns seem to differ somewhat from those of the native Spanish speakers.

Grammatical gender in adult L2 acquisition: Relations between lexical and syntactic variability

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Hopp
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
First Language ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
L2 Production ◽  
L1 English

In order to identify the causes of inflectional variability in adult second-language (L2) acquisition, this study investigates lexical and syntactic aspects of gender processing in real-time L2 production and comprehension. Twenty advanced to near-native adult first language (L1) English speakers of L2 German and 20 native controls were tested in a study comprising two experiments. In elicited production, we probe accuracy in lexical gender assignment. In a visual-world eye tracking task, we test the predictive processing of syntactic gender agreement between determiners and nouns. The findings show clear contingencies (1) between overall accuracy in lexical gender assignment in production and target predictive processing of syntactic gender agreement in comprehension and (2) between the speed of lexical access and predictive syntactic gender agreement. These findings support lexical and computational accounts of L2 inflectional variability and argue against models positing representational deficits in morphosyntax in late L2 acquisition and processing.

scholarly journals Acquisition of the Tap-Trill Contrast by L1 Mandarin–L2 English–L3 Spanish Speakers

Languages ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Patience
Keyword(s):  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Developmental Patterns ◽  
Reading Task ◽  
Target Segment ◽  
L2 Spanish ◽  
L1 English ◽  
Single Substitution

The goals of this study were to investigate the developmental patterns of acquisition of the Spanish tap and trill by L1 Mandarin–L2 English–L3 Spanish speakers, and to examine the extent to which the L1 and the L2 influenced the L3 productions. Twenty L1 Mandarin–L2 English–L3 Spanish speakers performed a reading task that elicited production of rhotics from the speakers’ L3 Spanish, L2 English, and L1 Mandarin, as well as the L2 English flap. The least proficient speakers produced a single substitution initially, generally [l]. The same non-target segment was produced for both rhotics, mirroring the results of previous studies investigating L1 English–L2 Spanish speakers, indicating that this may be a universal simplification strategy. In contrast to previous work on L1 English speakers, the L1 Mandarin–L2 English–L3 Spanish speakers who had acquired the tap did not tend to use it as the primary substitute for the trill. Overall, the L1 was a stronger source of cross-linguistic influence. Nonetheless, evidence of positive and negative L2 transfer was also found. The L2 flap allophone facilitated acquisition of the L3 tap, whereas non-target productions of the L2 /ɹ/ were also observed, revealing that both previously learned languages were possible sources of cross-linguistic influence.

Compounding and derivation

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juana M. Liceras ◽  
Rachel Klassen
Keyword(s):  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Selection Task ◽  
L2 Spanish ◽  
Derivational Morphemes ◽  
The One ◽  
Whole Word ◽  
L1 English ◽  
Inflectional Affixes

Abstract Inflectional affixes only adhere to the head of Noun-Noun (NN) compounds which implies that the plural of casa cuna (‘crib house’) or hombre lobo (‘werewolf’) is casa-s cuna (‘crib houses’) and hombre-s lobo (‘werewolves’) respectively, while *casa cuna-s and *hombre lobo-s ‒ with the plural inflectional affix on the modifier ‒ are ungrammatical. There seems to be more flexibility when it comes to derivational affixes since, in principle, the evaluative diminutive affix - ito appears to have scope over the whole compound, regardless of whether it is attached to the head or the modifier: cas-ita cuna / casa cun-ita and hombre-c-ito lobo / hombre lob-ito . This would imply that the operation that results in the expression of plurality of the whole word via the inflectional affix - s located on the semantic argument (the head of the compound), is more categorical than the one that regulates the scope of derivational morphemes (contra Zwicky, 1985). It would also imply that Cinque’s (2005) proposal according to which modifiers can c-command Nouns may be more in line with the behaviour of derivational affixes in Spanish NN compounds. Since this is a topic that has neither been discussed by Spanish grammarians nor received attention in the psycholinguistic literature, we have administered a Picture Selection Task with NN compounds exhibiting evaluative diminutive affixes to groups of L1 Spanish and L1 English-L2 Spanish speakers. Results show that for L1 Spanish speakers it is the affix on the head that has scope over the whole compound (in line with Zwicky’s 1985 proposal) while the L2 Spanish speakers treat derivational affixes as only having scope over the element to which they are attached.

Electron Microscopy of a Herpesvirus Isolated from Marek's Disease in Duck and Chicken Embryo Fibroblast Cultures

1968 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 222-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyvan Nazerian
Keyword(s):  
Inclusion Bodies ◽  
Chicken Embryo Fibroblast ◽  
Marek's Disease ◽  
Marek’S Disease ◽  
Duck Embryo Fibroblast ◽  
Multinucleated Cells ◽  
Viral Particles ◽  
Infected Cells ◽  
And Control ◽  
Do So

A herpes-like virus has been isolated from duck embryo fibroblast (DEF) cultures inoculated with blood from Marek's disease (MD) infected birds. Cultures which contained this virus produced MD in susceptible chickens while virus negative cultures and control cultures failed to do so. This and other circumstantial evidence including similarities in properties of the virus and the MD agent implicate this virus in the etiology of MD.Histochemical studies demonstrated the presence of DNA-staining intranuclear inclusion bodies in polykarocytes in infected cultures. Distinct nucleo-plasmic aggregates were also seen in sections of similar multinucleated cells examined with the electron microscope. These aggregates are probably the same as the inclusion bodies seen with the light microscope. Naked viral particles were observed in the nucleus of infected cells within or on the edges of the nucleoplasmic aggregates. These particles measured 95-100mμ, in diameter and rarely escaped into the cytoplasm or nuclear vesicles by budding through the nuclear membrane (Fig. 1). The enveloped particles (Fig. 2) formed in this manner measured 150-170mμ in diameter and always had a densely stained nucleoid. The virus in supernatant fluids consisted of naked capsids with 162 hollow, cylindrical capsomeres (Fig. 3). Enveloped particles were not seen in such preparations.

An exploratory study on pro-drop in a written description task in L2 Spanish

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
An Vande Casteele ◽  
Alejandro Palomares Ortiz
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
L2 Spanish ◽  
Spanish Language Learners ◽  
Description Task ◽  
Experimental Group ◽  
Written Description

Abstract The present article aims at investigating the pro-drop phenomenon in L2 Spanish. The phenomenon of pro-drop or null subject is a typological feature of some languages, which are characterized by an implicit subject in cases of topic continuity. More specifically, behaviour regarding subject (dis)continuity in Spanish differs from French. This paper will offer a contrastive analysis on subject realisation by French learners of L2 Spanish compared to L1 Spanish speakers. So, the goal of this pilot study is to see if a different functioning in pro-drop in the mother tongue also influences the L2. The study is based upon a written description task presented to the two groups of participants: the experimental group of French mother tongue L2 Spanish language learners and the control group of Spanish native speakers.

After the Ivory Tower: Gender, Commodification and the ‘Academic’

1997 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna de Groot
Keyword(s):  
Job Insecurity ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Ivory Tower ◽  
Academic Identities ◽  
Loss Of Autonomy ◽  
External Power ◽  
Key Features ◽  
And Control ◽  
Radical Transformation ◽  
Do So

This piece uses a feminist approach to explore various aspects of ‘commodification’ in the lives and work of those teaching and researching in UK universities, and in particular its gender dimensions. After setting a historical context for the radical transformation of UK universities during the 1980s, it considers how this transformation was experienced by academics in terms of alienation, anxiety and accountability. Key features of that experience are loss of autonomy and control to the external power of competition and managerialism, insecurity and casualization in employment, and exposure to increasing judgemental scrutiny. For women academics job insecurity and discrimination continue to be disproportionately important, although some of the challenges to old established academic convention and practice have opened up real possibilities to progress more pro-women agendas. In the future they will confront quite depressing developments in the reconstruction of academic identities and labour, but have the legacy of the gains/insights of feminist analysis and politics over the last twenty years with which to do so.

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