Topic Hypothesis in Processability Theory: Th case of Spanish Th The fS i h

BRUNO DI BIASE
UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

BARBARA HINGER
UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK, AUSTRIA

Please cite as: Pl it

Di Biase, B., Hinger, B. ( i i i (2011). Topic Hypothesis i Processability ) i h i in bili Theory: The case of Spanish. Presentation delivered at 11th PALA Symposium-Processability Approaches to Language Acquisition. Innsbruck, Austria, September 12-13, 2011.

Copyright Di Biase, Bruno and Hinger, Barbara 2011

Aim
This study aims to test the Topic Hypothesis (Pienemann Di (Pienemann, Biase & Kawaguchi 2005) for Spanish*, a pro-drop Romance language, focusing on the Syntax-Discourse interface in PT within the framework of Processability Theory. In particular, it investigates: 1 th d l the development of canonical and non-canonical word order i t f i l d i l d d in Spanish L2 (declarative syntax). 2 the relationship between the acquisition of WO and the acquisition of morphosyntax.
*PT work on Spanish is scant (e.g., Johnston 1995 hypothesis but no data)

Research Questions Q
1. D 1 Does Spanish L2 morphology and morphosyntax d l i S i h h l d h t develop in learners according to the PT-based hierarchy (Pienemann 1998)? 2. Does Spanish syntactic/discourse-pragmatic interface develop following the Topic Hypothesis? 3. Is there a relationship between these developmental paths?

PT: Hierarchy of processing procedures Morphological development (after Pienemann 2005: 14)
STAGE

t1

t2

t3

t4

t5

S-BAR
PROCEDURE

interclausal information exchange

SENTENCE PROCEDURE

interphrasal information exchange

PHRASAL PROCEDURE

phrasal information i f i exchange

CATEGORY PROCEDURE

lexical form variation

LEMMA ACCESS

invariant forms i i tf & formulas

Developmental stages for Spanish L2 morphology (based on Italian cf. Di Biase & Kawaguchi 2002)
PROCEDURE S-BAR PROCEDURE MORPHOLOGICAL OUTCOME/STAGE INTERCLAUSAL MORPHOLOGY L2 STRUCTURE
subjunctive marking in subordination b di ti

EXAMPLE

agreement SENTENCE PROCEDURE INTERPHRASAL MORPHOLOGY TOP & clitic-OBJ agreement NPsubj & Predicative Adjective Number Agreement Copula & Pred Adjective Number agreement within NP

a m me parece ridculo que cada familia tenga dos coches to me (i ) seems ridiculous that each f il h 3PSUBJ (it) idi l h h family has3PSUBJ two cars a ella tambin le gustan las plantas to her also 3PSINGDAT like3PPL thePL plantsPL las l ramas son l largas theFemPL branches are longFemPL (...) son muy finas (they) are3PPL very thinPL ( y) y s y cuantos . cuantas personas hay? yes and how manyMascPl . how manyFemPL peopleFemPL are there? no h .. h seis adultos hay hay i d lt no there .. there are six adults He ledo un artculo () (I) have read an article hay nios (there) are children Hola! me llamo Zoe. Hi! m name is Zoe my

VERB PHRASAL MORPHOLOGY PHRASAL PROCEDURE

NOUN PHRASAL MORPHOLOGY

CATEGORY PROCEDURE

LEXICAL FORM VARIATION

Tense/aspect marking marking on Verb g -s plural marking on Noun

single words; formulas

LEMMA ACCESS

SINGLE WORDS; FORMULAS

The staged development of syntax (after Pienemann Di Biase and Kawaguchi, 2005; Di Biase & Kawaguchi, Pienemann, Kawaguchi Kawaguchi submitted).

STAGE
XPDF MARKED
ALIGNMENT

t1

t2

t3
XPTOP canonical word order canonical word order d d

t4
topicalisation of core argument g other than SUBJ
XPTOP

XPDF
UNMARKED ALIGNMENT UNMARKED ALIGNMENT LEMMA ACCESS

canonical word order d d

canonical word order canonical word order d d single words; formulas

single words; single words; single words; formulas formulas formulas

Syntactic development: The Unmarked Alignment Hypothesis

In I second l d language acquisition l i iti learners will i iti ll ill initially organise syntax by mapping the most prominent semantic role available (agent experiencer) onto the most prominent (agent, grammatical role (the subject). The structural expression of the subject, in turn, will occupy the most prominent linear j , , py p position (the initial one) in c-structure. (Pienemann, Di Biase
and Kawaguchi 2005: 229)

Language-specific canonical word order and processing frames.

