Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:46:01.491Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Children's interpretation of negation and quantifier scope in L3 English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2020

Kyuhee Jo ,
Kitaek Kim Open the ORCID record for Kitaek Kim [Opens in a new window]  and
Hyunwoo Kim Open the ORCID record for Hyunwoo Kim [Opens in a new window]
Kyuhee Jo
Affiliation:
Gyeongin National University of Education
Kitaek Kim*
Affiliation:
Seoul National University
Hyunwoo Kim
Affiliation:
Yonsei University
*
Address for correspondence: Kitaek Kim, Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Languages differ in the preferences for the interpretation of the scope relation between negation and a quantifier. This study investigates the understudied issue of how interpretive preferences associated with a quantifier scope in learners’ L1 and L2 affect their scope interpretations in L3 acquisition. Based on the current models of L3 acquisition, we tested which language, L1 or L2, exerts a stronger effect on the L3 acquisition of quantifier scope. To this end, the study involved two groups of multilingual children (11–13 years old) with different L1s (Chinese or Russian) but with the same L2 (Korean) and L3 (English). The participants completed truth-value judgment tasks designed to investigate their interpretation patterns for English sentences with negation and a quantifier (e.g., Tom did not cut all the trees). The results showed that both groups preferred the L3 interpretation similar to that preferred in their L2, but not in their L1, suggesting a potential L2 influence on L3 acquisition. The study evaluates L3 acquisition theories in light of these results.

Keywords

child L3 acquisitionnegation quantifier scopecrosslinguistic influencecommunity language proficiency
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , May 2021 , pp. 427 - 438
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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.)