NAGENT

V NPATIENT Spanish / English

NAGENT

NPATIENT Japanese

In prod-drop languages, e.g. Spanish, a sentential subject can be optionally realised on the surface under certain discourse conditions (new topic/change of topic, referential contrast or disambiguation). The important fact is that a nullsubject sentence in such a language is always grammatically, but not necessarily pragmatically, correct. Learners are not necessarily aware of the discourse constraints (e.g., informativeness, cf. Serratrice 2007) imposed by the language, but they will , 7) p y g g , y sound correct even though the L2 Subject function may be underspecified.

Topic/Focus from a psycholinguistic point of view: Speakers choices (Levelt, 1989)

In encoding a message speakers can choose between affirmative and question f ffi i d i forms, b between active and i d passive. They may also choose to place constituents in p prominent p positions by topicalizing them or they may y p g y y choose not to do so. (e.g. demoting or pro-drop) Levelt (1989, 260ff) demonstrates that in discourse, speakers use such linguistic d i k h li i ti devices t guide th li t to id the listeners attention: they contribute to the (efficient) representation of meaning in the hearer. This makes for effective communication (between mature native speakers). Levelt places the location of this information within the discourse model (hence, in the conceptualiser).
SLA: Topic and lexical mapping

10

Prominence
11

So, Levelt (1989) shows in his discourse model that , ( 9 9) speakers attribute prominence in discourse in at least three ways: by mapping an argument in the most prominent y position (i.e., making it the SUBJ) , g syntactic p by early appearance in the sentence by prosodic means (e.g. pitch accent) Languages use and combine these three strategies in their own specific ways.
SLA: Topic and lexical mapping

From a grammatical p g point of view LFG

(Bresnan 2001) formalizes Topic and Focus at the sentence level as grammaticised discourse functions differentiating them from argument functions. Topic and Focus must be linked to non-discourse function (extended coherence). Subject participates in both functional categories . Discourse functions
DFs DF GFs

nondiscourse fns argument functions

discourse functions
DFs DF

nonargument fns

core functions SUBJ OBJ OBJ

noncore functions OBL COMP ADJ FOC TOP

LFG: Grammatical functions and their subdivisions (after Falk 2001: 3.1)

Competition between argument and discourse functions

In languages where arguments are regularly id tifi d b I l h t l l identified by position, i.e., rely on a given Canonical order to identify argument role (rather than by morphology alone such as alone, Warlpiri, cf. Bresnan 2001) functional uncertainty is triggered when p gg prominence is assigned to functions other g than the Subject. This may be resolved by extra morphological and/or syntactic and/or prosodic marking.

a-structure, f-structure and c-structure

A-structure, f-structure and c-structure of the sentence las manzanas las compro Jordi (the apples, [them] Jordi bought) comprar <agent, theme>
NP (TOP)= TOP O PRED DEF NUM GEND apples l + PL FEM Det = las N = manzanas I = VP = V V = Cl (OBJ)= las V = compro CP C = IP = NP (SUBJ)= N = Jordi

PRED

buy <SUBJ, OBJ> y ,

TENSE PAST SUBJ PRED NUM PERS S PRED NUM GEND PERS CASE Jordi SG 3 pro PL FEM 3 ACC

OBJ

The Topic Hypothesis p yp

The Topic Hypothesis: In second language acquisition learners will initially not differentiate between SUBJ and TOP. The addition of an XP to a canonical string will trigger a differentiation of TOP and SUBJ which first extends to non-arguments and successively to arguments thus causing further structural consequences (Pienemann, Di Biase and
Kawaguchi 2005: 239).

Developmental stages for Spanish syntax based on the Topic Hypothesis Declaratives (compare with Italian in Di Biase & Bettoni 2007)

STAGE

MARKED ALIGNMENT

STRUCTURE TOPi CliticGF-i-V SUBJ (topicalisation of GF) and post-V subject V SUBJ(focalisation of SUBJ) TOP + canonical order ( p (topicalisation of ADJ) )

EXAMPLE a ella tambin le gustan las plantas to her also 3PSINGDAT like3PPL thePL plantsPL (she also likes plants) frecuentemente vamos al cine frequently go1P-PL to the cinema (we ft ( often go t th cinema) to the i )
Los argentinos comen muchas carne thePL Argentinians eat many meat

XP + UNMARKED ALIGNMENT

UNMARKED ALIGNMENT

canonical word order = SVO (including prodrop)

Dos D personas t b j trabajan two people work tenemos muchos turistas we have many tourists y Canta sing

LEMMA ACCESS

single words; formulas

Hola! [hello] [ ] Me llamo Zoe (My name is Zoe)

Study Design y g
2C Cross-sectional d t sets ti l data t
6 Australian informants (university students) 5 L1 English 1 Bilingual Swedish English Swedish-English
age range: 19 to 27 (mean: 21,8)

Instruction: 1 academic y o d year o Sp of Spanish 6 Austrian informants (Higher Secondary students) L1 German
age range: 18 to 20 years (mean: 19) Instruction: 3 Years of Secondary School Spanish

Data Elicitation
Australian informants A t li i f t
Interview with researcher

Austrian i f A i informants
Two paired elicitation tasks followed by a brief conversation with the researcher
Elicitation task 1 Elicitation task 2 Text and picture prompt-based

Descriptive statistics of the data sets p

informants types tokens type/token ratio Turns (n=2207) Clauses (n=995)

CA ZO LI VI KE EM GA VE RO TH BI JE

428 356 6 444 373 314 334 164 224 323 174 241 403

1794 1626 6 6 2030 1492 1256 1652 370 611 1025 376 738 1444

0,23 0,22 0,22 0,25 0 25 0,25 0,20 0,44 0,37 0,32 0,46 0,33 0 33 0,28

293 264 6 358 263 214 252 85 74 102 58 94 150

77 94 93 42 42 121 35 55 116 49 80 151

Descriptive statistics of the data sets p

Type: Mean Type: Range Type: Minimum-Maximum Token: Mean Token: Range Token: Min Max Min.-Max. type/token: Mean yp / type/token: Range type/token: Min.-Max. Australian data 374,83 130 314-444 1641,67 6 6 774 1256 2030 1256-2030 0,23 0,05 0,20-0,25 Austrian data 254,83 239 164-403 760,67 6 6 1074 370 1444 370-1444 0,37 0,18 0,28-0,46

Descriptive statistics of the data sets p

Turns: Mean Turns: Range Turns: Minimum-Maximum Clauses: Mean Clauses: Range Clauses: Min Max Min.-Max. Australian data 274 144 214-358 78,2 8 79 42 121 42-121 Austrian data 93,38 92 58-150 93,9 116 35 151 35-151

Results: Morphosyntax, Australia p y ,

Stage
5 p pred.adj.subj.ref. j j 4 NPVagreement pred.adj.null subj. 3 NPagreement

Structure
subjunctive singularfem;plural default(mascsg) plural singular singularfem;plural default(mascsg) default (masc sg) singularfem p plural

KE
0 1/1 0 2/5 6 0 3 1

VI
0 1 1 1 0 5 1/2

CA
0 0 1

ZO
0 4 0 15 2/3 7

LI
0 1 0 1/2 2 10 3/4

EM
0 1 0 3/6 3 3 4/5 3/4 /

1 2/11 0 10

9 14/15

21 22/23

4/6 7/10

2/4 7/14 / /

4/5 8/11 8/11 / / /

Results: Morphosyntax, Austria p y ,

Stage
5 pred.adj.subj.ref. 4 NPVagreement pred.adj.nullsubj. 3 NPagreement

Structure
subjunctive singularfem;plural default(mascsg) plural singular singularfem;plural default(mascsg) default (masc sg) singularfem plural

VE
0 1/4 1 8 2 4 2 11

GA
3 1/4 1 2 2 2 0 5

TH
3 1 0 4 8 1 1 6

BI
2/5 1 2 3/4 19 2 2

RO
3/5 2/4 4 6 14 0 5 5

JE
5/6 4 3 12 31 3/4 16 11 29

9 11/12

3 9/10

10 9/11

Results: syntax, Australia y ,

Syntax
XPDF Marked Alignment XPDF Unmarked Alignment Unmarked Alignment

Structure
TOPCliticOBJ VS(ref) TOPCliticOBJ V TOPADJ S(ref/pron)V(X) TOPADJ canonicalorder TOPADJ V(X) canonical wordorder S(ref)V(X) S(pron)V(X) V(X) V (X)

CA VI KE ZO EM LI
0 1 0 1 15 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 2 9 1 1 1 2 8 28 5 0 1 0 9 32 10 69 0 5 1 6 25 19 37

19 11

41 28 30 49

Results: Syntax, Austria y ,

Syntax
XPDF Marked Alignment XPDF Unmarked Alignment Unmarked Alignment TOPCliticOBJ V TOPADJ S(ref/pron)V(X) TOPADJ canonicalorder TOPADJ V(X) canonical wordorder S(ref)V(X) S(pron)V(X) V(X) V (X) Structure TOPCliticOBJ VS(ref) GA VE RO TH BI JE 0 0 1 1 2 0 1 0 6 1 0 1 1 4 15 0 2 0 4 1 0 2 2 2 3 0

8 20 3 16

14 16 17 31

19 11 14 37 76 31 51 73

Results syntax:
XPDF UNMARKED ALIGNMENT (examples)

(1) ( ) y el d l domingo (l i (laugh) i h) iremos a l playa [LI] la l (2) frecuentemente vamos al cine [EM] (3) siempre vienen en coche [TH] (4) especialmente en julio o agosto tienen p j g grandes problemas [JE]

Results syntax:
XPDF UNMARKED ALIGNMENT (examples)

(5) ( ) pues primero t i tengo que d i ahora que a m me decir h parece ridculo que cada familia tenga dos coches [JE] (6) a ella tambin le gustan las plantas [JE] (7) * yo no me gusta .. demasiada [LI] (8) * nosotros . nos gusta [LI] (9) Schwaz ah s lo conozco lo he visitado una vez [TH] [ ]

Morphosyntax - Syntax interface (individual) o p osy ta Sy ta te ace ( )

Stage g
5 pred.adj.subj.ref. 4 NPVagreement

Structure
subjunctive singularfem;plural default(mascsg) plural singular i l pred.adj.nullsubj. singularfem;plural default(mascsg) ( g) NPagreement singularfem plural

VE VE
0 1/4 1 8 9 2 4 2 11 0 1

Structure

Syntax

TOPCliticOBJ VS(ref) XPDF Marked TOPCliticOBJ V Alignment TOPADJ canonical order canonical wordorder XPDF Unmarked Alignment Unmarked Alignment

0 TOPADJ S(ref/pron)V(X) 6 TOPADJ V(X) 16 S( f) V (X) S(ref)V(X) 1 S(pron)V(X) 31 V(X) ( )

Morphosyntax - Syntax interface (individual) o p osy ta Sy ta te ace ( )

Stage g
5 pred.adj.subj.ref. 4 NPVagreement

Structure
subjunctive singularfem;plural default(mascsg) plural singular i l pred.adj.nullsubj. singularfem;plural default(mascsg) ( g) NPagreement singularfem plural

JE
5/6 4 3

JE
2 3 0

Structure

Syntax

TOPCliticOBJ VS(ref) XPDF Marked TOPCliticOBJ V Alignment TOPADJ S(ref/pron)V... TOPADJ canonical order canonical wordorder XPDF Unmarked Alignment Unmarked Alignment

12 20 TOPADJ V (X) 31 37 S( f) V (X) S(ref)V(X) 3/4 16 S(pron)V(X) 16 73 V(X) ( ) 11 29

Conclusion
Spanish, like It li S i h lik Italian, confirms both th PT morphosyntactic fi b th the h t ti and syntactic developmental hierarchies. There is a relationship between the two developmental hierarchies but not at all points. This would need further confirmation with other studies, including regression , g g analysis. A more fine-grained analysis of the conditions for pro-drop in early learners. How much is due to discourse requirements, performance limitations, underspecification of the arguments used? t d?

References
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