References

Arıbaş, DŞ and Cele, F (2019) Acquisition of articles in L2 and L3 English: the influence of L2 proficiency on positive transfer from L2 to L3. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, doi: 10.1080/01434632.2019.1667364. Published online by Taylor & Francis, September 19, 2019.Google Scholar
Anderson, C (2004) The structure and real-time comprehension of quantifier scope ambiguity. Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Arvaniti, A (2012) The usefulness of metrics in the quantification of speech rhythm. Journal of Phonetics 40, 351–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baayen, RH (2008) Analyzing linguistic data. A practical introduction to statistics using R. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baddeley, A (2003) Working memory and language: An overview. Journal of Communication Disorders 36, 189–208.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bardel, C and Falk, Y (2007) The role of the second language in third language acquisition: the case of Germanic syntax. Second Language Research 23, 459–484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bardel, C and Sánchez, L (2017) The L2 status factor hypothesis revisited: The role of metalinguistic knowledge, working memory, attention and noticing in third language learning. In Angelovska, T and Hahn, A (Eds.), L3 syntactic transfer: Models, new developments and implications, pp. 85–101. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barr, DJ, Levy, R, Scheepers, C and Tily, HJ (2013) Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of memory and language 68, 255–278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berkes, É and Flynn, S (2012) Further evidence in support of the Cumulative-Enhancement Model. In Cabrelli Amaro, J, Flynn, S and Rothman, J (Eds.), Third language acquisition in adulthood, pp. 143–164. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carroll, SE (2001) Input and evidence: The raw material of second language acquisition. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chung, ESE (2013) Sources of difficulty in L2 scope judgments. Second Language Research 29, 285–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elgort, I (2013) Effects of L1 definitions and cognate status of test items on the Vocabulary Size Test. Language Testing 30, 253–272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, D (1998) Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 1, 67–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, P (1989) Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Falk, Y and Bardel, C (2010) The study of the role of the background languages in third language acquisition. The state of the art. IRAL - International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 48, 185–219.Google Scholar
Falk, Y and Bardel, C (2011) Object pronouns in German L3 syntax: Evidence for the L2 status factor. Second Language Research 27, 59–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fallah, N and Jabbari, AA (2018) L3 acquisition of English attributive adjectives Dominant language of communication matters for syntactic cross-linguistic influence. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 8, 193–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fallah, N, Jabbari, AA and Fazilatfar, AM (2016) Source(s) of syntactic cross-linguistic influence (CLI): The case of L3 acquisition of English possessives by Mazandarani-Persian bilinguals. Second Language Research 32, 225–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehringer, C and Fry, C (2007) Hesitation phenomena in the language production of bilingual speakers: The role of working memory. Folia Linguistica 41, 37–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flynn, S and Berkes, É (2017) Toward a new understanding of syntactic CLI. L3 Syntactic Transfer: Models, new developments and implications. In Angelovska, T and Hahn, A (Eds.), L3 syntactic transfer: Models, new developments and implications, pp. 35–61. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flynn, S, Foley, C and Vinnitskaya, I (2004) The cumulative-enhancement model for language acquisition: Comparing adults’ and children's patterns of development in first, second and third language acquisition of relative clauses. International Journal of Multilingualism 1, 3–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, A, Perla, J and Robinson, LC (2013) A psycholinguistic assessment of language change in eastern Indonesia: evidence from the HALA project. In Jones, MC and Ogilvie, S (Eds.), Keeping languages alive: Documentation, pedagogy and revitalization. pp. 16–28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Han, C, Lidz, J and Musolino, J (2007) V-Raising and grammar competition in Korean: Evidence from negation and quantifier scope. Linguistic Inquiry 38, 1–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammarberg, B (2010) The languages of the multilingual: Some conceptual and terminological issues. IRAL-International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 48, 91–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hermas, A (2010) Language acquisition as computational resetting: verb movement in L3 initial state. International Journal of Multilingualism 7, 343–362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hermas, A (2014) Restrictive relatives in L3 English: L1 transfer and ultimate attainment convergence. Australian Journal of Linguistics 34, 361–387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hermas, A (2015) The categorization of the relative complementizer phrase in third-language English: A feature re-assembly account. International Journal of Bilingualism 19, 587–607.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hermas, A (2018) Discourse-linking in advanced L3 English: Testing the Interface Hypothesis. Lingua 212, 20–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hong, WP (2010) Multicultural education in Korea: Its development, remaining issues, and global implications. Asia Pacific Education Review 11, 387–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopp, H (2019) Cross-linguistic influence in the child third language acquisition of grammar: Sentence comprehension and production among Turkish-German and German learners of English. International Journal of Bilingualism 23, 567–583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ionin, T, Luchkina, T and Stoops, A (2014) Quantifier scope and scrambling in the second language acquisition of Russian. In Minai, U et al. (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 5th Conference on Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition–North America, pp. 169–180. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Jabbari, AA, Achard-Bayel, G and Ablali, D (2018) Acquisition of L3 French wh-question structure by Persian-English bilinguals. Cogent Education, doi: 10.1080/2331186x.2018.1524551. Published online by Taylor & Francis, October 08, 2018.Google Scholar
Jaensch, C (2012) L3 Acquisition of German: Do some learners have it easier? In Cabrelli Amaro, J, Flynn, S and Rothman, J (Eds). Third language acquisition in adulthood. pp. 165–193. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, J and Davis, C (2003) Task effects in masked cross-script translation and phonological priming. Journal of Memory and Language 49, 484–499.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, EC (1995) Second vs. third language acquisition: Is there a difference? Language Learning 45, 419–465.Google Scholar
Kwak, H-Y (2014) Korean-speaking L2 learners’ comprehension of sentences containing numerically quantified NPs and negation in English. Modern English Education 15, 65–84.Google Scholar
Laufer, B and McLean, S (2016) Loanwords and vocabulary size test scores: A case of different estimates for different L1 learners. Language Assessment Quarterly 13, 202–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, S (2009) Interpreting ambiguity in first and second language processing: Universal quantifiers and negation. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hawaii, Manoa.Google Scholar
Leeser, MJ and Sunderman, G (2016) Methodological implications of working memory tasks for L2 processing research. In Granene, G, Jackson, D and Yilmaz, Y (Eds.), Cognitive individual differences in second language processing and acquisition, pp. 89–104. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lidz, J and Musolino, J (2002) Children's command of quantification. Cognition 84, 113–154.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Linck, JA, Osthus, P, Koeth, JT and Bunting, MF (2014) Working memory and second language comprehension and production: A meta-analysis. Psychonomic bulletin & review 21, 861–883.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marsden, H (2009) Distributive quantifier scope in English-Japanese and Korean-Japanese interlanguage. Language Acquisition 16, 135–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matuschek, H, Kliegl, R, Vasishth, S, Baayen, H and Bates, D (2017) Balancing Type I error and power in linear mixed models. Journal of Memory and Language 94, 305–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
May, R (1977) The grammar of quantification. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT university.Google Scholar
May, R (1985) Logical Form. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Montrul, S (2010) Current issues in heritage language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 30, 3–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mueller, ST and Piper, BJ (2014) The Psychology Experiment Building Language (PEBL) and PEBL Test Battery. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 222, 250–259.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Musolino, J and Lidz, J (2003) The Scope of Isomorphism: Turning adults into children. Language Acquisition 11, 277–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Musolino, J and Lidz, J (2006) Why children aren't universally successful with quantification. Liguistics 44, 817–852.Google Scholar
Nespor, M, Shukla, M and Mehler, J (2011) Stress-timed vs. syllable-timed languages. In van Oostendorp, M, Ewen, CJ, Hume, E and Rice, K (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to phonology, pp. 1147–1159. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
O'Grady, W. (2013) The illusion of language acquisition. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 3, 253–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Grady, W, Kwak, HY, Lee, OS and Lee, M (2011) An emergentist perspective on heritage language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 33, 223–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Grady, W, Lee, M and Kwak, H (2009a) Emergentism and Second Language Acquisition. In Ritchie, W and Bhatia, T (Eds.) The new handbook of second language acquisition, pp. 69–88. Bingley: Emerald PressGoogle Scholar
O'Grady, W, Schafer, A, Perla, J, Lee, O-S and Wieting, J (2009b) A Psycholinguistic Tool for the Assessment of Language Loss: The HALA Project. Language Documentation & Conservation 3, 100–112.Google Scholar
Paradis, M (2008) Language and communication disorders in multilinguals. In Stemmer, B and Whitaker, HA (Eds.), Handbook of the neuroscience of language, pp. 341–349. Amsterdam: Elsevier.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paradis, M. (2009) Declarative and procedural determinants of second languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pesetsky, D (1979) Russian morphology and lexical theory. Ms., MIT, Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Puig-Mayenco, E, González Alonso, J and Rothman, J (2020) A systematic review of transfer studies in third language acquisition. Second Language Research 36, 31–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
R Core Team (2014) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL http://www.R-project.org/.Google Scholar
Rothman, J (2010) On the typological economy of syntactic transfer: Word order and relative clause high/low attachment preference in L3 Brazilian Portuguese. IRAL-International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 48, 245–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothman, J (2011) L3 syntactic transfer selectivity and typological determinacy: The typological primacy model. Second Language Research 27, 107–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothman, J (2013) Cognitive economy, non-redundancy and typological primacy in L3 acquisition: Evidence from initial stages of L3 Romance. In Baauw, S, Dirjkoningen, F and Pinto, M (Eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 2011, pp. 217–247. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothman, J (2015) Linguistic and cognitive motivations for the Typological Primacy Model (TPM) of third language (L3) transfer: Timing of acquisition and proficiency considered. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 18, 179–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothman, J, González Alonso, J and Puig-Mayenco, E (2019) Third language acquisition and linguistic transfer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sánchez, L and Bardel, C (2017) Transfer from an L2 in third language learning: A study on L2 proficiency. In Angelovska, T and Hahn, A (Eds.), L3 syntactic transfer: Models, new developments and implications, pp. 223–250. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Schwartz, B and Sprouse, R (2019) Contra piecemeal transfer: A reply to Slabakova (2017) and Westergaard et al. (2017). Unpublished talk presented at GASLA XV, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA.Google Scholar
Slabakova, R (2017) The scalpel model of third language acquisition. International Journal of Bilingualism 21, 651–665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slabakova, R and Mayo, García, Del P, M. (2015) The L3 syntax–discourse interface. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 18, 208–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sohn, HM (1999) The Korean language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Song, HS and Schwartz, BD (2009) Testing the fundamental difference hypothesis: L2 adult, L2 child, and L1 child comparisons in the acquisition of Korean Wh-constructions with negative polarity items. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 31, 323–361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ullman, MT (2001) The neural basis of lexicon and grammar in first and second language: the declarative/procedural model. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 4, 105–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westergaard, M (2019) Microvariation in multilingual situations: The importance of property-by-property acquisition. Second Language Research, doi: 10.1177/0267658319884116. Published online by SAGE, November 12, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westergaard, M, Mitrofanova, N, Mykhaylyk, R and Rodina, Y (2017) Crosslinguistic influence in the acquisition of a third language: The Linguistic Proximity Model. International Journal of Bilingualism 21, 666–682.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wen, ZE (2016) Working memory and second language learning: Towards an integrated approach. Bristol: Multilingual matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, M and Ionin, T (2019) L1-Mandarin L2-English speakers’ acquisition of English universal quantifier-negation scope. In Brown, MM and Dailey, B (Eds.), Proceedings of the 43rd Boston University Conference on Language Development. pp. 716–729. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Zhou, P and Crain, S (2009) Scope assignment in child language: Evidence from the acquisition of Chinese. Lingua 119, 973–998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar