The Acquisition of Prosodic Structure in a Second Language 9783111715254, 9783484303041

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Introduction
Notes to Chapter 1
Chapter 2: The second language acquisition of phonology
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Lado’s CAH and the L2 acquisition of phonology
2.3. L2 acquisition: state of the art considerations
2.4. Interlanguage and prosodic rules and structures
2.5. Access to UG in phonology
Notes to Chapter 2
Chapter 3: Cliticization in Standard German
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Clitics in general
3.3. The German clitics
3.4. The simple clitics in German
3.5. Syntactic distribution of the simple clitics
3.6. The learner’s task
Notes to Chapter 3
Chapter 4: The acquisition of cliticization
4.1. Introduction
4.2. First language acquisition
4.3. The L2 acquisition of cliticization
4.4. Conclusions and predictions
Notes to Chapter 4
Chapter 5. The L2 acquisition of cliticization in German
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Methods and materials
5.3. The learners’ native languages
5.4. Results and analysis
5.5. Summary and conclusions
Notes to Chapter 5
References
Appendix A: Test sentences
Appendix B: Details of the input
Appendix C: Results for individual test subjects

Citation preview

Linguistische Arbeiten

304

Herausgegeben von Hans Altmann, Peter Blumenthal, Herbert E. Brekle, Gerhard Heibig, Hans Jürgen Heringer, Heinz Vater und Richard Wiese

Martha Young-Scholten

The Acquisition of Prosodic Structure in a Second Language

Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen 1993

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. Genesis 11:7

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Young-Scholten, Martha: The acquisition of prosodic structure in a second language / Martha Young-Scholten. -Tübingen : Niemeyer, 1993 (Linguistische Arbeiten ; 304) NE:GT ISBN 3-484-30304-2

ISSN 0344-6727

© Max Niemeyer Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Tübingen 1993 Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printed in Germany.

Druck: Weihert-Druck GmbH, Darmstadt Einband: Hugo Nadele, Nehren

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

ix

Chapter 1: Introduction Notes to Chapter 1

1 5

Chapter 2: The second language acquisition of phonology 2.1. Introduction 2.2. Lado's CAH and the L2 acquisition of phonology 2.3. L2 acquisition: state of the art considerations 2.3.1. Principles and parameters in L2 syntax 2.4. Interlanguage and prosodic rules and structures 2.4.1. The role of the syllable 2.4.2. Other aspects of syllable structure 2.4.3. Metrical and rhythmic structures and rules 2.4.4. Intonation 2.4.5. Conclusions 2.5. Access to UG in phonology 2.5.1. The Markedness Differential Hypothesis 2.5.2. The Subset Principle 2.5.3. Principles and Parameters in phonology 2.5.4. Principles 2.5.5. Parameters Notes to Chapter 2

6 6 7 7 10 13 13 18 22 25 26 26 26 28 29 32 33 34

Chapter 3: Cliticization in Standard German 3.1. Introduction 3.2. Clitics in general 3.3. The German clitics 3.3.1. German syntax and pronouns 3.3.2. Topic, focus and pronouns 3.3.3. The German pronouns as clitics 3.4. The simple clitics in German 3.4.1. Gaps 3.4.2. The clitics as allomorphs 3.4.3. Phonological attachment 3.4.4. Resyllabification and clitics 3.5. Syntactic distribution of the simple clitics 3.6. The learner's task Notes to Chapter 3

36 36 36 40 40 45 46 47 49 55 58 69 72 80 83

VI

Chapter 4: The acquisition of cliticization 4.1. Introduction 4.2. First language acquisition 4.2.1. The acquisition of cliticization 4.2.2. The Continuity Hypothesis and lexical triggering 4.2.3. The acquisition of metrical and rhythmic structure 4.2.4. The acquisition of cliticization 4.3. The L2 acquisition of cliticization 4.3.1. Measuring acquisition 4.3.2. The L2 acquisition of prosodic structure 4.3.3. The acquisition of pronouns 4.3.4. The acquisition of postlexical phenomena 4.4. Conclusions and predictions 4.4.1. Transfer Notes to Chapter 4

85 85 85 85 88 88 93 97 98 101 103 105 108 109 112

Chapter 5. The L2 acquisition of cliticization in German 5.1. Introduction 5.2. Methods and materials 5.2.1. The elicited imitation task 5.2.2. Construction and administration of the task 5.2.3. Test subjects 5.3. The learners'native languages 5.3.1. Realization of unfocused pronouns 5.3.2. American English 5.3.3. Native languages with simpler syllable structures 5.3.3.1. Korean syllable structure 5.3.3.2. Spanish syllable structure 5.3.3.3. Turkish syllable structure 5.3.4. Resyllabification 5.3.5. Rhythmic structure of the native languages 5.3.5.1. Korean rhythmic structure 5.3.5.2. Spanish rhythmic structure 5.3.5.3. Turkish rhythmic structure 5.3.6. Morphology 5.3.7. Predictions 5.4. Results and analysis 5.4.1. Comprehension of the clitics 5.4.2. Developmental factors 5.4.3. Overall acquisition: repetition of the clitics 5.4.4. Acquisition of the syntactic conditions 5.4.4.1. The Americans'scores 5.4.4.2. The Korean, Spanish and Turkish scores

113 113 113 114 116 119 123 124 125 128 128 129 130 131 132 132 133 134 134 135 138 138 145 147 150 154 156

VII

5.4.5. Acquisition of the phonological prerequisites 5.4.5.1. Acquisition of syllable structure 5.4.5.2. Acquisition of rhythmic structure 5.5. Summary and conclusions 5.5.1. Causes of fossilization: no access to UG? 5.5.2. Future directions Notes to Chapter 5

165 167 171 175 176 179 180

References

181

Appendix A: Test sentences Appendix B: Details of the input Appendix C: Results for individual test subjects

193 198 200

Acknowledgements Nearly five years ago I was fortunate enough to spend a year in Bielefeld, listening for evidence of postlexical processes. My appreciation goes to those friends, teachers and colleagues who have supported me in one way or another over the years. I am particularly grateful to all those connected to the linguistics faculties at the University of Washington, Universität Bielefeld and Universität Düsseldorf. Without Ellen Kaisse to initially inspire me, Fulbright to support me financially and Greg Dogil, Tracy Hall, Roland Noske, Anne Vainikka, Steven Weinberger and Richard Wiese to provide ongoing phonological and syntactic insights, numerous postlexical phenomena would have remained unexamined My colleagues and friends at the University of Durham deserve special mention; in particular, Denise Douglas-Brown, Bonnie Schwartz and SJ. Hannahs are to be commended for their patience in awaiting the meal promised them once the revision of my dissertation crossed the English Channel. Belma Haznedar and Mehmet Keskin were kind enough to help me with various technical details. But no one now knows more than B.A.S about pronominal clitics in German, having edited several versions of this work over the years. Thank you!!

Chapter 1: Introduction

In the field of second language (L2) phonology, two aspects of post-puberty (i.e. adult) acquisition are nearly taken as facts. First, it is uncontroversial that the rules and structures from the learner's first language (LI) play a major role in the acquisition of a second language. The transfer of LI rules and structures to the learner's L2 has been discussed at great length since Lado (1957) formalized the phenomenon in his Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (see also Weinreich 1953 and Haugen 1956 on the concept of contrastive analysis in general). The second aspect of adult L2 phonological acquisition which has the status of fact (although not universally; see Neufeld 1977; Flege 1987 and Flynn & Manuel 1991) is that incomplete acquisition is the rule rather than the exception.1 In other words, even those adult learners who have reached a very advanced stage in their acquisition of a second language will be unable to get rid of their "foreign accent." Compared to the acquisition of syntax and other components of the grammar, the second language acquisition of phonology has been considered to be particularly subject to what has been termed fossilization by Selinker (1972). This syntax-phonology dichotomy is aptly expressed as the "Joseph Conrad Phenomenon." Scovel (1969) notes that the writing ability of Conrad, a native speaker of Polish who learned English at age eighteen, far surpassed his speaking ability: Conrad's prose "demanded almost no grammatical editing, and yet his strong foreign accent prevented him from lecturing publically in English." (1969:247) These two purported facts about L2 phonology are, however, muddied by several additional considerations. Studies carried out over the past several decades, commencing with Johansson (1973), Tarone (1976) and Eckman (1977), have revealed that, while transfer of LI rules and structures seems to play a dominant role, developmental and universal factors also act to shape the learner's emerging phonology.2 The acquisition of the phonology of a second language has come to be seen as involving the same sort of creative construction process (Dulay and Burt 1975) as acquisition in other components of the grammar. The rules and structures in the learner's developing L2 phonology are further seen to represent a system in their own right (cf. Corder 1967), often reflecting neither transfer from the learner's LI nor the L2 target norm. In this sense, the learner's developing system can be termed an interlanguage in Selinker's (1972) terminology. While complete attainment of a second phonology is not the norm, it should nonetheless be noted that many adult learners do manage to reach a high level of proficiency. Yet even for such advanced learners, the failure to acquire the complete phonology is striking when one compares adult learners to children acquiring their first or second languages.3 The question to which we will attempt to provide an answer is whether the advanced adult learner's non-native phonological competence can be characterized in a unified manner. Are the rules and structures which learners fail to acquire in their second language similar, irrespective of native language background? If they are similar, what is the precise nature of these rules and structures and how might this be related to developmental processes and/or universals? The

characterization of advanced learners' interlanguage phonologies can thus serve to elucidate the underlying linguistic causes of the age-related discrepancy in the ultimate attainment of a second phonology. Schachter (1988) cites lack of completeness as evidence for the existence of a critical period for language acquisition, beyond which the same domain-specific mechanisms involved in first acquisition (i.e. Universal Grammar) are no longer available to direct second language acquisition (see also Bley-Vroman 1989).4 Although it might be argued, as White (1989b) does, that what is not acquired by adults is not necessarily part of Universal Grammar (at least Universal Grammar as it relates to syntax), this does not absolve us of the task of searching for causes underlying the contrast between the linguistic competence attained by children acquiring either a first or second language and that attained by adults acquiring a second language. Since language is primarily a linguistic phenomenon it is preferable to search for the linguistic causes of lack of complete attainment. However, there have been attempts to attribute child-adult differences to a panoply of non-linguistic variables. Krashen (1985) puts forth the affective filter hypothesis in an attempt to explain why adults do not attain nativelike competence, predicting that if a learner experiences a high degree of anxiety, target language input will be filtered in such a way as to impede acquisition. Among additional psycho-social factors considered by researchers are ego boundary (Guiora et.al. 1972) and social distance (Schumann 1975). Learner motivation is another variable claimed to be a predictor of achievement, particularly with respect to the acquisition of phonology (Suter 1976). While Krashen's affective filter hypothesis and other hypotheses put forth by him have come under attack for their untestability (see e.g. Gregg 1984), hypotheses which only address nonlinguistic variables seem in general unpromising as an explanation of incomplete acquisition. It may well be that non-linguistic variables do play some sort of role in the rate of acquisition and the level of (sub-native) overall proficiency eventually attained. However, if non-linguistic variables alone conspired to inhibit complete acquisition, we would expect much more variability with respect to those aspects of language which adults typically fail to acquire. But not only do we find that adults fail to acquire completely a second phonology, we also find that the list of syntactic and morphological phenomena (cf. e.g. Schachter 1988) which are typically absent from advanced learners' grammars comprises a closed set. The areas in which adult second language learners fail with respect to phonology can be narrowly defined as well. The majority of studies carried out in L2 phonology has involved investigations of acquisition at the segmental level and these studies have revealed both evidence of transfer and developmental processes (see e.g. Johansson 1973). Research suggests that the difficulties which typically arise at this level are the result of one of three situations: when the segment is typologically marked in the L2 (e.g. the front rounded Swedish vowels in Johansson's study), when the learner must acquire two separate phonemes in the L2 and only one exists in the learner's LI (e.g. the acquisition of/r/ and /!/ in English by Japanese speakers), and when the learner must acquire a new phoneme in the L2 which is similar to a phoneme in the learner's LI (e.g. /ae/ in English by German speakers).5 Several researchers address the apparently more serious problem which the last type of situation presents (see e.g. Wode 1976; Flege

1991). It is not completely clear whether errors at the segmental level persist. For example, recent research by Major (1990) suggests that advanced second language learners eventually acquire the voice onset time of the target language.6 Acquisition of prosodic structure in a second language has received considerably less attention than the acquisition of segments; even less attention has been paid to those prosodic factors which might conspire to result in incomplete acquisition. Prosodic structure includes syllable structure as well as rhythm, pitch, intonation and the assignment of stress. The application of phonological rules across word boundaries can also be subsumed under prosodic structure. In their discussion on when the effects of transfer are most apparent, Leather and James (1991) observe that at the segmental level, transfer is most obvious during the early stages of acquisition, while transfer relating to the acquisition of prosodic structure persists well into the advanced stages of acquisition. If one equates the presence of transfer with the ignorance of the L2 rules or structures - as does Krashen (1985) - then one might describe advanced learners as being in a permanent state of ignorance with respect to the prosodic structure of the L2. The observation that many learners do attain high levels of proficiency in their acquisition of an L2 phonology was made above. This is an observation which holds not only for acquisition at the segmental level, but also for acquisition at the suprasegmental level. For example, many, if not most, learners acquire the basic aspects of stress assignment and intonation (see Chapter 2) in their second language. However, our search is for those prosodic phenomena which appear to remain unacquired by even advanced learners. We will begin this search by narrowing down the investigation to an area in which persistent problems typically occur. In the introduction to her book on connected speech Kaisse (1985) observes that those who have learned a foreign language word by word from books and then found themselves unable to understand the train conductor's patient explanation about which cars go to Milan (or Bangkok) will attest that, in normal conversation, words have a tendency to blur together; the last vowel of one merges with the first vowel of another, consonants assimilate or disappear altogether, the tones are not pronounced the way they are listed in the glossary and some little words may be so reduced as to be unperceivable. (1985:1) What Kaisse is referring to is the fact that many phonological rules extend their application to apply across word boundaries, i.e. postlexically. The application of phonological rules across word boundaries is not free, and may be constrained by a variety of factors relating to both prosodic structure and to syntactic structure (see Chapter 3). It seems obvious that learners who have acquired their second language primarily through a traditional method which emphasizes the written word along with the acquisition of vocabulary in isolation (such as the grammar translation method) will never have been exposed to the possible broader application of phonological rules and will experience considerable difficulty not only in aural comprehension (at the perceptual level), but also in the production of such connected speech.7 (Of course learners at the other end of the spectrum, namely those

receiving no instruction, face the same daunting task of analyzing the internal structure of the long strings of words and phrases they hear). The anecdotal accounts of advanced second language learners who speak "too perfectly" point to the likelihood that such learners do not acquire the postlexical application of phonological rules in their second language. Such an accusation indicates the second language learner's tendency to limit the application of phonological rules to the domain of the word (i.e. lexically). The processes by which words blur together at their boundaries are not as straightforward as the second language learner might wish. Various constraints on syllable structure may block assimilation and reduction while certain metrical structures will provide more fertile environments for inter-word processes than others. Futhermore, not all word boundaries are equal with respect to the syntax involved, and thus assimilations and reductions which occur at one type of juncture might not occur at others. In addition, one class of words can be more prone to reductions than another. In our search for the phonological factors involved in the inability of second language learning adults to acquire a native accent, we can focus on the acquisition of a single phenomenon that will allow investigation into the sub-components of phonology mentioned in the paragraph above. This phenomenon is cliticization. Cliticization is a common phenomenon in the languages of the world, characterized by the attachment to a host of what appears at first glance to be a free morpheme, but acts like a bound morpheme. Clitics are neither free nor bound morphemes, but rather represent a third type of morpheme. In the following chapter, we will review the relevant research on the acquisition of prosodic structure in a second language. In Chapter 3 we will investigate the phonological and syntactic factors involved in the cliticization of personal pronouns in Standard German. After we have determined the precise nature of pronominal cliticization in German, we will resume our discussion of the acquisition of prosodic structure, commencing with the consideration of how children acquire prosodic structure in their first language as it relates to the acquisition of pronominal cliticization, and then turning to a discussion of adult L2 acquisition of cliticization. In Chapter 5 we will look at experimental evidence bearing on the acquisition of pronominal cliticization in German by advanced speakers whose native languages are American English, Korean, Spanish and Turkish. The data collected from these speakers suggest very specific areas in which acquisition remains incomplete.

Notes to Chapter 1 1. As the statement implies, there are exceptions. Selinker (1972) suggests that 5% of the adult second language learning population attains native proficiency. One might then question why, if at least some learners are capable of complete attainment, it makes any sense to pursue a linguistic explanation - which will ultimately be related to biological factors. A biological explanation for lack of completeness has been entertained in the literature by Lenneberg (1967) among others. Lenneberg proposes that the termination of a critical period for language learning is tied to the completion of cerebral lateralization at puberty. This is also the explanation Scovel cites for lack of complete phonological attainment in a second language. Although it appears that lateralization may be completed much earlier than puberty (Krashen 1973), this does not rule out biological explanations altogether. However, any explanation which involves some sort of biological change in the organism makes it difficult to conceive of any post-puberty learner acquiring a second phonology to native ability. There are three possible ways in which a linguistic/biological explanation can be maintained. First, it is possible that native competence does not underlie the native-like performance of "complete attainers" and that no post-critical period learners ever actually attain native competence in a second phonology. However, if we are able to determine that some learners do attain native competence and if we take the end of the critical period to occur around puberty then it is to be expected that the critical period may extend past puberty for some learners. Finally, it may be that these exceptional learners are truly exceptional and exhibit cerebral organization that the other 95% of the population does not. Obler (1987) provides a case study of one such individual. 2. Major (1987a,b) offers an ontological account of transfer and developmental/universal factors, whereby transfer is initially the dominant factor and later diminishes, with developmental/universal factors then becoming dominant at the intermediate stages of acquisition. 3. It is not clear at what age the critical period for phonology terminates. Some researchers claim that it ends as early as age six (Long 1990). While it may be that there is a decline in function for some learners starting at this age, there appear to exist some learners beyond the age of puberty who acquire an L2 phonology completely. However, there is no reason to question claims based on Oyama's (1976) study showing that the end of the critical period for phonology coincides with the onset of puberty. What seems reasonable to assert is that there are, in fact, multiple critical periods and that "the end of the critical period for phonology may only be for some features ofthat system together with some aspects of the other subsystems." (Seliger 1978:18) 4. The idea that lack of complete attainment by second language learners directly translates into lack of access to UG has been contested, for example by Schwartz (1990). 5. That no clear definition exists of what is "similar" is noted by the researchers involved. 6. Other relevant research includes Flege and Eefting's (1986) on the acquisition of stop consonants. 7. The following observation by Pennington (1987) can be applied to instructed learners in general: ...the emphasis on discrete items from the written language may be an important contributing factor to the tendency of these Japanese students to concentrate when speaking on the pronunciation of individual words and letters and to deemphasize or even devalue work on connected, running speech. (1987:7-8).

Chapter 2: The second language acquisition of phonology

2.1. Introduction If it is the case that adults typically fail to achieve complete mastery of an L2 phonology, why should an investigation into this area be of any interest to the applied linguist? One reason to undertake such an investigation has already been discussed in the previous chapter: we do not know exactly what this incompleteness involves. As we will see below, a characterization of where adult learners fail should tell us something about whether all of the innate domainspecific mechanisms are still accessible to the second language learner. If methodologists are aware of the exact nature of adult learners' probable deficiencies, they are better equipped to design appropriate classroom techniques. While the current trend in the teaching of pronunciation is to aim for a level of adequate intelligibility rather than for an unattainable native-like accent (cf. Kenworthy 1987), it may turn out that the area most resistant to acquisition is that most crucial to intelligibility. That prosodic structure figures prominently in intelligibility is observed by Dirven and Oakeshott-Taylor: "to interfere with stress, timing, fundamental frequency usually has more drastic consequences than removing the cues of a particular segment." (1984:333). In the first chapter the finding that adult learners do not necessarily experience persistent problems at the segmental level was given as grounds for not focussing on an investigation of the L2 acquisition of individual segments. Here we have a second reason for ignoring L2 acquisition at the segmental level: intelligibility is determined to a greater extent at the prosodic level. There is a final reason why the acquisition of prosodic structure may prove to be worth investigating. Vogel (1991) suggests that it "might even be the case that prosodic structure and rules are more subject to transfer [...] given their abstract structural nature and generality." (1991:55). For example, there are rules which operate solely within words (lexically) which appear not to transfer at all (Rubach 1984). What we want to determine are the factors involved in the persistence of only some aspects of the LI prosodic structure in the learner's interlanguage. The following discussion summarizes the research which has been carried out over the past several decades on the second language acquisition of phonology above the segmental level. The second language acquisition of syntax will also be referred to, since the questions that we are just starting to ask regarding L2 phonology were first asked in relation to L2 syntax nearly a decade ago.

2.2. Lado's CAH and the L2 acquisition of phonology Until quite recently the second language acquisition of phonology was held to be completely driven by transfer of structures and rules from the learner's first language (in fact in the discussion up to now we have not directly considered the possibility that fossilization does not just involve Ll-based errors). The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) was formulated by Lado in 1957 to predict errors based on a contrast between the learner's native language and the language being acquired. Any differences between the two languages were predicted to lead to interference from the native language in the form of errors; for those instances in which no differences existed, facilitation of acquisition was predicted. From the start, the predictive value of the CAH as it was originally formulated was repeatedly questioned and in the early 1970s the CAH was replaced by a conception of second language acquisition in which transfer played no role with respect to the acquisition of syntax and morphology. However, the notion of transfer as the prime force driving the course of the L2 acquisition of phonology went unquestioned. Attempts at refining the theory of L2 phonology have tended to focus on bolstering the CAH whenever an analysis of the differences between the two languages was shown to fail in its prediction of errors. Two developments in the field have led to a broader examination of the processes involved in the L2 acquisition of phonology. First, Corder (1967) initiated an error analysis approach to the study of second language acquisition, which resulted in the treatment of the learner's emerging L2 phonology as a possible natural language. This in turn led to the analysis of all learner errors, not just those predicted by an α priori application of the CAH. The second development was growing interest in the syllable as a unit of interlingual identification, commencing with Briere (1968) and Tarone (1972). At the time the CAH was formulated nearly all research in L2 phonology was concerned with the acquisition of segments in isolation. We will see below that the investigation of acquisition beyond the segmental level has resulted in stronger claims regarding transfer along with the inclusion of factors related to developmental processes and universals.

2.3. L2 acquisition: state of the art considerations As stated above, the aim of much of the research in the field of L2 phonology during the 1970s and 1980s was aimed at the formulation of a predictive theory of transfer through refinements of the CAH. An additional problem with the CAH had been its behaviorist underpinnings - which have subsequently been shed. In its much-revised current form, the CAH still serves as a tool to aid in the prediction of phonological errors. Corder (1967) sparked the inquiry that led to the search for other sources of error, with subsequent developments leading to the complete rejection of the role of transfer in L2 syntax and morphology. Ervin-Tripp's (1974) findings on the second language acquisition of syntax suggested that developmental processes, rather than transfer, guided the acquisition of syntax. Supplementing Ervin-Tripp's discovery were the studies by Dulay and Burt (1974) and Bailey,

Madden and Rrashen (1974) which showed that second language learners from a variety of language backgrounds not only behaved similarly to each other, but also to children learning their first language. Because transfer appeared to play an unimportant role, it was proposed that L2 learners were following developmental processes essentially no different from those followed by children. This proposal resulted in the replacement of the CAH by the Creative Construction Hypothesis. Under the Creative Construction Hypothesis the second language learner was seen as bringing more to the task of language learning than simply habits from the first language. The adult learner, like the child, acquired language by constructing, testing and rejecting hypotheses about the input. Since transfer had been assigned a very minor role, researchers in L2 syntax concentrated on tracing developmental patterns in acquisition rather than on attempting to predict transfer more accurately. Connected with the CAH had been the notion that perfect attainment in second language acquisition was ultimately impossible due to the interference of habits formed during first language acquisition. Lenneberg (1967) more explicitly formulated this lack of attainment in the Critical Period Hypothesis in claiming that there is a biologically determined timeframe within which language acquisition is accomplished. Based on the idea that the completion of hemispheric lateralization in the brain coincides with the onset of puberty, the Critical Period Hypothesis predicts that post-puberty language learners will inevitably fail to acquire a second language perfectly. However, when Krashen (1973) reexamined the data on which Lenneberg based the Critical Period Hypothesis he found convincing evidence for the completion of lateralization by age five. The apparent lack of a biological basis for child-adult differences, along with findings that adult learners follow LI-like developmental processes prompted Krashen to seek a non-linguistic explanation for why children beyond the age of five typically acquire a second language perfectly and older learners beyond the age of puberty do not. In his Input Hypothesis, Krashen (1985) attributes child-adult differences to affective variables to which adults seem to be more vulnerable than children. Krashen's claims reflect the notion that, rather than the loss of a linguistic ability by adults, it is the addition of something (in this case a set of psycho-social behaviors) which interferes with ultimate attainment in second language acquisition. Observing that the onset of puberty also coincides with the onset of Piaget's stage of formal operations, Krashen (1977) and later Felix (1985), in his Competing Cognitive Structures Hypothesis, suggest that it is the maturation of general cognitive ability which further accounts for child-adult differences, rather than the loss of particular linguistic ability. The idea that human beings are "pre-wired" for language, with domain-specific mechanisms responsible for the acquisition and use of language directs the field of theoretical generative linguistics and, to an increasing extent, the fields of first and second language acquisition as well. The question of whether adults retain access to the entirety of this "pre-wiring" can be investigated by looking at the individual components of language to see how and to what extent they are acquired. When examined more closely, second language acquisition data suggest that explanations involving the loss of a linguistic ability are more likely than explanations of the sort Krashen

and Felix offer. Although there is much variability among second language learners, there are several aspects of language resistant to ultimate attainment which are revealed to be consistent across learners and across languages. The most obvious of these is demonstrated by the retention of a foreign accent by nearly all post-puberty second language learners. In the course of the following pages, we will attempt to further narrow down what characterizes a foreign accent. Equally difficult for many post-puberty learners to acquire completely are functional elements such as those involved in the marking of case, agreement, tense, asepct and modality (cf. Schachter 1988). That these particular aspects of language continue to be problematic for even advanced adult learners suggests that biological factors are involved Even if we accept Lenneberg's proposal that the onset of puberty marks the end of the critical period for language acquisition, it still requires modification as it appears to be too broad. Furthermore, if we turn on its head Krashen's (1973) conclusion that because lateralization is completed by age five, there is no critical period, we can alternatively propose that it is around the time lateralization is completed - at age five or six - that abilities actually begin to decline. The issue of whether pre-puberty learners can always be expected to acquire an L2 completely is an area which requires considerably more investigation, but is unfortunately outside the scope of the study at hand. In general, the idea of a monolithic critical period for language seems exaggerated. Seliger (1978) has suggested that multiple critical periods exist for the various subcomponents of language. That some abilities start to decline much earlier than puberty is also discussed by Long (1991) and Meisel (1991). Both researchers cite age six as the end of the critical period for the acquisition of phonology, with successively later ages for morphology and syntax. If age six marks the end of a critical period for the acquisition of phonology, then one would expect to find few nine year-olds and no thirteen year-olds who could commence with a second language at these ages and not retain a foreign accent However, evidence suggests that while a decline in ability may manifest itself prior to the onset of puberty, the likelihood of a learner acquiring an L2 phonology to native-like proficiency after the age of puberty is greatly decreased (see Oyama 1976; Patkowski 1990). It should be kept in mind that, although positing a critical period for a specific ability involves stating a specific cut-off age, this does not mean some individuals past that age will not be able to acquire various linguistic phenomena perfectly. There are two factors which contribute to individual differences in second language achievement. First, gradual decline of ability typically occurs at the edges of a critical period. Thus, for example, many children between the ages of six and puberty may still be able to acquire a second language phonology completely, as was suggested above. The second factor is that of maturation. Since children mature at different rates in general for cognitive and motoric abilities we would expect children to mature at different rates in this respect as well. Thus, while age six may mark the end of the critical period for phonological acquisition for one child, this may occur at age eight for another child and even later for a third one. There are of course post-puberty learners who appear to have acquired a second language perfectly. While one could propose that such learners have experienced no decline in their abilities, it may also be the case that these learners are exceptionally skilled at employing nonlinguistic cognitive abilities in their acquisition of language. Coppieters (1987) presents

10 findings which suggest the second language competence of adults is fundamentally different from that of native speakers even when these adults are considered to possess native fluency. The data, which consisted of reasons given for grammatically judgments given by native-like speakers of French (with an average 17.5 years length of residence), differed significantly from that of the native speakers of French. Coppieters thus questions whether we can assume native-like competence based on native-like performance alone.

2.3.1. Principles and parameters in L2 syntax As we have seen, a post-puberty decline in ability relating to the acquisition of phonology is almost universally assumed. In the decade following the demise of the CAH, it was tacitly assumed that there was no decline in linguistic ability relating to the acquisition of syntax and morphology. During this period researchers claimed that the L2 acquisition of syntax was fundamentally the same as for LI acquisition. However, in the early 1980s researchers were forced to re-examine their positions on child-adult differences because first language acquisition was being explained in such a way as to render the Creative Construction Hypothesis untenable. Whereas under the Creative Construction Hypothesis, the language learner was seen as formulating hypotheses based on the input, testing these hypotheses, rejecting them and formulating new ones, the theory of principles and parameters (Chomsky 1981) views language acquisition as the process of setting values for open parameters based on positive evidence, i.e. based on the input received by the child.1 The child is no longer seen as a "little linguist" who constructs and rejects a series of false hypotheses until arriving at the adult grammar. Rather, the child is held to be born with a set of invariant principles and open parameters. These principles and parameters comprise Universal Grammar (UG) and are part of the domain-specific mechanisms involved in the acquisition and use of language.2 The theory of Universal Grammar is the proposed solution to the logical problem of language acqusition (cf. Chomsky 1981; Hornstein and Lightfoot 1981). This problem addresses the matter of how it is that every normal child acquires the language of his/her environment in a relatively brief period of time with comparatively impoverished input and little corrective feedback. The solution to the problem is that children are pre-wired for language to the extent that they are able to set open parameters for the value ofthat language based on the minimal input available. In describing the input as impoverished, we are referring to the idea that the primary linguistic data children are exposed to contain degenerate utterances resulting from a variety of performance factors which obscure the nature of the language. More importantly the input is impoverished in that it contains grammatical utterances which nonetheless do not directly reveal underlying syntactic relationships. And finally, the input children receive fails to reveal what is not possible in the language. The corrective feedback children occasionally receive from their caretakers seems neither to be sufficient enough (nor even attended to) to have any impact on the child's developing syntax (cf. Brown and Hanlon 1970; Braine 1971).3

11

If language acquisition were an inductive process of hypothesis formulation and testing, negative evidence would be required at some point. Furthermore, if the child's task were to arrive inductively at the correct hypotheses with no information regarding the constraints on the form these hypotheses can take, her task would be impossible due to the insufficiency of the data. We can explain how language acquisition takes place by positing that the child commences the task of acquisition with the principles and (open) parameters of Universal Grammar, whereby she then simply has to set the parameters based on positive evidence. Such an account of acquisition circumvents the problems of negative evidence and impoverished data. Under this account of acquisition, certain ungrammatical structures are ruled out in advance, without the need for negative evidence. Thus in the 1980s second language syntax researchers began to abandon the Creative Construction Hypothesis in favor of a principles and parameter approach. Among the earliest contributions were Flynn (1983) and White (1985). In applying the theory of UG to second language acquisition, these researchers reconsidered the role of transfer from the learner's LI in terms of the transfer of parameter settings. A further development was the questioning of the assumption that adult second language acquisition is linguistically equivalent to first language acquisition, whereby the issue of child-adult differences was reformulated as a question of whether adults have access to the principles and parameters of UG. Several positions have been taken on the controversial question of access to UG, the most extreme of which is that there is no access to UG (cf.CIahsen and Muysken 1986, 1989; Schachter 1988 and Bley-Vroman 1989). Their accounts of second language acquisition involve the operation of general, rather than domain-specific, cognitive mechanisms. These authors do concede that the principles of UG are available (though perhaps only indirectly through the learner's first language), but that parameters are inaccessible and thus cannot be reset. Taking the opposite position are Flynn (1983), White (1985), Schwartz (1986) and duPlessis et. al. (1987) who maintain that adult learners retain direct access to both the principles and parameters of Universal Grammar.4 There is an admission that some fundamental differences exist between child and adult acquisition; White (1989b) observes that the notion that L2 learners have full access to UG is not supported by the evidence, but neither is the view that that L2 learners have no access to UG. White further argues against the claim that adult learners have access to UG only through their first language, citing evidence that these learners possess a complex and subtle knowledge of their second language which cannot be attributed solely to knowledge of their first language. Intervening factors such as transfer may give the impression that the learner has no access to the parameters of UG. However, in the process of transferring the LI parameter setting and attempting to arrive at the parameter setting in the new language, learners also appear to adopt intermediate values for parameters, which are neither that of the LI nor the L2, yet possible values within UG (cf. Finer and Broselow 1986). It is, of course, possible that learners could adopt values impossible in UG or violate UG in some other way (this is the essense of Clahsen and Muysken's 1986 and 1989 analyses). One sort of complication thought to arise for the learner is when the parameter setting of the target language is transferred and its resetting would have to entail negative evidence.

12 White (1989a) discusses this in terms of the Subset Principle (Berwick 1985). This principle has been adopted to account for how children are able to employ positive evidence alone to set parameters. The various settings of parameters (usually binary) can often be arranged in a superset-subset relationship, whereby the superset generates all the sentences of the subset, and in addition, the sentences possible via the superset setting (i.e. the Subset Condition is met). Thus the superset parameter setting is more general and the subset more restrictive. The child learning a first language follows this principle in starting off with the more restrictive parameter setting as default setting. If the language being learned by the child happens to require the parameter to be set for the superset value, positive evidence (in the form of input) is all that is needed to set the parameter at the appropriate value. White considers three ways in which the Subset Principle could be involved in the acquisition of a second language. First, problems arise if the LI parameter setting is a superset of the L2 setting because negative evidence would be required to retreat from the superset setting. If like children, adults do not make use of negative evidence, then they should be unable to reset a parameter in such a situation.5 However, if the learner's LI setting is that of the subset, then the learner should be able to make use of positive evidence to reset the parameter at its L2 superset value. White (1989a) tested both options in an experiment measuring the ability of French learners of English and English learners of French to allow certain adverbs to intervene between the verb and direct object. The parameter settings involved in what is known as the Adjacency Condition form a superset in French whose subset is the English setting. White's reports that French learners were unable to retreat from their superset setting, attributing the failure of these learners to lack of access to the Subset Principle (however see MacLaughlin 1992 for a different interpretation). Rather unexpectedly, the English learners, in a situation in which they were able to transfer their subset setting, seemed able only to make partial use of positive evidence to acquire the superset setting in the L2. The Subset Principle might be useful in explaining fossilization of the learner's interlanguage at a point prior to native-like proficiency. White remarks that "some kinds of fossilization may be a direct consequence of the failure of the Subset Principle." (1989b:176) If learners transfer a superset parameter setting from their LI when the L2 requires the subset setting, positive evidence will prove ineffective in the resetting of the parameter. In attempting to determine what the linguistic sources of phonological fossilization might be, it is useful to keep in mind the ways in which researchers have probed adult access to the domain-specific mechanisms underlying the first language acquisition of syntax. Considerations such as variable accessibility to principles verses parameters, the operation of general problem-solving mechanisms, adoption of intermediate parameter settings and the (non) operation of the Subset Principle can aid in searching for the sources of fossilization in L2 phonology.

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2.4. Intel-language and prosodic rules and structures The marked difference between the end state of phonological acquisition for the child and for the adult second language learner has not been thoroughly or explicitly investigated in terms of the precise nature of possible fundamental differences. The legacy left by the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis in the 1960s included the notion that the second language acquisition of phonology simply involved the imposition of the first language system on the second lanaguage, without modification. In other words, there was thought to be nothing creative (in the Creative Construction Hypothesis sense) about the L2 acquisition of phonology. Since Corder*s (1967) call for an overall analysis of learner errors rather than simply those predicted by the CAH, research has focussed on elucidating the way in which transfer, developmental processes and universale constrain the learner's interlanguage phonology.

2.4.1. The role of the syllable Research on the syllable in second language acquisition, starting with Tarone (1972; cf. also Briere 1968) revealed the acquisition of phonology to be a more dynamic process than was previously thought.6 Up until the publication of Tarone's findings, research on the L2 acquisition of phonology was primarily concerned with the acquisition of segments. Whereas previous studies of the acquisition of segments tended to view them in isolation, an account of L2 phonology which takes syllables into account regards the realization of a segment as determined by its position within the syllable. The inclusion of the syllable has also served to expand the list of structures subject to transfer to include canonical syllable structure. Second language phonologists have attempted to determine to what extent syllable structure is transferred from the learner's first language and to what extent developmental processes and universale are invoked. An important assumption, supported by data on child language acquisition (cf. Macken and Ferguson 1987), is that a syllable composed of a consonant followed by a vowel is the optimal syllable.7 Tarone (1976, 1987) suggests that L2 learners also exhibit a prefererence for such CV syllables; this seems to be a preference which operates independently of the canonical syllable structure of their native languages. When we say a learner prefers a certain syllable type, what we mean is that the learner attempts to bring syllables in the target language into conformity with either the canonical syllable structure of the LI or with a universal unmarked CV syllable. The strategies used by second language learners to do so include the deletion of one or more final consonants, the addition of a vowel preceding or following a single consonant or a consonant cluster (i.e. prothesis or paragoge), the insertion of a vowel to break up a consonant cluster (epenthesis), or the insertion of a glottal stop in the syllable onset. Because the learner's native language phonology may also include such rules, evidence of these rules in the learner's interlanguage is not always the result of such strategies per se, but rather may actually be an incidence of transfer. Tarone's findings illustrated that a closer and more comprehensive examination of the data could reveal a lower rate of transfer than had been previously thought. Her analysis of the

14

data showed that between 10% and 47% of the syllable structure errors committed by Cantonese, Korean and Portuguese learners of English could not be traced to transfer. According to Tarone, these errors were the result of learners' general preference for CV syllables rather than transfer of the learners' often more complex native language syllable structures. However, evidence for the preference for a CV syllable is not overwhelming. Sato's (1987) analysis of her data from Vietnamese speakers learning English indicates that learners do not necessarily retreat to a CV syllable, but prefer a CVC syllable.8 Rather than deleting the entire final consonant cluster to achieve a CV syllable, Sato's learners more frequently deleted only one member of the cluster, resulting in a CVC syllable. While the learner's choice of syllable simplification strategy can often be connected to transfer of rules from the native language, there is evidence indicating that transfer is not always involved. Tarone (1976, 1987) also shows that native language background determines only to an extent which syllable simplification strategy learners employ. For example, although the Cantonese and Korean speakers in Tarone's study deleted final consonants, they also inserted glottal stops at word boundaries to achieve CV syllables. There is no rule of glottal stop insertion in either of these languages. It has further been proposed that many occurrences of final consonant deletion and final stop devoicing (of which there is also evidence in L2 data) are also the result of developmental processes rather than LI transfer (Flege and Davidian 1985, on Mandarin, Polish and Spanish learners of English). Analyses of second language data indicate that when rules of epenthesis exist in the learner's native language, they are subject to transfer and employed as a strategy to modify the target language syllable structure. However, evidence of epenthesis has also been found in the acquisition data of learners whose native languages have no such rules (cf. Tarone 1976 and 1987; Eckman 1981, Anderson 1987; Karimi 1987). Even when no epenthesis rules exist in the learner's native language, transfer can be involved indirectly in determining whether the learner employs rules of epenthesis or rules of deletion. The choice between deletion and epenthesis appears in part to be connected to constraints on the maximal phonological word in the learner's native language, with deletion being favored by learners in whose languages the maximal word is monosyllabic (Heyer 1986).9 Referring to constraints on the maximal word, Weinberger (1988) offers a reanalysis of Sato's data, under which deletion is favored over epenthesis due to the nature of Vietnamese as a monosyllabic language. Vietnamese learners, when confronted with a CVCC syllable, would thus delete a consonant to produce a CVC syllable rather than epenthesizing a vowel to produce two CV syllables. Weinberger further suggests that the learner's choice of strategy is connected to the notion of recoverability. What dictates the learner's choice between deletion and epenthesis is recoverability, or the ease with which the underlying representation for a particular lexical entry can be recovered after it has undergone phonological modification. Deletion greatly reduces recoverability as shown in (la), while epenthesis enhances it, as shown in (Ib): (1) (a) /kei/or/keik/or/keis/or keist => [kei] (b) /keik/ => [keiki]

15 Weinberger found that Mandarin Chinese learners of English not only deleted final consonants, but they also applied epenthesis to bring syllables with consonant clusters into conformity with their native language. Because Mandarin has no rule of epenthesis, use of this strategy could not be attributed to transfer. Weinberger's analysis is that since epenthesis increases recoverability, it is preferable to deletion as a strategy particularly in those instances for which a lexical entry cannot easily be recovered by other means. The use of epenthesis by learners whose native languages have no such rules is offered as an argument for the involvement of universale in the second language acquisition of phonology. However, in order for this argument to apply, these interlanguage phonological rules must be natural rules, i.e. interlanguage phonologies must be possible natural phonologies. Categorizing epenthesis as a natural rule is not problematic, as rules of epenthesis are easily found in languages of the world.10 What does pose a problem is that epenthesis does not appear to be one of the processes typically occurring in the developing phonologies of children acquiring their first language. Deletion, on the other hand, is quite prevalent. Caution should be exercised in arguing that the emerging phonologies of second language learners obey universal principles if they contain rules which are rarely found in the emerging phonologies of children. There are other phonological processes followed by children, such as reduplication, that adult learners also seem never to engage in, for reasons currently unknown. Closer consideration of all the facts should allow us to pinpoint reasons why adults acquiring a second language do not favor such processes.11 As a start, Weinberger (1988) has uncovered the probable cause of the rarity of epenthesis in child language acquisition, which elucidates why adult learners much more frequently adopt epenthesis as a syllable simplification strategy. Weinberger attributes the rarity of rules of epenthesis in child language to the child's immature notion of recoverability. Thus the preference of children for deletion over epenthesis can be attributed to the fact that children do not acquire the notion of recoverability until after they are able to produce more complex syllable types. Adult second language learners already possess the notion of recoverability which they then apply when attempting to bring target language syllables into conformity with their LI canonical syllable structure. This account allows epenthesis to be identified as a developmental process, but one which is not typically the strategy employed by children. Recoverability can be classified as a general cognitive principle rather than a linguistic one. There is, however, a principle directly involved in syllable structure which reveals that purely phonological principles also operate in the second language acquisition of phonology. This is the sonority sequencing principle, also known as the sonority hierarchy (Hooper 1976; Selkirk 1984), as given below.

(2) stop > fricative > nasal > liquid > glide > vowel least sonorous most sonorous The scale in (2) represents the order in which segments of decreasing degrees of sonority arrange themselves from syllable peak to the outermost edges of the syllable. Every syllable

16 consists of a peak, which as the most sonorous segment is typically a vowel, with additional segments preceding and following the peak exhibiting a pattern of successive decline in sonority. Consonant clusters tend to obey this principle, with the least sonorous consonants at the outer edges of the clusters and the most sonorous consonants on the inside. The initial and final clusters in the mono-syllabic word [blEnd] conform to this principle. Those in *[lbEdn] do not, resulting in an impossible monosyllabic word in most languages (languages do selectively violate this principle). The sonority hierarchy also determines where in a sequence of segments the syllable boundaries are likely to fall. The sequence [bark] can be syllabified as one syllable, whereas [bakr] either cannot be syllabified or is syllabified as two syllables when the [r] is syllabic and forms the peak of a second syllable. In L2 phonology the sonority hierarchy can be applied to predict at what point the learner will simplify a more complex syllable structure and where in the syllable this simplification will occur, independent of native language influence. Tropf (1987) found in his study of Spanish speakers' simplification of German coda clusters that the member of the consonant cluster which is most likely to be deleted reflects its position in the sonority hierarchy. His data revealed that while single final consonants in general were subject to deletion, the frequency with which various consonants were deleted negatively correlated with the segment's sonority: the less sonorous a segment was, the more likely it was to be deleted. Tropf further showed that in final clusters which violated the sonority hierarchy, the least sonorous consonant was more likely to be deleted; clusters composed of a stop followed by a fricative as in [gips] 'plaster* underwent deletion of either both consonants or of only the least sonorous stop, resulting in either [gl] or [gls] (but not [glp]). In clusters which did not violate the sonority hierarchy, such as those comprised of a nasal followed by a fricative or a liquid followed by a fricative, the speakers typically deleted the second, less sonorous member. The conclusion reached by Tropf is that the speakers delete the least sonorous segment in a consonant cluster irrespective of the segment's position in that cluster. The fricative [s] repeatedly appears to violate the sonority hierarchy in many languages, including English and German. In these two languages [s] can follow a stop in the syllable coda, as in the German word [gips] or the English word [sits]. The segment [s] can precede a stop in the syllable onset, as in the German word [ska:la] 'scale* or the English word [sku:lj. In her investigation of epenthesis by Egyptian Arabic speakers of English, Broselow (1987b) found that these learners were sensitive to contexts in which [s] precedes a less sonorous consonant. As an overall strategy, Broselow's learners consistently inserted an epenthetic vowel, [i], between the two consonants of biliteral onset clusters, onset clusters being impermissible in the canonical syllable structure of Arabic. Of those clusters beginning with [s] which did not violate the sonority hierarchy such as [sw] and [si], learners continued to follow the general pattern of inserting an [i], resulting in such surface forms as [silayd] 'slide*. However, when clusters with [s] appeared to violate the sonority hierarchy as in [st] and [sk], learners ceased to adhere to this pattern. In such cases these same learners added a prothetic vowel in front of consonant clusters in which the fricative [s] was followed by a stop, as in [istadi] 'study'. From the data it appears that the learners analzye clusters which violate the sonority hierarchy differently from those which do not violate it. To explain the Arabic speakers' variable use of

17 epenthesis, Broselow adopts an analysis proposed by Selkirk (1984) in which she argues that the clusters consisting of [s] + stop which violate the sonority hierarchy are actually analyzable at some level as single segments (cf. also Wiese 1991). Broselow cites similar error patterns for learners from various other language backgrounds for clusters with [s], indicating that language learners do remain sensitive to the sonority hierarchy into adulthood. A corollary to the sonority hierarchy is the minimal sonority distance principle, which states that the closer adjacent segments in a cluster are to each other in sonority, the more marked the cluster is, while the further apart they are, the less marked it is. Thus an onset cluster consisting of a fricative and a nasal, as in [fh] or a fricative and a liquid [fr] are more marked than clusters consisting of a stop and a glide, as in [py] or a a stop and a liquid, as in [pr]. This principle can also account for the optimality of the CV syllable, as the CV syllable is held to include a least sonorous and most sonorous element. Under this principle the truly ideal syllable is one with the greatest possible contrast, consisting of a voiceless stop onset and an unrounded back vowel peak, as in [ta].12 Broselow and Finer (1991) investigated the role of minimal sonority distance in the acquisition onset clusters in English by speakers of Japanese and Korean. Broselow and Finer characterize this as an example of parameter resetting. They found that while learners had not reset the parameter to allow the marked type of clusters found in English, the learners did not necessarily retreat to the less marked type of cluster found in their respective native languages. Rather, the learners had settled on a type of cluster found between the LI and the L2, indicating that they had reset the parameter involved to an intermediate value. The type of clusters that were preferred is a further indication that adults retain access to the principles of sonority. These learners exhibited a preference for clusters which were less marked in terms of the minimal sonority distance principle, whereby the learners preferred clusters consisting of a stop + glide (e.g. [py]) over clusters consisting of a fricative + liquid (e.g. [fr]). Recent research by Klöve (1992) applies current prosodic theory to the examination of deletion and substitution by Cantonese learners of Norwegian. Klove's analysis reveals that learners obey the Maximality Principle, which dictates that syllable structure must be assigned exhaustively up to the wellformedness entailed in the structure of the syllable (Itö 1986) requiring syllables to minimally consist of an onset and nucleus (but see footnote 8). Her analysis further reveals that learners adopt what she describes as a right-to-left setting for Cantonese for the Directionality Parameter which results in the maximalization of the onset (the reverse, left-to-right, results in maximalization of the coda). Looking at the acquisition of syllable structure from another point of view is Eckman (1991), who argues that typological universale play a role in constraining learners' acquisition of the syllable structure of a second language. Typological universals involve implicational hierarchies whereby, for example, a language containing final consonant clusters of the sequence stop + stop turns out to contain fricative + stop sequences, but a language which contains sequences consisting of fricative + stop sequences will not necessarily contain stop+ stop sequences. Eckman's Structural Conformity Hypothesis predicts that if second language learners have acquired final clusters consisting of the sequence stop + stop their interlanguage will also contain clusters consisting of a fricative followed by a stop. Data from Chinese,

18 Japanese and Korean speakers of English bear out Eckman's hypothesis, illustrating continued access by adult learners to still another universal construct. We have seen in the foregoing discussion that second language acquisition research relating to syllable structure has provided a more detailed account of the universals, developmental processes and transfer factors involved in the acquisition of phonology. Much of this research illustrates the continued access by adult learners to various universals connected with syllable structure. As instances of transfer, developmental processes and universals are even more accurately identified and explained, overall predictions regarding the course of acquisition can be formulated more reliably. It is when predictions are not fully borne out that we can target specific subcomponents of the phonology as representing problems for the adult learner. Whether these problem areas involve principles or parameters is one of the lines of inquiry we will be pursuing.

2.4.2. Other aspects of syllable structure Investigations of the second language acquisition of various additional aspects of prosodic structure have shown that transfer is heavily involved. It is less clear from the analyses referred to below how developmental processes and universals might be involved. In this section we will look at some of the L2 research relating to the acquisition of metrical structure, rhythmic structure and intonation. We will also examine findings on the acquisition of the domain of rule application. Another aspect of prosodic structure which has been investigated is again related to syllable structure and involves the minimal weight words or larger prosodic constituents must have. By word we mean a free morpheme with or without affixes. Although clitics are classified as words of a sort, they do not meet weight requirements (they are by definition unstressed) and therefore cannot be included in this requirement.13 Constraints on the minimal word require a word to meet a minimum standard of syllable heaviness, typically achieved through the presence of a long vowel, a diphthong or a consonant cluster in the syllable rhyme. Broselow (1988) shows that constraints on the minimal word in the learner's LI readily transfer to the L2. Her data are from Arabic speakers who produced monosyllabic words incorrectly in English either with inappropriate long vowels or with long consonants. Broselow traces these errors to the required heaviness of the minimal word in Arabic. In this language a word can consist of just one syllable, but it must be a superheavy, closed syllable. Words such as [baas] or [bass] would fulfill this requirement since they end in a consonant and either contain a long vowel or a long consonant. Arabic speakers learning English are predicted to experience difficulty with monosyllabic words such as [b_s] or [hit] which, because these words contain short, lax vowels, they are too light to meet the minimum weight requirement in Arabic. Broselow's data did, in fact, reveal that learners transfer this constraint, producing either long vowels or long consonants for English monosyllabic words with light syllables. Vogel (1991) discusses Hoh's (1984) findings which show that Chinese Malaysians employ a different sort of strategy to bring their L2 into conformity with native language minimal

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weight requirements. Their dialect of Chinese requires that a phonological utterance (see (3) below) end with a clitic group consisting of two syllables, the second of which is not stressed (i.e. a branching clitic group). These speakers have available to them from their native language the prosodic dummy constituent la which is frequently transferred when no lexical item from the L2 is available to fill this slot. Constraints on the maximal word are also involved in shaping the learner's interlanguage. Mentioned in the preceding section in connection with syllable structure repair strategies was the constraint in languages on how many syllables a word can maximally contain. Recall Weinberger's (1988) suggestion that because Vietnamese words are monosyllablic, these learners tend in their acquisition of English to adopt deletion as a syllable repair strategy rather than epenthesis. The resyllabification of sequences of vowels and consonants which occurs after various morphological or syntactic operations is an aspect of prosodic structure which may also be transferred. When affixes are added to stems and when words are joined together in running speech, resyllabification frequently occurs. How segments are resyllabified relates not only to language-specific wellformedness constraints on syllable structure, particularly where consonant clusters are involved, but also to the general tendency of sequences consisting of a consonant between two vowels (VCV) to be syllabified as V.CV. Languages also vary in the extent to which they allow resllabification within various prosodic domains. The hierarchy of prosodic constituents proposed by Nespor and Vogel (1982) illustrated in (3) offers one approach to constraining the operation of phonological rules. (Kaisse (1985) is another approach which allows the direct access of certain phonological rules to surface structure syntax; this approach will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3). Based on this hierarchy Vogel (1991) set out to determine the domain of the resyllabification process in Italian which shifts the final consonant of a word to the onset of the following word. Unlike in English, the final consonant completely detaches from the syllable of the preceding word when it resyllabifies into the onset of the following word. (3)

Phonological Utterance / \ Intonational Phrase / \ Phonological Phrase / \ Clitic Group / \ Phonological Word / \ Foot / \ Syllable

20 Data from Italian show that the final consonant shifts when adjacent words are in a phonological word as well as a phonological phrase as in (4a) and (4b) below (examples from Vogel 1991:56). In English, the final consonant remains attached to its original syllable, i.e. it is ambisyllabic (cf. Kahn 1976). While the two Italian words in (4a) and (4b) are homophonous, the two English words in (4c) and (4d) are not, since the [t] in great remains part ofthat syllable. (4) (a) (b) (c) (d)

adocchio'(I) sight1 ad occhio (nudo) 'with (the bare) eye1 grey towel great owl

Vogel set out to determine whether the domain of ^syllabification for Italian speakers was larger than the phonological phrase (i.e. either the intonational phrase or the phonological utterance.) Because contexts in which such ^syllabification occurs in Italian are extremely limited, and because L2 research suggests that transfer might occur for such structures, to answer her question Vogel chose to apply extra-linguistic evidence through use of data from Italian speakers of English. From her data Vogel was not only able to ascertain that the domain of ^syllabification in Italian is the intonational phrase, but in the process she shed more light on the transferability of prosodic domains and their constraining of various processes in second language acquisition. Opportunities for resyllabification within the intonation phrase are plentiful in English, and Italian speakers make frequent (erroneous) use of them. These speakers also appear to fail to retreat from the full resyllabification found in Italian to the ambisyllabic resyllabification required in English, failing to distinguish between the two words in (4c) and (4d). Broselow (1987a, 1988) also provides an account of the second language acquisition of cross-word resyllabification. According to Broselow, English speakers of Egyptian Arabic fail to perceive the resyllabification of the first consonant in an initial cluster into the coda of a preceding word. In this respect Arabic is similar to Italian in that it involves full resyllabification rather than the ambisyllabic resyllabification of English. The example in (5b) shows how the words binti and smiina in (5a) are resyllabified to conform to the syllable structure wellformedness constraints in Egyptian Arabic which allow a word, but not a syllable, to begin with a consonant cluster. (5) (a) binti # smiina 'a fat girl' (b) [bin.tis.miina] When English speakers hear the string in (5b) they do not perceive it as the resyllabification of (5a), but rather as two words - which happen to be non-existent in Arabic (biniis and miind) because such a resyllabification could not occur in English. English speakers of Arabic also have difficulties when the resyllabification of the consonant proceeds in the other direction, when the final consonant of a word is resyllabified into the following onset. Such sequences are also misperceived by English speakers of Arabic as two separate lexical items.

21 Young-Scholten (1992a) addresses the question of whether lack of access to the Subset Principle (discussed previously in this chapter) by adult learners might explain the cases of transfer detailed by Vogel and by Broselow. If successively larger prosodic domains form natural supersets of each other, then one would expect the persistence of transfer in those instances where the learner's native language contains the superset and the target language contains the subset, whereby the learner is unable to start from the subset due to transfer and/or to lack of access to the Subset Principle. The non-operation of negative evidence in (both first and second language) acquisition prevents the learner from retreating from the superset. If one takes full resyllabification to form a superset of ambisyllabic ^syllabification, transfer would be expected to persist in the case of Italians learning English, but not in the case of English speakers learning Arabic, since learners would be able to make use of positive evidence to acquire the Arabic superset. Neither Vogel nor Broselow address the matter of whether advanced learners continue to exhibit transfer. However, the data from German learners of English collected by Young-Scholten reveals that when a prosodic domain representing a subset constrains rules in the learner's LI, they show signs of being able to acquire a rule which involves a larger prosodic domain in the L2 (in this case flapping in American English). Thus, while learners may not have access to the Subset Priniple, they seem at least to be able to make use of positive evidence when their LI puts them in the position to do so. The research discussed above solely concerns the transfer of domains involving prosodic structures larger than the phonological word. There have been several proposals offered regarding the variable transfer of rules at the lexical level as opposed to the postlexical level (cf. Kiparsky 1982; Mohanan 1986). The lexical level includes rules and processes which apply word-internally, up to the point at which all affixation has taken place. At the postlexical level, rules and processes generally apply wherever their purely phonological structural description is met, both within words and across word boundaries (but see Chapter 3 for exceptions). Broselow (1987a) proposes that transfer typically occurs at the postlexical level, but not at the lexical level. Thus the transfer in the studies by Broselow and Vogel discussed above is expected since cross-word resyllabification is involved. DziubalskaKolaczyk (1987) also found transfer of what she refers to as casual speech rules to be frequent for Polish learners of English. Data bearing on the question of whether lexical rules are entirely immune to transfer comes from Rubach (1984). Based on his analysis of certain lexical and postlexical rules in Polish, all of which could conceivably transfer to L2 learners' English, Rubach found that the learners he studied transferred only the postlexical, exceptionless rules and not the lexical ones. Confirming Rubach's findings regarding the non-transferability of lexical rules is Singh and Ford (1987). These authors observe that lexical rules such as umlauting in German do not transfer in L2 acquisition. Yet while it may well be the case that such rules are less likely to transfer, there is evidence that they transfer upon occasion. The possibility exists that such rules fail to transfer when the morphology encountered in the L2 is not similar enough to the LI morphology to result in transfer. Similarity between LI and L2 structures has already been mentioned as a factor resulting in transfer (see Chapter 1). Singh and Ford do acknowledge that morphological similarity is indeed a factor, and they cite James' observation that transfer

22 at the lexical level occurs in the interlanguage of Dutch speakers of German, since the morphology of the two languages is so similar. While Singh and Ford imply that the LI and L2 must be closely related in order for learners to perceive similaries at the lexical level, such a requirement appears to be too strict. One of the speakers in the data collected from untutored Turkish learners of German by von Stutterheim (1987) applied the rule of Turkish vowel harmony to a German stem and suffix as shown in the folllowing: genug Papier ausfüllüm '(I) fill out enough paper(s).' The learner appears to have interpreted the German infinitival suffix -n (epenthesis applies to produce -en) in the German verb ausfüllen 'to fill out' as a first person singular agreement suffix equivalent to the Turkish suffix -m. Thereupon he applies the transferred rule of Turkish vowel harmony, which yields -urn. While this is only one example of lexical transfer involving unrelated languages, it nonetheless points to the likelihood that both Rubach's and Singh and Ford's conclusions regarding the limited occurrence of lexical transfer are premature.

2.4.3. Metrical and rhythmic structures and rules A number of studies indicate that second language learners transfer their native language stress assignment systems. For example, Broselow (1988) suggests that the way in which English speakers parse Arabic words is based on their native language preference for segmentations in which stressed syllables are word-initial rather than word-final and for syllables of longer duration which are independent words. Work in a somewhat similar vein carried out by Archibald (1992, in press) on the acquisition of English by Polish and Spanish speakers also shows evidence of transfer, in this case of the native language values for the metrical parameters proposed by Dresher and Kaye (1990). Archibald's (in press) analysis of the data from his Spanish speakers further reveals that learners do not violate certain universal principles of metrical structure. For example, learners experienced no problems with the cyclic assignment of stress in that they correctly assigned stress within the domain of the derivational stem in words like relationship and stresslessness. Mairs (1989) has also addressed the acquisition of metrical structure in English by Spanish speakers. While the speakers she studied had acquired a great deal of the quite complicated English stress system, they still continued to commit some errors. These errors were traceable to the universal markedness of certain types of rhymes (e.g. the est in the word interesring). Another aspect of stress assignment which second language researchers have investigated is rhythmic structure, which relates to the duration of syllables and the quality of vowels within them when syllables are stressed and unstressed.I4 Rhythmic structure has tradionally been described as falling into two categories: syllable-timed rhythm and sless-timed rhythm (Pike 1946, Abercrombie 1967). English and German are typical of stress-timed languages, in which the intervals between stressed syllables are of equal length, with the duration of syllables varying according to number of syllables in a rhythmic unit. The vowels in unstressed syllables in stress-timed languages differ in quality from those in stressed syllables, usually surfacing as schwas or other centralized vowels. An illustration of how this can be metrically represented can be seen in the contrast between the words gymnast and modest. The final syllable in

23 gymnast receives secondary stress, comprising its own foot within the phonological word. The second syllable in modest is not assigned any stress and is not dominated by its own foot, but rather by the branching foot which also dominates the first syllable of the word. (6)

word

/

word

\

I

foots footw

I

I

foot

/

syll syll

\

sylls syllw

I

I

I

gym

nast

mod

I est

In a syllable-timed language such as Spanish or Japanese (the latter actually being mora-timed) the intervals between the syllables are of equal lenth regardless of where the stressed syllables occur. Vowel quality in unstressed syllables is not markedly different from that in stressed syllables; schwas and other centralized vowels tend not to surface in such languages. According to Dauer (1983) syllable-timed languages exhibit less variety of syllable type than do stress-timed languages. Dauer gives Spanish as an example, observing that over half the syllables in Spanish words have a CV structure. In addition, the vowels in unstressed syllables in Spanish tend to be the non-high vowels [a], [e] and [o], which are phonetically longer in duration than other vowels. The syllables in syllable-timed languages thus tend to be closer to each other in duration, producing the effect of a regularity of stress intervals.15 It is not clear how syllable-timed languages are to be represented in terms of the metrical structure given in (6). Harris (1983), for example, provides for three levels of stress, yielding the same structures as in (6) for Spanish. In terms of transfer of rhythmic structure, the available research indicates that transfer is heavily involved. Flege and Bohn (1989) examined the stress shift and resultant vowel reduction in morphologically related words such as able_ability in the acquisition of English by Spanish speakers. The authors observe that the overall acquisition of stress assignment for derivational morphology is quite late, both in first and second language acquisition. Results showed that the Spanish speakers were more successful in producing the correct distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables than they were in appropriately realizing the quality of the unstressed vowel. Although the learners exhibited awareness of vowel quality differences in their production, they failed to produce the centralized, reduced vowel targets. This can be taken as a case of transfer of native language rhythmic structure. Similar conclusions have been reached by Major (1987a), who suggests that the transfer of syllable-timed rhythm has repercussions in the rest of the phonology, stating that "many syllabic processes occuring in second language acquisition are the direct result of prosodic interference." (1987a:218) Major gives as an example the difficulty Spanish speakers experience in acquiring the flapping rule of American English. The structural description of the rule requires that the vowel-initial syllable following the [t] not comprise its own foot in

24 order for the [t] to undergo flapping; due to the transfer of rhythmic structure, the environment for the rule is not created, according to Major. That the acquisition of flapping is connected to transfer of rhythmic structure is further supported by the findings from YoungScholten (1992a) discussed in the previous section, which showed that learners whose native language is German (a stress-timed language) have little difficulty acquiring flapping in English. Wenk (1986) presents evidence from French speakers of English who also transfer their French rhythmic structure (which could be construed as syllable-timed, although Wenk is careful to characterize French rhythmic structure as "trailer-timed" rather than syllable-timed). Wenk looked at learners at three levels of proficiency and found that beginning and intermediate learners had not yet acquired the stress-timed rhythm of English. Wenk's results suggest that transfer of the French rhythmic structure does not persist, as his advanced learners had acquired English rhythm. These insights on the transfer of rhythmic structure are further echoed by Adams and Munro (1979), Pokes, Bond and Steinberg (1984) and Pokes and Bond (1989). The latter looked at the acquisition of reduced syllables by second language learners of English from a variety of language backgrounds. None of the learners in the study reduced unstressed syllables sufficiently, with the problems in reduction increasing in proportion to the number of syllables in the word. The one Spanish speaker in Pokes and Bond's study exhibited difficulty with the reduced syllables in English as well as overall problems with vowel quality in English. Reduction and deletion in English by intermediate-level learners from a German background was investigated by Hieke (1987), who found that even such learners, who should have been able to transfer their stress-timed rhythm, employed reduction rules 30% less than did native English speakers. McCarthy (1975) observed similar problems when the situation was reversed, remarking that "the English-speaking learner, in spite of the fact that every kind of English exhibits this feature, tends not to reduce enough in German. "(1975:15) Thus it seems quite likely that developmental factors are also involved and that, as James (1987) claims, a "syllable-timed rhythm might be considered a typical characteristic [at the early states] of foreign language acquisition independent of the rhythmic structure of either the NL or the TL." (1987:246).16 That developmental processes are involved in the second language acquisition of rhythmic structure is further suggested by the similar ways in which both children and adults treat unstressed syllables. The deletion of unstressed syllables in polysyllabic words is a common developmental process observed in children. Adult second language learners appear to do this less often at the level of the word (cf Oiler 1974), but they frequently omit the typically unstressed function words which occur in sentences.17 While syntactic factors can in part account for such sentence-level deletions, the learner's immature rhythmic structures may well contribute to lack of initial perception of these unstressed elements. Other possible similarities in the acquisition of rhythmic structure between first and second language acquisition will be discussed in Chapter 4 when we examine in more detail the factors involved in the acquisition ofcliticization. The data on stress assignment discussed above solely concerned metrical structure at the level of the word. L2 phonological research must also take into account stress assignment at

25

the sentential level. One of the factors involved in sentential stress relates to information focus, i.e. whether specific information contained in the utterance is unfocused and given or focused and either new or connected to various supra-sentential discourse factors (e.g. the information contrasts with a constituent in a preceding utterance). Two studies which have addressed the second language acquisition of sentential stress are Ahoua (1989) and Kidd (1989). Ahoua's test subjects were intermediate and advanced English, French, Spanish, Turkish and Baule (a tone language spoken in the Ivory Coast) speakers of German. Ahoua's results showed that speakers from all backgrounds continued to experience problems with the perception of sentential focus. Kidd's research concerns intermediate Polish and Spanish speakers of English whose acquisition of rules of sentential stress was incomplete. Kidd was able to show that the rules these learners had already acquired were part of the core while those which they had not yet acquired were considered to belong in the periphery. Phenomena contained in the core are unmarked and held to be part of UG under current theory, while phenomena belonging to the periphery are marked, highly idiosyncratic and presumably not part of UG. In essense Kidd is expressing the claim that learners have access to UG with respect to sentential stress. This claim fails to address the matter of why second language learners do not acquire rules in the periphery, while first language learners do (although given enough input, it may well be the case that these second language learners would have eventually acquired the peripheral rules, too). What the research on the acquisition of metrical and rhythmic structure suggests is similar to the scenario presented by the research on the acquisition of syllable structure: while transfer is clearly involved, developmental and universal factors also exert an influence on the learner's interlanguage phonology.

2.4.4. Intonation The final subcomponent of prosodic structure is one connected to supra-sentential discourse factors: intonation. While transfer of native language intonational patterns has been observed in production, Cruz-Ferreira (1987) studied the perception of various intonational patterns in English by Portuguese speakers. Her findings showed that perception of intonation not only involves transfer, but also universal strategies not traceable to Portuguese intonational structure. Cruz-Ferreira brings up an interesting point regarding avoidance in production. It is normally impossible for the learner to avoid attempting segments, syllable types and metrical or rhythmic structures, yet certain intonational patterns may be absent from the learner's interlanguage according to Cruz-Ferreira. This she attributes to lack of perception of these patterns, stressing the value of perception experiments in revealing what spontaneous data might not. It is difficult to draw any conclusions regarding the acquisition of a rule or structure when it is not present in production data, and since perception necessarily precedes production, faulty perception is an indication that the phenomenon under investigation has not been acquired.

26 Cruz-Ferreira does not address the question of whether second language learners eventually acquire the intonational patterns they have difficulties in perceiving. However, Buysschaert (1990) observes that adult learners are in general deficient in acquiring intonation and suggests that those learners who are able to make additional use of non-linguistic abilities, such as musical ability have an advantage in acquiring the intonational patterns of a second language.

2.4.5. Conclusions In the above summary of studies on the acquisition of prosodic rules and structures, it can readily be seen that most researchers do not address the question of incomplete mastery of the L2 phonology. Rather, researchers have tended to concern themselves with the analysis of interlanguage phonological errors and the variable sources of these errors in the learner's native language, in developmental processes and in the constraints which phonological universale entail. We have seen that transfer occurs in some form for all the rules and structures we have discussed, and that developmental processes and universals also play an important role. It is highly probable that developmental factors and universals are even more involved than research currently indicates, since many lines of investigation have not yet been followed.

2.5. Access to UG in phonology In this section we will consider how research on the second language acquisition of prosodic rules and structures might best be directed in order to address the issue of incomplete mastery. Prior to entering into a general discussion on the phonological principles and parameters contained within Universal Grammar, it is important to consider one of the major attempts to strengthen the predictability of transfer. This is Eckman's (1977) formulation of the Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH).

2.5.1. The Markedness Differential Hypothesis The markedness to which the MDH refers is the typological markedness cursorily mentioned in section 2.4.1., whereby a structure Υ is more marked than a structure X if its existence implies the existence of X. For example, the existence of fricatives in a language implies the existence of stops, but the existence of stops does not imply the existence of fricatives. Therefore fricatives are more marked than stops. Jakobson (1941) argued that markedness relationships not only accounted for the distribution of phonological features in the languages of the world, but also for the order in which these are acquired by children (although empirical evidence from early child language has shown that Jakobson's claims cannot be fully supported).

27 Based on the markedness relations obtaining between the learner's LI and L2, the MDH predicts that the presence of a marked form in the L2 will always result in difficulty for the learner, but will not necessarily result in transfer. In instances in which the LI and L2 forms differ but are nonetheless equal in degree of markedness, the learner is predicted to resort to a less marked form which will be based on universals. Transfer will occur when the LI form is less marked than the L2 form. Finally, when the L2 form is unmarked, regardless of whether the LI form is marked or unmarked, the learner will acquire it without difficulty. Eckman illustrates the MDH in reference to final obstruent devoicing in German; the figure in (7) below gives the voicing contrast hierarchy with reference to stops in German and English. Because a word-final contrast between obstruents is more marked no contrast (i.e. the presense of only voiceless obstruents finally), native speakers of English are predicted to acquire the rule of final obstruent devoicing in German with ease. Conversely, native speakers of German are hypothesized to have trouble acquiring the marked final voiced obstruents in English.

(7) English

German

position

voiceless/voiced voiceless/voiced voiceless/voiced

voiceless/voiced voiceless/voiced voiceless

ititial medial final

degree of markedness least | most

(adapted from Eckman 1977) Eckman's hierarchy also predicts that English-speaking learners of French will have little difficulty acquiring the voiceless palatal fricative in initial position because this position is less marked than the other two positions in which this obstruent occurs in English (i.e. word medially and finally, as in the words azure and garage). Finally, the hierarchy predicts that learners whose LI s do not exhibit a voicing contrast in any position, such as Korean, will experience the most severe problems with word-final contrasts. The various syllable structure simplification strategies learners employ for word-final obstruents can be interpreted in part as a reflection of markedness. A flaw that renders the MDH a less than ideal tool is its unsuitability for the prediction of what a learner will produce when transfer does not occur in those situations in which both the native and target language structures are marked. Additional universal and developmental factors come into play, for example, in determining the learner's choice of syllable repair strategies. We also saw in the previous section that learners may even resort to developmental processes rather than transfer when the LI structure is unmarked and the L2 structure marked (Tarone's CV syllables). The Structural Conformity Hypothesis discussed in section 2.4.1. represents a more recent attempt by Eckman to take such factors into account in the incorporation of markedness into a constrastive hypothesis.

28 2.5.2. The Subset Principle Markedness relations are not dissimilar to those involved in the Subset Principle, discussed in section 2.3.1. The difference, as noted by White (1989b), is that under the Subset Principle restrictive parameter settings lack the special status of being easier-to-acquire accorded to unmarked parameter settings. That is, the learner does not adopt the subset parameter setting because the grammar generated is less complex, but because leamability conditions dictate that the learner start with the more restrictive setting in order to be a in position where only positive evidence will be required for further acquisition. As is the case for subset-superset relations and the Subset Principle, the MDH will only be applicable where markedness relations can be precisely specified. In combination with the consideration of developmental processes and universal principles, the MDH can be used as a tool in predicting the interplay of transfer with these factors. Yet the MDH is not as useful in explaining the persistence of transfer errors as the Subset Principle is. If we arrange some of the phenomena discussed in section 2.4. into subsets and supersets, the usefulness of this principle becomes more apparent. For example, the prosodic hierarchy was shown in section 2.4.2. to lend itself to the formation of naturally nested supersets and subsets whereby the Subset Principle can be applied to predict specific cases where acquisition will be arrested. We can cast stress-timing and syllable-timing as two values of a parameter relating to rhythmic structure and make predictions regarding the persistence of transfer of parameter settings if we know which setting is the default, or subset setting. However, without reference to additional typological or developmental evidence it is not readily apparent here which value of this parameter should be cast as the default value. In terms of implicational universals, it would seem that syllable-timing is the subset setting, as it generates fewer syllable types than stress-timing. When we look at the evidence from first language acquisition to be discussed in Chapter 4 we will see that syllable-timing seems to be the default setting for children. From the discussion of the studies in section 2.4.3. it might appear that at least in some cases second language learners have access to the Subset Principle in that they either transfer a default setting from their LI (e.g. Spanish) or retreat to this setting regardless of their native language setting. Whether learners who start with a syllable-timed setting can use positive evidence to reset the parameter to stress-timing is not yet clear We will investigate the learner's ability to do so in Chapter 5. It is open to investigation as to whether the Subset Principle applies to phonological phenomena in other subcomponents of the phonology. The universal CV syllables to which Tarone's learners retreated and with which children learning their first language commence represent the subset of a superset containing CV syllables as well as more complex syllable types. However, we encounter problems when we consider how acquisition of languages with CV syllables are acquired by speakers of languages with syllable types belonging to the superset. Under a transfer version of the Subset Principle, English learners of Chinese would be falsely predicted to fail in their acquisition of the syllable structure of Chinese because negative evidence would be required to demonstrate to the learner that Chinese syllables just consist of a C and a V. Based on even the most casual observation, this is clearly unfounded. The MDH (and Tarone) correctly predict that learners will not experience problems with

29 Chinese because this syllable type is unmarked. If the Subset Condition is indeed met and the Subset Principle applies in this instance, it appears to be a case in which learners are able to access the Subset Principle directly. Of course if this is the case, we would also predict that learners whose LI canonical syllable structure is relatively simple would eventually be able to acquire a more complex syllable structure in their L2, since positive evidence will accomplish this task.

2.5.3. Principles and Parameters in phonology We have referred to phonological parameters several times, in section 2.4. as well as in the above discussion of the Subset Principle. In this section we will look at how the acquisition of phonology can be formulated in terms of principles and parameters in order to offer a clearer picture of what might contribute to the lack of complete mastery by the post-puberty learner. In the first instance, it is worth considering why there has been no groundswell of interest in tackling questions of learnability in the first and second language acquisition of phonology as there has been in syntax. We saw above that the question of whether adults have continued access to the principles of phonology has indeed been addressed, but more for the purpose of illustrating that adult learners do not simply engage in transfer than for demonstrating that the same domain-specific mechanisms employed by first language learners are employed by second language learners. Perhaps the reason L2 phonologists have failed to take up the lines of inquiry currently being followed by L2 syntacticians may well be the assumption held by L2 phonologists that phonology is somehow different, as lack of completeness presumably only occurs in this component of the grammar.18 It has often been taken for granted by second language phonologists that adults fail to achieve native-like competence solely in phonology while frequently succeeding in other areas. The "Joseph Conrad phenomenon" discussed in Chapter 1 clearly exemplifies this assumption in that this famous post-puberty second language learner wrote eloquently in English but retained a heavy Polish accent. Implicit in this scenario is that the Critical Period Hypothesis applies only to the acquisition of phonology (cf. Scovel 1969). The discussion in section 2.3. serves to illustrate that the issue of adult L2 syntactic competence is far from settled; the competence of learners such as Conrad may in fact differ fundamentally from that of a native speaker. At any rate, one should exercise caution in overgeneralizing from non-native speakers whose verbal abilities are demonstrably exceptional. Moreover, it could well be the case that those non-native speakers in Conrad's league are simply very adept at avoidance. Current experimental techniques such as grammaticality judgement tasks are an attempt to determine the non-native speaker's competence by circumventing the problems inherent in the use of error analyses of spontaneous speech (cf. Schachter 1974). A possible contributor to the lack of awareness that areas other than phonology are deficient is likely due to the relative ease of avoidance in areas other than phonology. Transfer is also more obvious in phonology than in other areas of the grammar, making non-native competence all the more apparent - even to the casual observer.19

30 While second language phonologists in the 1980s and 1990s operate under the assumption that acquisition will be incomplete, most also tacitly assume that at least some of the innate mechanisms involved remain active for adults. This assumption is represented by the idea that rules which operate in learners' interlanguage phonologies are natural rules, i.e. that they do not violate the principles of phonology. Studies which have shown universals and developmental processes to be determinants of learners' interlanguages offer support for this assumption. If the rules which govern learners' interlanguage phonologies violate phonological universals, then we would be forced to conclude the learner is using something other than mechanisms specific to language use and acquisition - perhaps the same sort of general cognitive abilities which those who argue against adult access to UG claim guides L2 syntax. Clahsen and Muysken (1986), for example, argue that adults adopt a canonical word order strategy in their acquisition of German syntax. Because learners employ general cognitive mechanisms in their acquisition of syntax, they have no choice but to superficially analyze the linear order of elements in the sentence and are unable to acquire rules which reflect the hierarchical organization of the syntax. In phonology, the rules learners formulate might reflect adoption of a similar strategy whereby adults only have access to surface representations and not to more abstract levels of the phonology. Apart from engaging solely in transfer, it is not clear what form the learner's IL phonology would take with no access at all toUG. Bley-Vroman (1989) and Clahsen and Muysken (1989) differentiate between the principles and parameters of UG with respect to the acquisition of syntax, conceding that while adults have access to the principles of UG (but perhaps not even directly), they do not have access to the parameters. Whether learners actually have direct access to the principles of UG or are able to access them through their native language is a further consideration (see also Schachter 1988). The situation might be similar for the acquisition of phonology: adults have either direct or indirect access to the principles of phonology, but are unable to reset parameters. Variable access to principles and parameters has not been investigated in L2 phonology and examining the L2 acquisition of phonology in this way might provide some insight into the nature of lack of complete mastery. In following this line of inquiry, there are several possible outcomes. It might turn out that adults have access to neither the principles nor the parameters of the phonological component of Universal Grammar (which we can abbreviate as Universal Phonology or UP). Alternatively, it might turn out that while adults are unable to reset phonological parameters, they do not violate phonological principles in the course of acquisition. This would then indicate that they have access to the principles (either through their LI or directly), but not to the parameters. Another possible outcome is that adults will turn out to be able to reset some parameters, but not others. If we find that those parameters which cannot be reset are those which can be formulated in terms of the Subset Principle, then it would be clear that lack of completeness in phonology can be traced to the problem of the non-occurrence and/or ineffectiveness of negative evidence in (re)setting parameters and to the adult learner's inability to retreat to the default setting.

31 The idea that adults might be able to reset some phonological parameters but not others bears on the relationship between transfer and lack of complete acquisition of the L2 phonology. We might propose that it is transfer which leads to this situation. However, although incomplete acquisition might be the result of Ihe persistence of transfer, it cannot be attributed to the mere occurrence of transfer for two reasons. First, child second language learners who eventually acquire the L2 phonology completely also show evidence of transfer (see e.g. Wode 1976). Second, all transfer by adults does not result in fossilization. Just as we find that all initial errors in phonology do not persist, we find that not all initial transfer errors persist. As mentioned in Chapter 1, it could conceivably be the case that lack of completeness has nothing to do with the phonology proper, but can be attributed to problems relating to motoric abilities - in common parlance, the frozen tongue syndrome. A purely motoric explanation does not, however, suffice as explanation of transfer errors even at the segmental level. Such errors are often the result of transfer of phonological rules, such as final obstruent devoicing or of the failure to acquire a new phonemic category due to a high degree of similarity between segments in the LI and the L2 (see Chapter 1). One could also question the assumption that incomplete acquisition of an L2 phonology by adults is truly inevitable. Flege (1987) argues that affective variables and quality of input are the determinants of incomplete phonological acquisition; these arguments are much the same as those Krashen makes for second language acquisition in general (see Chapter I).20 Flege's proposals fall short of explaining the specific differences which can be shown to exist between the first and second language acquisition of phonology (see Patkowski's 1990 reply to Flege). And, as is also the case with respect to Krashen's position, Flege's points regarding affective variables fail to address the matter of why such factors would affect the acquisition of some structures but not others. Neufeld (1977) attempts to show that a foreign accent is not inevitable by experimentally demonstrating that adults can acquire native-like fluency. At least under the right laboratory conditions (when uttering isolated sentences into a microphone), Neufeld has shown that adults can acquire an L2 phonology well enough to pass for natives when allowed to record themselves. Based on his findings, he suggests that we expose adults to "inappropriate" learning situations which allow the formation of inaccurate acoustic images of target language sound patterns. In admitting that adults require some sort of modification of the input, Neufeld inadvertently but quite clearly offers support for the argument that adults are indeed unable to achieve native-like competence in phonology in the same manner as children. How is it that children are able to form "accurate acoustic images" from the input they hear when adult second language learners are not? Why can adults only achieve native-like fluency with elaborate laboratory gadgetry? What Neufeld has confirmed is that it is physically possible for adults to accurately imitate the sounds and sound sequences in a foreign language. But, in the real world adults appear unable to process the phonological input they receive to the extent that children can in order to achieve native fluency. Neufeld's findings do, however, suggest ways in which classroom practitioners might go about compensating for these deficits. While research on the acquisition of syntax has benefited from a principles and parameters approach for over a decade, the formulation of principles and parameters in phonology is just starting to be more seriously addressed (see Dresher and Kaye 1990 or Ingram 1990). In their

32 formulation of metrical parameters, Dresher and Kaye generated a number of parameters in this subcomponent of phonology alone greater than has been proposed for all of syntax. This difference suggests that either the proposed parameters are incorrectly formulated or that parameters in phonology are, in fact, of a different nature than those in syntax (see Bromberger and Halle 1989 regarding the claim that phonology is indeed different). As originally proposed, a parameter is meant to account for a cluster of properties in a language and its setting should be achievable via minimal positive evidence (cf. Roeper and Williams 1987). Although parameters account for differences between languages, they are not intended to account for every difference. Thus one must be careful to avoid positing parameters in phonology wherever a possible binary value exists for a particular phenomenon. Since so little research has been carried out on the acquisition of phonology within the principles and parameters framework, it is difficult to say whether the parameters of phonology will turn out to be similar in quantity and type to those in syntax. It may be that in phonology a greater quantity of parameters is warranted, and because phonological parameters are of a different type, a greater quantity will not unduly complicate the child's task.

2.5.4. Principles The principles of UG differ from the parameters in that principles hold for all languages, while the values for parameters are determined language-specifically. It is generally argued that children are born with the principles of UG and that their developing grammars conform to these principles from the start (see Felix 1984 or Borer and Wexler 1987 for dissenting views). While principles apply universally, this does necessarily result in their instantiation in all languages. The principle of Subjacency, which constrains wh-movement, does not apply in languages such as Korean in which wh-words remain in situ. However, if a Korean speaking child is exposed to a language such as English in which wh-words undergo movement, then she will not violate Subjacency as she acquires English. If a post-puberty Korean speaker is in the same situation, the question is whether she will have retained access to a principle not instantiated in her native language to guide her in her acquisition of English (see Bley-Vroman, Felix and loup 1988 for an (inconclusive) answer). The research discussed in section 2.4. on the acquisition of prosodic rules and structures presents us with some phonological principles to consider. The sonority hierarchy and minimal sonority distance are both principles which constrain the arrangement of consonants and vowels within the syllable. It was mentioned that languages sometimes violate the sonority hierarchy; for example, both English and German violate the hierarchy in nonconforming clusters containing the segment [s]. We can also speculate on whether children's early phonologies allow these violations of the principles of sonority and consider English- and German-speaking children's deletion of [s] in such clusters. The deletion of [s] results in a phonology which contains fewer (if any) violations of sonority principles. Have adults retained access to these principles? Based on the findings discussed in section 2.4 (i.e. Broselow, Broselow and Finer, Tropf), adults clearly seem to be sensitive to both

33 these principles. That adults remain sensitive to constraints on the arrangement of consonants in clusters when their native language syllable structures do not allow any at clusters is strong support for continued access to principles relating to syllable structure. In turn this analysis suggests that the research on interlanguage phonology which reveals the operation of universale and developmental processes can be reinterpreted to mean that adults have access to the principles of phonology.

2.5.5. Parameters Several researchers now concede that adults acquiring the syntax of a second language appear to have access (possibly only indirectly) to the principles but not to the parameters of UG (Schachter 1988; Bley-Vroman 1989; Clahsen and Muysken 1989). We can investigate these claims for phonology to determine whether adult learners retain access only to the principles of Universal Phonology, but not to the parameters. When clear parameters have been formulated for phonology and their setting substantiated with data from first language acquisition, it seems likely we will find adults have difficulty resetting them. It is unlikely that we will be able to arrive at an elegant solution to what it is that prevents adults from completely acquiring a second phonology before we know more about how children acquire the phonology of their first language. We can show what adults have lost only when we have specified what it is that enables children to acquire their first language phonologies. The studies detailed in section 2.4. reveal several possible parameters. Most obvious are the metrical parameters posited by Dresher and Kaye which Archibald investigated with respect to second language acquisition (see also James 1990 for a general discussion of a parameter setting approach in L2 phonology). In addition, the constraints on the minimal and maximal word referred to in Broselow's research appear to represent parameterized values, as do the intonational patterns and sentential stress studied by Cruz-Ferreira and Kidd, respectively. There are two additional candidates for parameterhood: rhythmic timing and prosodic domain of rule application. These phenomena are particularly interesting as parameters because they could both entail the Subset Principle. Under the principles and parameters approach to second language acquisition, the parameter settings of the first language may be transferred to the second language. One of the possible contravening factors discussed above was the Subset Principle, the application of which predicts that learners will be unable to retreat from a parameter setting when to do so would require negative evidence. However, when the learner's LI setting is the default setting, this means that resetting requires only positive evidence and therefore parameter resetting should be more easily achieved. We have laid the groundwork for a more intensive look at the acquisition of prosodic structure. In the next chapter, we will examine the phenomenon of cliticization, which presents a variety of problems to the second language learner.

34

Notes to Chapter 2 1. Two examples of parameters which have been proposed are the pro-drop parameter, which accounts for the existence of empty subjects in languages such as Italian and Spanish, and the principle-branching direction parameter, which dictates whether the complement of a head is to its left (as in SOV Japanese) or right (as in SVO English). 2. The concept of UG does not necessarily render the older concept of the LAD obsolete. The LAD can still be seen as mechanisms involved specifically in the acquisition of language (cf. Lightfoot 1991). 3. The matter of whether the input are actually degenerate or whether children may indeed profit from corrective feedback continues to be controversial. White (1989b) stresses that the issues of whether children receive degenerate input and attend to negative evidence are superfluous in light of the existence of primary linguistic data (input) which underdetermine underlying relationships. 4. The researchers listed have all continued to pursue the idea that UG is not "dead"; some further contributions supporting this position come from Eubank (forthcoming), Schwartz and Sprouse (forthcoming) and Vainikka and Young-Scholten (forthcoming). 5. Note that while classroom practitioners often assume that negative evidence in the form of correction is essential to acquisition, the beneficial effects of correction have not been substantiated, particularly with respect to the development of linguistic competence (cf. Schwartz to appear). Indeed, if negative evidence played a key role, students would stop making the persistent errors that language teachers complain about. Questions regarding the value of negative evidence are tied to the role of instruction, discussed at length in Ellis (1990). 6. It is necessary here to present a hierarchical model of the internal structure of the syllable. Although not without controversy, the model in a.) is one that is generally accepted. The syllable branches into the onset, which may be empty or contain one or more consonants, and the rhyme, which branches further into the nucleus and the coda. The nucleus contains the syllable peak, usually a vowel. The coda may be empty or contain one or more consonants. (a)

syllable / \ onset rhyme / \ nucleus coda Recently a model of the syllable has been proposed which includes a level for subsyllabic entities known as moras between the segmental level and the syllable level (cf. McCarthy and Prince 1986, 1990; Hayes 1989). The initial consonants (i.e. those in onset) are attached directly to the syllable node (δ), while the vowels and final consonants attach to mora nodes (μ). (b)

δ

\\

ΓΑ

colt

δ

\\μμ

ΙΑ

coin

While this model is also not without controversy, it will be adopted from Chapter 3 on because it best represents weight and is therefore appropriate for the representation of clitics. However, because of the literature on syllable structure adopts the first model, the terminology in (a) will continue to be used. 7. This is based on the observation that every language has CV syllables and syllable algorithms tend to produce CV syllables. In addition, phonological change tends to either result in or preserve CV syllables. 8. Preference for a CVC syllable supports the recent proposal by Noske (1992) that the CVC syllable, rather than the CV syllable is unmarked in some languages. In other words, the CV syllable cannot, strictly speaking, be considered to be the universally unmarked syllable. Noske's claim is based on current models of the syllable, where the second C in a CVC syllable can be a consonant or part of a long vowel or diphthong. 9. See also Broselow and Park (1993) for a perhaps more promising account involving mora conservation.

35 10. What might have posed more of a problem was the schwa paragoge exhibited by some of the learners in Eckman's (1981) study. At the time, Eckman determined that schwa paragoge is not a rule can be found in any language. However, it now appears that that paragoge is indeed a natural phonological rule, as it exists in Kannada. 11. It is patently tautological to assert that adults do not engage in reduplication because it characterizes baby talk; the reason that it is considered baby talk is because adults do not engage in it. 12. It is not surprising that CV syllables would also be preferred by those with language impairment. In fact Dogil (p.c. 1988) has data from an aphasic patient whose utterances consisted only of (ta) syllables, with the (apparently) appropriate suprasegmentale completely intact. 13. Failure to meet the general minimal weight requirements in a given language is one of the characteristics of clitics, as we will see in Chapter 3. 14. I will term this rhythmic structure to distinguish it from metrical structure, although under some definitions rhythmic structure would include metrical structure. 15. Dauer questions the analysis under which syllable-timed languages show a regularity of stress intervals on the basis of the observation that stress-timed languages also exhibit quite regular stress intervals. 16. James (1988) addresses the development of prosodic structure by L2 learners. Based on data from Dutch learners of English, he found that there was a developmental emergence of lexical, metrical and rhythmic subcomponents. 17. Oiler reports the deletion of weak syllables to be very uncommon among second language learners, as opposed to the very common occurrence of such deletion among first language learners. This is a claim which still deserves the further investigation Tarone called for in 1987. The relevant data bearing on the question of whether second language learners employ phonological processes similar to those employed by children should not only come from instructed learners researchers typically use in their investigations, but also from naturalistic learners - who normally have considerably less exposure to the written word. In other words, what we cannot discount is the influence of orthographic representations on the learner's formation of phonological representations. 18. Indeed there are theoretical phonologists who claim that phonology is different to the extent that a principles and parameters approach will inevitably fail (cf. Bromberger and Halle 1989). 19. loup (1984) presents an interesting study of the ability of native speaker judges to recognize transfer in phonology, but not in syntax. 20. See Hill (1970), who also claims complete acquisition of a second language by adults is possible, citing evidence from certain primitive tribes.

Chapter 3: Cliticization in Standard German

3.1. Introduction The phenomenon through which we will examine the acquisition of a number of aspects of prosodic structure is that of pronominal cliticization and the language in which this will be examined is Standard German. While Standard or High German is the official dialect of all German speaking countries, it is only spoken in its colloquial version in much of the central and northern part of what was West Germany. (The facts relating to clitics in other dialects of German differ to varying degrees from the facts regarding cliticization in colloquial Standard German and we will not take them into account here.) Pronominal cliticization in German brings together several of the facets of prosodic structure discussed in the previous chapter: syllable structure, metrical structure and rhythmic structure. Pronominal cliticization also entails reference to syntactic structure. In the following pages a full account of what the acquisition of cliticization requires will be detailed.

3.2. Clitics in general What is meant by the term clitic! A clitic is a type of morpheme occurring in many languages and which shares some of the characteristics of both affixes (bound morphemes) and words (free morphemes). Clitics are usually monosyllabic, are normally stressed and typically contain a neutral vowel such as schwa. Clitics also may have a full form counterpart, which can bear stress. While their full form counterparts can be focused, the affix-like clitics are always unfocused. Because clitics cannot receive stress, it follows that they cannot appear in isolation, for example, as a single word answer to a question: (3.1) Who do ya wanna talk to? you/*ya While the clitics we are dealing with here are pronouns, a clitic may be a member of any nonlexical category. For example, in addition to pronominal clitics German also has articles and particles which are clitics. Zwicky (1977) observes that any member of a closed class is a likely candidate for cliticization. This includes proforms, adpositions, complementizers, sentential particles and auxiliary verbs. The elements Zwicky discusses can be more precisely referred to as members of functional categories, although proforms (e.g. pronouns) and adpositions (e.g. prepositions) are not uncontroversially considered to comprise functional categories (cf. Emonds 1985 for support that they are functional elements). If those elements which can occur as clitics are functional elements, we would naturally expect them to behave somewhat like the grammatical affixes they are one step away from.

37

That clitics are clearly one step removed from affix status is illustrated by their attachment after all other affixation has taken place and by the fact that they do not normally undergo syntactic movements with the host to which they attach. One of the characteristics of clitics is that they attach to some sort of host, this host need not necessarily be a word, but can also be a phrase. Yet while affixes normally refer to the morphological characteristics of the words to which they attach, clitics do not refer to morphological characteristics of their hosts. Just as affixes occur either before the stem to which they attach as prefixes, or following the stem as suffixes, the direction of clitic attachment varies. Clitics which precede their hosts are termed proclitics, while clitics which follow their hosts are termed enclitics. Zwicky (1977) further categorizes clitics into two main types: special and simple. The pronominal clitics in the Romance languages are typical of special clitics. Demonstrating one of the characteristics of special clitics is the placement of the French object clitics le and me 'me1 in (3.2) below. (3.2)

(a) Jean donne le livre a moi. Jean gives the book to me 'Jean gives the book to me.' (b) Jean me le donne. Jean me it gives 'Jean gives me it.' (c) *Jean donne me le. (d) "Jean a moi le livre donne. (e) *Jean le livre donne a moi. (f) *Jean a moi donne le livre.

The clitics and their corresponding full form pronouns or full NPs can be seen to be in complementary distribution. In (3.2a) both the direct object and indirect object follow the verb because the word order of French is SVO. However, the clitics in (3.2b) are found in a non-argument position, directly preceding the verb. If the clitics follow the verb, the sentence is rendered ungrammatical as (3.2c) illustrates. That only clitics are allowed in this position is clear from the ungrammatically of sentences with the full form pronoun or full NP or both preceding the verb, as in (3.2d), (3.2e) and (3.2f). A second characteristic of special clitics is that they are not derivable from their full forms via any sort of productive phonological rule; orthographic evidence will usually support the special clitic status of these elements. While it is not always clear that a synchronic rule does not exist, quite often the rule is a diachronic relic. When there is no productive rule deriving the clitics from their full form counterparts, the clitics must be listed as allomorphs of their full forms in the lexicon.

38 Simple clitics, on the other hand, bear a more transparent relationship to their full forms, although they are not always derivable by productive phonological rules. In such cases, simple clitics, like special clitics, must be listed in the lexicon. However, unlike special clitics, simple clitics appear in the same linear order as their full form counterparts. For example, simple clitics are found in argument position, just like their full form counterparts. The pronominal clitics in English can easily be categorized as simple clitics. Although the clitic form m of the full form pronoun him in (3.3c) below is not derivable via any productive phonological rules in English (Kaisse 1985), this clitic still appears in the same position as its full NP and full form pronoun counterparts in (3.3a) and (3.3b). (Klavans1 (1982) convention '=' is adopted throughout to represent clitic attachment.) When the clitic is found in a position different from that of the full form, it becomes ungrammatical, as shown in (3.3d) and (3.3C).1 (3.3)

(a) John gave the book to him. (b) John gave him it. (c) John gave=m it. (d) *John gave it him. (e) *John gave it=m.

Compared to special clitics, simple clitics are more likely to be dependent on style and to be optional rather than obligatory. Thus the sentences in (3.3b) and (3.3c) can coexist in the same English speaker's idiolect, while for a French speaker, the clitic le will be the pronoun substituted for the full NP. However, although they are often style dependent, simple clitics are not rate dependent, and can occur at normal rates of speech. There is a third possibility accounting for the occurrence of phonologically reduced elements which receive no stress. Such forms are the product of an extremely relaxed style of speech (and may be the result of various non-linguistic influences) or an accelerated rate of speech, as shown by the examples in (3.4). (3.4)

slow normal fast

[d!ju:wi:tyEt] 'Did you eat yet?1 [dlj5i:tyEt] [jvoi:cEt]

fastest

fji:cEt]

So-called fast speech forms are derivable from productive phonological rules and do not show any evidence of syntactic constraints. Because such reduced forms are tempo-dependent, they exhibit a range of gradient forms. That is, the amount of reduction vowels undergo and the extent to which consonants delete and assimilate can be placed on a sliding scale.2 A great many phonological rules make no reference to the syntax, resembling the rules which derive the forms in (3.4) above. Such rules only involve a phonologically-based structural

39

description for their application. Kaisse (1985) observes that not only may simple clitics require information from the surface structure syntax, but she claims that the application of some phonological rules which apply across word boundaries (i.e. postlexically) is constrained by surface structure syntax. However, allowing phonological rules to make reference to syntactic information is not without problems. One of the tenets of the theory of generative grammar is that the various components, or modules, of the grammar exist independently of each other. Rules belonging to one component are prohibited from making reference to information within another component. Thus, no phonological rule can refer to deep structure syntax, nor can syntactic movements be constrained by phonological factors. However, at the interface, where one component or module meets another, access to information is allowed. As we see in (3.5), Kaisse's model permits an interface between syntax and phonology (1985:20).

(3.5) SYNTAX

LEXICON lexically interpreted surface structure logical form simple cliticization POSTLEX1CAL PHONOLOGY LEVEL PI rules of external sandhi prosodic organization pause insertion LEVEL P2 rules of fast speech CONNECTED SPEECH

Located in the lexicon are phonological rules which apply within words and may involve the cyclic application of rules after the addition of each morphological element (cf. Kiparsky 1982; Mohanan 1986). Phonological rules which apply after lexical insertion (and thus do not refer to morphological information) are located in the postlexical module. Because clitics attach after all morphological operations and because their placement can require syntactic information, simple cliticization is placed directly above the postlexical level. Kaisse further divides the postlexicon into two sub-levels, where rules at the PI level are permitted direct access to surface structure syntax and rules at the P2 level solely involve phonological information. Thus we have a model which distinguishes not only between rules which make reference to morphological information and those which do not, but also between rules which make reference to syntactic information and those which do not.

40 Kaisse's model competes with other models which involve the organization of the phonology into prosodic constituents, such as the model presented in Chapter 2 (Nespor and Vogel 1982) and the proposal by Selkirk (1980) which predates Nespor and Vogel's prosodic hierarchy. The outcome of this situation may well be a melding of the two models. Rather than dismiss the conclusions discussed in Chapter 2 which adopt the prosodic hierarchy, these findings lend themselves to a reinterpretation under the above model. Thus a rule whose domain is the largest on the prosodic hierarchy would be a P2 rule and a rule whose domain is the clitic group would be at the level of simple cliticization. Presumably those rules which fall within the domain of the phonological phrase would be PI rules and those within the phonological utterance would fall in between PI and P2 rules. It is not necessary that we address the fine points of these models in the investigation of clitization. Kaisse's model will be adopted because it makes explicit the access by simple cliticization to surface structure syntax and because it differentiates clitic forms and style-dependent, P2 reduced forms. It is often the case that clitics within the same closed class do not all belong to the same clitic type. Kaisse (1985), citing Kiparsky (1982), mentions that P2 rules show the tendency to slowly move up and become PI rules as they become syntactically conditioned. In other words, a fast speech form evolves into a simple clitic, which evolves into a special clitic. Kaisse further observes that, among the English auxiliaries which can be categorized as simple clitics, the clitic allomorph of'is1 /s/ is starting to exhibit the characteristics of a special clitic.3

3.3. The German clitics4 The situation pertaining to the German clitics is not straightforward, as the personal pronouns appear to be involved in the two stages of cliticization observed by Kiparsky. All pronouns in German behave like special clitics and a subclass of these pronouns behaves like the simple clitics discussed above. The distribution of pronouns is more restricted than the distribution of full form NPs, while the distribution of simple clitics is more restricted than the distribution of pronouns in general. Although we will only be examining the second language acquisition of the simple clitics, a brief explanation of pronominal cliticization in toto is necessary in order to put the behavior of the simple clitics in context.

3.3.1. German syntax and pronouns The position of pronouns in German is constrained by syntactic factors and, in addition, we will see later on that even the position of simple clitics is syntactically conditioned to an extent. Current standard analyses of German syntax (see, among others, Grewendorf et. al. 1987) give German as having both a head-final verb phrase (VP) and a head-final inflectional phrase (IP) as shown by the tree in (3.6).5

41 (3.6) CP

Spec

C COMP

IP Spec

. Γ VP

INFL

/\V / \V NP

Spec

The tree in (3.6) generates the following clauses:

(3.7)

(a) [CP [n> [VP Moselwein hier bestellen]]] Moselle wine here order Order Moselle wine here.1 (b) [CP Die Frau bestellt, [jp [γρ Moselwein tj]]] the woman orders Moselle wine The woman orders Moselle wine.' (c) [Cp Moselwein bestellt; [^ die Frau [w tj]]] Moselle wine orders the woman The woman orders Moselle wine.' (d) [CP ob [n> die Frau[yp Moselwein tj] bestellt;]] whether the woman Moselle wine orders '...whether the woman orders Moselle wine.' (e) [CP wer tip [VP Moselwein tj] bestellt}]] who Moselle wine orders '...who orders Moselle wine.'

42 (f) [Q> bestellt} [Q> die Frau [γρ Moselwein t,]]] orders the woman Moselle wine "Does the woman order Moselle wine?' (g) [ςρ wer [jp bestellt [yp Moselweinj] fj]]] who orders Moselle wine Who orders Moselle wine?' These sentences are generated by various means. The first sentence (3.7a) is the sort of imperative used in German for public notices and warnings. In such a sentence no movement occurs because the verb is non-finite and may therefore remain in its base-generated position. When the verb is finite, it moves from the VP to INFL to get tense and agreement. When the verb is in a declarative sentence it then raises to COMP, resulting in the sentences in (3.7b) and (3.7c). The subject must raise to Spec (IP) in order to get nominative case from the verb in INFL; the object may remain in the VP. Any element (i.e. an NP, PP or AP) may move into Spec (CP) and thus either the subject may move into this position as in (3.7b) or the object may move into it, as in (3.7c). This has the result that the finite verb is always the second constituent in the matrix clause, giving rise to the the characterization of German as a verb second (V2) language. In embedded and relative clauses when COMP is filled, further movement of the verb is blocked and the verb must remain in INFL, at the end of the clause. We can observe this in (3.7d), where COMP is filled by the complementizer ob 'whether' and in (3.7e) where it is filled by the relative pronoun wer 'who'. When COMP is filled by a complementizer, a relative pronoun, or the verb in a yes/no question (3.7f) nothing precedes it in Spec (CP). In a Whquestion (3.7g) the Wh-word is what fills Spec (CP).6 While a full NP object such as Moselwein can remain in the VP, as it does in all examples above except (3.7c), if the object is a pronoun it must normally move out of the VP. These facts are clearly illustrated by the grammaticality (under appropriate discourse conditions) of (3.8a) and (3.8b) and the grammaticality of only the example in (3.8d), where the pronoun has moved out of VP to a position immediately following the verb. The example in (3.8c) can only be grammatical if ihn receives stress under the appropriate discourse conditions. (3.8)

(a) Die Frau bestellt immer Moselwein. the woman orders always Moselle wine The woman always orders Moselle wein.' (b) Die Frau bestellt Moselwein immer. (c) ??Die Frau bestellt immer ihn. the woman orders always it 'The woman always orders it.' (d) Die Frau bestellt ihn immer.

43 Movement of elements within what has traditionally been called the Mittelfeld in German is relatively free for elements which are not pronouns. Full NP objects can be moved (or scrambled in current terminology) from their base-generated positions to various other positions between the raised finite verb and the non-finite verb (see Grewendorf and Sternefeld 1990 for recent contributions on scrambling). Under discourse conditions resulting in the assignment of stress to an object pronoun, it can remain in the VP. For example, if the pronoun ihn in example (3.8c) contrasts with another object in the preceding discourse this would then result in stress being assigned to it and this pronoun can then remain in its basegenerated position. However, an (/»stressed object pronoun must move out of the VP. In this respect, the object pronouns behave like clitics and have been referred to as such by, for example, den Besten (1983). When they are full NPs, indirect objects precede direct objects and follow adverbs in an out-of-the-blue sentence (i.e. unmarked word order). Similar to the sentence in (3.8a) the sentence in (3.9a) is grammatical where these conditions are met, whereas the sentences in (3.8b) and (3.9b) are rendered grammatical only under the appropriate discourse conditions. The same is true for (3.9c), in which the order with respect to the object and indirect object is reversed. (3.9)

(a) Der Mann gibt heute dem Jungen den Wagen, the man gives today the boy the car The man is giving the boy the car today.' (b) ?Der Mann gibt dem Jungen den Wagen heute. (c) ?Der Mann gibt heute den Wagen dem Jungen. (d) Er gibt ihn ihm heute, he gives it him today "He's giving it to him today.'

(e) ?Er gibt ihm ihn heute. (f) ?Er gibt heute ihn ihm. As in sentence (3.8c), sentence (3.9d) shows that the unmarked order for pronouns and adverbs is a reversal of the order for full NPs and adverbs. If the pronoun bears stress it will behave like a full NP; if it does not, it must precede the adverb along with any other nonpronominal elements in the sentence. Thus a pronoun NP directly follows the finite verb (or the complementizer if there is one). This means that (3.9f) is ungrammatical with an out-ofthe-blue reading since this results in the pronouns bearing no stress. A comparison of sentences (3.9d) and (3.9e) shows that the direct object pronoun must precede the indirect object pronoun in the unmarked order, which is a reversal of the unmarked order for full NPs.

44 Where do subjects fit in this picture? In (3.10) we see that in the unmarked order the subject directly follows the finite verb (recall that the subject must raise to Spec (IP) to get nominative case). However, a full NP subject may scramble in the same way as objects do and under the right discourse conditions, a full NP object can precede a full NP subject. So we see that while the sentences in (3.1 Ob) and (3.10c) are ungrammatical in an out-of-the-blue reading, they are grammatical when the subject NP is contrastively or emphatically stressed. (3.10)

(a) Heute gibt der Mann dem Jungen den Wagen. today gives the man the boy the car The man is giving the boy the car today.1 (b) ?Heute gibt dem Jungen der Mann den Wagen. (c) ?Heute gibt dem Jungen den Wagen der Mann.

When the subject is a pronoun, it must directly follow the finite verb (or the complementizer if the verb is in final position) and cannot be preceded by an adverb, a full NP object, or even a pronominal object as the examples in (3.11) show. This restriction applies even when the subject pronoun bears stress. In fact Grewendorf and Sternefeld (1990) explicitly state that scrambling does not permit the pronoun to cross over a pronominal subject. (3.11)

(a) Heute gibt er dem Jungen den Wagen. today gives he the boy the car Today he's giving the boy the car.' (b) *Den Wagen gibt heute er dem Jungen. (c) *Heute gibt den Wagen er dem Jungen. (d) *Heute gibt ihn er dem Jungen.

So far we have seen that full NP subjects can follow object NPs when these subjects receive appropriate focus, but that subject pronouns cannot follow object pronouns under any circumstances. Let us now look more closely at the distribution of pronouns as opposed to that of full NPs. It was mentioned above that various elements can move into the Spec (CP) position, i.e. preceding the finite verb as in (3.12b). A pronoun can also move into this position, as in (3.12c) even when it does not bear any sort of contrastive or emphatic stress. The object pronouns in sentences (3.lie) and (3.lid) also need not bear this sort of stress when the subject separates them from the finite verb. However, (3.12f) is only grammatical under certain discourse situations; that is, ihm must bear emphatic or constrastive stress.

45 (3.12)

(a) Der Mann gibt ihm den Wagen. He gives the car to him. Ήβ is giving him the car.' (b) Dem Jungen gibt der Mann den Wagen. (c) Ihm gibt der Mann den Wagen. (d) Heute gibt der Mann ihm den Wagen. (e) Heute gibt der Mann ihn dem Jungen. (f) ?Der Mann gibt den Wagen ihm.

3.3.2. Topic, focus and pronouns In the preceding text, it has often been necessary to refer to pronominal elements as being focused and thus receiving stress. We have seen that the position of pronouns is dependent on whether they are focused or not. When focused their behavior is similar to that of f ll NPs, whereby they can remain in their base-generated positions (with the exception of subjects). When unfocused, their behavior is typical ofthat of clitics, as we will see in more detail in the following pages of this chapter. Focused elements often introduce new information, whereby pronouns will typically be unfocused in an out-of-the-blue sentence because they represent old information. Focus can also involve the placing of special emphasis on old information, as represented by contrastive or emphatic stress, and this will also apply to pronouns. In out-of-the-blue sentences in German, when all information is of equal status with respect to focus, sentential stress is on the final lexical element. The means that those pronouns which remain in the VP must be focused and bear contrastive or emphatic stress. Uszkoreit (1986) proposes that the order of nominal elements within a sentence is based on whether an element is focused, new information or is unfocused, old information. This yields an order in which pronouns precede full NPs and definite NPs precede indefinite NPs, accounting for the ungrammatically of (3.13a). The sentence in (3.13b) is equally ungrammatical, because the pronominal object is preceded by an indefinite NP, which represents new information.

46 (3.13)

(a) *Er gibt einen Wagen dem Jungen. He gives a car the boy 'He is giving the boy a car.1 (b) *Er gibt einen Wagen ihm. He gives a car him 'He is giving him a car.'

While the notion of focus involves elements which introduce new information, the notion of topic involves elements which delimit a constituent previously mentioned in the discourse. Topicalization in V2 languages such as German is marked by the fronting of the topicalized constituent (see, e.g. Abraham and de Meij 1986). Elements which are topicalized do not receive contrastive or emphatic stress, as the example of the topicalized pronoun ihm in (3.12c) demonstrates. Pronouns which are unfocused are not necessarily topicalized, but the tendency of pronouns to topicalize is certainly strong, since pronouns generally refer to nouns previously mentioned in the discourse. In German the division between unfocused, topicalized pronouns and unfocused, non-topicalized pronouns is clear: only when pronouns appear in Spec (CP) are they topicalized. When pronouns are in Spec (CP) they cannot be realized as clitics, as we will see below in the discussion on the syntactic conditions on simple cliticization.7

3.3.3. The German pronouns as clitics We have seen that the unmarked order for full NPs in a sentence in German is one in which the object NPs remain in the VP and the subject NP moves at least to Spec (IP). Pronominal objects, on the other hand, must move from the VP (unless they are focused). Into what position do these elements move? In den Besten's (1983) analysis, the pronouns adjoin to COMP. It has also been noted that the German pronouns are located in Wackernagel's position (see for example, Haider 1986). Wackernagel (1892) observed that ancient IndoEuropean languages tended to place a class of particles (clitics) in second position in the sentence. Most important in this positioning of the clitics is that the clitics are blind to the category of what precedes them. Kaisse (1985) further observes that languages which place those clitics which have scope over the entire sentence (sentential clitics) in second position also place their pronominal clitics in this position. There is a slight problem in locating German clitics in Wackernagel's position: they are not in second position, rather the finite verb is. In the matrix clause in German the finite verb fills the second position (COMP), preventing clitics from locating there. This has the effect of shunting the clitics to the third position in the sentence. However, the position in which the clitics are located can nonetheless be identified as Wackernagel's position because, in addition to the pronominal clitics, certain sentential clitics in German are consistently found in this position.8 Furthermore the pronouns are located in this position whether a verb, a relative

47

pronoun or a complementizer fills COMP; that is, these clitics are blind to the category membership of what precedes them. Based on the facts given above, it can be seen that the German pronouns behave like the special clitics discussed in section 3.2. Under normal circumstances they are in nearcomplementary distribution with full NPs. What we now need to investigate is whether there are phonological differences between the forms which behave like full NPs when stressed and those which are unstressed. While the stressed and unstressed full forms tend to bear a close phonological resemblance, there exists in German a subset of pronominal clitics which can be termed simple clitics. These clitics constitute a subset of more general pronominal cliticization in German and it is the acquisition of these clitics with which we will concern ourselves.

3.4. The simple clitics in German The simple clitics distinguish themselves from pronouns in general in their phonological reduction, and from this point on, the pronouns which are not included in the simple clitic paradigm in (3.14) below will be referred to as full (unreduced) forms. The term full form normally indicates the non-clitic counterpart to the clitic. Yet as we have seen, it is not accurate to say that these pronouns are not clitics. Use of the term foil form is for the sake of convenience, as it indicates a form which is not phonologically reduced. Wiese (1988) and Prinz (1991)9 give a paradigm for the clitic forms similar to the one given in (3.14), representing the surface forms of the clitics and the full form pronouns. These clitic forms constitute allomorphs, which are listed in the lexicon along with their full form counterparts.10 Given in italics is the standard orthography for the full forms and commonly used orthography for the clitics. Scholten's (1988) data on the frequency of clitics in the speech of children and secondary school students offer empirical support for this paradigm. Schölten found occurrences of only the nominative and accusative clitics given in (3.14) and no occurrences of dative or genitive clitics or of a reduced form of ich.11 According to some researchers not all the clitics have the same status in regard to style. Meinhold (1973) states that [VA], [ ], [n] and [s] are all found in neutral styles of speech, while the two schwa forms [zd] and [da] are marked as more casual. Because some productive phonological rules exist from which the surface forms of the clitics can be derived, the underlying forms of the clitics differ somewhat.12 First, the underlying forms for the clitics realized with the vowel [A] on the surface can be represented as /r/ because there exists in German a fully productive phonological rule which will apply after clitic attachment to yield the surface forms given in (3.14). There is also a productive rule which applies to /n/ to render it syllabic; thus the clitic allomorph in the lexicon need not carry this redundant information.

48 CLITIC PARADIGM

(3.14)

clitics

full

forms

sg.

pl.

ich

[VIA] wir

accusative

[mic] mich

[uns] uns

nominative

[du:] du

[Ϊ:Λ] ihr

[did dich

euch

[e:A] er

[zi:] sie

N

r

[zd] se

ihn

[zi:] sie

[n] n

[zd] se

[zi:] sie

[zi:] sie

[za]

[zd] se

[zi:] sie

[zi:] sie

[za] se

[za]

[Es]" es

[zi:] j/e

[s] s

[zd] se

[Es] es

[zi:] sie

[s]

[za] se

nominative

accusative

3p masculine nominative

accusative

Spfeminine nominative

accusative

3p neuter nominative

accusative

sg.

pl. [VA] MT

[da] de

se

[A]

r

se

The underlying forms of the clitics with schwas can be represented with empty mora slots as in the example in (3.IS) because an empty mora slot in German is filled only with a schwa, the default vowel in German (cf. Wiese 1988, Hall 1990).

49

(3.15) /dö/

It could, of course, be the case that the forms given in (3.14) are all derived from the application of phonological rules of German. However there are no rules which would yield these forms at the rate of speech at which they are found. These forms are all found at normal rates of speech and cannot be taken to be the result of rules of fast speech. Moreover, these forms are not derivable from any productive phonological rules which apply at normal rates of speech, as we will shortly see. These forms also display behavior typical of clitics. First, they interact with the hosts to their left in a way that free morphemes in German,do not (including, for the most part, the full form pronouns). In other words, the clitics demonstrate a closer phonological relationship with their hosts than do the full form pronouns with the elements which precede them. And second, the syntactic position of the clitics is even more syntactically constrained than that of the full form pronouns. Although it was mentioned that these pronominal clitics are found at normal rates of speech, there also exist fast speech (P2 in Kaisse's terminology) variants of the pronouns which should not be confused with clitic allomorphs.14 For all the personal pronouns in German there is a continuum of progressively weaker forms in which, depending on the phonological form of the pronoun, the vowels gradually shorten, become lax, centralize to schwa and delete at increasingly faster rates of speech. (Recall that such gradation is typical of fast speech forms.) Kohler (1977) gives the succession of increasingly reduced forms for ihn 'him', ranging from the full form on the left, to the most reduced form on the right: (3.16)

[i:n] => [in] => [In] => [3n] => [n]

Kohler makes no mention of the various rates of speech at which these forms are found. The clitic forms listed in (3.14) are those Kohler gives as the most reduced forms in his continue (for example [n]), yet these are the forms found at normal rates of speech, clearly indicating that these are clitics rather than P2 forms. Furthermore, the syntactic conditions which constrain the placement of the clitics cease to apply to the forms found at fast rates of speech, as is characteristic of P2 forms. At normal rates of speech, there are positions in which the clitic is syntactically constrained from appearing, but at faster rates of speech the gradated variants will be allowed. These reductions are phonologically derived from the full form pronouns at increasingly fast rates of speech. Kaisse (1985) follows the same approach for those English auxiliary forms which turn out to be less reduced than the clitics.

3.4.1. Gaps The paradigm in (3.14) contains a number of gaps; although German makes a distinction between dative and genitive pronouns, there are no dative or genitive clitics and for some accusative and nominative full forms there are no clitic counterparts. For such gaps to occur

50 within a clitic paradigm is not unusual. For example, Zwicky (1972) observes that the English auxiliary clitics are not all equally reducible. The fact that such gaps occur constitutes one of the most compelling arguments that these elements are indeed clitics and forms which are the product of rules of reduction (see also Prinz 1991). If there were general rules via which these forms were derived, then these rules would have to apply wherever their purely phonological structural descriptions were met and we would not expect to find any gaps which can be related to non-phonological factors. Yet, not only are there no dative or genitive clitics in Standard German, but there are also no clitic allomorphs for some of the nominative and accusative pronouns. Since there is a complete absence of dative and genitive clitics, it is likely that there is a different source for these gaps than there is for those gaps which occur within a case.15 Prinz claims that the nominative and accusative gaps result from phonological factors, while the dative and genitive gaps are based on non-phonological factors. However, there may be a phonological account for the genitive gaps. Note that all of the clitics and all of their full form counterparts are monosyllabic, while full form genitive pronouns in German are bisyllabic or contain diphthongs. Under these circumstances the potential genitive clitics would presumably not meet the weight requirements imposed on clitics (to be discussed below). Such a phonological explanation fails to account for the dative gaps since nearly all the dative pronouns are monosyllabic. A comparison of the potential (but non-occurring) dative clitics with existing nominative clitics illustrates that no plausible phonological reasons exist for these gaps. For example, the nominative second person plural ihr "you1 has the clitic allomorph [Λ], while no such comparable form exists for the dative third person singular feminine ihr 'her*. The sentence in (3.17a) below is grammatical with both the f ll and clitic forms of the nominative second person plural, while in the sentence in (3.17b), the dative third person singular feminine full form is grammatical, but the clitic form is not. (3.17)

(a) Wo habt=r/ihr das gesehen where have=you (pi) that seen "Where did you see that?1 (b) Er hat=*r/ihr das gegeben he has=her that given Ήβ gave her that.1

There is also no phonological reason why the first person nominative plural wir 'we' should reduce to [VA] while the dative first person singular mir 'me' does not reduce to [ΠΤΛ]. Nor is there any phonological basis for the reduction of the accusative third person masculine singular pronoun ihn to [n], when the dative third person masculine singular pronoun ihm does not reduce to [m], as a comparison of the examples in (3.18a) and (3.18b) makes quite obvious:

51 (3.18)

(a) Ich hab=n/ihn da gesehen I have=him there seen Ί saw him there.1 (b) Ich hab=*m/ihm das gegeben. I have=him that given Ί gave him that.1

If there are no phonological reasons for the dative gaps, then a solution must be sought elsewhere. Hetzron's (1977) observation that there is a general typological preference for accusative clitics over clitics in other cases is reflected in the lack of dative (and genitive) clitics in German. This can in turn be connected to the fact that dative and genitive cases can be considered oblique case. However, this fails to fully explain the observed differences. Prinz's solution is to require that only argument pronouns may cliticize. However, this explanation does not suffice, as dative (and even genitive) pronouns can be arguments of the verb. A more appealing proposal is to refer to the syntax, and since simple clitics have access to surface structure syntax, this is not problematic. Emonds (1985) argues that datives are objects of a lexically empty structural preposition. This results in the separation of the dative clitics from their hosts by a trace, effectively blocking cliticization. Such an explanation for the dative gaps fits in well with the restriction that clitics always be adjacent to their hosts. The gaps among the nominative and accusative pronouns cannot be explained in terms of anything other than phonology since these gaps occur under equal syntactic status (i.e. within both the nominative and accusative cases). Prinz notes that all of the clitics have either a single vowel or a syllabic consonant in their rhymes and may, in addition, have an onset. The clitic [s] is the one clitic which does not fit this characterization, but, according to Prinz, this can be attributed to the special status sibilants seem to have universally (recall from Chapter 2 that [s] is allowed to violate the sonority hierarchy). While Prinz's account of those clitics which do occur can be maintained, we still need an explanation for the clitic forms which do not occur. An analysis of the phonological characteristics of potential but non-occurring clitic forms along with the characteristics of occurring clitic forms can provide a more unified account. We can account for the clitics which do occur and for those which do not by requiring clitics to meet a minimal degree of syllable lightness. If we look at the potential clitic allomorphs of those full form pronouns which have no clitic counterparts, we see that these potential allomorphs are barred due to their relative heaviness. The expected allomorph for uns would be [ns], for euch [ος] for mich [me], and for dich [d?]. The final two allomorphs can be ruled out for additional reasons since they form a consonant clusters impossible in German. However, the non-occurring [πτς] should be possible when the [m] is syllabic; it does not occur: Er hat mich *[hatipc] gesehen 'He saw me.1 These facts lead to the generalization that all non-occurring forms are of the form CC or VC. The sole problem with this generalization appears to be the non-occurring clitic form [9] for ich. If we took the clitic form to be [dc], then it would fall under the generalization for all

52 non-occurring clitics. However, such a form does not occur because of the existence of a rule in German resulting in only front vowels preceding [9]. Why, then does a vowelless form not occur? Although Prinz does not list [c] as a clitic allomorph, it is not entirely clear [9] actually does not surface as a clitic. For example, Meinhold (1973) lists [9] along with other reduced forms, observing that it is found postverbally at normal rates of speech (albeit with dialect influence). One of the factors involved may relate to the common failure of [9], unlike the clitic [s], to syllabify with the consonant in the host which precedes it. Because the host is usually a verb and because the verbal suffix for the first person is frequently the zero allomorph, [9] will frequently fail to syllabify because to do so would create a consonant cluster impossible in German (e.g. as in hab=[9] *[b9]) and one which clearly violates the sonority hierarchy. The instances in which [9] will be able to syllabify are those in which the host ends in a sonorant consonant, such as when the verb stem ends in a sonorant consonant, or when the host is the modal will as in [vll=9] 'want Γ, the modal kann as in [kan=9] 'can Γ or the past tense auxiliary war as in [var=9] 'was Γ. With the treatment of [9] as a single consonant clitic, there is no problem in maintaining the generalization that clitics of the form CC and VC cannot occur in German. Another way to express this generalization is to require that all clitics be maximally comprised of a single nonbranching mora. Under mora theory, the moraic level intervenes between the segmental and syllabic levels, replacing what has been traditionally called the rhyme (see foonote 6; Chapter 2). Vowels and final consonants are connected to a mora, while consonants preceding the rhyme (formerly in the onset) are directly connnected to the syllable node. Hall (1990) gives the syllable structures in (3.19) for German, whereby a well-formed syllable in a monosyllabic word in German has at least two moras (see Giegerich 1985 for a non-moraic account).16

(3.19) δ δ

V

\

μμ

kalt 'cold'

Vi

t r a um

f i l

bits

mat

Traum 'dream'

viel 'much'

Bitte 'please'

matt 'matt'

Monosyllabic function words with closed syllables seem to provide an exception to the requirement that monosyllabic words have at least two moras. According to Giegerich nonlexical monosyllables are unstressed and often light. Therefore, unless they contain a diphthong or are open syllables, function words will be composed of a single, branching mora. This insures that they do not receive lexical stress. The minimal pair in (3.20) illustrates the difference in moraic structure between the noun Weg 'path' and the particle weg "away.1

53 (3.20)

μμ

μ

κ

V\

ν e: k

ν Εk

Weg 'path1

weg 'away'

Neither lexical nor function words composed of a single, wow-branching mora are possible in German; therefore any syllables composed of a single, non-branching mora must be contained in at least a bisyllabic word. Inflectional suffixes in German commonly consist of just a single, non-branching mora, similar to the two moras in the word Bitte in (3.20) above. In that enclitics are suffix-like, we would expect them to share the moraic structure of suffixes in German. We can propose that the moraic representation of those clitics occur and those which do not occur is as follows (in c. and d. a syllable onset would necessarily be resyllabified from the coda of the clitic host): (3.21)

(a)

(b)

δ μ dd and [z d], [VA]

(c)

and [Λ]

(d)

*δ

ns and [ηις], [de]

54 The potential but non-occurring clitic forms contain either a single branching mora or two moras, while the clitic forms which do occur all contain a single, non-branching mora. The clitic [s] is perhaps the most ideal clitic in its minimality; it does not contain a mora at all, but is simply incorporated into the final mora of the host to which it attaches. Since [Λ] is always syllabic and [n] usually is, these clitics can constitute their own moras. The requirement that no German word can be composed of a syllable containing only a single non-branching mora can be better stated by requiring that a German word contain at least one metrical foot.17 This is represented in (3.22), showing that full form pronouns but not clitics are dominated by the foot, reflecting the status of full form pronouns as words and of clitics as bound morphemes. Stating that clitics in German consist maximally of a single, non-branching mora has the additional advantage of providing motivation for the phonological attachment of the clitics, since such light syllables cannot remain unattached. (3.22) foots

footw

l\ du: kannst du 'can you1

foot α

Νμμ

kanstd kannst=de 'can ya'

The examples in (3.23) show the attachment of occurring and non-occurring clitics. In the first three examples, the clitic is either incorporated into the final mora of the host (that is, it syllabifies with the preceding verb), or the clitic itself constitutes a single, non-branching mora.

(3.23)

(a) Sie hat=s [hats] gemacht, she has=it done 'She did it.' (b) Was willst=de [vllstd] denn wissen? what want=ya prt know "What do you want to know?' (c) Was hat=r [hatA] gesagt? what has=he said "What did he say?'

55

(d) *Sie hat=ns [hatns] gesehen, she has=us seen 'She saw us.' Now that we have accounted for the gaps in the clitic paradigm, we still need to show that the clitic forms which actually occur are not the product of productive phonological rules in German. Even though generalizations can be made about the moraic structure of the clitics, this does not completely account for their forms.

3.4.2. The clitics as allomorphs We have seen above that there is a constraint on the maximal weight clitics can have. Such a constraint does not necessarily mean that the clitics are not the result of productive phonological rules to which this constraint applies. In order to support the argument that the clitics are allomorphs of the full form pronouns which are listed in the lexicon, we still need to investigate the possibility that phonological rules exist in German which could derive the clitics. The phonological rules which we are looking for would involve the reduction of long, tense vowels to schwa and the deletion of unstressed vowels. While reduction and deletion can occur at accelerated rates of speech in German, reflecting universal phonetic tendencies towards ease of articulation, at the normal rates of speech at which the pronominal clitics in German are found we will see that there are no such rules which could account for the clitics. By looking at the various types of clitic forms individually, we can confirm that the rules which we seek do not exist. First, an investigation of possible rules of reduction to derive the clitics containing schwa, [dd] 'you1 and [z5] 'she/they' will show that there are no such synchronic rules in German. Next, the examination of the vowelless clitics [n] 'him' and [s] 'it' will reveal that there are also no rules of deletion which would derive these forms. Finally, we will see that for the clitics [VA] 'we'and [Λ] 'he/you plural' there are also no productive rules from which these forms could be derived. Schwa occurs quite frequently in German and therefore the most obvious possibility would be that schwa is a phoneme in German. This idea is easily dismissed since it is difficult to find any minimal pairs in which schwa figures. The second possibility is that schwa is the product of the reduction of unstressed vowels, as is the case in English. Deriving the clitics from the full forms in German would then involve rules which reduce the long, tense vowels in [du:] and [zi:] to schwa when unstressed. Rules of reduction, however, fail to account for the distribution of schwa, and therefore recent generative work argues for the derivation of schwa from rules of epenthesis. These rules of epenthesis insert schwa word-internally when a consonant cluster impermissible in German is created through morphological operations (Giegerich 1985;, Wiese 1988; Hall 1990). The distribution of schwa in such words as [a:tdm] "breath1 and [atmdn] "breathe* and [ze:gl9r] 'sailor' and [ze:gdln] 'sail' is accounted for by the application of lexical rules of schwa epenthesis. Wiese and Hall both divide their epenthesis rules into two parts,

56

whereby the second part involves insertion of a schwa into an empty slot epenthesized in the first part of the rule. Hall's rule is as follows: (3.24)

(a)

μ 0

(b)

=> [ ] /

[+son]

μ

I [δ]

Hall and Wiese take schwa to be the default vowel in German, surfacing when no other segment is available to act as a syllable peak. The second part of the epenthesis rule can thus apply, without the first part to words in which the occurrence of schwa is not predictable, such as those in (3.25). Such words are listed in the lexicon with the empty mora slots which are filled in by this part of the rule, thus providing the syllable with a vowel peak. The schwa clitics can also be listed in the lexicon in this manner. (3.25) (a) names: [u:v ] 'Uwe' and [Elkd] (b) nouns: [vi:zd] 'meadow' and [tasd] 'cup' (c) grammatical affixes adjectival suffixes: nominal suffixes: verbal suffixes: verbal prefixes:

[gu:t+3] 'good' [tse:n+d] 'teeth' [ge:b+3] Ί give' [ga+kauf+t] 'bought'

Although schwa is not phonologically predictable in the words in (3.25c), this vowel figures prominently in grammatical affixes and can thus be said to possess some degree of morphosyntactic predictability. Grammatical affixes superficially containing a schwa followed by a consonant such as the -en [5n] in the infinitive kaufen "to buy' are held to be single consonants underlyingly, to which the rule of schwa epenethesis applies. Based on what has been said about clitics regarding their affix-like properties it is not unusual to find that two of the pronominal clitics also contain schwas. Schwa is further restricted in its distribution due to its unstressability. It is therefore barred from appearing in monosyllabic words, since these must either be bimoraic or contain a branching mora; words such as *[k3lt], *[kdt] *[kd] and *[dt] are all ill-formed in German. Although a monosyllabic German word can contain a short, lax vowel (as in [vEk] in (3.20)), such a vowel cannot end a word, only a schwa can. For example, while the name [u:vd] is possible in German both *[u:vl] and *[u:vu] are prohibited. Nor can a word begin with a

57 schwa, and the only initial consonants which can precede schwa at the beginning of a word are [g] and [b] as in [g nau] 'exact1 or [bohaltSn] 'keep.1 In English schwa frequently turns up in function words, since such words are typically unstressed and thus subject to rules of reduction. Yet in German, function words do not contain schwas, providing additional confirmation that rules of reduction cannot account for schwa in German, and that the clitics containing schwas must be listed in the lexicon. The example in (3.20) illlustrated that monosyllabic function words such as the particle weg 'away' contain a single mora which branches and are therefore not as light as clitics. It seems that the minimum weight requirement on monosyllabic words is also connected to absence of schwa (at least at the same rates of speech at which the clitics are found) in the function words in (3.26). Furthermore, these function words clearly cannot be vowelless because they then would contain just a single, non-branching mora. (3.26) (a) von [v:m] => *[v5n] *[vn]

(b) da

[das] => *[das]

(c) (d) (e) (0

[zlnt] => *[zont] [hat] => *[hot] [kan] => *[kdn] *[kn] [vil] => *[val] *[vl]

sind hat kann will

'from'

'that1 'are1 'has' 'can' 'want1

We have seen above that the presence of schwa is generally limited to those instances in which schwa surfaces as the default vowel in German, either as the result of resyllabification after the application of morphophonological rules or as the vowel in grammatical affixes. There are some additional cases in which schwa is largely unpredictable, although its distribution may still be curtailed in part by factors relating to weight. We can conclude then that there are no productive rules of reduction to schwa in German. Since unstressed vowels in German do not reduce to schwa, it seems unlikely that we would find a rule which deletes vowels under such conditions. We will see below that the only surface evidence we have for a rule of vowel deletion turns out to be the failure of schwa epenthesis to apply when the consonant involved is a sonorant and has become syllabic. The failure of unstressed vowels in the typically unstressed function words shown in (3.26) to delete at normal rates of speech indicates that there are no general rules of deletion which could apply to the full forms [ES] and [i.n] to produce the voweliess clitics [s] and [n]. The remaining option is to list these clitics as allomorphs of the full forms in the lexicon. The clitics [VA] and [A] are partially rule-derived, as suggested by the difference between their underlying and surface representations discussed previously. The underlying /r/ in these clitics undergoes a productive rule of /r/ vocalization which yields the forms [A] and [VA] (with the vowel [A] somewhat lower and farther back than schwa). There are no surface realizations of [r] with the clitics, because the environment for the rule syllabifying /r/ is always present when the clitic attaches. The underlying forms are not the result of any productive rules deriving them from their full forms [Ϊ:Λ], [C:A] and [VI:A] because such rules would necessitate the deletion of the vowels in the full forms after r-vocalization has taken place. If the surface form [A] were derived from its full form [C:A], one would expect the [ΕΛ] in such

58 words as [E/vJrEk n] 'frighten' to turn up simply as [Λ] under weakened stress. However the surface realization *[>JrEkdn] is not possible, even when preceded by another lexical item, as in: er hat sich *[/\JrEkt] Ήβ was frightened.1 In German an /r/ may undergo vocalization in two situations (Hall 1990). First, if it is preceded by a vowel as in /bi:r/, the vowel is retained and the surface representation is [bi:A]. The same rule holds for the surface realization of the full forms, as in /vi:r/ => [VJ:A]. The second situation involves words such as [fa:tA] for which Hall gives /fa:tr/ as the underlying representation. Schwa epenthesis must apply in order to syllabify the /r/ before it undergoes vocalization and ultimately coalesces with the schwa. The rule of coalescence applies only when the schwa and the /r/ are within the same single mora, accounting for the nonoccurrence of *[bA] as a possible surface form of bimoraic /bi:r/. (3.27)

μ

μ

Λr

ι

=> [A]

While the pronominal clitics are as unpredictable as any of the words and affixes listed in the German lexicon, they still remain subject to the phonological constraints touched on above. In the next section more of the inner workings of German phonology will be revealed as we witness how clitics undergo phonological attachment to their hosts.

3.4.3. Phonological attachment The model given in (3.5) places simple cliticization between the lexical and postlexical levels. This has the desired result of allowing clitics to behave like affixes in some respects and like independent words in others. When the German clitics are attached to their hosts, they frequently undergo rules which normally apply only within words in German, but here also apply within the host-clitic configuration.18 However, these clitics are clearly not affixes. Because affixation takes place in the lexicon, it is to be expected that clitic attachment would be required to take place after all affixation. This is confirmed by the fact that no affix in German can ever follow a clitic. While the multimorphemic words produced in the lexicon can undergo any syntactic movement a monomorphemic word can undergo, the configuration consisting of host-clitic cannot, as shown in the examples in (3.28). The ungrammatical example in (3.28c) clearly illustrates that the clitic cannot follow the verb when the verb is in INFL; rather the clitic attaches to the complementizer ob. By virtue of their access to surface structure syntax clitics are, however, sensitive to a variety of syntactic constraints, to be discussed in section 3.5. (3.28)

(a)

Regnet=s heute? rains it today ' Is it raining today?1

59 (b)

Ich weiß nicht, ob=s heute regnet. I know not, if it today rains. don't know if it's raining today.

(c)

*Ich weiß nicht, ob heute regnet=s.

In theory the clitics have a choice regarding their direction of attachment. Since clitics are not very choosy about what they attach to, they could attach to whatever follows them or whatever precedes them. It turns out that the pronominal clitics in German attach to their left neighbor. Placing the clitics in the lexicon as the allomorphs given in (3.14) has the effect that clitics are required to attach to words in order to be phonologically well-formed. Both the clitic forms with and without vowels must be able to syllabify successfully with whatever is on their left; the single consonant clitics cannot stand alone since they do not even constitute a mora, while the vowel clitics must become part of another word, since as free morphemes they do not satisfy the constraints on the minimal word in German. When clitics syllabify with their hosts, an environment is created in which some of the rules which apply within words in German continue to apply within the host-clitic configuration. It was briefly mentioned in section 3.3. that the clitics follow the finite verb in a matrix clause or the complementizer in an embedded clause when the finite verb is clause final. Finite verbs in German are overtly marked for subject-verb agreement as shown in (3.29). The fact that the finite verb quite often ends in -e, -t, -st or -n means that clitics frequently undergo ^syllabification with syllables ending in these segments.

(3.29) The Standard German agreement paradigm person

singular

first second third

-a/0 -s(t) -t

plural

-n -t -n

The -e (schwa) and zero allomorphs for first person singular are in free variation, as are -st and -s for the second person singular.19 The suffix for modals in the present tense and for all verbs in the past tense in the third person singular is either -e (schwa) or the zero allomorph (verbs in the past tense also add a -/ before the agreement suffix). Finally, the auxiliary verbs haben 'have' and sein deviate somewhat from this pattern, but neither verb introduces any new segments to the paradigm. In order for the clitics to attach to the host succesfully, syllabification with the host must result in syllables which are well-formed in German. I adopt the the syllable structure

60 algorithym (SSA) given in Hall (1990) for German, formulated within mora theory. The SSA applies after the attachment of each morpheme, before any other rules apply. The SSA also applies after each phonological rule which alters syllable structure. Those steps relevant to clitic attachment are shown in (3.30) through (3.32) for the forms gucken (1/3 PL) and guckst (2 SG) 'look1 (that this verb is orthographically exceptional in German; the initial g is pronounced as [k]). Based on principles of syllabification, these steps link vowels and the consonants following them to moras and initial consonants directly to the syllable node. (3.30) First the stem /kuk/ is syllabified: mora placement a mora node is erected over a vowel k u k

syllable placement a syllable node is erected over the mora node

μ k u k

CV rule the consonant preceding the moras is connected to the syllable node

j

μ k u k

onset rule any addition consonants are attached to the syllable node

weight by position a mora is associated with a segment to the immediate right of a short vowel

coda rule a syllable-final consonant is attached to the final mora

61 The above steps can account for the syllabification of the CVC syllable [kuk], but the syllabification of the suffixes -st and -w (as shown in 3.32) will require several additional rules. The coda rule cannot attach the first consonant in the suffix -st to a mora because the stop [k] followed by the fricative [s] violates the sonority hierarchy. The sonority hierarchy states that sequences of segments proceeding outwards from the syllable peak always decrease in sonority; the sequence [ks] represents an increase in sonority. However, this violation of the sonority hierarchy by [s] is not unusual, as was mentioned in Chapter 2 and earlier in this chapter. The syllabification of [t] alone (as in the suffixation of the third person singular suffix -t) to [guk] would further constitute a violation of the second principle of sonority, that of minimal sonority distance, as it is realized in German (see Hall 1992). In German, adjacent segments are required to be separated by a minimal sonority distance of at least one. The details of Hall's minimal distance for German are relevant here only to the extent that these adjacent stops are equally sonorous and therefore violate the distance principle as it applies in German. German thus requires an additional rule of coronal obstruent adjunction, whereby the syllabification of [t] and [s] is achieved when the rule iteratively applies (Hall 1990:120).. (3.31)

coronal obstruent adjunction

[-son]

R-corj L-sonJ

Like the sequence [ks], the sequence [kn] also violates the sonority hierarchy. However, the rule of coronal obstruent adjunction fails to apply because [n] is not an obstruent. Therefore another rule is required for the syllabification of the suffix -n to [guk] to result in [gukdn]. To achieve this, the rule of schwa epenthesis applies, after which the SSA must reapply due to the alteration of the syllable structure. During the reapplication of the SSA, a mora node is errected over the schwa and a syllable node over that node. Finally, the /n/ is attached to the mora node. (3.32) Then the suffixes are syllabified:

/kuk + st/

/kuk + n/

SSA

kukst

k u k n

62 coronal obstruent adjunction

schwa epenthesis (a)

schwa epenthesis (b)

SSA

\\ \\

k u k a n [kukst] 'you look1

[kukdn] Vwe/they/she looks'

The clitics syllabify in the same way that the suffixes above syllabify and, depending on the form of the clitic, various additional rules may apply either obligatorily or optionally. How the individual clitics syllabify with their hosts and which rules apply to the host-clitic configuration is best observed when we consider each clitic form separately. First we will look at the clitic [s] which is incorporated into the final mora of its host. Next we will examine the attachment of the clitic [n] and the clitics [Λ] and [VA] for which this results in the resyllabification of the host and the creation of an additional syllable. Finally, we will look at the attachment of the clitics [do] and [zd] which also results in the addition of a syllable, but does not alter the syllable structure of the host. The clitic [s] is the most productive clitic, attaching to nearly any syllable-final cluster. It is not uncoincidental that the most productive clitic is phonologically identical to the segment constituting several of the grammatical morphemes in German; [s] represents the neuter and masculine genitive suffixes and the default plural morpheme. When this clitic attaches to a host it syllabifies directly into the final mora of this host via the same rule of coronal obstruent adjunction which

63 incorporates the /st/ of [kukst]. As this rule applies iteratively, it simply reapplies to adjoin the clitic, as follows: (3.33) Attachment of the clitic /$/

/kuk +1 = s/

SSA

μμ

\\\

k u k

coronal obstruent adjunction

t s

δ

μμ

ιν

k u k t s

er [kukts] an he looks=itat Ήβ looks at it.1

Perhaps because it attaches so freely the clitic [s] is the most style-neutral clitic. Its status as a clitic is supported by considerable orthographic evidence and it occurs in many common idioms as exemplified in (3.34). Although the clitics are, strictly speaking, not obligatory in such idioms, the use of the full form in these idioms is often stilted. Additionally, because the pronoun es has little semantic content in these idioms, it would be unusual for this pronoun to receive emphatic or contrastive stress and surface as the full form [Es]. (3.34)

(a) Wie geht's

"How are you?1

(b) Milch macht's

"Milk does it.'

(c) Was gibt's?

What's happening?1

As a single consonant clitic [n] shares with [s] the characteristic that it would not be able to stand alone as a well-formed syllable even if there were no requirement that words in German contain at least one branching mora. However, unlike [s] the clitic [n] cannot be directly incorporated into the final mora of the preceding host. In this way the clitic [n] also behaves differently from the suffix [n]. When the suffix [n] follows a segment more sonorous than

64 itself (e.g. a vowel), the SSA alone can achieve syllabification. When the clitic [n] is preceded by a more sonorous segment, schwa epenthesis also applies as attested by the ungrammatically at normal rates of speech ofseh=n '(I) see him' with one syllable, *[ze:n]. A rule of sonorant syllabification then applies, which, according to Prinz (1991) is obligatory for clitics. Under this rule the schwa is disconnected from the mora node and the [n] becomes the syllable peak when the SSA reapplies (cf. Hall 1990): (3.35) Attachment of the clitic /n/

/kuk =

SSA

schwa epenthesis (a)

k u k

n

sonorant syllabification

k u k n

ich [kukn] an I look=him at Ί look at him.1

65 When the final consonant of the host resyllabifies with the clitic, the [+nasal] consonant undergoes a rule of progressive nasal assimilation. The spreading of the feature [+back] from the /k/ to the /n/ results in a velar nasal.21 Additional surface forms in (3.36) show where progressive nasal assimilation applies to spread the feature [+labial]. (3.36)

[ha:.bm] gesehen seen

(a)

Ich /ha:b=m/ I have him Ί saw him.1

(b)

Ich /ft7p=n/ => [ftopm] jetzt. I stop him now Tm stopping him now."

The examples in (3.36) illustrate that the rule of final devoicing, which would normally devoice the /b/ of/hab/, does not necessarily apply prior to clitic attachment, a point to which we shall return in section 3.4.4. The clitic /r/ behaves like the segment HI in general when a more sonorous element precedes it (i.e. a vowel) and undergoes the rule of r-vocalization mentioned in section 3.4.2. In all other instances it behaves similarly to the /n/ in that it must undergo the rule of schwa epenthesis before it can be syllabified. The attachment of the clitic /n/ thus creates an additional syllable whose onset is taken from the final mora of its preceding host. Following schwa epenthesis, the rule of r-coalescence which was given in (3.27) applies to create the vowel [Λ]. While it was necessary to stipulate that sonorant syllabification applies obligatorily for the clitic /n/ to prevent schwa-forms from appearing on the surface, this is not necessary for the clitic /r/ since r-coalescence is always obligatory. The following derivations show that schwa epenthesis and r-coalescence not only account for the syllabic surface clitic forms for /r/, but also for the surface form [VA] from /vr/. (3.37) Attachment of the /r/ clitics hat=r

haben=vr

SSA schwa epenthesis (a,b)

5

μμ

IV

i a t or

δ

N \μ I

μ I

h a: b 3 n v3 r

66 r-coalescence

\

M

hatA

I\A..

h a: b d η ν Λ

SSA δ δ

δ

δ

\μ

h a: b dnv A

[hatA] has=he

[ha:b5nvA] have=we

The sole difference between the cliticization of M and of /vr/ can be seen from the above: when the SSA applies after epenthesis and r-coalescence, the onset rule moves the final consonant of the host into the onset of the syllable of which the syllabic Irl forms the peak, while this does not occur with the cliticization of/vr/, as the /v/ becomes an onset itself. Host-clitic configurations with /vr/ undergo a rule similar to the rule of assimilation which the configurations with /n/ undergo, as in the increasingly assimilated forms [ha:.bm.vA], [ha:.mm.v A], [habmmA], [ham.vA] and [ha:mA] for /habnvr/. The rule of nasal assimilation which applies to configurations with /vr/ applies once this rule has already applied to the host. Hosts ending in the suffix -n undergo assimilation when sonorant syllabification has applied to render this /n/, and the preceding consonant of the stem tautosyllabic, as in [ha:.bn] => [ha:.bip] 'have', but not [hab.dn] => *[ha:.bdm]. The form *[hab.3m] cannot occur, because the determinant and focus in this rule must be in the same syllable. Hall (1990) gives the following forms of haben. [ha:.bip], [ha:.mm] and [ha:m], which are all presumably found at normal rates of speech. That assimilations can occur prior to and independently of clitic attachment is supported by the occurrence of such forms which clitics other than /vr/ can follow:

(3.38)

(a)

wir [ha:m=z ] gesehen we have her seen 1 We saw her.

(b)

wir [ha:m=s] geschafft we have it done We did it.1

67 While it could be that these forms are lexicalized rather than rule-governed, words other than haben undergo such assimilation, yielding comparable forms for example, for leben [le:.bm], [le:.mm], [le:m] 'live' or for oben [o:.bm], [o:.mm], [o:m] 'above.1 The rules producing these forms do not apply across word boundaries outside of the clitic group at normal rates of speech, and therefore cannot be categorized as P2 rules. Thus the following forms are not acceptable: for haben mein *[hammain] '(we/they) have my1 or for leben mit *[le:mlt] '(we/they) live with.' A host-clitic configuration with the auxiliary verb sind 'are' exists in which the consonant in the clitic /vr/ has assimilated to an extent similar to the assimilation in the form [hamA]: (3.39)

/zln=vr/ => [zlrnA]

'are we'

A partial derivation for the form in (3.39) would involve assuming an underlying form for sind without the final stop (i.e. [zln]), which would be akin to the variable forms given in (3.29) for the t-less forms of the second person singular (e.g. [has] vs. [hast]). However, both [ha:mA] and [zlrriA] appear to be lexicalized. If there were productive rules in German deriving these two forms, similar forms with main verbs would be expected to occur. The impossible forms (at normal rates of speech) *[komA] for kommen wir 'come we1 and *[le:nv\J for leben wir 'live we' attest to the fact that [zlnv\] and [ha:nv\] are lexicalized. Furthermore, [zlnv\], and particularly [ha:mA] are somewhat dialect-marked. The attachment to hosts of the clitics with schwas ([do] and [zd]) does not result in a reapplication of the SSA because the clitics themselves constitute well-formed syllables in German. But because they do not constitute well-formed words in terms of metrical structure, they must attach to a host. These clitics can undergo additional phonological rules; such interaction is typical of clitics and their hosts. A series of optional rules involving devoicing, spreading and degemination applies to yield various surface forms for /has=dd/ 'have you1, where the subject follows the second person singular verb and for /hast=za/ '(you) have her1, where an object follows the same verb form as shown in (3.40). Here the underlying form of hast is assumed to be /has/, without (3.40)

(a) /has=da/ => [hasda] => [hasta] => [hassS] => [has9]=> [has] (b) /has=za/ => [haszd] => [hassa] => [hasa]

Forms involving host-clitic configurations with auxiliary forms other than hast and with modals and main verbs are also possible: (3.41)

(a) /vars=da/ => [varsa] "were you' (b) /vlls=da/

=> [vllsa] 'want you'

(c) /glaups=da/ => [glaupsa] "believe you'

68 Note in (3.40) that a vowelless form [has] is given for /has=do/ but not for (du) /has=za/. This is confirmed by Köhler (1979) in his observation that /z5/ can only lose its vowel at faster rates of speech. However, the clitic ladl can lose its vowel at normal rates of speech. The phonological rules involved do not provide an answer to the absence of such a form, suggesting that this form does not involve a clitic, but rather the syntactically-based absence of the subject. The examples in (3.42) demonstrate that a form without a vowel is only possible after a verb which is inflected for second person singular. When a second person singular clitic pronoun follows a complementizer, as in (3.42d), it cannot be vowelless. (3.42)

(a)

/vars=d3/ => [varsd] / [vars] schon mal hier? were=you already prt here 1 'You been here before?

(b)

/fe:rs=da/ ^> [fe:rsd] / [fe:rs] morgen dahin? go=you tomorrow there to 'You going there tomorrow?1

(c)

du /fe:rs=sö/ => [fe:rs5] / *[fe:rs] morgen you drive=her tomorrow 'You are driving her tomorrow.'

(d)

/vEn=dS/ => [vEndö] / *[vEn] kommst if=you come 'If *(you)come...'

(e)

/das=da/ => [dasd] / *[das] kommst that=you come 1 That you come...

Two facts suggest that the presence of the agreement suffix -s(t) on the verb preceding the clitic determines whether the pronoun du is realized phonetically or not. First, it is not simply the presence of an [s] which motivates the realization of the vowelless form, as the example in (3.42e) clearly illustrates. Second, when the complementizer is inflected in the second person singular, as occurs in the Bavarian German, the pronoun can then be phonetically empty, as shown in (3.43c) below. The inflection of complementizers only occurs in the second person singular in Bavarian.

(3.43)

(a)

Standard German: [var+s] schon mal hier? were already prt here '(You) been here before?1

69 (b)

Standard German: *[vEn] komm+st if come 2 SG 'If (you) come...1

(c)

Bavarian:

[vEn+s] komm+st if2SGcome2SG 'If (you) come...'

Because the vowelless forms in Standard German only occur with the second person singular, and only for a subject pronoun and not an object, this suggests that the vowelless forms are not related to cliticization at all, but are instances of pro-drop in the syntactic sense (cf. Rizzi 1986).23 Under this interpretation, [fe:rs] would not be the most reduced host-clitic form, but rather the inflected verb with an empty subject (the account for the deletion of final [t] remains a phonological one). Pro-drop typically occurs in languages for which there is a unique agreement suffix for each person and number. That we find empty subjects in German for the one unique agreement suffix, -st, is not unexpected.24 A final point regarding the phonological form of the clitics is that their categorization as clitics gains extralinguistic support from orthographic evidence. We have already mentioned such evidence for [s]; such evidence also exists for all subject and object clitics, particularly in the written discourse used in advertising. Host-clitic configurations are variably written with and without an apostrophe, due to lack of established conventions for any clitics other than [s]. The clitic [dd] figures prominently in such situations, but unlike its full form counterpart, it is not strictly used to express familiarity or intimacy with the speaker, but simply an informal register of speech. Thus the use of the clitic rather than the full form is required in the two examples below lest use of the full form imply unintended intimacy. These forms are similar to forms in English such as gotcha 'got you1 and doncha 'don't you1.

(3.42)

(a)

Na, siehste! there, see=you There, you see!' (name of television show)

(b)

Hast'e da noch Töne? have=you there still tunes "Do you have enough cassettes?' (department store flyer)

3.4.4. Resyllabification and clitics We have previously discussed the division of phonological rules into two types. Postlexical rules are those which ignore word boundaries and apply both within words and across word boundaries. Lexical rules are those which apply word-internally, before the syntax. These rules either apply one or more times cyclically, after each morphological operation takes place,

70 or once postcyclically, after all morphological operations have been completed. Although clitics are located after the syntax, the host-clitic configuration can undergo postcyclic rules which are usually limited to word-internal contexts. It was shown earlier in this chapter that these clitics comprise ill-formed words in isolation and must therefore syllabify with their hosts. The result is a more intense phonological interaction with their hosts than is found between two words which have no such relationship. The nature of these pronominal forms as clitics can be demonstrated when we look at the phonological behavior of non-clitic elements which can follow the finite verb. The difference in phonological behavior between the clitics and other elements whose initial syllables are reduced offers additional support for the claim that there are no P2 rules in German which operate on all unstressed syllables regardless of their morphosyntactic status. One of these differences is related to the bleeding of final obstruent devoicing. There exists in German a postcyclic rule that devoices syllable-final obstruents. This rule accounts for the alternation shown in (3.43); when the zero allomorph is selected, as in (3.43a) the final /b/ devoices to [p]. In (3.43b), however, the schwa suffix is chosen, after which the syllable structure algorithm applies to render the /b/ syllable-initial and to bleed final devoicing.

(3.43)

(a)

/nab/ => [hap]

'have' 1 SG

(b)

/hab+o/ ^ [haba] 'have11 SG

Kohler (1977) presents data which suggest that final devoicing is also bled by some pronominal subjects. Kohler also discusses an additional rule whereby intervocalic stops in German optionally fricativize within words as well as across word boundaries, particularly in between the verb and subject, as exemplified below.25 in his presentation of the data, Kohler represents the /b/ in (3.44) as [b] rather than [p], indicating that final devoicing is bled.

(3.44)

(a) /hab + dl -> [ha:ba] -> [ha:vo] 'have11SG1 (b) /hab # If/ -> [ha:bl9] -> [ha:vl9] 'have Γ

All those clitic allomorphs listed in (3.14) which begin with a sonorant are also capable of bleeding final devoicing as shown in (3.45). This example shows the additional effects of the spreading of the feature [+labial]. (3.45) /hab=n/ => [ha:brn] !have him' Here we are faced with facts which require further explanation: [19] has been categorized as a full form yet it appears to behave like a clitic in its bleeding of final devoicing. One way to

71 account for the behavior of [19] is to propose that the clitic form and fbll form are identical except for the fact that the full form is the one which receives stress and the clitic form is the one which does not. This proposal is appealing for two reasons. First, recall that [9] cannot be preceded by a schwa, but rather must be preceded by a front vowel. Second, given the rarity with which the possible clitic form [9] attaches to a host at normal rates of speech, it might well be that the forms [19] and [9] co-exist as clitics. When [19] appears as a full form and receives stress, a glottal stop will be inserted in front of the [I] at which point resyllabification will fail to occur and the now syllable-final [b] of [hab] will undergo devoicing. If the analysis of unstressed [19] as a clitic is correct, we would not expect those full form pronouns which have distinguishable clitic allomorphs to allow the bleeding of final devoicing, since these forms should behave like full forms and do not undergo resyllabification with what precedes them. This prediction turns out to be correct, as shown by the ungrammatically of (3.46a). Furthermore, if this were a general postlexical bleeding of final devoicing, we would expect it to occur when a vowel-initial word follows the verb, at least when an unstressed syllable is involved (as it is in all three examples below). The unacceptability of a [b] or the fricative [v] when the obstruent is underlyingly voiced clearly illustrates that this is not the case, at least at normal rates of speech. In all three examples, the [b] must devoice, yielding the acceptable form [hap]. (3.46)

(a)

/hab#i:n/ => *[ha:bi:n] => *[ha:vi:n] 'have him1

(b)

/hab#ain/ => *[ha:bain] => *[ha:vain] 'have a1

(c)

Ich /hab # amErika/ *[ha:b]/[ha:v] Amerika I have America... Ί have America...'

Hall (1990) proposes a rule of intervocalic voicing to account for forms similar to those in (3.46) as well as for additional forms discussed by Kohler (1977). Hall takes this rule to be optional, which should entail the forms listed in columns I and II in (3.47) being in free variation. Assuming now that unstressed [19] is a clitic, we see below that forms with this clitic and with the clitic [n] behave in the same manner (again the forms with [n] reflect the spreading of the feature [+labial]). Just as forms with [hab] or [hav] are not in free variation with [hap] in (3.46), the forms in columns I and II below are not equally acceptable at normal rates of speech; at these rates of speech only those forms with underlyingly voiced obstruents can surface with voiced obstruents, while those with underlyingly voiceless obstruents cannot. If a postlexical rule of intervocalic voicing were involved, one would not expect such a difference in acceptability between those obstruents which are underlyingly voiced and those which are underlyingly voiceless. This does not mean that no such rule exists; rather, what the above examples indicate is that intervocalic voicing is a P2 rule, dependent either on a faster

72 or more relaxed manner of delivery. The forms in which an underlyingly voiced obstruent does not devoice at a normal rate of speech are simply the product of the bleeding of final devoicing as a result of the resyllabification which occurs between a clitic and its host. (3-47) I

(a) [ha:bm]). The examples in (3.48) are examples of the output of this rule, which is clearly productive as it applies to foreign words such as the one in (3.48c). The rule only applies when focus and determinant are tautosyllabic, accounting for the starred example in (3.48d) where the /n/ of/ni:/ 'never' does not resyllabify to become part of the final mora of /ha:b/. (3.48)

(a) (b) (c) (d)

/ha:.fh/ => [ha:.fm] 'harbor1 /ge:.bn/ => [ge:.bm] 'give' New York/o..pn/ => [o:.pm] "New York Open1 Ich /ha:b # ni:/ => *[ha:p.mi:] Zeit. Ί never have time.1

Because the determinant and focus must be in the same syllable, this results in the postlexical application of the spreading rule only when resyllabification is allowed, i.e. within host-clitic configurations.

3.5. Syntactic distribution of the simple clitics Having discussed the phonological behavior of the simple clitics, we now return to a discussion of the syntactic constraints on cliticization. Recall from section 3.3. that all pronouns in German gravitate to Wackernagel's position, immediately following the finite verb. In this section we will see that there are further differences in the syntactic distribution of full forms and clitics. One of the non-phonological differences between full form pronouns and simple clitics was alluded to in section 3.4.1.: while full form pronouns in all cases move

73

to Wackernagel's position, dative clitics constitute a gap in the paradigm not attributable to phonological reasons. We will see below that the account provided for the dative clitic gaps contributes to explaining the distribution of the simple clitics in general. It should be emphasized that syntactic restrictions on the position of simple clitics will only apply if these weak forms are listed as clitic allomorphs in the lexicon. If these forms were the product of P2 phonological rules, they would only be subject to phonological restrictions. For orthographic ease, from this point on the clitics will be represented as below (the use of orthographic s for [z] is in keeping with German orthographic conventions). (3.49) Clitic Paradigm singular

plural

Ip.

nominative

(ch)

vr

2p.

nominative

de

r

r

se

accusative

n

se

f. nominative

se

se

accusative

se

se

n. nominative

5

se

accusative

5

se

3p. m. nominative

The distribution of simple clitics can be explained by simply stating that the only position in which they can occur is immediately following COMP (i.e. Wackernagel's position). Not only can the finite verb occupy such a position in a matrix clause, but a complementizer can also occupy it in an embedded clause (see example 3.7 in section 3.3.). This position is created by copying the COMP node to which the clitic attaches and adding a clitic position on the right side (termed Chomsky adjunction).

74

(3.50)

das hast=de that have=you 'You have that." Thus both full forms and their clitic counterparts follow whatever is in COMP, as shown in the sentences in (3.51) where in each instance the clitic is blind to what fills COMP, i.e. to what precedes it.26 (3.51)

(a)

Er liebt=se/sie sehr he loves her very Ήβ loves her very much.1

(b)

Ich freue mich, wenn=de/du kommst I please myself, if you come Til be happy if you come.'

(c)

Sag mir, wo=de/du ihn gesehen hast tell me, where you him saw have Tell me where you saw him.'

(d)

Ich will wissen, wieviel=s/es gekostet hat I want to know how much it cost has Ί want to know how much it cost.'

75 (e)

Wissen kann=s/es keiner know can it no one "Nobody knows.1

The final example (3.51e) shows that an object clitic can even precede a fiill NP subject; however this is impermissable if the subject is a pronoun, as shown by the ungrammaticality of (3.52a) for both clitic and full form pronominal objects (recall from section 3.3. that no element can scramble over subject full form pronouns). With the exception of certain parentheticals, the one instance in which something can precede a subject pronoun is when that element is a sentential particle, as in (3.52b). The particle denn appears in its clitic form [n] in this position, and the subject pronoun receives emphatic stress. That a sentential particle in German appears in the same position as the pronominal clitics fits Kaisse's (1985) observation regarding the co-occurrence of sentential and pronominal clitics in what is Wackernagel's position.27 (3.52)

(a)

Gestern hast=*n/*ihn du gesehen, yesterday has him you seen 'You saw him yesterday.'

(b)

Was willst=n du? what want=prt you *What do you want?

Since the position in which a full form object pronoun can appear in the sentence depends to some extent on focus and stress, there is a degree of optionality involved regarding the position in which the full form may appear. That the full forms have much more freedom and do not always gravitate to Wackernagel's position is illustrated in the examples below in which the simple clitics are ungrammatical, but the full forms are not (although focus and stress may in some instances be required).

(3.53)

(a)

following an adverb: Er hat heute=*n/ihn gesehen, he has today him seen Ήβ saw him today.1

(b)

preceding the verb, in topic position: *de/du kannst heute nicht kommen you can today not come 'You can't come today.'

76 (c)

in a conjunction: Ich hab=*n/ihn und sie nicht gesehen. I have him and her not seen Ί haven't seen him or her.1

(d)

as a possessive pronoun. Sie hat=*r/ihr Segel gefunden she has her sail found 'She found her sail.'

(e)

after a parenthetical: Ich wei nicht wohin, um es noch einmal zu sagen, =*de/du jetzt gehen sollst I know not where to, for it still once to say, you now go should Ί don't know where, to repeat, you should go now.'

The example in (3.53a) shows that the full form pronoun may remain in the VP if the pronoun is stressed. This is not possible for the clitics. The next three examples of prohibited cliticizations involve positions in which clitics are universally constrained from appearing (but in which non-focused full forms can appear) as observed by Selkirk (1972, 1984). These prohibitions also apply to the Romance clitics, which are special, rather than simple clitics. According to Selkirk, clitics cannot topicalize, as in (3.53b), they cannot appear in a conjunction, as in (3.53c) and cannot be possessives, as in (3.53d). The impermissibility of this example is particularly striking when one recalls that the same form, ihr, occurs as a subject clitic. We also see above that clitics cannot appear after parentheticals, as in (3.53e). The prohibition against clitics preceding the verb as in (3.53b) in what is assumed in German to be topic position (see section 3.3.2.) might lend itself to a phonological explanation, based on the existence of two pronominal forms found to the left of the verb at normal rates of speech. These are vowelless forms of the pronouns ich and es, as shown in (3 54). Of additional interest is that while the appearance of [9] is rare postverbally, Meinhold (1973) observes its common preverbal occurrence. (354)

(a)

/I9#vais/ => [cvais] es nicht I know it not Ί don't know.'

77 (b)

/Es # re:knat/ => [sre:knöt] gerade it rains now 1 'It's raining now.

(c)

/ES # tu:t/ => [stu:t] nicht it does not 1 'It doesn't work.

Rather than being categorized as clitics, these forms appear to be the product of a P2 rule which deletes sentence-initial short, lax vowels.28 Forms such as the three above which frequently result from the application of this rule involve consonant clusters which are either seldom or never found in the rest of German phonology. According to Kaisse (1985) P2 rules can create such novel sequences. A further reason to suspect that clitics are syntactically rather than phonologically constrained from occurring in this position is that schwa syllables in words which are not clitics can initiate an utterance, but schwa clitics cannot, as shown in (3.55). (3.55)

(a)

[gdnaoA] kann ich dir das nicht sagen more precisely can I you that not tell can't tell you that any more precisely.'

(b)

[göfaldn] hat er mir nicht besonders pleased has he me not particularly 'He didn't particularly please me.'

(c)

*[dafe:Ast] immer zu schnell. you go always too fast 'You always drive too fast.1

Additional instances in which a full form is possible, but a clitic is not are shown in (3.56). As is true for fiill forms preceding the verb, a full form in the examples below is not required to receive stress. (3.56)

(a)

following a full NP subject: Hat das Mädchen=*se/sie gesehen? has the girl her seen

'Did the girl see her?'

78 (b)

following a full NP object in COMP welches Haus=*de/du kaufen sollst, which house you buy should '...which house you should buy.1

(c)

following a preposition: Ich hab etwas fur=* n/ihn hier. I have something for him here have something for him here.' Ich habe mich in=*se/sie verliebt I have myself in her loved fell in love with her.'

What the examples in (3.56) all have in common, including (3.56b) in which the NP is in COMP, is that the clitic follows the head of a lexical projection. In (3.56a) and (3.56b) this is N, the head of the NP, and in (3.56c), this is P, the head of the PP. COMP is the head of a functional projection, and the simple clitics in German attach to not just any head, but to the heads of functional projections. Even though the clitics are blind to what moves into COMP, if a lexical projection moves into COMP, as in example (3.56b), cliticization cannot occur. The analysis that the German clitics attach to heads of functional projections is given in Kayne (1990) who argues that only functional heads qualify as landing sites for clitic adjunction.29 Recall from section 3.4.1. that the absence of dative clitics can be accounted for if we take datives to be dominated by a PP whose head is a lexically empty P. The dative gaps can now be excluded for the additional reason that clitics can only attach to heads of functional projections. Such an analysis still leaves one set of facts unaccounted for; if pronouns are lexical projections (i.e. NPs), then there is no way to account for the permissibility of the following examples: (3.57)

(a)

Ich weiß was ich will und wo ich=s/es bekomme I know what I want and where I=it get know what I want and where to get it.

(b)

Grüß Peter, wenn du=n/ihn siehst.30 greet Peter, when you=him see 'Say hello to Peter when you see him.'

(c)

Wenn dir=s Peter zeigt... if you=it Peter shows 'If Peter shows you it...'

79 There are two possible solutions to the problem these facts present. Clitics typically cliticize to other clitics, and, if the full form pronouns can also be categorized as clitics, as was proposed at the beginning of this chapter, then adjunction of the simple clitics is not blocked. A more desirable solution is to adopt the current analysis of the NP as the functional projection DP (determiner phrase) headed by the functional head DET (determiner). Olsen (1991) argues that the pronouns and full NPs in German are intransitive and transitive DPs, respectively, as shown in (3.55).31 This analysis of pronouns as DPs allows us to maintain the generalization that clitics adjoin to functional heads only. (3.58)

DP

DP

D1 DET

D1 / \ DET NP

l

N1 N er he

der the

Hund dog

There is one final fact regarding clitic attachment which must be accounted for. In the examples in (3.59) the pronoun follows PRO, representing the surface trace of the empty subject of the second verb in both of these sentences. (3.59)

(a)

Ich freue mich PRO=* se/sie zu sehen. I please myself her to see Tm looking forward to seeing her.'

(b)

Das wäre lieb PRO=*n/ihn zu besuchen, that were nice him to visit That would be nice (of you) to visit him.1

It is not clear whether the reflexive pronoun mich and the adjective lieb block cliticization or whether this has to do with the presence of PRO. The blockage of cliticization may have more to do with the fact that the clitic in each instance begins another phrase (which begins with PRO) and hence is not adjacent to COMP.

80 In this section on the syntactic adjunction of clitics we have seen that, while full form pronouns along with clitics exhibit a strong tendency to move into the post-COMP Wackernagel's position, the full forms can generally appear in the same positions in which full NPs appear and they do not necessarily require contrastive or emphatic stress to do so. The only position in which full form pronouns are required to receive such stress is when they remain in the VP. Simple clitics, on the other hand, either immediately follow COMP or are separated from COMP by another functional projection (i.e. DP). If a lexical projection intervenes (i.e. NP) cliticization is blocked.

3.6. The learner's task Based on the preceding five sections, the steps involved in cliticization can be summarized as follows:

(3.60) 1. The clitic is adjoined to COMP, to a host, which has already undergone syllabification and been assigned a metrical structure at the lexical level: COMP / \ COMP clitic hast de have you

2. The clitic allomorph is selected out of a set of forms maximally consisting of single, nonbranching moras; the lightness of these syllables requires them to attach to a host.

81

3. The host-clitic configuration is assigned a metrical structure:

h a s t da

4. The host-clitic configuration undergoes optional phonological rules, resulting in further resyllabification: [hasta] rx> [hassa] => [hasd]

Because the acquisition of cliticization involves several phonological and syntactic factors, there are certain prerequisites which must be met before cliticization can be acquired. First, the language learner must acquire German syllable structure. Because the attachment of the clitic [s] frequently results in syllable codas consisting of two or more consonants, the learner must have a syllable structure in German which allows such codas, and in addition must have acquired the rule of coronal obstruent adjunction which allows [s] to violate the sonority hierarchy in following less sonorous consonants. Finality, the learner must determine that postlexical resyllabification occurs and certain rules apply only within the host-clitic configuration. The learner must also determine that a word consisting of only a single, non-branching mora cannot constitute an independent word in German. There are several clues in the rest of German morphology which might aid the learner in this respect. The similarity of the inflectional suffixes in German to the clitics and the application of coronal obstruent adjunction and schwa epenthesis to both the suffixes and the clitics in German can function as the most revealing clue. If the learner acquires these aspects of German phonology and morphology, she will have no reason to hypothesize that the vowelless clitics are the result of rules of deletion. On the other hand, if the learner perceives the schwas in the inflectional suffixes and in the clitics as the product of rules of reduction, she will fail to acquire the clitics. The language learner must also acquire those aspects of metrical structure necessary for the perception and production of the difference between the configuration host=clitic (a single foot) and a verb followed by a full form pronoun (two feet) The basis for the acquisition of the metrical structure involved in cliticization is rhythmic structure; the weak branch of a foot in German can contain a single, non-branching mora with the reduced vowel schwa, thus constituting a very light syllable. In Chapter 2 reference was made to rhythmic structure, with German given as an example of a language with stress-timed rhythm. The German clitics are a prime example of the types of syllables found in stress-timed languages in that they are

82 unstressed and contain schwa, another reduced central vowel (Λ) or a syllabic sonorant consonant. Rhythmic structure may be the key to acquiring cliticization; if the learner fails to perceive or produce rhythmic structure as it pertains to the clitics, she will fail to perceive and produce the metrical structure involved. If there is failure on both these counts, there will be an additional failure in distinguishing the clitics from the full forms. Failure to acquire these metrical and rhythmic prerequisites could conceivably lead to the hypothesizing of P2 rules of reduction and deletion to derive the weak forms, resulting in the application of these rules wherever the pronouns receive no stress. In such a situation clitics would be allowed in more positions than just immediately following COMP (or another functional head, e.g. DET). Success in meeting the above prerequisites enables the learner to identify the clitics as allomorphs listed in the lexicon and to then comply with the syntactic restrictions on the position of clitics. Compliance with the syntactic restrictions, however, is further dependent on the learner's acquisition of the syntactic structure of German. Consideration of the prerequisites involved in the acquisition of cliticization permits the identification of those aspects of phonology which continue to present difficulties for advanced second language learners. In the process of examining acquisition of the various aspects of cliticization it will also become apparent what sort of problems second language learners encounter in the acquisition of a syntactically constrained phonological process. It would have been premature in Chapter 2 to discuss the relevant research; now that cliticization has been discussed we can do so. In the following chapter we will start by looking at the first language acquisition of the prerequisites of cliticization and of the acquisition of cliticization itself (although there is a dearth of research in this specific area). The second language acquisition of these prerequisites was covered in Chapter 2. A discussion of first language findings allows a deeper understanding of the developmental processes which may be reactivated during second language acquisition. Finally, we will consider the research on the acquisition of syntactically constrained phonological rules for both first and second language learners.

83

Notes to Chapter 3 1. This is related to the general behavior of it as a clitic in English. 2. In c. and d. did is not deleted by the phonology. However, the deletion of did must occur after the palatalization of the /y/ in you has taken place. If the deletion of did occurs before palatalization this produces the following fast and fastest speech variants: [ydi:tjEt]; [i:tJEt]. 3. Meinhold's (1973) description of reduced forms in German and their style· and rate-dependency suggests that something similar is occuring in German. Some of the forms found at formal registers only at fast rates of speech are found in casual speech at normal rates of speech. 4. Abraham (1991) and Tomaselli (1990) are recent accounts of the same topic. I will not refer to them here, as conclusions reached independently here (drawn from Young-Scholten 1991) and these two works generally reflect each other. The reader is directed to Abraham's and Tomaselli's contributions for accounts of facts whose explanation is beyond the scope of the present work. 5. The traditional node labels S and S' are replaced by ΓΡ (inflectional phrase) and CP (complementizer phrase), respectively, in current syntactic theory. INFL is the head of ΓΡ and contains the finite verb and various functions connected to finiteness such as tense and agreement; COMP is the head of CP and either contains complementizers such as ob 'whether' or da 'that' or a raised finite verb. Spec (IP) (specifier of the inflection phrase) is the NP subject node under earlier theories. (It should be noted that there are further elaborations of this theory; see, e.g. Pollock 1989). 6. As it is unclear what analysis will account for the facts concerning when Spec (CP) can remain unfilled, I offer only the unanalyzed facts here. 7. Complicating matters is the fact that, at the same colloquial register in German at which clitics are found, empty subjects and objects are allowed in Spec (CP): e weiss nicht '(I) don't know'. The presence of empty topics in this position does not bear on the analysis of the enclitics or on their acquisition. 8. At least one of the sentential particles (denn) in German has been claimed to have (sentential) clitic status when it appears as its weak form [n] and is found in the same position as the pronominal clitics (cf. Prinz 1987). 9. Prinz (1987) also treats the pronominal clitics in German. 10. Listing as allomorphs clitics whose distribution is syntactically constrained and which cannot be derived via any productive synchronic rules in the phonology is supported in Kaisse (1985). 11. While Scholten's data was from urban speakers of the Ruhr dialect none of the differences between this dialect and Standard German involve pronominal clitics. 12. Although the clitics should be given as their underlying forms, within slanted brackets, representing them in the text as their surface forms facilitates discussion. 13. The full form [Es] es 'it' often exhibits behavior similar to that of the clitic form [$]. Particularly when the non-thematic form es is focused, the demonstrative pronoun [das] (see footnote 30) frequently surfaces. 14. It should be noted that not all P2 rules are dependent on an accelerated rate of speech. However, in distinguishing between clitics and phonologically reduced forms, rate as well as carelessness of speech are useful measures in determining when a form is a clitic when it is the result of low level phonological rules. 15. Neither Prinz nor Wiese (1988) list any dative clitics, yet the facts regarding dative clitics are not completely clear, since Abraham (1991) does include dative clitics. While Meinhold (1973) and Kohler (1977) allow some reduced dative forms comparable to those they list for accusatives, they do not always make distinctions between forms found at normal and fast rates or formal and casual and styles of speech. This accusative-dative distinction is not present in many dialects of German, including Swabian and dialects of Swiss German, which both freely allow dative clitics. If there is a tendency for some Standard German speakers to allow dative clitics, one can characterize this acceptance as a small minority of speakers for whom 16. In Hall (1992), a revision of Hall (1990), moras are no longer assumed for German syllables. However, I P2 forms have begun to creep up the postlexical level towards simple cliticization believe that moras better represent weight, and since one of the most important characteristics of German clitics is their relative weightlessness, I will refer to Hall (1990). Wherever Hall (1990) is mentioned in the text, the reader should also refer to Hall (1992) 17. I am using the term 'word' somewhat loosely to refer to a free morpheme. However, German morphology does not always reflect the fact that the clitics are not free morphemes. In Wiese (1987), from which this example is adapted (Wiese shows the full form preceding the verb), both the verb and full form and verb and clitic are dominated by the same single node, ostensibly the phonological word. The difference between the two representations is that the clitic is not dominated by the foot, while the full form is.

84 18. I will use the term 'configuration1 to refer to the host-clitic configuration rather than the term 'clitic group' since the latter term implies the adoption of Nespor and Vogel's model. 19. That -st and -s are both listed in the lexicon as the second person singular suffix was suggested to me by Richard Wiese. Support for the existence of a Mess allomorph, rather than a general rule of /-deletion for the second person singular suffix, is the occurrence of the /-less forms with a variety of segments following them, and the occurence of Mess forms sentence-finally, as in Ich weiß nicht, was du gemacht has 1 don't know what you did.' 20. The second mora created through the step "weight by position" in the SSA cannot remain when the second /k/ directly attaches to the second syllable node. If it were to remain, the vowel in the first syllable would have to be long. The form [kUkn] is similar to the word bitte [bltd] 'please' in which both syllables contain single, non-branching moras Another way to insure that the second mora dominating [kllk] does not end up dominating the vowel [U] when the suffix is added is to assume that the second [k] is ambisyllabic. 21. Rules of assimilation are currently formalized in terms of the spreading of features, which are arranged geometrically. I refer the reader to Hall (1990) or (1992) for a formalization of this assimilation rule as a feature spreading rule within the framework of feature geometry. Hall calls this rule a fast speech rule; however it should be noted the assimilation clitics undergo is found at normal rates of speech. 22. There also exist forms which occur with the unstressed full form pronouns at fast rates of speech, for example: [hasu] 'have you.' Such reductions of the full form are P2 reductions, similar to those shown for the pronoun ihn in (3. 16). 23. Van Riemsdijk (1988) suggests that Swiss German also has pro-drop in the second person singular. 24. Empty subjects in this position can only occur for second person singular, however the non-thematic subject es can also be empty in German, but under different conditions. 25. Schölten (1988) cites frequent instances of such forms as [habl·;] in her data, where the W has not devoiced. 26. Many of the examples given in this section are taken directly from Prinz (1991) or are slight adaptations of his examples, although analysis of the examples is not from Prinz unless stated. The remainder are sentences transcribed from spontaneous conversations overheard in Bielefeld from 1988-1989 or are sentences taken from national magazine and newspaper texts and advertisements. 27. Prinz (1987) also analyzes this clitic as a sentential clitic. Other sentential particles have been claimed to be clitics (see e.g. Young-Scholten 1983). While the facts regarding the distribution of the weak and strong forms of the other sentential particles are unclear, the distribution of the clitic form of denn with respect to the subject pronoun lends additional support for this element being a sentential clitic. Kohler (1977) further observes that the clitic form of denn always directly follows the verb, while the full form always appears elsewhere. The position of this clitic immediately after the verb is, according to Kohler, found at all registers and at normal rates of speech. 28. This analysis still remains problematic if expressed as a P2 rule since P2 rules refer only to phonological context. The proposed rule of deletion is not as general as a P2 rule should be, as it does not apply in all syllable-initial contexts, for example it does not apply within a word; /EsprEso/ 'espresso' does not become *[sprEso] in German. 29. Zwart (1990) adopts this analysis for Dutch clitics, however, he shows that Dutch object clitics adjoin to INFL rather than COMP, as object clitics in Dutch do not cliticize to complementizers. Such an analysis is not necessary for German, because object clitics do cliticize to COMP. 30. Phonological permutations of the pronoun-clitic sequence du=n are possible, where the subject is a clitic and the object a full form: [din], or when both are clitics: [dn]. Schwa is not normally epenthesized here 31. Olsen's account of DPs in German offers the potential for an additional analysis on the prohibition against clitics in the preverbal topic position. When the pronoun is in the third person singular, use of the subject (der, die and das) and object (den, die and das) demonstrative pronouns are actually preferable to that of even the full form pronouns. Olsen's analysis of the demonstrative pronouns is as t/etransitivized DPs rather than intranstive pronouns confirms that there are syntactic restrictions on what can occur in the topic position.

Chapter 4: The acquisition of cliticization

4.1. Introduction We will begin in section 4.1. with a discussion of the task confronting the child learning German as a first language. An account of how children acquire cliticization is necessary in order to tease apart developmental and transfer factors when analyzing the second language data. From Chapter 2 we have an idea regarding the interplay of universale and transfer with respect to syllable structure, and we have seen which developmental (or universal) factors may be involved independent of the learner's first language background. An understanding of the developmental and universal factors likely to be involved in the acquisition of an L2 phonology in general allows predictions to be made regarding which of the prerequisites to cliticization will present problems. In section 4.2. the research on the acquisition of syllable structure will first be recapitulated and research relating to the additional factors involved in cliticization will be covered. At the end of this section the research bearing on the second language acquisition of cliticization and other syntactically constrained phonological processes will be discussed. It is at this point that language-specific predictions regarding transfer can be offered; this will be undertaken in Chapter 5.

4.2. First language acquisition This section provides an overview of the acquisition of both the phonological and the syntactic prerequisites involved in the first language acquisition of cliticization as well as some discussion of the research which has been carried out on children's acquisition of both cliticization and other syntactically constrained phonological phenomena. If adults have full access to the same domain-specific mechanisms which direct the acquisition of a first language, then the task facing both children and adults is the same when transfer effects are factored out.

4.2.1. The acquisitition of cliticization1 In considering what is involved in the acquisition of cliticization, we need to keep in mind that, even though cliticization is a unified phenomenon, the specific processes involved in the attachment of the individual clitics varies somewhat based on the phonological form of the clitic. In Chapter 3 clitic attachment was treated separately for clitics of three different types. The most productive clitic, [s], was seen to attach directly to the final mora of the host, resulting in a consonant cluster with two or more members. It was shown that attachment of

86 the nasal sonorant clitic [n] to a host frequently results in the formation of a syllable whose peak is a syllabic consonant. Finally, the schwa clitics and clitics with l\l in their underlying representation were shown to appear on the surface as syllables with centralized vowel peaks (either [d] or [Λ]). Because clitics in German never receive stress, the clitics containing vowels (or the clitic [n] when syllabic) constitute unstressed syllables of the sort found in stress-timed languages. Before the learner can attach the clitic [s] to a host, she must acquire a syllable structure which permits syllable final consonant clusters. And before the learner can attach the clitics whose surface forms contain vowels ([dd], [zd], [A] and [VA]) she must acquire stressless syllables containing single, non-branching moras. Finally, in order to attach the clitic [n], the learner must also acquire stressless syllables whose peaks are sonorant consonants. The child's task might be described as consisting of a series of steps which connect the various sub-components of the phonology and other relevant components of the grammar. Given below is a more detailed list of the prerequisites of cliticization than appeared at the close of Chapter 3.

(4.1) phonology 1.

canonical — syllable structure

attachment of clitics must result in a permissible syllable

2.

domain of — syllabification

the domain of syllabification extends to the host-clitic configuration, whereupon tautosyllabic rules may apply

3.

domain of — rules

certain rules apply post lexically only within the host-clitic clitic configuration

4.

metrical structure

a clitic in isolation is ill-formed; clitics with vowels are the weak right branch of a metrical foot

5.

rhythmic structure

—

the weak branch of a metrical foot can contain a syllable of very short duration

morphology 1.

analysis of — the internal structure of complex words

clitics share properties of words and affixes

87 2. allomorphic distribution

—

clitics and full form pronouns are in partial complementary distribution

—

clitics attach to the head of CP (i.e. COMP)

syntax functional projections

The input received by the child contains both füll form and clitic pronouns which must be identified as individual allomorphs by the child. While the full form pronouns may or may not be focused and stressed, the clitic forms will never be focused or stressed. Assuming that all languages mark focus, the marking of focus in language might be thought of as a universal notion which the child does not have to learn. However, the child still has to learn how focus is realized in the specific language she is acquiring. Conversely, the child must also learn how unfocused elements are realized. Languages tend to realize unfocused pronouns as clitics or as phonologically empty elements (e.g. subjects in Italian and Spanish). The child learning German does not have to discover that pronouns may be unfocused, but that the unfocused pronouns in German are realized as clitics rather than phonologically empty elements. The child can figure out that German has clitics based on positive evidence from the input - i.e. if the German input never contained phonologically realized pronouns in certain positions, then the child would conclude that these elements are empty when unfocused.2 If, as is actually the case in German, the child hears clitics in certain positions, she can conclude that unfocused pronouns are realized as clitics in these positions. Since the child learning German does hear clitics in these positions, she will conclude that German realizes unfocused pronouns as clitics.3 The child's ability to identify the clitics in German implicates acquisition in other components of the grammar. The utterances the child hears contain both free and bound morphemes and the child must differentiate between these two categories of morphemes in the stream of speech. Complex words containing several morphemes must be dissected into stems and affixes. It is only after the child can already analyze complex words that she will be able to discover the status of the clitics as affix-like words. Metrical structure further aids the child in determining where word boundaries lie. As lexical elements, stems receive stress, while inflectional suffixes, as functional elements, are normally stressless or weakly stressed. The analysis of the internal morphology of words further entails the properties of German syllable structure discussed in chapter 3. The child must acquire the canonical syllable structure of German to figure out where syllable boundaries are placed. She must further determine the breadth of the application of the syllable structure algorithm given in chapter 3. That is, the child must discover whether syllabification occurs only at the lexical level, or extends past this level, occurring across certain word boundaries. In the process of discovering what the phonemes of German are, the child will discover that schwa is not among them, but rather that it is the default vowel involved in the rules of epenthesis given in Chapter 3. Acquisition of the status of schwa in turn aids the child in

88 epenthesis given in Chapter 3. Acquisition of the status of schwa in turn aids the child in figuring out the morphology of complex words in that the only vowel found in inflectional affixes is schwa. Once the child has analyzed the internal morphology of complex words, she will also be able to identify functional elements, such as agreement suffixes. At this point, functional projections are acquired, enabling the child to apply the syntactic conditions on cliticization.

4.2.2. The Continuity Hypothesis and lexical triggering I have been implicitly assuming that the child is born possessing her entire linguistic capacities (i.e. the principles and open parameters of Universal Grammar). This assumption requires some explication, as there are several conflicting views. There are a number of approaches one can take when maintaining that UG is innate. One approach is that UG is not available in its totality from the start, but rather that the abilities involved in UG unfold over time; presumably this could continue until the end of the critical period. Borer and Wexler (1987) and Felix (1984) maintain this view, known as the Maturational Hypothesis. Under this hypothesis the principles and parameters of UG unfold based on a biologically determined schedule, independent of the input received by the child. A second approach, made explicit in the Continuity Hypothesis, is that UG is available from the start (Pinker 1984). There is disagreement on what is actually available at birth, however. For example Pinker (1984) and Clahsen (1990; 1991) argue that, while UG is available from birth, the acquisition of syntactic structure is triggered by the acquisition of certain functional elements by the child. Under this view, the child need only acquire the morphology of the input language. This is the view I adopt. If we assume that adults are presented with the same opportunity to acquire syntactic structure as children are, i.e. through the acquisition of certain functional elements (cf. Vainikka and Young-Scholten 1991) some interesting predictions can be made. If functional elements are required to trigger the acquisition of functional projections, then the persistent problems adults experience with respect to the acquisition of functional elements (cf. Schachter 1988) should lead to an impaired ability to acquire functional projections. Clahsen and Muysken (1989) see the problem somewhat differently; adults simply are unable to use functional elements as triggers in the same way children can.

4.2.3. The acquisition of metrical and rhythmic structure Although a good amount of research has been carried out on the first language acquisition of German (for recent work see Clahsen 1982, Mills 1986, Tracy 1991) there are no studies which specifically target the acquisition of cliticization. Thus it will be necessary to take an indirect route and examine the research bearing on the acquisition of the prerequisites to cliticization. Moreover, not all the relevant research to be discussed below is drawn from studies of German child language. Rather, some of the findings come from studies of English

89 child language. Since English and German are similar in the relevant areas, these findings can be applied to the acquisition of German. A good deal has been written about the first language acquisition of syllables. As was mentioned in Chapter 2, children exhibit a strong preference for CV syllables (see, for example Macken and Ferguson 1987). Connected to this preference is consonant cluster simplification, a well-attested process in early child phonology. Unlike the variety of simplification strategies which second language learning adults adopt in order to bring the syllable into CV shape, children almost unanimously prefer deletion of one or more consonants over epenthesis (Moskowitz 1970). Based on the attested simplification of consonant clusters, we would expect young children learning German to have difficulty with host-clitic configurations terminating in the clitic [s], since these configurations usually involve consonant clusters. We would, on the other hand, expect the child to have few problems with the clitics ending in schwa, since these clitics constitute the CV syllables children prefer. However, research on children learning English shows that unstressed syllables of the type represented by the schwa clitics emerge relatively late. The solution to this apparent problem is to adopt Noske's (1992) proposal that it is the CVC syllable with either a final consonant, long vowel or diphthong, rather than the CV syllable with a short vowel, which can be unmarked in some languages. If children prefer CVC syllables over CV syllables, then a schwa clitic, as a CV syllable consisting of a single, non-branching mora, is ruled out. As we saw in the preceding chapter, these CV syllables are unstressed. What is it specifically that the child must learn in acquiring unstressed syllables? Syllables are not unstressed in isolation, but rather their lack of stress is relative in comparison to stressed syllables. As mentioned in Chapter 2 the realization of such unstressed syllables involves both metrical structure whereby syllables may be dominated by a non-branching or a branching foot. The word gymnast was given as an illustration of two feet, involving primary and secondary stress on the first and second syllables, respectively. The word modest was given as an illustration of a binary, branching foot with primary stress on the first syllable and none on the second. What I have termed rhythmic structure involves the realization of vowels in stressed and unstressed syllables. Under stress-timed rhythm, as in English and in German, the vowel in an unstressed syllable is represented as a lax, centralized vowel such as schwa or as a syllabic sonorant consonant. In a syllable-timed language such as Spanish, vowels receiving no stress do not undergo such a shift in quality. The available research reveals that children have initial problems with both metrical and rhythmic structure. The speech of very young children learning English was investigated by Allen and Hawkins (1980) who determined that unstressed syllables of the type found in modest did not appear in early child language. Unstressed syllables were typically omitted altogether by the children, with a preference for the omission of initial over final syllables. We can interpret as further evidence for the late appearance of syllables with schwa the child's non-use of epenthesis as a syllable simplification strategy (discussed in Weinberger 1988). Even those rare cases of schwa epenthesis Weinberger cites do not occur at the initial stages of acquisition, but past the age of 21 months An interesting study of English speaking children which Weinberger discusses in relation to epenethesis is one by Stoel-Gammon and

90 Dale (1988). These researchers showed that children categorized as early talkers (based on their size of lexicon, length of utterances and phonetic inventory) exhibited a much higher rate of epenthesis than normal in simplifying syllable structure when they were tested at the age of 20 months. Weinberger suggests that these children have acquired all English syllable types at this point. Adding to Weinberger's own observations, it seems that these children must have also acquired the metrical and rhythmic structure of English in that they allow weak syllables with epenthetic schwas. Their acquisition of metrical and rhythmic structure would in turn enable them to analyze the morphological structure of words (to be discussed below) and naturally lead to the larger vocabulary which they possess. Allen and Hawkins further showed that children's early polysyllabic utterances continued to exhibit a high frequency of unreduced vowels throughout most stages of acquisition, which is indicative of their non-acquisition of the complete metrical and rhythmic structure of English. In fact, it was generally not until age four to five that the children's phonology exhibited a greater frequency of reduced vowels, signifying that their metrical and rhythmic structure was approaching that of adult English. However, there was much variability in the data cited by Allen and Hawkins; some children started to modify their metrical and rhythmic structure to include unstressed syllables with reduced vowels as young as age two (presumably the early talkers Stoel-Gammon and Dale studied), while some children did not start to do so until age four. When children finally start uttering unstressed syllables, the vowels contained in them are the schwas typical of such syllables in English. English speaking children do not seem to differentiate between the non-reduction of vowels in function words and in lexical items. Allen and Hawkins found no pattern for the nonreduction of unstressed syllables based on type of item. This finding is confirmed by Wanner and Gleitman (1982), who observe that all unstressed elements and syllables are candidates for deletion regardless of the type of element in which these syllables are located.4 Since stress is relative, it is not suprisingly that in the early stages of acquisition children appear not to have mastered stressed syllables either. Allen and Hawkins also showed that English speaking children under three years of age pay no attention whatsoever to stress in their speech production. Regarding the perception of stress Atkinson-King (1973) found that five-year old English speaking children were very inconsistent in differentiating NPs such as black bird from compound nouns such as blackbird on the basis of stress placement. It was only by age 12 that her test subjects both perceived and produced stress in a fully adult manner. Based on Allen and Hawkins' findings and those of the other researchers mentioned above, we can propose that children start out with a simple metrical structure consisting only of nonbranching feet. Such a structure would permit words with the stress pattern of gymnast, in which only two degrees are realized. Research by Klein (1984) suggests that children's earliest metrical structure may be even simpler than this. In Klein's study, 63% of the words consisting of more than one syllable produced by children between the ages of 21.1 months and 22.2 months exemplified a pattern of level stress typical of the reduplications such as [ma. ma] 'mama' common in early child language. Klein's data contained examples such as [bo.kin] "broken1 with level stress, where a syllable unstressed in adult English had received stress equal to that of primary stress.

91 The children farther showed evidence of a more elaborated metrical structure when closed syllables were involved. In those cases in which the children did not produce a word with level stress, it was because the word produced by the child contained a syllable terminating in a consonant. Such syllables were then assigned additional stress by the child due to their relative heaviness. Based on these results we might propose that the acquisition of the syllable type containing a final consonant acts as a trigger for the acquisition of metrical structure. This is when the child first starts to consistently differentiate primary and secondary stress in a language such as English in which the assignment of stress is quantity-sensitive. Based on the research detailed above, children can be said to start out with a rhythmic structure simpler than that which exists in adult English. This rhythmic structure is one which is typical of syllable-timed languages. The distinction between primary and secondary stress only leads to the acquisition of a metrical structure which yields gymnast, but not modest. The child must still acquire unstressed syllables containing schwa. Eventually children do discover the further metrical facts of English: that feet can be bisyllabic and branch, and the further rhythmic facts: that a vowel in a syllable dominated by the weak branch of foot tends to be a schwa. It is at this point that children begin to produce words with the metrical structure and rhythmic structure of the word modest. A syllable-timed rhythm might be considered the default setting of a rhythmic parameter whose other setting is stress-timing. Starting from the default setting, children would then require only positive evidence to set the parameter for stress-timing. The amount of research carried out on German children's acquisition of metrical and rhythmic structure does not permit us to offer as comprehensive a picture as for English children. It is clear that this is an area which would benefit from investigation, as the available data from German children suggest that, unlike their English speaking counterparts, they produce syllables with schwa from the start. For example, studies of German child language typically show that the first verbs German children utter at the two-word stage include forms with an-en or -e suffix (with schwa vowels). Their first nouns, such as Katze 'cat' and Decke "blanket* also contain schwas. Tracy's (1991) data include the following examples illustrating that German children produce syllables with schwas very early (all but the vowels in question are represented orthographically).

(4.2) (a)

(b)

da z[a] (Stephanie 1;8) there she da sitztfa] (Stephanie 1; 10) there sits (she/you?)

What the interpretation of the sentence in (4.2b) should be is not clear. The form may be completely unanalyzed, or the schwa may even be a type of agreement suffix at this early stage. A closer analysis of the data is required to definitively sort out these facts. The

92 syllables in both examples might also be interpreted as clitics; however, we will see below that these forms are not yet analyzed as clitics at this stage by the children. If starting out with non-branching feet and a syllable-timed rhythm is a (presumably universal) developmental stage in acquisition, then we would also expect the German children, like their English speaking counterparts, to delete syllables containing schwa. Such deletion processes are also common among German children, for example [nata] or [natd] for the name Renate. This is in correspondence with English speaking children's production of [nana] for banana. Those schwas occurring in grammatical morphemes and names which are less frequently omitted by the children tend to be word-final, as seen in the examples in (4.2) above. It could be that children's general preference for CV syllables (as opposed to VC syllables) overrides their tendency to delete unstressed vowels; if children were to omit just the schwas in such words, they then would produce more marked consonant-final syllables. Furthermore, it may be the case that the schwas produced by German children are not completely stressless at the early stages of acquisition.5 Connected with the acquisition of syllable and metrical structure is the observation that children take time in determining where word boundaries fall. One would not expect children to get the word boundaries right until syllables are no longer simplified. Stemberger's (1988) data from his daughter support such a connection. Under the age of three his daughter resyllabified thei final consonants of one word into the following word, indicating that she had not yet determined the placement of word boundaries as boundaries for syllabification. At this stage she had also not acquired the canonical syllable structure of English, as shown by her deletion of final consonants. The late acquisition of metrical and rhythmic structure hinders the child's analysis of the internal morphological structure of complex words. Wanner and Gleitman (1982) offer evidence that children recognize word boundaries based on stress. According to these authors, in a stress-timed language such as English, children's recognition of words is based on acoustic salience involving longer duration, higher fundamental frequency and higher intensity of stressed elements. Wanner and Gleitman claim that the stressed syllable "is available to the child as a bootstrap into the morphological scheme of the language." (1982:24) One can add that the distribution of unstressed syllables, i.e. the further acquisition of metrical and rhythmic structure, also acts as a bootstrap into the morphology. In German the syllables containing schwas most probably act as exactly this sort of bootstrap, since syllables with schwas are most commonly inflectional morphemes. The acquisition of cliticization requires that the child differentiate focused and unfocused elements in a sentence. Yet how can the child perceive how focused elements are marked in the sentence until she acquires metrical structure? Findings from Cutler and Swinney (1980) indicate that the acquisition of metrical structure is indeed a prerequisite to the acquisition of focus marking. Cutler and Swinney found that English speaking four year-olds did not yet correctly perceive focused elements, although they were able to correctly produce stressed, focused elements. It was not until the age of six that the children in their study had completely acquired the marking of focus in English. The acquisition of some phenomena (cliticization included) demands that the child not just recognize where word boundaries fall and how focus is marked, but also that the child obey

93 the syntactic constraints on the application of rules across word boundaries. This process also appears to be a lengthy one. In their study on the acquisition of Greek, Drachman and Malikouti-Drachman (1973) showed that some of the children continued to produce errors in segmental-based external sandhi up to the age of nine. The data on the acquisition of syntactically conditioned phonological phenomena are not straightforward, however. Grain and Thornton's (1988) study of children's acquisition of the contraction wanna 'want to' suggests that a unified account of such phenomena is probably not possible without taking language specific factors involving both syntax and phonology into account. Grain and Thornton's data revealed that children whose average age was 4.3 produced the contracted wanna form 59% of the time and, more importantly, always obeyed the syntactic constraints involved. These constraints prohibit contraction when the subject who is extracted from an embedded clause as in: Who do you want to/*wanna tie your shoe?

4.2.4. The acquisition of cliticization Based on the above discussion, what course would we expect the child to follow in her acquisition of cliticization in German? If the child has difficulty in the perception and production of syllable boundaries and in the analysis of complex words, then we might expect the host=clitic configuration to be acquired first as an unanalyzed chunk. This is, in fact, what occurs roughly between the ages of two and three, as the example in (4.3) shows. That the sentence is not to be interpreted as 'you are called Hugo' is supported both by the context in which it was uttered (the child was speaking about Hugo, a stuffed toy rabbit, to the experimenter) and by the fact that the child had neither productively acquired the second person singular agreement suffix -si nor the second person singular pronoun du at age 2;8. (The clitic and other elements are orthographically represented.) (4.3)

Hugo heißt-du Hugo call-you '(He) is called Hugo.1

Clahsen's (1986) research shows that the stage which German children next enter is one where the clitics are analyzed as agreement suffixes, as shown by the examples in (4.4a) and (4.4b).6 At this stage, the noun and the pronominal copy agree in person and number. While it may be that children confuse clitics with suffixes since the distribution of segments found in clitics and suffixes is similar, Tracy's examples below (Tracy 1987, 1991) in (4.4c) and (4.4d) show that children are unsure about what can constitute a clitic at this stage. It is also quite likely they are also unsure about what constitutes an inflectional suffix. Tracy remarks that the contractions (i.e. the host-clitic configurations) frequent in spoken German result in these pronominals being analyzed as bound morphemes for the children.

94 (4.4)

(a)

Fels noch nich iser putt. rock yet not is-he broken The rock isn't broken yet.'

(b)

Daniel tuter immer. Daniel does-he always 'Daniel always does (that).1

(c)

Ich [bin?] groß. I am-I big. Tm big.'

(d)

Frau Tracy sitsi aufh Auto. Ms. Tracy sits-she on-the/a car 'Ms. Tracy is sitting on the car.1

These data give rise to the question concerning what the forms which are copied consist of. Are these copied forms full form pronouns or clitics? Since the examples cited are not given in narrow phonetic transcription in the original data, there is no way to ascertain exactly how reduced some of the forms uttered by the child were. Tracy's data indicate that the forms were either clitics or reduced, while Clahsen's examples indicate the full forms were uttered. However, for the example in (4.3), the recording from which the example was taken reveals that the vowel in the pronoun was not a schwa. This fact brings up an interesting point relating to the status of clitics in Wackernagel's position and simple clitics. Note that all the examples of pronominal copies above are of subjects rather than objects; in fact no data known to me involve pronominal copying of objects at the same developmental stage at which the copying of pronominal subjects occurs.7 The children's treatment of the subject full form pronouns illustrates that children are aware from the start that subject pronouns in German must directly follow the finite verb (or COMP). The absence of the involvement of full form objects suggests that full form subjects and full form objects do not share an equal status with respect to cliticization, at least following COMP. Further research and analysis are needed to resolve this issue adequately. Pronominal copying with objects, at least with //, does occur in child English, as illustrated in (4.5) with data from Wanner and Gleitman (1982). It is most likely the case that this copying occurs at a stage later than the one at which prononominal subject copying occurs in early German. Wanner and Gleitman observe that pronominal copying occurs when children learning English first start to produce unstressed syllables, explaining this as "misanalysis of clitic pronouns as the unstressed syllables of preceding words." (1982:18) (4.5)

(a) (b)

read-it a book Mommie have-it a cookie

95 As stated above, German children appear to analyze the clitics as agreement suffixes at a certain stage in their development. Clahsen (1988) suggests that the agreement suffixes and clitic pronouns together form part of an undifferentiated inflectional element on the verb which is then gradually split into morphosyntactic categories. At this stage children have not yet acquired subject-verb agreement productively. According to Clahsen, once the children have completely acquired the German agreement paradigm and correctly mark subject-verb agreement, pronominal copying ceases (at about age three). For children to reach the stage at which they analyze the suffixes as agreement markers and the clitics as something else (i.e. not suffixes), they must be able to analyze the complex internal morphology of the verb stem + suffix. Upon reaching this stage, the children no longer analyze the pronominal clitics as suffixes, as illustrated by the absence of any pronominal (subject) copying. However, the question of whether the clitics are then immediately classified by children as allomorphs to the full form pronouns remains open. One can tentatively conclude from research on the acquisition of free and bound morphemes that when pronouns appear productively, the clitic allomorphs are not available for a time. Wode (1978) observes for German and English that children produce the free variants (full forms) of an element first and later produce clitics.8 Scholten's (1988) study of the comparative production of clitics by German children in their first and ninth years of school supports the proposal that clitics are productively acquired at an older age. In her data the average frequency of cliticization for first graders was 75% and for ninth graders ranged from 87% to nearly 100% in informal situations.9 The acquisition of clitics in French does not appear to occur any earlier than the acquisition of clitics in German for children. Weissenborn, Kail and Friederici (1990) show that, although children learning French produce some object clitics from the two-word stage of acquisition onwards, they do not completely acquire cliticization until age six. The acquisition of cliticization requires that children acquire a considerable portion of their phonology and morphology and syntax and children take several years to acquire the syllable, metrical and rhythmic structure, to analyze the internal morphology of complex words, and to acquire the syntactic structure of their language. One would thus expect cliticization to be acquired at a later stage of development in all languages in which it occurs. Before concluding our discussion on the acquisition of pronominal cliticization by children, we shall take a closer look at the acquisition of pronouns in connection with the acquisition of syntax. It is well-attested that children's early speech contains few function words as well as few unstressed/weakly stressed elements (or syllables). Children also frequently omit subjects at the early stages of acquisition, indicating (among other things) that they first assume unfocused elements are empty. Of course, based on the above discussion it is apparent that children at the early stages of acquisition would not have acquired enough metrical structure to know how focused and unfocused elements are realized, and thus it cannot be claimed that children actually realize lack of focus via empty subjects. Moreoever, children at the early stages of language development may not yet have even acquired all the pronouns; this stage children often use proper names instead of first, second and third person pronouns. Once German children acquire subject-verb agreement, the frequency of empty subjects decreases, as shown in a study by Clahsen (1988). In his study, when agreement was acquired

96 by the children, the proportion of empty subjects declined from 40% to between 10% and 20%. At the same time, the finite verb appeared much more often in the second position (from 40%, increasing to 90%) indicating that the children's syntactic structure had undergone a change. It is when children acquire subject-verb agreement and their syntax undergoes a change, that pronominal copying ceases. If the pronominal clitics which were analyzed as suffixes do not reappear as clitics after they have lost their affix status, and the children also no longer allow empty subjects, then we could surmise that children do not mark lack of focus on pronouns at all at this stage. The research on English by Cutler and Swinney referred to previously suggests that German children may also fail to mark focus at the stage at which they consistently place the finite verb in second position (roughly age three), as the marking of focus did not appear to be acquired until age six by the English speaking children. It is unlikely that German children at age three have completely acquired the metrical and rhythmic structure necessary for the realization of cliticization. Thus we would not expect the clitics to be acquired at this point, but only the full forms. Given below is a simplified account (with only two stages) of how acquisition of the various prerequisites to cliticization proceeds in a parallel manner in several components of the grammar.10

(4.6) syllable structure

metrical structure

rhythmic structure

morphology

syntax

open CV syllables

nonbranching feet

syllabletimed

complex words unanalyzed

lexical

heavy and light syllables

branching feet

stress-timed

morphemes differentiated

functional projections

projections

At the start, children have primarily open CV syllables, metrical trees without branching feet and a syllable-timed rhythm. Children slowly begin to produce more complex syllable types, enabling them to differentiate heavy and light syllables. The recognition of syllable weight further allows the children to realize the relationship of unstressed syllables to stressed syllables, to add branches to their metrical trees and to acquire a stress-timed rhythm where the vowel quality in stressed and unstressed syllables differs. At this point the children use their emerging metrical and rhythmic structure as a key to the morphology of German, whereby they are able to separate affixes from stems. Evidence suggests that when subject pronouns (most probably both clitics and full forms) follow the finite verb they are first classified as affixes. Finally, the paradigm containing those agreement suffixes on the finite verb (preceding the clitics) is acquired and the clitics cease to be classified as agreement suffixes.

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The various findings discussed above suggest that cliticization is not acquired productively until after full form pronouns have become productive and after the child has acquired both the metrical structure of German, with binary branching feet and the rhythmic structure of German, with unstressed syllables which contain reduced vowels. The complete acquisition of metrical and rhythmic structure further enables the child to realize focus on pronouns through sentential stress and lack of focus through cliticization. The relevant syntactic projections will have been acquired prior to this point (according to Clahsen 1988, they are acquired not long after the child acquires the agreement paradigm) and the child automatically applies the relevant syntactic constraints, placing the clitics in the correct syntactic position.11

4.3. The L2 acquisition of cliticization In the preceding section we concluded that the acquisition of cliticization by children is late. We would therefore be surprised if cliticization were not also acquired late by adults learning German as a second language (unless positive transfer from their native language gives them an advantage.) In Chapter 2 the research bearing on the acquisition of prosodic structure and syntactic structure was discussed. While we saw that much of the research in phonology is involved with the prediction of transfer and does not specifically address the question of complete acquisition, it was shown that adults do experience persistent problems. It was further suggested in the discussion on recent research that adults experience persistent problems in areas other than phonology. For example, adults appear to be able to attain a very high level of proficiency in their acquisition of syntax, yet because their syntactic acquisition may differ in fundamental ways from that of children, ultimate acquisition may well be hampered for this component, too. Conversely, the morpheme order studies of the 1970s referred to in Chapter 2 indicate that adults acquire morphology in the same way as children do. If adults do, in fact, fail to acquire completely some phenomena in other components or subcomponents of the grammar, this could well involve the prerequisites to cliticization, resulting in the failure to acquire cliticization. If any part of the prerequisite puzzle is missing, cliticization will not be acquired. For example, if the learner has not acquired the complex syllable types found in German, then she will be unable to syllabify the vowelless clitics with their hosts. Or, if the learner has not acquired the functional projection CP, this will render syntactic conditions inaccessible. Second language acquisition research pertaining to the areas involved in cliticization can give us an idea of what we can expect from adults in their acquisition of the prerequisites of cliticization and ultimately of cliticization. The following section begins with a brief recapitulation of the findings on the acquisition of syllable structure which were detailed in Chapter 2, followed by an examination of two areas directly relevant to cliticization, that of the acquisition of pronouns and of the acquisition of other postlexical phenomena. However, before we look at the research on L2 phonology, let us consider what we mean when we say the second language learner has acquired cliticization.

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4.3.1. Measuring acquisition Although the question of whether cliticization is acquired earlier than is obvious through observation of production was not addressed in the preceding section, there is enough evidence to make the simple assertion that cliticization is acquired relatively late by first language learners. Since we will be evaluating experimental data in the following chapter, the phrase "acquisition of cliticization" must be more rigorously defined. What does it mean to say that the learner has "acquired cliticization?" This does not just mean that the learner simply comprehends sentences which contain clitics, nor does it mean that the learner perceives the clitics as different from full forms. Although the acquisition of cliticization crucially depends on both the comprehension and perception of clitics, complete acquisition also entails production of the correct clitic forms in the appropriate positions. Acquisition can, of course, be impeded by lack of comprehension or perception of the clitics, based on developmental and/or transfer factors. While transfer from the learner's first language is generally thought of as playing a role in the learner's output, transfer also influences the input the learner takes in. There is a discrepancy between the acoustic signals which reach the learner as input and the intake the learner (unconsciously) attends to which is the result of the filtering action of the learner's LI competence. Commenting on the discrepancy between input and intake in second language acquisition, Liceras (1985) states that the mechanisms which intervene at the level of intake are previous linguistic knowledge, metalinguistic abilites and some aspects of UG. Major (1987a) addresses this topic with respect to the acquisition of metrical structure, observing that the failure to achieve native-like pronunciation in a second language may be due to both production and perception. The determination of the learner's intake by transfer from the first language suggests, for example, that speakers of Chinese who do not produce final consonant clusters may not be perceiving them (in the sense of intake). At this point, we need to examine more closely the relationship between competence and performance as well as between comprehension and production. Research in first as well as second language acquisition supports the claim that comprehension precedes production.12 Moreover, generative linguistics draws an important distinction between competence and performance, whereby the aim is to explain the speaker's competence, not performance. Just as comprehension underlies production, competence underlies performance. Does this distinction aid us in assessing the learner's level of phonological acquisition? Is the measurement of production (i.e. performance) a valid method by which to assess phonological competence? Second language researchers, particularly in the past decade, have taken the distinction between competence and performance to be a crucial one and in investigating the acquisition of syntax have attempted to measure learners' competence through the use of grammaticality judgement tasks, rather than the use of production data. In L2 syntax it has long been observed that one reason learners' performance does not accurately mirror their competence is due to the opportunities the learner has for avoiding syntactic constructions which may not have been acquired (cf. Schachter 1974). For example, if a learner has not acquired the

99 passive, she can easily opt to produce sentences in the active. However, if a learner does not produce any sentences in the passive, we cannot make any claims regarding her acquisition of the passive until we devise an experiment to assess her competence. Second language phonologists have felt less compelled to seek methods similar to those used by L2 syntacticians to assess phonological competence, although comprehension tasks have been used in recognition of the purported precedence of comprehension over production. The main reason for not attempting to use grammaticality judgement tasks in phonology is that it is nearly impossible for the learner to consistently avoid attempting difficult structures. Any attempts by a learner who successfully avoids passive to also avoid final consonant clusters can only succeed in those isolated cases where synonyms with simpler syllable structures exist for the target word. The near impossibility of avoidance eases the L2 phonologist's task of assessing the learner's competence through an analysis of production data. Note, however, that for higher-level phonological phenomena learners have more opportunities for avoidance. This is a possibility with respect to intonation (cf. Cruz-Ferreira 1987), and also with respect to cliticization. For example, learners may produce structures which are not ill-formed, but do not conform to what they intended. Until one is aware of the discourse context, it is impossible to definitively state whether the learner's output matches her intentions. It is as apparent in phonology as it is in syntax that performance lags behind competence. Young children commonly attempt to correct adults when adults imitate their pronunciations, but are unsuccessful, as the following hypothetic exchange illustrates:

(4.7)

adult: Can you say my name? 'Martha', child: [mafö] adult: [mafö]? child: No! [mafd]! adult: [marod]? child: Yeah! [mafd]

Whether a learner comprehends phonological structures does not tell us much about their complete competence; clearly the child in (4.7) has understood the target in the input. The child's recognition of what the target should be does tell us more, even though she cannot yet match it. However, there is no reason to believe that the child is always able to discern the discrepancy between the input and her own output, at least not until close to the point at which acquires the target structure. The child's observed failure to bring her output into conformity with the acoustic input is attributable to the filtering effect of competence on input, as discussed above. Second language learners do not differ in this respect. One only has to recall the anecdote about the angry traveler who is quite convinced he pronounced the name of the French village in precisely the same way as did the French shopkeeper (after he was finally able to decipher and repeat the traveler's deviant pronunciation). Neufeld (1988) has argued on the basis of L2 learners' ability to distinguish native and nonnative accents in the target language quite early in their acquisition that learners' phonological competence in their L2 exceeds what they are able to produce. It is not immediately obvious

100

what effect this ability has on the acquisition of the target language phonology. Moreover, it is not clear whether the discrepancy between the L2 learner's competence and what the learner produces is any greater than what it is for children learning their first language. If it could be unequivocally demonstrated that there is a consistently greater gap between the L2 learner's underlying phonological competence and what is produced, then the matter of why such a gap exists would certainly demand an explanation. Yet it is doubtful that a gap of the magnitude which would necessite such an explanation even exists in the first place. The discussion in the above paragraph indicates that what learners produce can generally be analyzed to reveal their L2 phonological competence. Even if a large gap were found to exist between the learner's competence and what she produces, additional evidence indicates that such a gap could not be accounted for under an approach which attributes lack of acquisition to loss of motoric function. The study referred to in Chapter 2 carried out by Neufeld (1977) demonstrated that adults can acquire the phonology of a second language under laboratory conditions, which in turn suggests that the problems typically encountered under normal conditions must not be of a purely motoric nature. Since one rarely encounters adult learners who have completely acquired the phonology of a second language under normal conditions, one is forced to conclude that adults are simply unable to process phonological input in a second language as well as children are. In measuring the adult learner's competence with respect to cliticization, we do need to keep in mind the likelihood that the adult learner will not only comprehend sentences with clitics, but also perceive the difference between clitics and full forms before she produces the the clitics. Thus the learner's competence may well supercede what is actually produced. Yet if even those second language learners who have received sufficient input and are considered to be advanced have failed to reach the stage at which they produce clitics, we cannot claim they have acquired cliticization. A matter of serious concern is absence of clitics in the classroom input learners receive. One can surmise that learners in foreign language classrooms receive input which contains only those clitic forms present in formal registers since foreign language teachers often teach in such a register. A dearth of clitics in the input quite obviously blocks the acquisition of cliticization and may even have a lasting impedimentary effect on the further acquistion of cliticization once learners are exposed to naturalistic input, i.e. outside the classroom (see Young-Scholten 1992b). It is interesting to note that the register in which foreign language teachers frequently speak to learners (or which native speakers use with foreigners) is comparable to the register in which caretakers speak to children (Ferguson 1975). One of the characteristics of caretakerese is the absence of reduced forms (Snow 1972). In attempting to show that simplified input does not have a teaching function, i.e. that there is no causal link between input in caretakerese and the child's acquisition, psycholinguists argue that such simplified input would actually make the child's task of acquiring syntax more difficult. One could suggest that this is also the case in phonology; the fact that children take until age four or five to fully acquire metrical and rhythmic structure might be seen as the byproduct of such overly simplified input. The claim that caretakerese impedes the child's progress has not taken seriously with respect to the acquisition of syntax and there is no reason to think that the paucity of reduced syllables in caretakerese impedes the child's

101 acquisition of prosodic structure since children presumably receive enough "normal" input from older siblings and playmates. For adults learning a second language in a classroom, the situation is different since they are typically dependent on their teacher and on commercial materials - which are often recorded in the same, overly formal register - to provide input and thus may never be exposed to reduced forms until they enter a naturalistic setting by visiting the country in which the language is spoken. Nonetheless, it is doubtful that lack of initial exposure to weak forms can completely account for lack of acquisition of these forms. Now that we have clarified what we mean by the acquisition of cliticization and the type of data which can be used to measure phonological acquisition, we can return to the consideration of the prerequisites involved in the L2 acquisition of cliticization.

4.3.2. The L2 acquisition of prosodic structure As we saw in Chapter 2, much has been written in the past decade about the learner's transfer of canonical syllable structure, the learner's universal preference for a simple syllable type (CV or CVC) and on the instantiation of universal principles such as those pertaining to the relative sonority of vowels and various consonants within the syllable. However, there has been little research which directly addresses the specific questions we have posed in regard to the acquisition of simple cliticization. These questions can only be answered indirectly. We know from a number of studies that adults simplify consonant clusters either by deleting consonants or adding an epenthetic vowel (see references in Chapter 2). Syllable simplification by L2 learners appears not to be based solely on the canonical syllable structure of the learner's LI, but also on a developmental preference for CV/CVC syllables. The finding that adults experience developmental problems with complex syllables independently of their native language is important in addressing the acquisition of cliticization, since cliticization results in the formation of clusters with two or more members (when the clitic [s] is attached to a host.) Inasmuch as syllable structure algorithms like the one given for German in Chapter 3 are based on universal principles of syllabification, it is to be expected that adult learners will retain access to these principles if they retain access to the phonological principles of Universal Grammar. This assumption leads to the prediction that adults will follow developmental stages similar to those children follow, and, like children, will eventually acquire the target language syllable structure. What is of interest here is whether there is a difference regarding persistence of error between the developmental syllable simplification processes exhibited by children and by adult L2 learners, and syllable repair strategies based on the learner's native language. For example, if both a Korean speaker (whose LI has a rule of epenthesis) and a Chinese speaker (whose LI has no such rule) employ epenthesis to break up final consonant clusters in English, will only the Korean speaker's transferred rule of epenthesis fossilize? If only the Korean's rule fossilizes, this suggests a causal relationship between transfer and fossilization.

102

Another aspect of the acquisition of syllable structure involves the domain in which resyllabification can occur. As we saw in Chapter 3, resyllabification occurs in German within the word and within the clitic group. Thus rules which apply tautosyllabically within the word in German can also apply within the clitic group when resyllabification alters the syllable structure of the host-clitic configuration. The second language learner must acquire the clitic group as the domain of resyllabification in German. Research discussed in Chapter 2 suggests that learners do transfer their domain of resyllabification. Young-Scholten's (1992a) study showed that the clitic group as domain of resyllabification is transferred by German learners of English. Learners also appear to transfer the type of resyllabification found in their LI. Broselow's (1988) research pointed to problems on the part of English speakers acquiring the full resyllabification of Arabic, while Vogel's (1991) data revealed transfer of full resyllabification from Italian to English. In Chapter 2 it was proposed that the full resyllabification of Arabic and Italian and the ambisyllabic resyllabification of English might constitute a superset and subset, respectively. If this is correct, one would expect children to start with the subset setting as the default parameter setting. However, the data from Stemberger referred to in section 4.1.3. brings this analysis into question, pointing to full resyllabification as the default setting, since this is how his daughter started out when learning English. While the study by Young-Scholten (1992a) investigated the acquisition of a larger domain of resyllabification by speakers of a language with a more restricted domain (German LI/English L2), there are no studies involving the acquisition of a more restricted domain of resyllabification by speakers of a language in which the domain of resyllabificiation is larger. The acquisition of German cliticization by speakers of English would present such a situation. Fortunately we will have the opportunity to examine the effects of such a situation in Chapter 5, as one of the groups from which data was collected on the second language acquisition of cliticization was English-speaking. Also discussed in Chapter 2 were Broselow's (1988) findings that constraints on the minimal heaviness of the phonological word in the learner's LI transfer. The implications for the acquisition of cliticization are that the second language learner must figure out what the minimal word in German is before she will be able to perceive the affix-like qualities of the clitics. That is, the second language learner must realize that clitics cannot constitute a word in isolation, but must be syllabified with a host. It is to be expected that if the constraints on the minimal word differ in the learner's native language and the target language, transfer will occur, thus hampering the acquisition of cliticization. The acquisition of clitics other than [s] involves metrical and rhythmic structure. While the clitic [s] attaches to a mora and thus fails to create additional metrical structure, the attachment of clitics with vowels and with syllabic consonants results in the creation of a metrical structure consisting of a foot whose right branch is weak. This weak branch is a syllable containing a schwa, a [d] or a syllabic consonant - all unstressed syllables of short duration. The discussion in Chapter 2 suggests that learners transfer their native language metrical structures. Archibald (1992, in press) cites evidence of transfer of metrical parameters from Polish and Spanish speakers learning English. Broselow (1988) cites similar evidence of transfer of metrical structure from English speakers learning Arabic.

103 That developmental processes also play a role is suggested by adults' frequent omission of unstressed syllables and words. Based on naturalistic data, Perdue (1989) observes that "the most frequent little words - articles, copulas, particles, weak pronouns or affixes - tend not to be identified and appropriated early on." (1989:9) That adults also delete unstressed syllables indicates that adults, like children, have a flatter metrical structure and a syllable-timed rhythmic structure at the start of acquisition. Adults appear to delete unstressed syllables more selectively than children in that the deletion of unstressed syllables in words characterizing children's early speech is generally absent in adult second language acquisition (Oiler 1974). Further investigation is required to completely support Oiler's claim; it is quite likely that the reason adults do not delete unstressed syllables is that they are able to determine the number of syllables in a given word from the orthographic evidence typically available in abundance within the classroom (and outside of the classroom in the target language country). If adults' early rhythmic structures do not allow unstressed syllables, yet they do not delete such syllables, the other strategy available to them (and to children) is to stress these syllables. In this case unstressed syllables would still fail to be present in their phonology. Additional research would ideally examine the acquisition of naturalistic learners acquiring the language through the auditory rather than the written mode. (See footnote 17, Ch. 2). As was proposed for children earlier in this chapter, we can similarly propose that adult learners start with a syllable-timed rhythm. Research discussed in Chapter 2 supports this proposal: in cases in which the learners' native language exhibits syllable-timing (e.g. Spanish), this is transferred (Wenk 1986; Major 1987a).13 Where the learner's native language exhibits stress-timing, the data indicate that syllable-timing is still adopted (McCarthy 1975; James 1987). Rhythmic structure involves parameter settings which obey the Subset Principle, as discussed in chapter 2, where it was proposed that a syllable-timed rhythm is the subset, or default setting. Data from children (see section 4.1.3.) confirm that syllable-timing is the subset setting because children do indeed initially adopt this more restrictive setting. The adoption of this default setting by adult L2 learners (in that they both transfer the subset setting and begin with the subset setting regardless of their native language setting) suggests that they do have access to the Subset Principle, at least as it applies to the acquisition of phonology. Whether learners can use positive evidence to reset the parameter to a stress-timed rhythm is not known (although Wenk's data indicate that French learners eventually adopt a stresstimed rhythm for English). If L2 learners are unable to arrive at the stress-timed setting, their acquisition of cliticization in German will stall, since cliticization for all forms except [s] involves the kinds of syllables only permitted under a stress-timed rhythm.

4.3.3. The acquisition of pronouns If children acquire the full forms when their use of pronouns first becomes productive and only later acquire the clitics, then we might expect the acquisition of cliticization by second language learners to follow this sequence even if they are exposed to clitics in the input from

104 the start. This sequence is confirmed for second language acquisition by several researchers. Naturalistic second language learners of Dutch, which exhibits pronominal cliticization similar to that in German, perceive the full forms first (Perdue 1989). Not only for children but also for L2 adults is the appearance of pronouns generally late, with full NPs preceding pronouns, according to Pienemann (1981) whose research also concerns naturalistic learners. In this respect, second language learners follow a developmental path. What do we know about the stage at which second language learners may not yet have analyzed the host-clitic configuration? Note that the studies in the 1970s which inspired the Creative Construction Hypothesis involved the acquisition of derivational and inflectional morphology. The researchers involved in these studies (Dulay and Burt 1974; Bailey, Madden and Krashen 1974; Anderson 1978) argued that the second language acquisition of morphology followed developmental sequences. Although, as we saw in Chapter 1, the claims based on these findings have since been questioned, the conclusions regarding the acquisition of morphology have come under less attack, suggesting that adults do, in fact, analyze morphology in ways similar to children. Data from naturalistic learners of German indicate that such learners follow developmental stages - at least in the acquisition of cliticization - similar to those followed by children. Young-Schölten (1992b) found evidence in longitudinal data from the Spanish, Italian and Portuguese speakers in the ZISA study (cf. Clahsen, Meisel and Pienemann 1983) and cross sectional data from Spanish, Turkish and Korean speakers (cf. Clahsen, Vainikka and YoungScholten 1990 and von Stutterheim 1987) that L2 learners engage in the same sort of pronominal copying as was described for the German children in section 4.1.4. An analysis of these data showed that the adult L2 learners, like the children, only involved subjects in copying and generally copied during the stage at which agreement had not yet been productively acquired. Penner (1990) provides similar evidence from a Italian child learning Bernese German. This pattern of pronominal copying indicates that second language learners, including post-puberty learners, also initially analyzse clitics as suffixes. The analyses of these naturalistic data did not reveal at which point the adults actually acquired cliticization because the data were not available in narrowly transcribed form. The data do show, however, that the empty subjects found at the early stages of acquisition continue to occur past the stage at which pronominal copying occurs. Because all of these learners' native languages allow empty subjects (either due to the pro-drop or topic-drop nature of the language), transfer of the parameter setting involved may give rise to unfocused elements being realized as empty elements rather than as clitics. If the learner adopts only this strategy for the realization of unfocused elements, then the acquisition of cliticization would be permanently impeded. Ahoua's (1989) study mentioned in Chapter 2, which showed that speakers from a variety of language backgrounds experience continuing problems with sentential focus, provides additional evidence to suggesting that lack of focus and thus cliticization presents ongoing problems for the L2 learner. That this is a developmentally difficult task is supported by the research regarding children's late acquisition of sentential stress, at around age six. Learners receiving instruction may follow a different path in producing the partially analyzed chunks involved in pronominal copying. Reasons for this involve not only the use of

105 teacher-talk discussed in section 4.3.1, but also the nature of explicit instruction in German. Because German contains a number of relatively complicated agreement paradigms, a major portion of its language instruction is typically devoted to morphological analysis. Such instruction involves premature morphological analysis and inevitably leads to an early awareness of the identity of various suffixes and to an early adoption of pronouns as full forms. The early adoption of full forms can be reinforced if the learner transfers a syllabletimed rhythm (and if the teacher also speaks in this rhythm). We would therefore expect tutored learners to circumvent the stage at which subject pronouns are analyzed as suffixes and appear as copies of an NP or pronominal subject. One might, on the other hand, expect pronominal copying of the object clitics in idioms which are explicitly taught but defy straightforward analysis, such as the clitic [s] in Wie geht's dirl 'How are you?' (How goes=it you). The matter of whether learners receiving classroom instruction behave differently from naturalistic learners with respect to morphological analysis is particularly relevant because the learners, from whom the data to be discussed in Chapter 5 was collected, had all received instruction in German. We have seen from the research discussed in this section that adults can be said to resemble children in their acquisition of pronouns, in the late acquisition of the marking of sentential focus and lack of focus and - at least when receiving naturalistic input - in the morphological analysis of the host-clitic configuration.

4.3.4. The acquisition of postlexical phenomena Recall from the third chapter that cliticization was categorized as a postlexical phenomenon, ordered right before the PI level. This higher-level position gives clitics access to surface structure syntax. However, rules ordered at the lower P2 level are unaffected by surface structure syntax. It may well be that second language learners fail to make a distinction between these two levels. If, for example, the second language learner fails to note the rate or register discrepancy between the clitics and the P2 reduced forms in German (reduced forms being allowed only when speech tempo is fast or very casual), she will draw the conclusion that the clitic forms are the product of general rules of deletion and reduction. Moreover, it is possible that the L2 learner will transfer P2 rules of reduction and deletion if they exist in her native language, resulting in less constrained cliticization than in German The studies referred to in Chapter 2 on the transfer of exceptionless, lower level rules suggest this is a probable scenario. The relative difficulty of retreating from an overgeneralization (negative evidence is required to do so) suggests that transferred P2 rules may be more subject to the persistence of transfer than PI rules would be in those cases in which nearly equivalent P2 rules exist in the L2 This does not mean that phenomena at both levels might not be equally subject to transfer. While the research mentioned in Chapter 2 on the transfer of postlexical rules does not separate PI phenomena from P2 phenomena, the findings by Rubach, Broselow and Dziubalska-Kolaczyk discussed therein can clearly be taken to concern the transfer of P2 rules. If their findings can

106 be interpreted to mean that P2 postlexical rules are highly transferable, does this mean that PI rules are less so? An answer to the question of whether PI rules transfer might be found in Hieke (1987). Hieke examined the acquisition of English P2 rules of reduction and deletion by intermediatelevel learners from a German background and found that these learners employed reduction rules 30% less than did native speakers. Although Hieke does not use such terms in his analysis, it seems that the German speakers were transferring their more restricted cliticization and therefore failing to reduce in as many contexts as English allows. An additional, developmental factor may have been that the German speakers had partially retained an initial syllable-timed parameter setting and failed to consistently allow unstressed syllables with reduced vowels. Let us now look more closely at the question of how learners acquire PI phenomena. If the learner transfers P2 phenomena from her native language, the ultimate acquisition of similar PI phenomena may be blocked. In that P2 rules are more general than PI rules, this situation potentially meets the Subset Condition. Imagine a learner for whom pronominal cliticization is a syntactically constrained process (i.e. a German learner). Because such a learner is able to transfer a subset she will face no insurmountable difficulties when acquiring unconstrained vowel reduction in pronouns in a second language because positive evidence is all that is required. However, a learner in the opposite situation - whose native language exhibits unconstrained vowel reduction - would need negative evidence to acquire cliticization in German unless she is able to start with the subset grammar, that postlexical rules are syntactically constrained. In other words, she would experience difficulty without access to the Subset Principle. Since PI phenomena involve syntactic conditions, there could be reasons in addition to lack of access to the Subset Principle which might contribute to the non-acquisition of a PI phenomenon. Difficulties with the acquisition of a phenomenon such as simple cliticization in German could be the result of the non-acquisition of the relevant syntactic conditions. As discussed in Chapter 2, whether adults have sufficient access to UG to acquire syntax in the same way and to the same extent as children is still open to debate. Based on data from naturalistic Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Turkish learners of German, Clahsen and Muysken (1986, 1989) argue that adults have no access to the parameters of UG and are forced to resort to general cognitive processing abilities to acquire L2 syntax. If Clahsen and Muysken are correct, then it follows that adults may not be able to acquire the syntactic conditions on cliticization because their syntax would not resemble that of a native speaker of German (or that of a child learning German). However, there is additional research on naturalistic learners which suggests that Korean and Turkish adults transfer their native language head-final VPs to German at the initial stages of acquisition and proceed to acquire German syntax in fundamentally the same way as children (see Vainikka and Young-Scholten forthcoming). The question remains open as to whether these Korean and Turkish adults ultimately acquire the complete syntactic structure for German with a head-initial CP (but see also Schwartz and Sprouse forthcoming). Without a CP, the learner lacks the position to which the clitics normally attach, namely COMP, the head of the functional projection CP. Furthermore, if the learner has not acquired the functional

107 projection DP, then she would be unable to differentiate between the permitted adjunction of clitics to pronouns (DPs) and the the impermissible adjunction to full NPs. An examination of the research on the acquisition of Romance clitics indicates that learners do indeed experience problems with syntactic conditions on phonological phenomena. French and English learners of Spanish in a study by Liceras (1987) placed object clitics incorrectly after the verb some of the time, indicating that these learners had not yet acquired the relevant syntactic conditions. A study by Hawkins (1989) of English learners of French yielded similar results. These learners also experienced problems with the correct syntactic placement of clitics, placing French clitics in the same position as full NPs and full forms (after the auxiliary and verb), placing them incorrectly between the auxiliary and the verb, or deleting them altogether. Hawkins further observes that the English learners of French in his study initially misconstrued the preveral clitic-auxiliary complex as one consisting of a verbal prefix and auxiliary. These learners' morphological analysis of the clitic-host configuration is the mirror image of the German children's and naturalistic learners' analysis of the host-clitic configuration as a verbal suffix. While the constraints on cliticization (or lack thereof) appear to transfer, it is also possible that the process of cliticization and even clitic forms are involved in transfer. However, in reference to French and Spanish speakers learning English, Zobl (1980a) claims that bound morphology is not subject to transfer when the L2 also has free forms for equivalent functions. Such an analysis could account for the lag on the part of the German learners in Hieke's study to acquire reduced (i.e. bound) forms in English since free forms are usually also available (in the case of English pronouns). While Zobl does not address the question of whether learners transfer bound morphology when there exists in the L2 highly similar morphology, the example given in Chapter 2 in section 2.4.2. indicates transfer does occurs even when the LI and L2 are unrelated. An experiment carried out by Dogil (1984) suggests that adults do not acquire syntactic conditions which constrain the application of phonological rules. Dogil tested ten highly advanced Polish speakers of English and determined that the speakers were unable to distinguish the difference in syntax in the following sentence pairs (which have been further disambiguated with possible responses). (4.8) (a)

What did you use to [yu:z # W] take those snapshots with?1 I used an inexpensive camera.

(b)

What did you use to [yu:s # id] take snapshots with?' I used to take them with a Kodak.

According to Dogil, these speakers had not acquired the necessary syntax in English to allow them to make the relevant distinctions. In contrast to Dogil's findings, consider those discussed in section 4.1.3. on wanna contraction (Grain and Thornton 1988), which showed that children never made errors in their acquisition of this syntactically constrained

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phenomenon. Dogil's findings suggest that failure to acquire the necessary syntax crucially contributes to the ultimate failure of second language learning adults to acquire PI postlexical phenomena. However, failure to acquire the relevant syntactic conditions on a PI rule (or on cliticization) might conceivably arise in another way. If the postlexical rules which transfer from the learner's LI involve rules of reduction, deletion and resyllabification, then cliticization will be bled. In other words, when reduced forms are acquired by adults as P2 variants, the syntactic conditions might never be learned if the P2 rules are applied initially. This rather speculative discussion must end here, as we have exhausted our examination of the relevant research.

4.4. Conclusions and predictions We have seen that, to a certain extent, adults learning their second language proceed like children learning their first language in their acquisition of the prerequisites of cliticization. We saw in Chapter 2 and in this chapter that both adults and children simplify syllable structure. There is evidence that adults, like children, adopt a syllable-timed rhythm at the early stages of acquisition, regardless of their native language. Adults also appear to have the same initial problems as children do with the morphological analysis of the host-clitic configuration. The evidence suggests that both children and adults next acquire the full forms of the pronouns after the stage at which they misanalyze the clitics as suffixes, and only later do they acquire the clitics. Do adults acquire the reduced forms as clitic allomorphs, adjoining these forms to COMP? Acquisition of the clitics and the syntactic constraints on their placement requires complete acquisition of the syntactic structure and of the syllable, metrical and rhythmic structure of German. It is possible that second language learners do not complete their acquisition in any of these areas. As we have seen in this chapter, transfer plays a role in acquisition in all of these areas. The matter we want to pursue is whether such transfer persists. Developmental factors will interact with transfer in various ways.14 Nickel (1971), for example, posited a hierarchy of difficulty based on the developmental sequences found in first language acquisition. To this we can add Zobl's (1980) proposal that when an LI structure "conforms more closely to general acquisition regularities or processes than the L2 structure to be acquired, then occurrence of transfer is promoted." (1980:469) Zobl further adds that errors may be the result of the overgeneralization of native language-like patterns in the target language. The "general acquisition regularities" mentioned above can be equated with the unmarked rules or structures involved in the Markedness Differential Hypothesis discussed in Chapter 2, although Zobl's conception seems to allow for the promotion of transfer even when a process cannot strictly be described as unmarked. In this chapter we have seen several instances in which transfer can be expected to be promoted. Whether or not the learner has access to the syntactic and phonological components of UG may be the decisive factor influencing the final outcome. The way in which UG and transfer

109 interact is expressed by the adult learner's ability to reset the parameters of UG. If adults have no direct access to the parameters of UG, they will transfer their LI parameter settings and be unable to reset the parameters in the L2. Extensive research on parameter setting in the first language acquisition of phonology has not yet been undertaken to the same extent as it has been in syntax, casting some doubt as to whether certain phonological phenomena can be characterized as phonological parameters. What constitutes a principle in phonology seems quite a bit clearer. We can examine the acquisition of the phonological aspects of cliticization to see if those aspects which are not acquired can be traced principles to which L2 learners can be expected to retain access or to phenomena which can be hypothetically characterized as parameters. The acquisition of syllable structure, metrical structure and rhythmic structure can be examined from this standpoint.

4.4.1. Transfer Once transfer is factored out, all second language learners start out on equal footing and can be expected to proceed through developmental processes in their acquisition of cliticization. How far adult learners advance may well depend on whether they have access to the phonological and syntactic components of UG. How far learners from a particular language background advance in their acquisition of cliticization will also depend on what these learners bring to the task from their native language. The data which we will examine in Chapter 5 come from speakers of four native languages: American English, Korean, Spanish and Turkish. Because these four languages nearly exhaust all the ways in which the factors involved in cliticization can differ from German, we will be able to see in which areas transfer and/or developmental problems persist for second language learners. Transfer from the native language can block the acquisition of cliticization in any of the components and subcomponents of the grammar involved in cliticization. For example, if the learner has transferred a simpler canonical syllable structure from her native language and is unable to syllabify the clitic [s] and host because to so do would create a syllable more complex than her interlanguage phonology allows, then cliticization is preemptively blocked. Speakers of Korean, Turkish and Spanish may all experience such problems because their syllable structures are simpler than that of German. It is irrelevant which syllable simplification strategy the learner employs; if the learner deletes final consonants she will completely delete the clitic - and perhaps the final consonant of the host as well. If, on the other hand, the learner inserts an epenthetic vowel to break up the consonant cluster formed by the attachment of [s], the result will be something comparable to the full form [Es]. Which strategy the learner adopts is unimportant because either deletion or epenthesis can bleed cliticization. Such forms do not have clitic status in the output, and probably do not have clitic status in the input the learner takes in either, given that input is filtered through the learner's competence. Recall that the clitics fall into three categories, based on phonological form. Clitics in each of these categories undergo different processes of phonological attachment. The clitic [s]

110 attaches directly into the coda of the preceding syllable, usually creating a consonant cluster with at least two members. The attachment of the nasal sonorant clitic [n] creates a syllable with a syllabic consonant as its peak and the terminal consonant of the host as its onset. Finally, the attachment of the schwa clitics or the clitics with an underlying /r/ results in a stressless syllable with a centralized vowel peak. The latter two types of clitic result in an unstressed syllable of short duration. It may be that the second language learner will have problems with one type of clitic, but not with another. In order to start acquiring cliticization, the learner does not have to acquire all the forms; recall that not every full form pronoun even has a clitic counterpart. However, if the learner has not acquired all the clitic forms, we still cannot say she has completely acquired cliticization in German. There may be underlying reasons for the variable acquisition of clitic forms which reveal that certain constraints on cliticization have not been acquired. For example, if the learner has not acquired the essential fact that clitics consist maximally of a single, non-branching mora this will result in failure to acquire the vowel clitics. However, if the learner is a speaker of English, positive transfer from her LI might enable her to acquire the clitic [s]. Which clitics the learners do not acquire will reveal those aspects of cliticization learners have problems with, which in turn will reveal those problems subject to persistence over time. Evidence that learners acquire the clitic [s] but not the other clitics would point to problems with metrical or rhythmic structure rather than with syllable structure. If learners whose native languages have a syllable-timed rhythmic structure (Spanish and possibly Korean) transfer this parameter setting, their acquisition of the clitics with vowels and syllabic sonorants will be impeded. The type of morphology in the native language is also something the language learner brings to the task of acquiring a second language and may also be involved in transfer. We want to determine whether the learner's first language contains unstressed inflectional suffixes, since the clitics might be interpreted as inflectional suffixes in the early stages of acquisition. Transfer from the learner's LI could increase the possibility of this occurring. This is particularly possible for the Turkish speakers, whose agglutinative language contains strings of multiple inflectional suffixes. The existence of pronominal clitics in the learner's LI, particularly enclitics, should give the learner an advantage in the initial analysis of the German clitics. Both English and Spanish speakers have pronominal clitics in their native languages, however only English speakers have pronominal enclitics. Finally, the types of syllables possible in the inflectional morphology of the learner's LI should further predict whether the learner will perceive that both inflectional suffixes and clitics in German are comprised of a single, non-branching mora. Speakers of a stress-timed language which has enclitics, such as English and possibly Turkish can be predicted to experience fewer difficulties in acquiring the clitics.15 As discussed earlier in this chapter and in Chapter 2, both the domain of resyllabification as well as P2 postlexical rules can be expected to transfer and thus impede the acquisition of cliticization. However, even if postlexical resyllabification occurs only within the host-clitic configuration in the learner's native language, the learner might still be unable to identify the clitics due to transfer of syllable, metrical or rhythmic structure.

Ill

The realization of unfocused pronouns in the learner's native language may either transfer directly, resulting in the deletion of the clitics, or may hinder the learner's overall perception of the clitics. If unfocused pronouns are realized as empty elements in the learner's LI, as are all pronouns in Korean and subject pronouns in Spanish, then the learner may first fail to perceive the clitics and in later stages of acquisition perceive them, but fail to produce them. Because a beginning learner may also have difficulty perceiving weak elements from a developmental standpoint, her problems will multiply if the unfocused pronouns in her native language are realized as empty elements. The learner's problems will be further compounded if she also adopts a syllable-timed parameter setting for rhythmic structure. This is the case for Korean learners and for Spanish learners with respect to the subject pronouns. Since the position in which clitics are found is determined by the syntax, transfer of the learner's native language syntactic structure may impede the acquisition of cliticization. One parameter discussed by Flynn (1983) is the head-directionality parameter, which determines whether a head precedes or follows its complement. As we saw in Chapter 3, the W and IP in German are head final, since the heads (V and INFL) follow their complements. We also saw that German has a head-initial CP, which yields the verb second (V2) position of the verb. The head initial CP is particularly important to the acquisition of cliticization, since the clitics adjoin to COMP. None of the four languages under investigation are V2 languages. While the syntactic structure of English is closest to that of German, English has a head-initial VP and IP, as does Spanish. If the learner transfers her setting for the head-directionality parameter and cannot reset the parameter, the result will be a syntactic structure which does not resemble German. Korean and Turkish have head final VPs and IPs; if these learners are only able to transfer their head-directionality parameter settings, they will still have acquired a good part of German syntax. It is necessary to make more precise predictions by looking at the learners' native languages in somewhat more detail. Before we do so, we will turn to the testing methodology, a discussion of which commences Chapter 5.

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Notes to Chapter 4 1. Use of the term acquisition indicates the productive use of adult cliticization. I assume, however, that children's competence in cliticization is not fully reflected by their performance and that children acquire cliticization somewhat earlier than they produce clitics. 2. This is an oversimplification of what turns out to be quite complicated with respect to the way in which the child is thought to set the pro-drop parameter for languages which contain empty subjects such as Italian, or for languages which do not, such as English (see Hyams 1987). 3. I have ignored the possibility discussed in Chapter 3 that German has empty subjects in the second person singular. If this analysis is correct, this represents an instance where clitics and empty subjects are found in the same position. One would think that the possibility of realization of both a clitic and an empty subject in the same position would complicate the child's task. There is no data directly bearing on this, however Clahsen (1989) has shown that the subject-verb agreement suffix which is acquired last by the child is the one for the second person singular. This may in part be based on phonological factors, but it does not at all seem to be the whole explanation. 4. These findings seem to question the analysis of early child language (English) that there is a general absence of function words. These researchers conclusions seem to suggest that early English might be better characterized by the general absence of unstressed syllables with reduced vowels, rather than by the lack of function words. Since function words in English are normally stressless, one would expect them to not be realized in the young child's phonology. 5. The appearance of schwa in early child language also brings into question whether English and German are comparable in terms of rhythmic structure. Fory (1986), for example, remarks that "one can assume...that English in the group of stress-timed languages is more strongly timed than German." (p. 22). 6. Note that the data all show clitics which attach to form CV or CVC syllables. One would expect partially analyzed chunks involving the clitic forms whose attachment result in consonant clusters to be infrequent at this stage of development. Further research is required to determine whether this assumption is correct. 7. Von Stutterheim (p.c. 1991) reports copying of the object clitic es by a child aged 4;1. Given the more advanced age of the child, we can assume that the child was at a more advanced stage of development than the children in the examples in (4.4). 8. Research by Kean (1981) also supports such a progression for the acquisition of clitics after they have been extracted from the previously unanalyzed host-clitic configuration. Based on evidence regarding language loss from Broca's aphasics, Kean argues that during acquisition the child initially stores both lexical and functional elements similarly and later reclassifies the functional elements in a sub-lexicon. Broca's aphasics, she claims, have lost the ability to sub-classify functional elements. Extrapolating on this, we could suggest that elements are first stored as full forms and that the clitic allomorphs are later shunted into a sub-lexicon. 9. One could argue that children do not acquire a second, informal register until later. However, why children should acquire this particular register later than the more formal register containing primarily full forms certainly seems to be connected to the phonological and syntactic factors involved in cliticization which conspire to make it difficult to acquire. 10. It is not clear whether children have only lexical projections and no functional projections at the start of their acquisition of syntax (i.e. at the two-word stage). Clahsen's (1988) position is that children have at least one functional projection from the start (but no CP). Radford's (1990) position, on the other hand, is that children have only lexical projections. 11. The careful reader will note that in this section I have not addressed what constitutes acquisition of cliticization and have not distinguished between the perception and production of clitics. Although it would be desirable to provide a more detailed account of the child's competence, the research currently available does not allow conclusions any more finely drawn than I have given. 12. Some L2 phonology research has, in fact, yielded results which suggest than production may sometimes precede comprehension (cf. Goto 1971; Gass 1984). 13. Recall from Chapter 2 that Wenk categorizes French somewhat differently, as "trailer-timed" rather than syllable-timed. 14. Major's (1987a,b) ontogeny model for the acquisition of phonology, which describes the initial dominance of transfer and subsequent decline, along with the later increase (and subsequent decrease) of developmental factors (at which point the L2 is acquired), predicts that developmental factors would be dominant for more advanced learners. 15. Whether Korean and Turkish are stress-timed or syllable-timed is not immediately obvious. This will be discussed in Chapter 5.

Chapter 5: The L2 acquisition of cliticization in German

5.1. Introduction In this final chapter we will consider some experimental data from advanced speakers of German whose native languages are American English, Korean, Spanish and Turkish. An analysis of the data will reveal whether adult learners acquire syntactically conditioned phonological phenomena and provide a means of isolating those areas of the phonology in which fossilization occurs. Section 5.2 of this chapter details the methods and materials involved in data collection. The following section, 5.3, offers a more detailed account of the learners' native languages than was given in the final section of Chapter 4. Such accounts are necessary for the specific predictions involving transfer. In section 5.4 an analysis of the data is presented. In analyzing the data our goal will be twofold. First, as stated above, we want to determine whether second language learners show evidence of acquiring a syntactically conditioned phonological phenomenon (cliticization). It is indeed possible that not all learners will have acquired cliticization at the time of testing, since, as we saw in Chapter 4, this is a phenomenon which is late in developmental terms. Second, we want to isolate those aspects of cliticization the learners have not acquired in order to arrive at a characterization of those factors bearing on fossilization. This chapter concludes with a discussion of implications of the findings and the conclusions which can be drawn from them in regard to fossilization and to the adult second language learner's access to the principles and parameters of both syntax and phonology.

5.2. Methods and materials In designing experiments to measure acquisition, one attempts to determine the learner's competence, rather than performance. One of the assumptions of the theory of generative linguistics is the competence-performance dichotomy. Competence is defined as what the speaker knows about her language. Competence cannot be completely captured by describing the utterances a speaker actually produces, but rather must be defined by those utterances which are grammatical and ungrammatical for that speaker. Spontaneous data can be particularly unreliable because performance factors such as memory and attention intervene and, more importantly, because such data often fail to include examples of all the types of utterances which are grammatical for that speaker. As discussed in Chapter 4, because avoidance of specific structures is bound to be much less successful in phonology than in syntax, spontaneous phonological data are more likely to lend themselves to

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an analysis which will then reflect competence in the area of phonology than such data might in other areas. Arriving at the second language learner's competence with regard to the acquisition of cliticization may be more difficult through the analysis of spontaneous utterances produced by the speaker than would be the case with other phonological phenomena. Because the speaker always has the option of producing the full form or some reduced, non-clitic variant of the full form, spontaneous data could easily fail to provide a complete picture of the speaker's competence with respect to cliticization. Such a situation is likely to arise under laboratory conditions when the speaker is aware of being recorded. Spontaneous speech may become more careful and thus give the erroneous impression that cliticization has not been acquired. To remedy this situation, and to uncover the learner's competence, experimental situations need to be devised in which the speaker is forced to produce clitics.

5.2.1. The elicited imitation task The task used to measure the acquisition of cliticization involved the repetition of single sentences by groups of native and non-native speakers of German.' At first glance one might expect that the imitation of sentences by advanced speakers of a second language would result only in accurate repetitions of the input and reveal nothing about the learner's non-native competence. On the contrary, speakers frequently fail to automatically regurgitate what they have heard, thus providing a window on their competence. Johansson (1973), who employed this task to investigate the acquisition of segments by second language learners, argues that the use of imitation tasks is justified because this type of task involves both production and perception and is therefore likely to reflect the learner's competence. It is generally held that test subjects cannot accurately repeat structures which they have not yet acquired; reasons for this clearly involve the difficulty of processing input which does not yet make total sense to the learner. Slobin (1967) describes the imitation process as one whereby the sentence to be imitated is first understood and then filtered through the learner's competence before it is imitated. In other words, the speaker retrieves only the content of the utterance if the structures involved in the utterance do not match her competence and then codes the utterance in her own syntax before repeating it. Such a process thereby reveals the learner's competence rather than her ability to mimic. Imitation tasks have also been used successfully with children. Brown and Fräser (1963) administered an elicited imitation task to children acquiring English as their first language and found that these learners consistently tended to retain certain morphemes and drop others. In their repetitions the children retained lexical items, sentence-final morphemes, and elements which were unpredictable from the context of the utterance. Less likely to be repeated by the children were function words and words with weaker stress. The task further showed that elements in word- and syllable-initial positions were more difficult to perceive and repeat than those in final positions. The pattern of repetition exhibited by the children in Brown and Eraser's study suggests that a bias against the repetition of clitics (particularly proclitics) exists (assuming that adult

115 learners behave similarly to children with respect to the retention and deletion of morphemes during an imitation task), since clitics are weakly stressed elements which are predictable from the context. This bias against repetition indicates that the overall repetition of clitics is likely to be low, underscoring the conclusion that those clitics the test subjects manage to repeat have been acquired. Menyuk (1980) also used a sentence imitation task with children in her quest to pinpoint the problems of English-speaking children with articulatory impairments. In testing both children with and without such impairments, Menyuk found that the impaired children more frequently deleted final consonants when they occurred in grammatical suffixes than they did when they occurred as the final consonants of lexical items, indicating that the grammatical role of a word is connected with the accuracy of imitation. The more frequent deletion of consonants in grammatical morphemes might compound the bias against the repetition of clitics if clitics have a status similar to that of grammatical suffixes. However, this suggestion is based on the unfounded assumption that adult second language learners behave similarly to children with articulatory impairments. Among second language researchers who have used elicited imitation tasks are Klein and Dittmar (1979) and Neufeld (1988).2 Klein and Dittmar's findings are particularly relevant to our purposes, as they involve the repetition of pronouns in German by native speakers of one of the languages represented in the present study (Spanish). Neufeld's results are also of direct interest because they bear on the use of imitation tasks to measure phonological acquisition in general. Klein and Dittmar administered an imitation task to Spanish as well as Italian speakers of German and found that pronouns were frequently not repeated. Interestingly, from the intermediate state on, the learners deleted object pronouns more frequently than subject pronouns, even though these learners' native language syntactic structures predispose them to omit subjects (both Italian and Spanish are pro-drop languages which allow empty subjects). Klein and Dittmar's explanation for this pattern of deletion is based on the frequency of subjects over objects in the input and on the difficulty of the perception of object pronouns versus subject pronouns. Unfortunately the authors do not state why object pronouns should be more difficult to perceive than subject pronouns. While the reasons for the preference of object deletion over subject deletion must remain unclear, Dittmar and Klein's findings serve to illustrate that the omission of pronouns during elicited imitation may involve more than the transfer of the realization of unfocused pronouns (i.e. transfer of pro-drop by Spanish and Italian speakers), as was suggested at the end of the previous chapter. Their findings further indicate that the bias against the repetition of clitics may be stronger in relation to object than to subject clitics. Neufeld (1988) used an elicited imitation technique to examine second language learners' phonological competence. His results showed a deterioration in the ability to repeat segments which were assumed to be difficult for the learner, as well as a deterioration of suprasegmentale. Based on Neufeld's results we can adopt the position that learners will be unable to imitate both those aspects of cliticization considered to be marked or difficult (i.e. the final consonant clusters which result from the attachment of [s]) and the metrical and rhythmic structures involved unless they have clearly acquired them.

116 In summary, elicited imitation tasks have demonstrated the capability of revealing both first and second language learners' competence not only in a global sense, but also in a highly specific manner. The use of such a task for the elicitation of pronominal clitics is justified because we can assume that learners will only repeat the clitic forms which they have acquired and only repeat these in positions which are grammatical in their respective interlanguages. Both Brown and Eraser's and Klein and Dittmar's results indicate that in an elicited imitation task learners will delete the clitics from their repetitions if they have not acquired them. The successful repetition of clitics will indicate their acquisition.

5.2.2. Construction and administration of the task A battery of 80 sentence pairs was used for elicited imitation task (see Appendix A for a list of these). These pairs constituted mini-conversations in a casual register, consisting of a question and an answer or a comment and response. The first sentence in the pair functioned to introduce the topic of discourse and to guarantee that the pronoun(s) in the second sentence would not receive focus and would naturally be realized as a clitic. A total of 69 of the second sentences in the 80 pairs contained either grammatical or ungrammatical examples of clitics, as shown in (5.la) and (5.1b) below. These sentences typically included one clitic and on occasion two clitics (when a second clitic was attached to the leftmost clitic) bringing the total of clitics in the sentences to be imitated to 75. The 11 remaining sentences contained only full form pronouns as in (S.lc) and (5. Id), although in one of these instances a clitic pronoun would have been expected, as for du, the second pronoun in (5. Id). These 11 sentences acted as distractors and offered a control on the learners' comprehension and imitation of pronouns, especially when not in strict SVO word order. (The sentences which were repeated by the learners are given in italics.) (5.1)

(a)

Was ist, wenn Peter es nicht schafft? what is, if Peter it not does 'What'll happen if Peter can't do it?' Dann wird=s der Markus probieren. thenwilHt the Markus try Then Markus will try it.1

(b)

Willst du jetzt das Krokodil futtern? want you now the crocodile feed? "Do you want to feed the crocodile now?' *Ja, ich habe wasßir=s hier. yes I have what for=it here 'Yes, I have something for it here.'

117

(c)

Hast du Maria das Geld gegeben? have you Maria the money given? "Did you give Maria the money?' Ihr würde ich keinen Pfennig geben] her would I no penny give wouldn't give her one penny!'

(d)

Ich muß sofort mit Claudia reden. I must right away with Claudia talk. have to talk to Claudia right away.' Sie mußt du aber erstanden. her must you but first find. *But you have to find her first.'

Out of the 75 instances of clitics, 44 of these were classified as ungrammatical and 31 grammatical, based on Prinz (1991) and on the discussion in Chapter 3. (Refer to Appendices B.I and B.2 for distribution of the types of cliticizations contained in the input sentences.) The six linguistics students who recorded the test sentences were unanimous in their agreement with Prinz's judgements of these 44 cliticizations as ungrammatical. The ungrammatical cliticizations which were included reflected a possible version of cliticization unconstrained by syntatic and moraic restrictions. If during the elicited imitation task the test subjects filter input sentences through their competence before repeating them and have acquired cliticization, then both the grammatical and ungrammatical cliticizations in the input sentences should be repeated grammatically. It is possible that the test subjects have a more general version of cliticization in their interlanguage; if this is the case then they can be expected to repeat both grammatical as well as ungrammatical cliticizations. If, however, the test subjects have not acquired cliticization at all, they can be expected to not repeat any of the clitics. As stated in the previous paragraph, the ungrammatical cliticizations were designed to determine the status as clitics of the reduced forms in all cases and to ascertain whether the test subjects had acquired the syntactic conditions on cliticization. These cliticizations involved the non-occurring (or infrequent) clitic form /c/, impossible dative clitics, the impossible possessive clitic /r/ and various violations of the syntactic conditions on clitic placement. Recall from Chapter 3 that the second person plural nominative ihr, has a clitic counterpart /r/, while the third person singular dative ihr lacks such a clitic form. The possesssive ihr is yet another instance in which a clitic allomorph might be expected to occur, but does not. Recall also from Chapter 3 that one of the universal constraints on clitics given in Selkirk (1972) is that possessive pronouns do not cliticize. Including this potential clitic aids us in determining whether learners are simply applying rules of reduction to unstressed pronouns.

118 The ungrammatical cliticizations in the task involved clitics in positions not immediately following COMP or when separated from COMP by a lexical projection. These included clitics which remained in the VP and were preceded by an adverb; clitics which were separated from COMP by the lexical projection NP; clitics which were separated from COMP by the lexical projection PP and clitics which were topicalized, in Spec (CP). Several ungrammatical cliticizations of the sentential clitic /n/ for denn were also included, in which this clitic followed an adverb (recall from Chapter 3 that /n/ must also immediately follow COMP). Further ungrammatical examples included clitics after parentheticals, in coordinations and after PRO. Finally, there were several ungrammatical examples of potential but ill-formed assimilated forms with the clitic /vr/ and main verbs. The examples of grammatical pronominal cliticization included clitics immediately following COMP when COMP was filled by a verb, a complementizer or a relative pronoun and clitics separated from COMP by the functional projection DP (i.e. another clitic or a full form pronoun). Additional grammatical cliticizations included the assimilated forms consisting of the clitic /vr/ following auxiliary verbs which were discussed in Chapter 3, the sentential clitic for denn and obligatory determiner clitics. Although there were some examples of determiner and sentential clitics, the clitics in the 69 sentences were typically pronominal clitics since the present study concerns pronominal cliticization. In all there were seven such examples which did not involve pronouns. Five examples of the sentential clitic for denn, /n/, were included, as were two examples of determiner clitics. The determiner clitics were included as obligatory instances of the encliticization of determiners to prepositions which all learners, if they had acquired cliticization in German at all, should have been able to repeat accurately. These determiner cliticizations stand in contrast to the potentially parallel but ungrammatical cliticization of a pronoun following a preposition. To illustrate this, one of the test sentences was: Ich nab was fur=s Kind Ί have something for the child.1 Cliticization of the determiner das is obligatory unless the noun Kind is followed by a relative clause. The parallel, ungrammatical example of pronominal cliticization after a preposition in the test was: *Ich hob was fiir=s hier Ί have something for it here.' The 80 sentence pairs were recorded at a normal rate of speech by four male and two female linguistics students at the University of Bielefeld who all spoke a standard German not marked by dialect features.3 All had demonstrated the ability to produce natural-sounding casual speech (including ungrammatical cliticizations) under the laboratory conditions in which the test sentences were recorded. A Sony TC 510 reel-to-reel tape recorder with two microphones was used to record these sentences in stereo. The 80 sentence pairs were subsequently randomized for the imitation task (and re-randomized for the judgement task) and then re-recorded on a TEAC CX-310 stereo cassette deck (the order of the test sentences in Appendix A is the one used for the imitation task).. The task was administered to each test subject individually. Before hearing the 80 sentence pairs the test subject was briefed in writing as to the nature of the sentences they were going to hear and was informed that the sentence pairs were conversations recorded by Bielefeld students chatting informally, as they would speak in the student cafeteria or in class. The

119 subjects first took the judgement test mentioned in footnote 1, which meant that they had heard the 80 sentence pairs each repeated twice before they tackled the elicited imitation task. Prior to the start of the imitation task, the test subject received written instructions as well as additional oral instructions to mimic the second sentences as accurately as possible. Then the subject heard each of the 80 sentence pairs once and was required to imitate the second sentence of each pair after performing a short distractor task. This task involved the addition or subtraction of a set of two-digit numbers. Upon completion of the distractor task, the test subject repeated the sentence into a microphone. The function of the distractor task was to insure that the test subject's short term memory would be sufficiently taxed so that they would not simply mimic the sentence but rather encode the meaning of the sentence and reproduce it filtered through their competence.4 The amount of time alloted between listening to the sentence pair and repeating the second sentence was not predetermined in that the administrator switched off the recording as soon as the test subject had heard the sentence pair and did not switch on the tape recorder until the test subject indicated she was ready to repeat the sentence. The same equipment was used for recording these sentences as was used for the original recording of the 80 sentence pairs. All test subjects were quite proficient in German and had received instruction in German in which the ability to mimic presumably played at least some role. Therefore the possibility of theise learners being able to exactly mimic the sentences was strong. Including a distractor task was thought to make it much more likely that the test subject would be forced to code the sentence in her own competence. In this scenario, the test subject hears the sentence and automatically extracts the content of the sentence for initial storage. Then the test subject performs the distractor task. Upon repetition, the content is restructured into the test subject's own competence. Thus it was expected that, even though the test subjects were told to repeat accurately, performing the distractor task would have the effect that their repetitions would contain deviations from the input sentences to the extent that their competence differs from that of a native speaker of German.

5.2.3. Test subjects The task was administered to both a control group and to an experimental group. The control group consisted of ten native speakers (NS) of German who were University of Bielefeld students, and who had grown up in or around Bielefeld, in the eastern part of Westphalia, he control group was divided into two sub-groups. In one sub-group, which consisted of seven speakers, the test subjects were given the same instructions as the non-native speakers and told to mimic the sentences as accurately as possible. In the second sub-group, which consisted of three speakers, the test subjects were told to repeat correctly those sentences they found ungrammatical.

120

(5.2) Test Subjects - Control Group correcting sub-group AGE NAME 25 Marianne 25 Marie Luise 43 Brigitte

SEX f f f

non-correcting, subroup NAME AGE Andrea 23 23 Christel Karin 25 Claudia 25 Thorsten 23 Wolfgang 24 Guido 25

SEX f f f f m m m

The experimental group was comprised of 21 non-native speakers (NNS) of German from four different language backgrounds. Non-native speakers who had reached a high level of proficiency in their acquisition of German were chosen this study; in determining whether cliticization is acquired and in delineating the variable effects of transfer and universale on fossilization in the components and the sub-components of the grammar, it is imperative to look at learners who have mastered most of the language in order to make the strongest possible claims. The 21 non-native speakers were University of Bielefeld students, with the exception of two speakers who were nonetheless connected with the university. They were native speakers of American English, Korean, Spanish and Turkish and could be considered advanced.. Prior to matriculation at the university all students are required to pass a German language examination to demonstrate that their written as well as oral/aural proficiency is at a level high enough to insure academic success. The fact that the test subjects had already passed this examination and were actively studying at the university is an indication that their level of attainment in German is high enough to follow university lectures and to participate in seminar discussions. In the table in (5.3), '"residence" indicates the number of years the test subject had lived in Germany at the time of testing, with "-" representing less than one year, and "+" in the second column more than four years. Under "weekly contact" a "+" indicates that the test subject had been exposed to German outside of the classroom while still in his/her native country and a "+" in boldface indicates that the test subject had a German girl/boyfriend or spouse. At the time of testing, all but two speakers had resided in Germany for at least one year. Because these two speakers had received prior instruction in their native countries and because, based on their own assessment, they were immersed in the German language in Germany, they also qualified as advanced. If the sole input the test subjects had received had been through classroom instruction, it is possible their input would have contained few, if any, clitics. While all of the test subjects in the non-native speaker group had received at least some formal instruction in German either in their own country prior to moving to Germany or in Germany, all had received sufficient input

121 outside of the classroom for them to have been exposed to input containing clitics. Seven of the test subjects had had previous contact with native speakers of German in their home countries and all of the test subjects had received considerable naturalistic input once in Germany.

(5.3) Test subjects - non-native speakers LI/NAME AMERICAN Amy Beth Mary Connie Marilyn Peter

Ron Jack Allen KOREAN Ja Yang Hae Ran Yong Hyeon Yun Tang Ho Sung TURKISH Özlem Nebahat Fehti Mesut SPANISH Maria Pablo Jorge

AGE SEX

RESIDENCE 1-2 2-4

22 22 32 34 39 25 25 31 38

f f f f f m m m m

X — X X

27 28 27 26 27

f f m m m

X X

29 29 21 31

f f m m

X

36 25 42

f m m

WEEKLY CONTACT 1-5 5-10 10+

X++ X++

x+ x+

x+

X++

X

x+

~

X

x+

x+ X

X

x+ X X

x+

X X

X

x+ x+

X

x+ X X

x+

X

x+

X

X

x+

X X

The results for the imitation task for both the native speakers and non-native speakers were transcribed phonetically. A second transcriber confirmed the transcriptions through the independent transcription of several random tape selections. The results for the imitation task were then coded in a data administration program to reflect the phonological and syntactic factors involved in cliticization. Data were tabulated and analyzed using this program, although the raw data were also used for some of the analyses

122 Before turning to the data, we will consider the predictions which were made with respect to the acquisition of cliticization and its prerequisites. If adult learners follow the developmental route taken by children discussed in Chapter 4, we can expect cliticization to be acquired late. If adult second language learners also acquire metrical and rhythmic structure late, as do children, we can expect that the full forms will precede the clitics in their acquisition. Despite these expectations, we still need to know how transfer from the learners' first languages might impede or even block the acquisition of cliticization. Second language learners of German might adopt a P2 version of reduction, in which case weak forms with reduced or deleted vowels would be allowed in any position and could occur for any case and without moraic restrictions. If the learner adopts such a version of cliticization there may be reasons stemming from her native language which compel her to do so. However, it may also be the case that the learner's native language puts her in a position to make use of positive evidence and thus to construct the more conservative version of cliticization which occurs in German. In Chapters 2 and 4 the interaction of transfer and developmental factors was discussed in relation to the Markedness Differential Hypothesis and to the Subset Principle. Zobl (1980a) addresses this interaction in terms of developmental stages, proposing that when a developmental stage in the L2 is mirrored by a structure in the learner's native language, the likelihood of transfer is increased. Under such circumstances transfer may result in the prolongation or even fossilization of the developmental stage. If we find that a learner's native language contains structures or rules which represent a stage children acquiring German cliticization pass through, this should impede the learner's acquisition. However, the Subset Principle predicts that acquisition will be completely blocked only when the L2 structure represents a subset of the learner's native language superset (unless of course the learner has direct access to the Subset Principle). Predicting transfer is quite obviously much more complicated than Lado (1957) originally outlined in his hypothesis. However, much of the difficulty in phonology in predicting when a rule or structure will transfer has been the result of considering segments in isolation. As we saw in Chapters 2 and 4, subsequent research (by Broselow 1988, for example) has revealed that transfer is not always immediately obvious until one looks at the relevant aspects of prosodic structure. For example, Broselow's analysis of the problems experienced with short, lax vowels by Arabic speakers of English is one which involves constraints on the minimal word. Earlier analyses of these learners' problems would have centered only on transfer at the segmental level. One of the final aspects of transfer to be (re)addressed here is its apparent variability depending on the component of the grammar. loup's (1984) study confirmed what researchers since the early 1970s had asserted — that transfer is more prevalent in phonology than in other components of the grammar. loup's results can benefit from some interpretation and updating. At the time loup carried out her study researchers on L2 syntax still supported the claim that the second language acquisition of syntax entailed very little transfer. Yet since that time researchers have proposed that parameter settings are subject to transfer (see, for example, White 1989b), recognizing that transfer plays an important role in the acquisition of syntax. What loup's results highlight is the notion that adults might no longer have access to the

123

domain-specific mechansims involved in the acquisition of phonology. If learners have incomplete or no post-puberty access to the phonological component of UG their primary course of action will be to transfer from their native language. It may also simply be the case that with restricted access to the phonological component of UG, transfer dominates. In the following section we will elaborate on the predictions made at the end of Chapter 4 and we will undertake an examination of several components and subcomponents of the learners' respective native languages. In considering the learners' native languages the initial assumption will be made that differences, whether great or small, can result in transfer and thus in errors. Because the goal of this study is not to better predict transfer but rather to ascertain in which specific subcomponents phonological errors persist, no attempt will be made to construct intricate hypotheses connecting all the factors propsoed in Chapters 2 and 4. However, both the Subset Principle and Zobl's claims will turn out to be relevant, as will the possible differential access to principles vs. parameters.

5.3. The learners' native languages First we will look at American English to determine whether the acquisition of the more restricted cliticization in German might be problematic for learners from this language background. We can assume that the learners will have no LI-based problems with the syllable, metrical and rhythmic structure of German since German and English are roughly equivalent in this regard. The other three languages under consideration, Korean, Spanish and Turkish, all have simpler syllable structure than does German. Based on transfer factors the learners can be expected to confront problems with the acquisition of German syllable structure; as we saw in Chapter 2, learners whose native language has a simpler canonical syllable structure transfer this structure or even retreat to a simpler structure (CV or CVC) as claimed by Tarone (1976). However, the findings discussed in Chapters 2 and 4 provided an indication that adult learners retain access to the principles involved in syllable structure. If this is so, then learners might not experience problems which persist into the later stages of acquisition. It was suggested in Chapter 4 that a parameter is involved in the acquisition of rhythmic structure. We specifically want to examine the settings of this parameter in the learners' native languages (i.e. whether the setting is stress-timed or syllable-timed). The incorrect parameter setting for German will have the result that the clitics containing vowels or syllabic consonants will not be acquired. If parameters do not remain accessible to the adult second language learner, this is where problems will persist. Before we look at any other aspects of the learners' native languages, let us look at how unfocused pronouns are realized in the learners' languages.

124 5.3.1. Realization of unfocused pronouns Once the learner has acquired the unstressed syllables which result from lack of focus in German, it becomes possible for the learner to contrast of focused versus unfocused elements. If the learner's native language realizes unfocused pronouns as empty elements rather than as clitics, then learner can be predicted to experience at least initial difficulties acquiring the pronominal clitics. The realization of unfocused elements as empty elements is likely to result in initial problems not only in production, but also with the perception of the clitics; learners will fail to hear elements consisting solely of a single non-branching mora in positions which they expect to be phonologically empty. Personal pronouns are always realized overtly when focused, while unfocused personal pronouns have two options available to them: either they appear as clitics, or they are phonologically empty. Any given language can realize both of these options, but both options are normally not realized in the same syntactic position, as these options are mutually exclusive. The table in (5.4) below shows the realization of unfocused pronouns in the learners' native languages. The empty subjects in Spanish are considered to be to be instances of pro-drop, where the empty element is syntactically licensed and identified by a rich morphology (cf. Rizzi 1986). The empty subjects in Turkish are also instances of pro-drop. Subjects and objects in Korean and objects in Turkish must be topicalized in order to be empty (cf. Kornfilt 1987). Both German and English also allow topicalized empty elements under restricted circumstances. In German both objects and subjects can be phonologically empty under certain circumstances; this is precisely where clitics do not occur in German, namely in Spec (CP).

(5.4) The realization of unfocused pronouns

SUBJECT OBJECT

German clitic clitic

English clitic clitic

Spanish empty clitic

Korean empty empty

Turkish empty empty

Based solely on the above chart, we can predict that the acquisition of subject and object clitics will be relatively easy for the English speakers. Object clitics will be easy for Spanish speakers, but subject clitics problematic. Both the Koreans and the Turkish speakers should have problems with both subject and object clitics. We can therefore expect the English speakers to have the fewest problems in their overall acquisition of cliticization, since unfocused pronouns are realized in the same manner in both English and German. In fact, cliticization in these two languages is similar in a number of respects, as we will see below. The likelihood that the Americans will be the most advanced in

125 their acquisition of cliticization is strengthened by the fact that not only the syllable, metrical and rhythmic structures of English are highly similar to those of German, but also by the fact that English morphology is also quite similar. We will look at this in more detail in the following section. Based on the realization of unfocused pronouns alone, the Spanish speakers should be the second-best, followed by the Korean speakers and the Turkish speakers. However, we must also take into consideration the syllable, metrical, rhythmic and (additional) morphological structures of these three languages. Because these structures differ from those in German, transfer is likely to occur. We will do this after treating American English.

5.3.2. American English English (American English) was chosen as one of the native languages not only because the syllable, metrical and rhythmic structures of English and German are comparable, but also because pronominal cliticization is highly similar in both languages. We can therefore predict that speakers of English will experience few overall problems in the acquisition of the phonological aspects of cliticization. Since the main differences between English and German lie in the area of syntax, looking at the acquisition of the syntactic restrictions on pronominal cliticization in German by English speakers allows us to assess whether adult learners are able to acquire syntactically conditioned phonological phenomena. Since cliticization is more restricted in German than in English, looking at the acquisition of cliticization by English speakers further allows us to examine whether transfer of a less restrictive postlexical phenomenon blocks the acquisition of more restricted one. The pronominal clitics in English are generally found in the same positions as their full forms. While the clitics in English cannot be derived entirely from productive rules, as we will see below, English does have the rules of reduction and deletion which were shown in Chapter 3 to not exist in German. Unlike in German, schwa is not normally the result of rules of epenthesis, but is a potential allophone of any unstressed vowel in English.5 Depending on phonological form, the vowels in all function words and in unstressed syllables in English are generally candidates for reduction and deletion, unlike in German. This results in greater transparency of the pronominal clitics in English than in German. However, although reduction to schwa in English is a P2 rule, Kaisse (198S) observes that it is not rate dependent. Thus learners are dealing with a phenomenon in both their LI and L2 which occurs at normal rates of speech. If English speakers have transferred such postlexical rules of unstressed vowel reduction and deletion to German, they will be led to the conclusion that the clitics are the product of productive P2 rules in German. This conclusion involves the further assumption that every strong (full) form can be reduced in any position when unstressed; in other words weak forms need not meet the requirement that they maximally constitute a single, non-branching mora and they need not be adjoined to COMP. English also allows postlexical ^syllabification within domains beyond the host-clitic configuration, while German does not, as discussed in Chapter 3. The broader domain of

126 resyllabification in English has the additional effect that cliticization is phonologically more transparent and less restricted than in German. The examples in (5.5) below show that resyllabification cannot occur between a verb and a following full NP. Instead a glottal stop is inserted, as in (5.5b). The presence or absence of a glottal stop between the verb and a following pronoun or noun in German can act as a clue for the language learner in figuring out the allomorphic status of the clitics. In English, glottal stop insertion is an optional rule, as shown in (5.5c) and (5.5d). English learners of German might assume it is also optional in German and fail to notice that glottal stops in German mark a boundary across which resyllabification does not occur at normal rates of speech. (5.5)

(a)

[Ic.mak.2a.na] Ί like Anna.1

(b)

*[l9.ma.ka.na]

(c)

[ay.layk.2ae:n] Ί like Ann.1

(d)

[ay.lay.kae:n]

Based on P2 rules of unstressed vowel deletion in English, pronouns in all grammatical cases can undergo vowel reduction and deletion. Selkirk (1972) lists the pronouns /, me, you, she, her, he, him, it, we, us, they and them as all having clitic forms in English. In fact, pronominal cliticization in English could be characterized as a P2 phenomenon, except for the Α-less clitic forms for he, him and her, which cannot be derived via productive phonological rules. Selkirk (1984) observes that the general principles of metrical structure apply to the pronominal clitics in English, i.e. that the clitics follow rhythmically prominent hosts. Thus a host and enclitic form the same metrical structure in English as in German: a binary foot with a weak right branch. These facts indicate that American learners of German will correctly assume cliticization is in this respect identical in both languages. This assumption can be expected to further blind learners to the requirement that clitics consist of a single, non-branching mora. There is also the likelihood that English speakers will transfer English forms morphologically similar to those which exist in German. The clitic forms for the accusative and dative third person singular him /m/, as in [tE.lm] 'tell him1 might be expected to transfer. The /m/ in English is the same in phonetic form as the potential but non-occurring clitic allomorph for him in German: ihm /m/, which could lead to the failure of learners to acquire the constraints against dative clitics if they transfer this morpheme from English. The lack of discrimination in English between accusative and dative pronominal clitics (and pronouns as well) in general leads to the prediction that the English speakers will not discriminate between the grammatical accusative clitics and the ungrammatical dative clitics in German. Several additional morphological facts about English may also be relevant to the acquisition of cliticization in German. First, the suffix -s in English is a morpheme which very

127

productively attaches to various stems; as the third person singular agreement suffix, the -s attaches to verbs, while as the plural or possessive suffix, it attaches to nouns. In addition /s/ is the clitic allomorph of the auxiliary is. The presence of/s/ as both an inflectional suffix and a clitic in English, in combination with the fact that English has pronominal clitics, should make the acquisition of the clitic /s/ very easy for the American speakers of German. As mentioned above, the position for the pronominal clitics in English is generally the same as for full forms, except that the clitics do not surface when the pronoun is stressed. In addition, the constraint against clitics in conjoined phrases also applies to the clitics in English. These constraints aside, clitics in English attach more freely to hosts than do German clitics, as was indicated above. For example, clitics in German do not attach to prepositions, whereas they do in English Based on the LI facts, the prediction is that English speakers will also attach clitics in German to prepositions. And, unlike in German clitics can appear preverbally in English, as in: [ya] know she's always late. The learners will be led to the incorrect conclusion that clitics are allowed pre-verbally in German. Allowing preverbal clitics could either be the result of application of P2 rules of reduction or of the learners' failure to acquire Spec (CP) as a topic position in German. The difficulties American learners might confront in their acquisition of the syntactic conditions on cliticization will be further complicated if they have not acquired the syntactic structure of German. Recall from Chapter 2 the claim by Clahsen and Muysken (1986, 1989) that adult learners' grammars are not possible UG grammars because adult learners resort to general problem solving strategies to acquire an L2 syntax. Their claims refer to data from two of the native languages examined in the present study (Turkish and Spanish) and are for this reason particularly relevant. While recent research on the second language acquisition of German syntax by Spanish, Turkish Korean speakers has questioned the conclusion that the adults' L2 syntactic structures do indeed constitute possible grammars under UG (Eubank forthcoming, Schwartz and Sprouse forthcoming; Vainikka and Young-Scholten forthcoming; see also duPlessis et. al 1987), it is also conceded that some differences in ultimate attainment exist, particularly with respect to functional categories (cf. Schwartz, Beck and Eubank 1992). It seems reasonable to expect that even advanced learners do not have syntactic structures for German which completely resemble those for standard German. If the incomplete acquisition of German syntax is related to problems with functional elements and their projections this will lead to difficulties in identifying COMP as the position to which clitics adjoin. This will not only be a problem for Americans, but also for the Korean, Spanish and Turkish speakers. The main difficulties which can be predicted for the English speakers are that they will overgeneralize the possible clitic forms to include dative clitics as well as other non-occurring clitics in the nominative and accusative cases, and they will allow clitics to occur in more positions than they actually do in German. In other words, although learners will have no problems acquiring the phonological forms of the clitics, transfer of general P2 rules and transfer of more liberal cliticization from English should block their acquisition of the morphologically and syntactically restricted German cliticization. We can frame the English speaker's task in terms of the Subset Principle.6 Cliticization in English and cliticization in German stand in a superset-subset relationship, whereby cliticization in English represents the superset, as it occurs in all the positions and cases in

128

which it is found in German but with the addition in English of cliticization in the dative case, for possessives and in additional syntactic positions (to the extent that these are possible in English syntax). In order to retreat from the English superset, the speaker requires negative evidence. It is highly unlikely that speakers receive corrections on their acquisition of cliticization, particularly since this phenomenon is rarely taught in German language classes. Moreover, negative evidence is held to be of no value in terms of learnability. What follows is a discussion of those aspects of cliticization for which the other three languages, Korean, Spanish and Turkish, differ most markedly from German. As mentioned previously, these languages differ from German in terms of rhythmic structure and also possess considerably simpler syllable structures than German. If the more complex syllable structure of German is not acquired, this will block the acquisition of the clitic /s/, whereas if the stress-timed rhythm of German is not acquired, this will block the acquisition of all the other clitics. First we will look at the syllable structures of these languages.

5.3.3. Native languages with simpler syllable structures While Korean, Spanish and Turkish all have simpler syllable structures than German, each language presents additional and different phonological deviations from German, providing an opportunity to pinpoint which aspects of cliticization are resistant to acquisition.

5.3.3.1. Korean syllable structure The canonical syllable structure of Korean is (C)V(C), with the final C being a sonorant or an unaspirated obstruent (rather than there being a voicing opposition, stops in Korean are either aspirated or unaspirated and generally only unaspirated stops in Korean occur syllable finally). Word-final consonant clusters are brought into conformity with the canonical syllable structure through deletion, as in (5.6a), where the final consonant in the cluster is deleted. When word internal consonant clusters occur they are always hetereosyllabic; a consonant cluster never surfaces word- or syllable-finally, as in (5.6b). (Most Korean examples are from Yu 1990).7 (5.6)

(a)

/kaps/ => [kap]

'price'

(b)

/kaps + i/ => [kap.si] 'price* nominative

The next set of examples, in (5.7), ilustrates that in Korean initial and final tautosyllabic consonant clusters which do not involve /s/ are also simplified by the application of a rule of [i] epenthesis, as in the case of borrowed and foreign words. Bearing on the Korean speakers' acquisition of cliticization is the example in (5.7c), which, in combination with the examples in (5.6), provides clear evidence that [s] is not permissible in Korean either syllable- or wordfinally.

129 (5.7) (a)

[kilinik] 'clinic'

(b)

[k01in] 'Köln1/ 'Cologne1

(c)

[gilasi] 'glass1

When Koreans simplify consonant clusters in the acquisition of a second language with a more complex syllable structure such as German, they could either transfer rules of deletion or rules of epenthesis. As shown above, the vowel which is inserted is [i]. Tarone (1987) concludes that Koreans acquiring English prefer consonant deletion over epenthesis as a simplification strategy, suggesting that the preference for deletion is based on universale rather than transfer. However, the examples in 5.6 cause one to wonder why Tarone did not analyze deletion as the result of transfer. Eckman (1987) also looked at consonant cluster simplification by Koreans learning English and found that the patterns of deletion for three-member clusters revealed stops to be the most frequently deleted, with the deletion of/s/ much less common. In Chapter 2 research was discussed which suggests that the second language acquisition of syllable structure does not solely involve transfer; Tarone's and Eckman's analyses of Korean L2 data as examples of universal rather than transfer-induced simplification processes indicate that we may find similar patterns of acquisition for the Korean, Spanish and Turkish learners if universals play a dominant role. Eckman's findings further suggest that the Koreans may have less of a problem acquiring the clitic /s/ than one would predict based on transfer alone.

5.3.3.2 Spanish syllable structure Spanish syllable structure is also less complex than that of German, but somewhat more complex than that of Korean. While obstruents in Spanish rarely occur syllable-finally, syllable-final consonant clusters do exist, for example with a sonorant + stop, as in the proper names Guitart and Tiant (examples from Archibald, in press). The obstruent /s/ can follow all sonorant consonants except /m/. Obstruents can occur as the first member of a cluster in the very limited context in which the second member is /s/, as in the word [obs.ta.ku.lo] Obstacle1. That /s/ can occur in a cluster following a stop is similar to situations we have already discussed whereby the sequence /bs/ can be said to constitute not two but one consonant as a sort of affricate. This allows us to characterize the canonical syllable structure of Spanish as (C)V(N)(C), where N represents a sonorant consonant. In his research on the acquisition of German by Spanish speakers, Tropf (1987) showed that such learners predictably deleted consonants in final clusters which violate the canonical syllable structure of Spanish. While the common pattern the learners exhibited was that of deletion of the second consonant in a two-member cluster, Tropf also found that in clusters with two and three members, the least sonorous consonant was most often deleted, regardless of position. Based on this pattern of deletion, Tropf concluded that the learners' acquisition of the German syllable was guided not only by their native language canonical syllable structure but also by the sonority hierarchy.

130

A combination of the facts regarding Spanish syllable structure and Tropfs research suggests that the Spanish speakers can be expected to have few problems with the clitic /s/ in twomember clusters as long as it is not preceded by an ImJ. The learners are more likely to exhibit difficulties with three-member clusters, whereby the learners — if they behave in the same way as Tropfs learners — will delete the least sonorous consonant in the cluster, which will not always be the /s/.

5.3.3.3. Turkish syllable structure The syllable structure of Turkish is somewhat more complex than that of Spanish. While Spanish only allows final consonant clusters composed of a sonorant and a stop, Turkish allows these and, in addition, allows clusters composed of a fricative and a stop, as in the words cift 'couple1 and sevk 'fervor1. Just as in Spanish, if a stop is the first member of the final cluster only an /s/ can follow, not another stop, as in the word boks "boxing1 (cf. Kornfilt 1987). When a consonant cluster occurs intervocalically, the members of the cluster syllabify into the preceding and following syllables. If a syllable-final consonant cluster impermissible in Turkish occurs underlyingly a vowel may be added. That this occurs language-internally is shown in the monomorphemic examples in the first column in (5.8a), in which an /i/ has been epenthesized. In the examples in the second column, the possessive morpheme -/ has been suffixed to the stem, resulting in hetereosyllabicity for the two adjacent consonants in the clusters (where the vowel will harmonize with the vowel in the stem). The examples in (5.8b) illustrate that these rules of epenthesis are productive because they also apply to borrowed words. Deletion of the second consonant in a cluster also takes place if both are stops, as the example of the borrowed word in (5.8c) demonstrates (see. van der Hülst and van der Weijer 1991). (5.8)

(a)

nom. sg. vakit kabir

possessive vakti kabri

(b)

purotesto 'protest' filim 'film1

(c)

direk

'time' 'tomb'

'direct'

Given these syllable structure conditions, we would not expect the Turkish speakers to experience problems with the acquisition of the clitic /s/ when its attachment results in a twomember cluster. When the attachment of /s/ results in a three-member cluster, the Turkish speakers have the option of applying their rule of epenthesis between the stem consonants or between the stem and the clitic. If they apply the rule which produces direk for 'direct' in (5.8c) they will delete a consonant, although it is not clear from the facts we have about Turkish whether they will delete the final consonant or the final stop. If the Turkish speakers

131 behave like the Spanish speakers in the study by Tropf discussed in the preceding section, we would expect them to delete the consonant in a cluster which is less sonorous than /s/, i.e. one of the stops.

5.3.4. Resyllabification Whether learners will perceive and thus acquire the host and clitic as separate words or as one prosodic unit within which certain phonological processes occur should depend to a certain extent on the domain of resyllabification in their native languages. In all three native languages resyllabification takes place across word boundaries, at least within narrow syntagmatic configurations comparable to the host-clitic configuration. The expected result is that the learners will at least resyllabify the vowel-initial form ich with the preceding verb, as in [habl?]. The three examples in (5.9) show applications of resyllabification in the learners' native languages. (5.9)

(a)

Korean > fjodari]

'that bridge'

(b)

Spanish /otros#estaban/ => [otro.sestaban] Others were'

(c)

Turkish /gid/ => [git] 'go' imperative => [gidim] Ί went'

The Korean example illustrates resyllabification across a word boundary and application of intervocalic voicing. The Spanish example simply shows resyllabification (without any resultant phonological alterations). The Turkish example illustrates resyllabification across a morpheme boundary, resulting in the bleeding of final devoicing. This is a situation comparable to that in German:, when a vowel-initial agreement suffix is attached to the verb stem and final devoicing fails to occur. The bleeding of final devoicing upon attachment of a an agreement suffix in Turkish might enable the Turkish learners to analyze the German subject clitics at some point in their acquisition as agreement suffixes. Recall from Chapter 4 the idea that the stage through which children learning German pass during which the clitics are analyzed as agreement suffixes may well be a necessary step in the acquisition of cliticization, permitting the learner to acquire the syntactic, morphological and phonological aspects of cliticization through initial identification of the clitic as an agreement suffix. If this is the case, the Turkish speakers have a clear advantage if they are able to use their Turkish morphology as a bootstrap into German cliticization. The specific nature of Turkish morphology will be discussed further in the section on morphology below. The transfer of resyllabification in Spanish could conceivably lead to a situation in which these learners transfer the rule which epenthesizes an Id before an /s/ when the /s/ occurs in an

132 initial consonant cluster as in [eskwela] 'school1. The environment for this rule can only be created if learners have resyllabified the clitic /s/ with a following consonant-initial word so that the /s/ appears in an initial cluster. Postlexical ^syllabification in Korean and Spanish might hinder speakers of these languages in the same way as it could hinder the English speakers, resulting in the acquisition of a more liberal cliticization than exists in German. It is not clear in which prosodic domain «syllabification occurs in these languages; however if ^syllabification in these languages does occur in a prosodic domain larger than the one in which it occurs in German (i.e. the clitic group) this will serve to prevent the learners from detecting that clitics are different from independent words in German, which do not resyllabify with what precedes them.

5.3.5. Rhythmic structure of the native languages In order to make predictions about the acquisition of the other clitics, we need most importantly to look at the rhythmic structure of the learners' native languages. The clitics with schwa, vocalized /r/ and the syllabic sonorant consonants all involve syllables of short duration of the type not found in syllable-timed languages. If the learners' interlanguage phonologies do not allow the relevant rhythmic structures, the learners will not acquire any of the clitics, except perhaps /s/. If such rhythmic structures are absent, it is likely that transfer is involved. Recall the proposal in Chapter 2 that rhythmic structure is a parameter with two values. The stress-timed setting can be expressed as the superset setting and the syllable-timed setting as the more restrictive, subset setting. In the following three sub-sections we will attempt to determine whether Korean, Spanish and Turkish exhibit a stress-timed or a syllable-timed rhythm. The rhythmic structures of Korean and especially Spanish can be categorized as syllable-timed. Turkish is less easy to categorize.

5.3.5.1. Korean rhythmic structure It is not immediately apparent that Korean is syllable-timed since, according to several researchers (e.g. Yu 1990) schwa occurs in Korean. This segment occurs as a phoneme as (S.10) illustrates and not necessarily when a syllable is unstressed. A syllable in Korean can consist of a single vowel with schwa and can also constitute its own syllable, even appearing as the only vowel in an independent word. Although, as in German, a schwa in Korean can comprise a grammatical morpheme, as for example in the imperative suffix [a], other vowels in addition to schwa can occur in the inflectional morphology. (5.10)

(a) (b)

[nokasa] [sam]

(c)

[anahak]

'melting' 'rice-straw sack

'linguistics'

133 The additional fact that sonorant consonants may not form syllable peaks as they do in German is an indication that the unstressed syllables they are contained in would be disallowed in Korean. In other words, there is ample evidence that Korean is not stress-timed, but rather syllable timed.8 In sequences such as /In/ in /vil=n/ 'want him', the Korean speakers can be expected to transfer the rule of epenthesis shown in the section on Korean syllable structure which produces forms like [ktflin] and [vllin]. Because the resultant surface form is similar to the unstressed full form this should make it difficult for the Koreans to distinguish the clitic and full form allomorphs.

5.3.5.2. Spanish rhythmic structure Green (1987) characterizes Spanish as a "textbook example of a syllable-timed language with a delivery sometimes likened to a recalcitrant machine gun." (1987:243). Vowels in unstressed syllables in Spanish do not alter their quality, i.e. they do not centralize to schwa. Dauer (1983) observes that Spanish exhibits a predominance of CV syllable types, most of which contain non-high vowels such as [a] [e] and [o]. Even in unstressed syllables, such vowels are longer than high vowels. The studies of Spanish speakers acquiring English discussed previously offer support that Spanish speakers do indeed transfer their rhythmic structure (Major 1987, Pokes and Bond 1987). In accordance with its rhythmic structure, Spanish lacks syllabic sonorant consonants. Furthermore, if in German when a more sonorous consonant (i.e. a liquid) precedes an In/ in contexts where the /n/ could be syllabified and would not become syllabic, this would be disallowed in Spanish, because sequences of vowel-liquid-nasal are impermissible (cf. Harris 1983). Thus under no circumstances should Spanish speakers who transfer their Spanish syllable structure be able to attach the clitic /n/. In section 5.3.1. we saw that Spanish realizes its unfocused objects as clitics. Since these clitics normally appear preverbally, this could result in difficulties for the Spanish speakers in the acquisition of the syntactic conditions on cliticization. When the object clitics appear postverbally, they can receive stress, as the example in (5.11) from Harris (1989) illustrates. A phonetically identical string not composed of a host and clitic cannot bear the same stress, and thus stress is what marks the syllable as an enclitic — precisely the opposite situation from that which obtains in German. (This Spanish example special phonology applying to the host-clitic configuration is similar to those shown for German in Chapter 3.) (5.11)

(a) roba=lo (b) robalo / *robalo

'steal it' "bass1

At some level the presence of object clitics in Spanish may assist the learner in acquiring the object clitics in German. Yet the fact that enclitic objects in Spanish appear preverbally and receive stress when postverbal should decrease the learner's chances of acquiring the German clitics, which are always enclitic and constitute unstressed syllables (other than the clitic /s/).

134

5.3.5.3. Turkish rhythmic structure As stated above, it is not completely clear what the rhythmic structure of Turkish is. In Dauer's (1983) analysis of the characteristics of stress-timed and syllable-timed languages, a discussion of Turkish rhythm was not included because the perceptions of the three native speakers Dauer consulted differed drastically. We can tentatively argue that Turkish is not syllable-timed because of the presence of high, lax vowels in open syllables as in [annE] 'mother' and [kari] 'woman' (unlike Spanish, which typically has non-high vowels of longer duration in open syllables). No research of which I am aware addresses the existence of any completely reduced vowels in unstressed syllables in Turkish. However we can piece together evidence to arrive at some probable conclusions. In Turkish stress is normally assigned to the last syllable, although Lewis (1967) refers to the grammatical suffixes in Turkish as enclitics, many of which can be stressless. When a word in Turkish is composed of suffixes, stress is assigned to the last stress-bearing suffix in the word. It seems reasonable to assume that when a sequence of several unstressed grammatical morphemes exists, at least some of the vowels in these syllables will centralize to schwa in fast or casual speech. The vowel [i] is a possible target for such reduction and centralization, since it is articulatorily not far from schwa. If the vowels in suffixes in Turkish do reduce when not stressed, we have cause to suspect that Turkish leans in the direction of having a stress-timed rather than a syllable-timed rhythm. Yet syllabic consonants do not exist in Turkish. Whether or not Turkish is syllable-timed or stress-timed, speakers should have problems with the attachment of the clitic /n/. If, however, Turkish tends towards stress-timing, then such syllables might be allowed by Turkish speakers of German. As was the case for the Korean speakers, when the /n/ follows a segment of higher sonority as in /vll=n/ the Turkish speakers can be expected to transfer the rule of epenthesis which produces forms like [filim] and produce [vllin]. The resultant form is one which is no different from the full form, except that it is shorter in length.

5.3.6. Morphology The agglutinative morphology of both Korean and Turkish is characterized by multiple suffixation. It is quite likely that the transfer of this type of morphology will help the learner in discovering the suffix-like nature of German clitics. It has already been suggested that because Turkish has suffixes which mark subject-verb agreement, this may put learners from this native language background in a position where they follow developmental sequences similar to those followed by children acquiring clitics. In this sense Turkish speakers have an advantage over Korean speakers because Korean does not mark agreement. Spanish speakers might be aided in their acquisition of the clitic /s/ in the same way that English speakers might be helped by the existence of /s/ as a grammatical morpheme. In Spanish the suffix -s marks both the plural suffix and the second person singular. The suffix -s can also appear as the second member of a consonant cluster in some plurals, as in the

135 borrowed word chips '(potato) chips'. Thus Spanish speakers will be attuned to the fact that 5 can be a suffix and may therefore be more likely to accept -s as an enclitic in German.

5.3.7. Predictions It should be stressed that the effects of transfer do not remain static. As learners progress in the acquisition of the target language, the role which transfer plays can be expected to vary. Major's (1987a, b) ontogency model shows a predominance of transfer at the early stages with a decrease over time. According to Major's model, developmental processes play a minor role at the initial stages of acquisition but over time show subsequent rise in frequency followed by a subsequent decline. Thus the advanced learners from whom data was collected for this study are likely to show less evidence of the workings of both transfer and developmental processes if they are at the end of Major's continuum. However, even the speech of advanced learners is not error-free; such learners typically exhibit signs of not having completely severed the ties to their native languages. The determination of which types of errors persist and what additional factors might govern the persistence of transfer or developmental errors is the aim of this study. Before we summarize the predictions which have been made regarding the acquisition of the syllabic, rhythmic and morphological aspects of cliticization, we need to address the role transfer might play in the acquisition of the syntactic conditions on cliticization. In order to acquire these conditions the learners would need to have acquired the syntactic structure for German, as shown in the tree in (3.6) which contains a head-final VP, a head-final IP and a head-initial CP. If learners have not acquired this syntactic structure it is quite likely that they will not have identified COMP as the host since they may not have a position in which both verbs and complementizers occur. Learners whose native languages allow transfer of the parameter setting for head directionality might fare better than learners who must reset this parameter, although this still does not guarantee that such learners will have acquired the projection CP. In English and Spanish these three projections are head-initial, meaning that speakers from these two languages must acquire the head-final VP and IP in German. However, both Turkish and Korean have head-final VPs. However, the CP in Turkish and Korean is headfinal and the verb does not raise to COMP. Nonetheless, this state of affairs could conceivably result in a situation where the Turkish and Korean speakers are better equipped than their English and Spanish-speaking counterparts to eventually acquire the syntactic conditions on cliticization.10 In considering how transfer might affect the acquisition of the phonological aspects of cliticization, we looked at native language syllable structure and rhythmic structure and in so doing assumed that transfer remains static influence on the learner's interlanguage. The predictions which were made are predictions which data from learners at earlier stages of acquisition wouldl bear out, according to Major's ontogency model. We therefore expect to find that the advanced learners in the present study have overcome many of their initial LI-

136 based problems. What we are interested in examining is which difficulties these learners have been unable to overcome. The predictions offered above based on the transfer of canonical syllable structure led to the expectation that only some of the learners will completely acquire the clitic /s/. Complete failure to acquire this clitic can be predicted for the Korean learners, while the Spanish learners and Turkish learners should have problems with this clitic only when it attaches to a cluster composed of more than two members. The predictions that were made regarding the acquisition of the clitics other than /s/ (i.e. the clitics with vowels and syllabic consonants) were done so on the basis of whether the learners' native languages exhibited a syllable-timed or stress-timed rhythm. Well-supported predictions could be made only for English, which is clearly a stress-timed language, and for Spanish, which is uncontroversially a syllable-timed language. The comparability of English and German rhythmic structures means that English speakers will have no transferred-induced problems when acquiring the rhythmic aspects of cliticization in German. In section 5.3.2. the many additional similarities between these two languages were discussed in depth and the conclusion reached that, for the most part, English speakers will confront minimal difficulty with German cliticization because the phenomenon is nearly the same in both languages. Yet 'nearly the same* cannot be equated with 'identical1; cliticization in German is syntactically conditioned, whereas in English it is not. The result could well be that these learners adopt a more liberal version of cliticization. The Spanish speakers were predicted to transfer their syllable-timed rhythm to German. In Chapter 4 it was proposed that this is the subset setting of a rhythmic parameter. In transferring the subset setting, these learners should be able to make use of positive evidence to reset the parameter to the stress-timed setting for German. Although Korean was categorized as syllable-timed and Turkish as stress-timed, these claims are controversial thus only tentative predictions can be offered. Proceeding from the asusmption that Korean is syllable-timed, these learners' acquisition should show patterns similar to patterns found for the Spanish speakers. And if Turkish is stress-timed, then these learners' acquisition should resemble that of the Americans. If learners permanently adopt a syllable-timed rhythm for German and do not acquire the phonologically correct clitic forms, they might acquire forms with short, tense vowels as clitics. The only difference between the full forms and clitics would then be the lengthening that the forms undergo when they receive stress. However, if learners are able to differentiate such forms this will not be sufficient to separate actual clitics and full forms. In such a case it is highly unlikely that the learners would perceive the special morphological status of the clitics and the syntactic distribution of the clitics versus full forms. The clitics with centralized vowels which can never receive stress provide a valuable clue as to the suffix-like nature of the clitics in German. This clue is not available if the learner does not perceive the phonological form of these elements. Finally, the morphology of the learners' native languages may also have an influence on the ease with which learners acquire cliticization. Both English and Spanish use -5 as a suffix to mark various grammatical relations. It is possible that the existence of this suffix will be helpful in acquiring the clitic -s. The morphology of both Korean and Turkish is agglutinative,

137 with multiple affixes marking a wide variety of grammatical functions. If this puts learners in an advantageous position to perceive the suffix-like enclitics in German, Turkish speakers would have an advantage over Korean speakers because Turkish marks subject-verb agreement, while Korean does not. Because Turkish suffixation thus replicates one of the developmental stages in the acquisition of cliticization, these learners may more rapidly reach this stage - and presumably proceed beyond it to the point at which they have acquired these pronominal morphemes as clitics. The picture we can paint of the acquisition of cliticization is as follows: Based on the developmental factors connected to the acquisition of complex syllable structure and rhythmic structure discussed in Chapter 4, all second language learners can be predicted to have initial problems with the acquisition of cliticization. The acquisition of unstressed syllables with centralized vowels and the complete analysis of the internal morphology of words has been shown to be a lengthy process for children and it should also a lengthy process for adults, as exemplified in their acquisition of cliticization. However, factors relating to transfer as well as to the continued availability of the principles and parameters of UG will determine whether the problems learners experience eventually disappear or persist. The predictions based solely on transfer are summarized in the table in (5.12) below, with the learners' native languages ranked according to the relative advantage that transfer from their native languages gives them in acquiring cliticization. Because cliticization should be a late-acquired phenomenon, we can expect to find that even for advanced learners it may not have been completely acquired. By all counts, the English speakers should be the most advanced in their acquisition of cliticization and the Koreans should be the least. Which speakers fall in between depends on the weight the individual factors mentioned above carry. The aim of this study is to determine which factors carry more weight and, ultimately, why. The realization of unfocused (object) pronouns as clitics, a more complex syllable structure, and suffixes which are similar to German could put Spanish speakers in better position than the Turkish speakers in the acquisition of cliticization. However, based on transfer of a rhythmic structure (probably) similar to that of German and of agreement-marking suffixation, the Turkish speakers may be as good as or better than the Spanish speakers. (5.12) Transfer predictions Realization of Unfocused Pronouns

Complexity of Syllable Structure

Rhythmic Structure

Morphology

1. American 2. Spanish

1. American 2. Turkish

1. American 2. Turkish

3. Korean Turkish

3. Spanish

3. Korean

1 American 2. Spanish Turkish 3. Korean

4. Korean

4. Spanish

138 Now we turn to the examination and analysis of the data to see whether the predictions we have made in this section based both on transfer and developmental factors are borne out.

5.4. Results and analysis There are a number of things we want to know about the learner's acquisition of cliticization. As detailed in section 5.2.2., the two primary aspects of the cliticization which were tested were clitic placement and clitic form. If the learner has acquired cliticization she will only allow cliticization to a functional head (i.e. to COMP or to DET, if a clitic or pronoun follows COMP) and she will only allow nominative and accusative clitics with a single, non-branching mora. In the construction of the sentences to be imitated these constraints were intentionally violated and manipulated as independent variables. The ungrammatical cliticizations in the test battery thus represent a more liberal version (i.e. a P2 version) of German cliticization than actually exists. This led to the hypothesis that not only should learners be able to repeat a grammatical clitic construction if it had been acquired, but they should also be able to repeat those constructions which were grammatical for them but not grammatical for native speakers of German.

5.4.1. Comprehension of the clitics We will first examine some initial results from the imitation task which reveal whether the learners demonstrate a basic comprehension of sentences or phrases with clitics in them. Recall the discussion in Chapter 4 on what is meant by the acquisition of cliticization. When we say the learners have acquired cliticization we do not simply mean that the learners are able to perceive the clitics and to comprehend sentences with clitics in them. Rather, we mean that the learners have acquired the difference between clitics and full forms in terms of focus as demonstrated by their production of all those clitics (but only those clitics) which occur in German and that the learners produce these clitics in grammatical positions only. The learners' perception and comprehension of clitics (in running speech) requires that they perceive complex syllable codas as well as metrical feet in which the weak right branch is a syllable with an unstressed reduced vowel. Their production of the clitics depends on their acquisition of the syllable, metrical and rhythmic structure of German. While perception of clitics naturally precedes their production, the perception of clitics should eventually lead to their production. Since perception of clitics underlies comprehension of clitics, the test subjects' comprehension of the sentences in which the clitics occur can function as a barometer of how advanced the learners are with respect to their acquisition of cliticization. If we find that the test subjects are generally unsuccessful in their comprehension of sentences or phrases within sentences containing clitics, we cannot expect them to have productively acquired cliticization. If the test subjects are in the process of

139 acquiring cliticization their attempts to comprehend sentences with clitics should generally be successful. Since the test subject had to comprehend the test sentence before storing it and then had to perform the distractor task, the accuracy of their repetitions is a good measurement of whether the clitics were initially understood. Although we can safely say that the clitic was understood if it was reproduced as a full form, it cannot be completely clear whether the test subject perceived it as a clitic or a full form. The alterations and substitutions test subjects made when repeating the sentences show partial or total lack of comprehension and thus whether the clitic had been perceived. The test subjects' repetitions were classified as 'misunderstood' when the sentences which were repeated indicated that the speaker had not perceived the clitic, at least as a pronominal element. Responses classified as 'misunderstood' contained various deviations from the target sentence, ranging from the repetition of an element in the same lexical category to repetition of an element in a different lexical category, rendering the sentence nonsensical. Other repetitions which indicated lack of perception of the clitic as a pronominal element involved complete omission of the element, together with an inaccurate rendering of the meaning of the sentence. Because many of the learners' native languages allow empty subjects and objects, deleted pronouns which did not result in a grossly inaccurate version of the sentence were not included in the tally of misunderstood sentences. If the test subject, when confronted with the ungrammatical cliticization in the sentence Was soll Maria=n dabei *Why should Maria come with us?*, changed the name Maria to Marianne and, in addition, omitted the sentential particle clitic -n, it is clear that the clitic was not perceived. The test subjects who were successful in comprehending clitics automatically corrected the utterance to conform to their competence, and produced either Was soil Maria denn dabei, with a full form or Was sollen Maria dabei with the clitic in a position which renders it grammatical. Some further examples of repetitions which revealed that the clitics had not been perceived are shown below, with the inaccurate renderings in boldface and the target sentence in italics. (5.13)

(a)

Sie hat aber den Segel gefunden (Özlem) for: *Aber sie hat r=Segelgefunden. But she has her=sail found 'Yes but she did find her sail.'

(b)

Gestern hat Inge so gesehen. (Peter) for: * Gestern hat Inge=se gesehen. yesterday has Inge=her seen 'Inge saw her yesterday.1

(c)

Hat unter es wirklich gesehen. (Yun Tang) for: *Hat Otto=s auch wirklich gesehen?

has Otto=it also really seen? Did Otto really see it too?1

140 (d)

Wieviele haben alle blich? (Allen) for: Wieviel ham=vr noch brig? how much have=we still left? Ήονν much do we have left?'

(e)

Wissen kann keiner wei . (YongHyeon) for: *Tja, wissen kann keimr=s well know can no one=it 'Well, nobody knows.1

(f)

Deshalb kannt er nicht. (Maria) for: "wissen kann=s er nicht know can=it he not 'He can't tell.'

The form of the learners' repetitions provides a general indication that they have acquired the syllable and, to a certain extent, the metrical structure of German. The repetitions in (5.13) illustrate that even when these learners misperceived the clitics and thus failed to comprehend the sentences, they were skilled at storing and retrieving the number of syllables in the sentences; either the number of syllables is the same in the input sentence and the repeated sentence (when single lexical items are substituted) or a single syllable is added or deleted. These sentences also show a retention of the metrical structure of the constructions in which the clitics occurred; lexical items which are substituted for the clitics frequently have a metrical structure similar to the metrical structure of the words in the input. This is illustrated by the substitution of unten 'under' for Otto in (5.13c), where the words in both the target sentence and repeated sentence have initial stress and the substitution of deshalb kannt 'therefore cans' for wissen kann=s in (5.13f) where both deshalb and wissen have initial stress. Repetitions such as the one by Peter in (5.13b) in which he substituted so 'so' for the clitic se 'her' show that although he did not perceive the clitic, he did perceive a syllable. This repetition could also be an indication that Peter has not yet acquired the rhythmic structure of German ~ or of clitics — since the morpheme so [so:] is a syllable with two moras. However, since the clitic is ungrammatical in this position, it could also be an indication that Peter's competence does not allow cliticization here, as revealed by his repetition of a stressed vowel in this position. The mean frequency with which the five groups of speakers misunderstood sentences with clitics in them given in (5.14) indicates that even the native speakers in the control group experienced problems with some of the test sentences. (5.14) Mean frequency of misunderstood sentences Control 3.9

Spanish 7.6

Turkish 9.5

American 9.7

Korean 12.6

141 Table C. 1 in Appendix C shows the scores of individual speakers. A glance at the individual scores shows that, while two of the test subjects misperceived roughly one-third of the sentences with clitics in them, there were several speakers who were as successful as the least successful native speakers. Amy failed to completely comprehend as few (five) sentences as two of the German speakers, while Jorge, Yun Tang and Pablo fared nearly as well (with six, seven and seven misperceptions, respectively). These scores suggest that at least some of these learners are native-like in their comprehension of colloquial German. However, this fact alone does not necessarily translate into the perception of clitics as clitics rather than products of general rules of phonological reduction. The table in (5.14) shows that the Spanish speakers were the most and the Koreans the least successful of all four non-native speaking groups. However, the two test subjects who misunderstood sentences the most frequently were not both Korean. Allen, an American, and Ho Sung, a Korean, both misunderstood sentences considerably more frequently than did the others, each with 20 repeated sentences which exhibited clear signs of the misperception of the clitic constructions. The renditions of the sentences which they failed to comprehend revealed problems with German syllable and metrical structure for Ho Sung. Only Ho Sung and not Allen exhibited a pattern of inability to retreive the right number of syllables. The test subject with the next highest frequency of misperception (13 sentences) was also Korean (Yong Hyeon) and showed the same inability to retrieve the right number of syllables. The examples in (5.15) reveal Ho Sung's and Yong Hyeon's difficulties. (5.15)

(a)

Ja ja schon mal je Engel. (Ho Sung) for: *Stimmt schon, schwimm=vr bis zur Insel correct prt swim=we until to the island 'You're right, let's swim to the island.1

(b)

Es wird Besungung. (Yong Hyeon) for: *Das wäre lieb=m zu besuchen. that were nice=him to visit That would be nice (of you) to visit him'

It is to be expected that Koreans would have more problems than Americans in retrieving the syllable and metrical structures since English has a syllable and metrical structure comparable to German, while Korean does not. What we can surmise about the reasons for the high frequency of misperceptions exhibited by Allen is that he is one of the less-advanced learners in this study. His biographical data would support such a conclusion; neither was he a student at the university nor did he have advantages some of the other test subjects had (i.e. a German partner, over two years' residence or over ten hours per week spent in contact with Germans). As mentioned above, the native speakers also demonstrated the inability to understand every sentence with clitics. Unlike the non-native speakers' misperceptions, all of the native speakers' misperceptions involved ungrammatical cliticizations. This finding suggests that the inability of the non-native speakers to comprehend ungrammatical utterances is an indication that they are also sensitive to such ungrammatically. (On the other hand, it may be that the

142 non-native speakers are simply more skilled in comprehending constructions which they have previously heard.) When we look at the specific sentences the control group speakers and the non-native speakers did not understand, a clear pattern emerges in which the native speakers and non-native speakers failed to understand the same, ungrammatical sentences. The table in (5.16) provides an exhaustive list of the sentences which were misunderstood by the native speakers. The percentages represent the frequency with which test subjects taken as a group misunderstood a clitic construction in the input. (5.16) Frequency of individual misunderstood clitic constructions Control target construction *Anna=n 90% *m=ist 80% *r=Segel 70% *Paula=m 40% *Otto=s 40% *g=armes 30% *Maria=n 30% *lem=r 10%

American

100% 89% 89% 0% 78% 100% 67% 78%

Korean

100% 80% 100% 60% 100% 80% 80% 60%

Spanish

67% 100% 67% 100% 67% 100% 67% 34%

Turkish 100% 100% 100% 80% 100% 100% 100% 80%

These eight sentences were the sentences which exhibited the highest frequency of misunderstanding for the non-native speakers, usually exceeding the frequency with which the native-speaking control group misunderstood the sentences. In some instances, however, the non-native speaking groups actually comprehended the sentences more frequently than the native speakers did. For example, the construction Paula=m was misunderstood by 40% of the native speakers, but by none of the Americans. It is not clear what the explanation for the Americans' superiority with respect to this example is, although this might be attributable to the fact that the name Paula is more common in English than in German. The general conclusion we can offer is that the non-native speakers as a group exhibit native-like patterns of comprehension (and lack of comprehension), which in some instances — most probably due to extralinguistic variables — is somewhat superior to that of the native speakers. It has already been noted that all of the constructions in (5.16) are ungrammatical. Further observe that four of the examples involve cliticization to a name which ends in a vowel. The reason such constructions are problematic might be due to the speaker's attempts to analyze the clitic together with the vowel which precedes it as the last syllable in the name. In those cases where the clitic comprised part of a consonant cluster as Frank=s, there were no misunderstood sentences by any of the native speakers. Out of the total 211 clitic sentences misunderstood by the non-native speakers, 133 or 63% of these were the ungrammatical sentences which were also misunderstood at least some of

143 time by the native speakers. The remaining 78 clitic sentences (37%) which were misunderstood by the non-native speakers were never misunderstood by any of the native speakers. These 78 sentences showed common patterns of miscomprehension across the nonnative speaking groups. The table in (5.17) represents 33 of these sentences, for which the trend towards lack of comprehension of ungrammatical constructions continues. While the remaining 45 misperceived sentences were not misperceived by more that one speaker, over half of these also involved ungrammatical cliticizations. (5.17) Frequency of sentences misperceived by non-native speakers only

Target *schwimmen=vr sind=vr *keiner=s kann=s *mir=n

American

22% 34% 34% 22% 11%

Korean

Spanish

Turkish

0% 0% 0% 34% 0%

20% 100% 40% 20% 80%

80% 0 50% 50% 25%

The next matter to be addressed in this section is whether there are differences between the native and non-native speakers in their ability to comprehend ungrammatical clitic constructions. In the table in (5.18) we see that considerably more ungrammatical cliticizations were misunderstood than were grammatical ones. While this is true for all five language groups, the German control group is the only one for which all misunderstood clitic constructions are ungrammatical. The Turkish group very closely resembles the German group's pattern in that 97% of the cliticizations they misunderstood were ungrammatical. (5.18) Grammaticality of misperceived clitic sentences control GRAMMATICAL 0% UNGRAMMATICAL 100%

Turkish 3% 97%

American

20% 80%

Spanish 22% 78%

Korean

25% 75%

The inability of test subjects to comprehend ungrammatical cliticizations is a probable indication that the non-native speakers are sensitive to the ungrammatical attachment of clitics and, by extension that they have acquired some of the syntactic conditions on cliticization. Such an indication such does not necessarily mean these cliticizations are, in fact,

144 ungrammatical for these learners. The native speakers still showed a superior ability to comprehend the 39 other ungrammatical clitic constructions and, for the most part, were further able to filter these constructions through their competence and produce grammatical repetitions (as will be seen in the following section) of these ungrammatical constructions. As mentioned above, it may simply be the case that the non-native speakers have difficulty understanding constructions which they have never heard before (although this would also then hold for the native speakers). We can better assess the learners' competence when we compare the cliticizations repeated by the control group and the non-native speaker group in section 5.4.3. Does the phonological form of the clitic play a role in the comprehension of clitic constructions? The inability of some Korean speakers to retrieve the syllable and metrical structures of the input sentence suggests that phonological factors may be involved. When phonological form is treated as a variable and the frequency of misunderstood clitics examined, as in the table in (5.19), we find that for those clitics only misunderstood by the non-native speakers some forms appear to be those which are more difficult to perceive. (5.19) Misperceived clitics by phonological type clitic type

[s]

W

percent mispercevied

7%

8%

M 17%

17%

The table does, indeed, show that phonological factors are important. Clitics with [Λ] or [n]/[m] were misunderstood over twice as frequently as clitics with [s] or [a]. We saw above that the frequency of misperceptions with the clitics [n] and (non-occurring) [m] was connected to the ungrammatical cliticizations after a bisyllabic name ending in a vowel; however these clitic constructions were not included in the above figures. These problems and the 17% figure in the table may actually reflect a more general problem relating to the low degree of perceptual salience exhibited by a syllabic sonorant consonant. It is not completely unexpected that the clitics with [Λ] /r/ are much more difficult to perceive than those with schwa, as the vowel involved only occurs in English and none of the other three languages. In a clitic this vowel receives no stress, making it even more difficult for the second language learner to perceive. That clitic constructions with [s] were less often misperceived is equally not surprising, as [s] has a high degree of perceptual saliency. If the ability to comprehend constructions in which clitics occur reflects the learners' competence, we can say that these learners are as advanced as their biographical data suggest. While their rate of overall comprehension of clitic constructions is not as high as that of the native speakers, it cannot be described as low. Moreover, the learners' rate of comprehension of grammatical clitic constructions is quite high. What the test subjects' overall scores clearly reveal is that they are skilled at comprehending sentences which contain clitics and which are

145 uttered in a situation whose only context is the preceding sentence. The ability to perform so well on this task thus confirms the non-native speakers' advanced level of German. Based on the learners' retention of the syllable and metrical structure of the sentences in their inaccurate repetitions, we can initially claim that they have acquired at least a good part of the syllable and metrical structure of German. The learners' sensitivity to ungrammatical cliticizations might, as stated above, be an indication that the learners have also acquired a good part of the syntactic structure of German - or it might merely represent a lowered ability to comprehend novel utterances.

5.4.2. Developmental factors Recall that children do not start to produce stressless syllables of the type in which schwa is found until a fairly late stage in their development. If we assume that children comprehend weak syllables at an earlier stage than they produce them, then the non-native speakers appear to be at such a stage.11 However, the fact that the learners are able to comprehend sentences with clitics most of the time does not mean they will have productively acquired the clitics. Ultimately we want to determine which factor or factors might be impeding the acquisition of cliticization. But before we look at these individual factors, there is one set of data we can examine to see whether the adults developmentally resemble children in their initial identification of the clitics as suffixes, as discussed in Chapter 4. Is there any evidence that these adult learners exhibit the same stages as children do in analyzing complex morphology (i.e. host-clitic configurations)? To answer this we can look at whether the learners in their repetition of clitics engaged in pronominal copying similar to that engaged in by children acquiring German. Although the adults in this study were presumably at a later stage of development than the stage at which children copy pronouns, if learners engage in pronominal copying in their imitations, this could nonetheless be an indication that they are, at some level, analyzing the clitics as suffixes.. The learners did occasionally produce examples of copying, both with clitic forms and full forms:

(5.20)

(a)

Ich hab=s was für das Kind. (HaeRan) for: Ich hab wasfur=s Kind. I have something for the child. have something for the child.'

(b)

Ich [habEs] dir es doch gesagt. (Pablo) for: Ich hab =dr=s doch gesagt. *I have=you=it pit said "But I told you.'

146 (c)

Das war es lieb ihn zu besuchen. (Jörge) for: *Das wäre lieb=m zu besuchen. that were nice=him to visit That would be nice to visit him.1

(d)

Was soll=s dann es heissen. (Nebahat) for: * Was soil dasjetzt=n heissen? what should that now=prt call *What do you mean by that?'

These examples are typical of the pattern of copying, which almost exclusively involved either of the clitic /s/ or the form es.12 Of the 16 instances of pronominal copying in the data 15 were of -sles, with five involving objects, eight subjects and three unclear as to case. There was a single instance which involved the copying of a third person masculine singular pronoun in the accusative case (ihn) with a demonstrative pronoun (den) rather than a clitic. As suggested above, we would not necessarily expect these learners to show evidence of a developmental stage similar to the one which children pass through in their acquisition of cliticization since at the time of testing they were presumably more advanced in their acquisition of syntax than the children are when they engage in pronominal copying. Unlike the learners in this study, whose copying is limited to occurrences of -sles but which occurs for both subjects and objects, the children's copying discussed in Chapter 3 can occur for any person and number but is limited to subject clitics. Given that these learners are (presumably) at a more advanced stage in their acquisition of syntax, we would expect their acquisition of cliticization to be comparably advanced. As we shall soon see, this is not the case. It is reasonable to propose that the type of copying engaged in by these learners is a reflection of the formal instruction they had received in German, since classroom input is typically devoid of clitics and when clitics are taught, it is usually only those which have obligatory or nearobligatory status, as in such idioms as me geht's 'how are you?' That this is a likely analysis is supported by Young-Scholten (1992b), who found that the pronominal copying manifested by naturalistic learners of German during their development generally resembled that of children. In that nine of the sentences involved in pronominal copying were ungrammatical and the remaining also contained (grammatical) permutations of the superficial SVO word order, the test subjects' pronominal copying might also be construed as a test-taking strategy. However, the fact remains that nearly all of these copyings occurred with only one clitic form, /s/ (or es), suggesting that this is the sole clitic which is at some level analyzed as a suffix-like entity. If other clitics have been acquired as suffixes or as clitics, these additional forms should have been involved in copying as well. The fact that no other clitics were copied suggests that the clitic /s/ is the only one any of the speakers have productively acquired. At this point we can turn to the question of which clitics and which aspects of cliticization were indeed acquired by the learners.

147

5.4.3. Overall acquisition: repetition of the clitics Since pronominal cliticization in German is not, strictly speaking, obligatory, speakers have the option of repeating a weakly stressed version of the full form. The initial sentences in each sentence pair were constructed in such a way as to impart as close to an obligatory context for the clitics as possible by dint of their lack of focus. Hence we would not expect a 100% repetition of grammatical clitics in a testing situation, even by the control group. When there were positions in which clitics were ungrammatical in the input sentences, speakers did not have the option of repeating a clitic in such a position if the sentence had been successfully filtered through their competence. In such instances speakers were left with the alternative of repeating a full form or altering the word order. We observe that the control group repeated clitics much more frequently than any of the non-native speaking groups: (5.21) Group means of repetition of clitics «=75 Control

American

Turkish

Korean

35.4

12.8

8.8

6.0

Spanish

4.3

If a second language learner has acquired cliticization, we would also expect a repetition score as high as that for the members of the control group;, none of the mean scores in the table in (5.21) approach the control group score. However, a glance at Table C.2 in Appendix C shows there is a wide range of frequency of repetition over the five groups, with the highest individual frequency of repetition 46 clitics (by the native speaker Christel). Since there were only 31 grammatical cliticizations in the input, this number indicates that the control group speakers were also capable of repeating ungrammatical cliticizations but also of (however this score does not take into account the grammatical repetitions of cliticizations which were ungrammatical in the input). Two of the three speakers (Brigitte and Marianne) in the correcting control group have scores of 21 and 15 repetitions, which are not only considerably lower than all other native speakers, but also lower than even some of the non-native speakers. Clearly for these two native speakers, instructions to monitor their repetitions for grammaticality resulted in more conservatism in their repetitions. Based on a combination of transfer factors, we predicted that Americans would have reached the highest stage in their acquisition of cliticization and that Koreans would be at the lowest stage. The overall rate of repetition by the Americans supports this prediction, as does the lowest individual frequency of repetition for the non-native speaking groups (no clitics) by the Korean speaker, Yong Hyeon. (The overall rate of repetition by the Korean speakers does not support this prediction, a matter to which we shall return momentarily). The American speakers also produced the highest frequencies of repetition, with Beth's frequency of 26.

148 Beth and several others (Connie, Marilyn, Amy and Nebahat) had scores comparable to or higher than the two lowest-scoring control group speakers. All of the non-correcting control group members have repetition scores which were over twice what all but one of the nonnative speakers manifested (Beth), indicating that native speaker and non-native speaker competence differs with respect to cliticization. What we want to determine in the remainder of this chapter is which of the prerequisites of cliticization have not been acquired and thus serve to impede the ultimate acquisition of this phenomenon. If the scores for misunderstood sentences shown in (5.14) are an accurate measure of the test subjects comprehension of clitics, then they should be a good predictor of the frequency of repetition. While this is the case for the native speakers, this does not appear to be the case for all of the non-native speakers. Based on their ability to understand more sentences with clitics than any other group, we would expect the Spanish speakers to show the highest frequency of repetition, since their low frequency of misperceived clitics indicates they have few problems perceiving clitics in the input. Based on these figures, the Turkish speakers should be second best, followed by the Americans. We would predict the Korean speakers to be the worst since they showed the most problems perceiving the clitics, an outcome in line with the transfer-based predictions offered in section 5.3.5. The table in (5.21) suggests that productive acquisition of cliticization does not necessarily immediately follow perception. This is particularly true for the Spanish speakers who perceived clitic constructions the most frequently and repeated them the least often. Compare, for example Pablo, who misunderstood only seven sentences with clitics in them, yet repeated only five clitics with the native speaker Guido who misunderstood a mere five sentences yet repeated 41 clitics. Of course it makes sense that the speakers with the highest frequencies of misperceived clitic constructions were also the speakers with the lowest repetitions; both Allen and Ho Sung each misunderstood 20 such constructions and Allen repeated only two clitics and Ho Sung five. As previously mentioned, we might propose that some of the learners cannot be classified as advanced, given their high rate of misunderstood sentences and their low rate of repetition. Under the demands of the testing situation, one would expect less advanced learners to perform worse on the imitation task. Recall that the task involved listening to tape-recorded informal speech at a normal rate for which the sole context was an introductory question or comment. It seems safe to assume that only advanced non-native speakers of German would be able to comprehend informal speech with such little context. Seen in this light, even 20 misunderstood sentences out of the 69 sentences which contained clitics represents a fairly high level of attainment in German. A combination of transfer factors predicted that the Koreans would be the least advanced, but as we saw in the table in (5.21) the Spanish speakers are, in fact, the least advanced, not the Koreans. At least in the overall repetition of the clitics, the presence of object clitics in Spanish does not appear to help these speakers with German clitics, nor does the presence of empty subjects and objects in Turkish appear to hamper the Turkish speakers as much as we predicted. It was frequently the case that when the test subject's repetition of the sentence showed no evidence of misperception, the clitics were nonetheless not repeated accurately. For both the native speaker group and non-native speaker groups clitics were repeated as full forms,

149 including their repetition as demonstrative pronouns, as noun phrases and Wh-words and also as reduced, but not clitic, forms. A final type of inaccurate repetition of sentences involved the omission by test subjects of the entire pronoun. There were also occasional instances when the entire sentence was forgotten due to inattention by the test subject to the sentence when it was originally heard, as signalled to the test administrator. Test subjects were not given a second chance to listen to and repeat the sentence in such cases. The inaccurate (i.e. non-clitic) repetitions the test subjects produced should shed light on what factors are impeding the acquisition of cliticization. First let us consider whether the realization of unfocused pronouns in the learner's native language is instrumental in determining the choice of strategy the learner employs in dealing with the repetition of the input sentence. The way in which unfocused pronouns are realized in the learners' languages predicts that Americans will not omit pronouns, while Spanish speakers will omit subjects and Koreans and Turkish speakers will omit both subjects and objects. While the mean frequencies of omission given in the table in (5.22) show a tendency for speakers in all groups to omit both subject and object pronouns when they appeared as clitics in the input, the Americans do indeed manifest this tendency the least often. What the deletion scores most clearly demonstrate is that American speakers omit fewer pronouns in their repetitions overall, while Korean speakers omit them most frequently. Furthermore, the frequency with which subjects are omitted in the output of learners from the other three language backgrounds reflects the fact that subjects are typically empty when unfocused in all three of these languages. The scores are in line with our general predictions and with predictions based on the realization of unfocused pronouns. (5.22) Frequency of omission of subject and object clitics w=75 subjects American Spanish Turkish Korean

4% 10% 12% 17%

objects

14% 13% 11% 26%

There is a cross-linguistic trend exhibited by all groups but the Turkish speakers, suggesting a preference for object over subject omission. Recall that Klein and Dittmar (1979) found the omission of objects to be more common than the omission of subjects by Spanish and Italian speakers. These data are in accordance with these findings. If we were to weight the frequency of object omission in such a way as to reflect this, we would still be left with a higher frequency of object omission for the Koreans. It is not clear what the facts are

150 regarding the dropping of topicalized objects in Korean and Turkish, but based on the divergence of frequency of omitted objects in the data, there appears to be a difference. That the Turkish, Spanish and Korean speakers omit clitics more frequently than the Americans suggests that native-language transfer of the realization of unfocused pronouns is, in part, responsible for their lower overall rate of clitic repetition and, by extension, their lower level of acquisition of cliticization. However, these facts about the learners' native languages only serve to distinguish the Americans from the other three groups. As can be seen from a comparison of the figures in (5.21) with those in (5.22) the individual frequencies with which these three groups omitted subjects do not parallel the frequencies with which they repeated clitics. Factors other than realization of unfocused pronouns in the learner's native language appear to be additionally involved. From the discussion in this section, we have seen that the Americans are the most successful in their repetition of clitics and (subject) pronouns. Overall success in repeating clitics does not mean that these learners consistently repeated grammatical clitics; the American learners' competence may not resemble that of native speakers. In section 5.3 the Americans were predicted to adopt a more liberal version of German cliticization. Now we turn to an examination of the acquisition of syntactic conditions on cliticization by the Americans and by the other three non-native speaking groups. A profile of the repetition of clitics by the two speakers who manifested the highest frequencies of repetition, Beth and Nebahat, will be particularly illuminating

5.4.4. Acquisition of the syntactic conditions In order to determine whether the Americans have acquired the syntactic conditions on cliticization, we will compare the pattern of repetition exhibited by the control group with the pattern for the Americans. The chart in (5.23) shows how the repetitions by the control group taken together clustered for position and type of clitic (see Table C.3, Appendix C for exact figures). Where cliticization is considered to be grammatical, the repetitions were between 90% and 51% while instances of marginal grammaticality ranged from 50% to 25% frequency of repetition. Repetition of ungrammatical cliticizations ranged from 23% down to 0%. The pattern which the clitic repetitions fall into confirms the grammaticality of the various clitic constructions discussed in Chapter 3. Those repetitions which cluster at the leftmost edge of the graph are what we would expect: cliticization to full form pronouns and nondative clitics (to DET), cliticization to verbs and to complementizers (to COMP)13 and the assimilated form for sind=vr, which represents another cliticization to COMP. The clitics which were not as frequently repeated as expected based on the discussion in Chapter 3 will be discussed below. The repetition of a clitic after PRO when PRO is preceded by a pronoun (in case the pronoun is the reflexive mich 'myself) was also repeated by eight of the ten native speakers, strongly suggesting that cliticization after PRO is, in fact, grammatical. Other clitics which were repeated with high frequency involved the clitic form for denn, [n] both preceding a subject pronoun and following an adverb of time (jetzt 'now').

151

(5.23)

Control group

control

\—ι—ι—l—ι—ι—ι—Η a b c d e f g h

i

j

k

-I-

Η

1

I m n o p q

1

Η

t u

\

*—*—*

w

Type of cliticization

key: a. after nominative full form pronoun (DET) b. determiner clitic in NP after preposition c. sentential clitic before subject pronoun d. assimilated form [zinv\] e. PRO after pronoun f. denn [n] after adverb

g. non-dative clitic after all verbs (COMP) h. accusative clitic after nominative clitic (DET) i. after non-subject full form pronouns (DET) j. after complementizer (COMP) k. *dative clitic after I. *clitic in a coordination

m. *main verb assimilated form n. 'single dative clitic o. *after adverb p *PRO after adjective q. 'accusative clitic after dative clitics r, 'after NP s. *in Spec (CP)

t. *after prep. u. *after parenthetical v. *clitic form [ς] w. /hat=r/ 'has he' x. assimilated form *[han\A] y. 'possessive form HI

152 One of the cliticizations most frequently repeated by the control group did not involve pronominal clitics, but rather determiner clitics. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, there were two such clitic constructions included in the task both of which were obligatory. The first obligatory cliticization, which was repeated by all of the native speakers, is the encliticization of the determiner das following the preposition für Tor1 as in [fYAs],ywr=j Kind 'for the child.' When the clitic form is used, the meaning is generic, whereas when the full form is used the pronoun must have an exclusionary meaning, as m. für das Kind/*fur=s Kind, das gestern abend im Fernsehen war Tor the child who was on television last night.' The second example in the task, which eight of the ten native speakers repeated, was one in which a preposition is followed by a cliticized determiner, resulting in the assimilated form [mlm] from mit 'with' and dem 'the' as in mit=m Auto 'with the car.' This form is somewhat less standard than [fYAs], which accounts for its lower rate of repetition (cf. Dedenbach 1987). Instead of the assimilated form or a form in which the [t] is retained and the [m] is syllabic, less reduced forms of the preposition and determiner can occur. These results provide a demonstration of the reliability of the imitation task in eliciting repetitions of clitics when they are obligatory and when they are, strictly speaking, not. Based on the discussion of cliticization in Chapter 3, one would have expected repetition of cliticization to complementizers to be as high as to verbs since clitics adjoin to COMP; however repetitions of clitics after complementizers were unexpectedly infrequent, at 51%. Closer examination of the repetitions reveals that the frequency of repetition varied within item type. The repetitions of the seven sentences in which clitics followed complementizers ranged from a very low two or three repetitions for three of the sentences to a very high eight and nine repetitions for two other sentences. The sentences which only two of the control group speakers repeated contained wenn=de 'if you' and ob=s 'whether it' (object). The repetitions by eight and nine speakers were of ob=n Kurt 'whether him Kurt' and of ob=se 'whether she' (object), respectively. One possible explanation is that speakers attempted to avoid ambiguity by repeating the full form of es in ob=s because the subjects in the sentence were proper names which are not case-marked in German. However, this strategy fails, since es can be either the subject or object. It is also unclear why only two speakers repeated wenn=de when seven repeated ob=se. What we can conclude from the repetitions of clitics following complementizers is that, while the mean for all seven sentences with complementizers was 51%, the range of repetition shows that clitics following complementizers are, in some instances, much more frequently repeated than 51%. It might be argued that at least the more frequent repetitions between 50% to 25% represent grammatical cliticizations. Without further research it is not possible to determine the grammaticality of these constructions for the individual speakers. These borderline cases are not crucial, since we want to determine whether the pattern of repetition by the non-native speaking groups resembles that of the native speakers. However, the borderline cases merit some attention because we may need to revise our ideas about which cliticizations are grammatical and which are not. That test subjects might repeat all grammatical cliticizations as well as at least some ungrammatical cliticizations is suggested by the overall repetition frequencies which exceed the frequency of grammatical clitics in the input sentences. This may be an artefact of the testing situation, since test subjects had been instructed to repeat the

153 sentences accurately. However, there is only reason to question the assumption that a cliticization is unequivocally ungrammatical if all ten of the test subjects repeated it. The repetitions between 50% and 25% include all the dative clitics: accusative clitics following dative clitics, dative clitics following accusative clitics and single dative clitics. The rates of repetition show the strongest tendency to cliticize dative clitics to accusative clitics. This could be the one instance in which dative clitics occur at normal rates of speech. While Prinz (1991) maintains that dative clitics do not occur in standard German, other researchers have assumed they do (cf. Abraham 1991). That dative clitics were repeated at this frequency by the native speakers indicate that they are, in fact, marginally grammatical in standard German. This may well be a reflection of more liberal tendencies creeping into standard German. The occurrence of dative clitics in various dialects of German seems to be effecting the spread of their acceptability among speakers of standard German. The syntactic reasons given in Chapter 3 for excluding dative clitics are not so compelling as to exclude datives from the clitic inventory in standard German. The possible but non-occurring main verb assimilated forms *[le:m Λ] 'live we1 and *[JvIniA] "swim we1 were also repeated with intermediate frequency by the control group speakers, which would only be expected if the phonological rules producing assimilated forms were productive. The figure of 40% suggests these rules might be productive for some speakers. We saw in Chapter 3 that main verbs do undergo an assimilation rule which produces [le:m] from [le:bm] 'to live'. However, the potential assimilated form in the input sentence on the task lacks the [v] of the clitic: *[le:niA]. This completely assimilated form was repeated by six of the ten control group speakers. The other potential assimilated form was only repeated by two of the speakers. Why should this second form be less acceptable? If the rule is productive, then it may only apply to verbs in which the vowel is long . This would not, however, explain why [ΖΙΠΤΛ] 'are we' should be allowed, since the vowel is short, nor does it explain why [hanv\] 'have we1 was not repeated at all, as we will see below. These forms clearly require further investigation. If we find that non-native speakers allow some of the assimilation forms which native speakers tend not to prefer, we cannot conclude that they are behaving differently than the native speakers, as it is not completely clear how native speakers treat such forms. The one repetition which we do not expect to occur with any frequency is the repetition of a clitic in a coordination. Clitics in the Romance languages and in English are disallowed in coordinations and there is also no reason to think they are grammatical in German. Judgements by native speakers (and Prinz's 1991 analysis) confirm that such cliticizations are equally ungrammatical in German. It is possible that the four speakers who repeated this did so by following a garden path processing of the sentence, in which the pronoun cliticized to the verb and the rest of the coordination ended up as an adjunct: Ich hab=se und ihn gesehen Ί saw=r....and him.' While the repetitions of some of the clitic constructions between 50% and 25% escape clearcut explanations, those which fall on the right side of the graph (i.e. are repeated much less frequently) are generally what we would expect. There are either no repetitions, or a very low frequency of repetition of cliticizations to NPs, in Spec (CP (topicalized), after prepositions and after parentheticals. The cliticization of the possessive pronoun ihr as M is

154 also confirmed in its ungrammaticality, based on infrequency of repetition. The potential clitic [ς] for ich, discussed in Chapter 3, appears only to be in the clitic inventory of one of these native speakers while the assimilated form for haben=vr [hanv\] 'have we' appears not to be part of any speaker's variety of standard German. If some of these speakers have a productive rule of assimilation involving the clitic /vr/, for some reason haben is excluded. The most probable explanation is that this assimilation is not part of the Bielefeld variety of standard German, but is dialect-marked. There is one unexpectedly low frequency of repetition. The clitic in hat=r in the sentence Elke hat=r die Karte gegeben Ήε gave the ticket to Elke1 was not repeated by any of the native speakers. The likely reason for this is the ambiguity of the clitic M, which could represent either ihr 'you' dative or er 'he' nominative. The additional processing load required to sort this out, particularly with respect to the context which indicated the clitic represented er, seems to have resulted in repetition of the full form. It should be noted that the low frequencies of repetition are due not only to the test subject responding with the f ll form, but also to misperception of the clitics, as discussed in the previous section. And, as we saw, all of the native speakers' misperceptions involved ungrammatical cliticizations. At this point we can look at the repetition of the clitics by the American speakers. Since the overall rate of repetition is lower, we will not focus on a comparison of absolute frequencies of repetition, but rather on a comparison of patterns of repetition.

5.4.4.1. The Americans' scores How does the American group's pattern of repetition compare to that of the control group? If the pattern differs this suggests non-acquisition of the syntactic conditions. If transfer is involved their patterns of repetition should resemble cliticization in English. The initial impression made by the chart in (5.24) is that the clustering of cliticizations repeated by the American group is similar to that of the control group at the left and right edges of the scale, but there are major differences between the two groups in the middle of the chart. In other words, the Americans' competence reflects those positions/types which had a near-obligatory status for the native speakers or were unequivocally ungrammatical. The clitic which was repeated most often was that one which was not the primary focus of this study, but rather the sentential clitic for denn, [n] when it followed an adverb. Seven out of the nine Americans (and eight out of the ten native speakers) repeated this. The other cliticizations which were repeated more frequently than 50% of the time were, in descending order: after a full form pronominal subject, the obligatory and near-obligatory cliticizations of the determiner in f r=s and mi(=m and after a verb. On the basis of this pattern we can assert that the Americans have acquired some of the individual positions in which clitics occur. While the ease with which these learners have acquired cliticization to a verb can be attributed to transfer, as can encliticization of a determiner to a preposition, the other instances cannot be as easily traced to transfer. Pronominal cliticization to a subject pronoun does not occur in English, and thus it appears the Americans have successfully acquired a new aspect of cliticization in their German. Yet it is likely that transfer is, in fact, responsible.

155 Learners may simply be applying their English rules of reduction and deletion to German syntax, which allows pronouns to occur in positions in which they do not in English. (5.24)

American group

b c d e f g h i

j

k

l m n

o

p

q

t

u v w x y

Typeofcliticization

key: a. after nominative full form pronoun (DET) b. determiner clitic in NP after preposition c. sentential clitic before subject pronoun d. assimilated form [zinvO e. PRO after pronoun f. denn [n] after adverb g. non-dative clitic after all vert» (COMP) h. accusative clitic after nominative clitic (DET) i. after non-subject full form pronouns (DET)

j. after complementizer (COMP) k. 'dative clitic after 1. *clitic in a coordination

m. »main verb assimilated form n. »single dative clitic o. *after advert) p *PRO after adjective q. »accusative clitic after dative clitics

r. »after NP s. »in Spec (CP) t. »after prep. u. »after parenthetical v. »clitic form [ς] w. /hat=r/ 'has he' x. assimilated form »[hanv.] y. »possessive form lit

156 Since the Americans show an overall lower frequency of repetition, exhibiting lower frequencies than the native speakers even for obligatory cliticizations and cliticization to verbs, frequencies under 50% can also be seen as reflecting their competence. This is particularly true for those instances in which cliticizations were repeated even more frequently by the Americans than by the native speakers. The clitics which were repeated between 33% and 22% of the time were, in descending order: the sentential clitic [n] preceding the subject, the assimilated form for sind=vr and clitics after prepositions. The latter clitic position is one for which there was a 20% frequency of repetition by the native speakers, but a 22% frequency by the Americans. Clitics after adverbs are repeated with a frequency of 17% and clitics after NPs with a frequency of 14%. Here we see some signs of the transfer of the more liberal English cliticization in that clitics can occur in any position in which the pronoun is unstressed, including after lexical heads (P, A and N). To a somewhat lesser extent, learners also allow dative clitics (11%) and clitics in topic position (9%). The remaining frequencies of repetition ranged from 11% down to 0%, with seven clitic positions/types not being repeated by any of the Americans. Several of the lowest frequencies were for clitics adjoined to the functional head DET (0% for two separate categories) and for clitics following complementizers (6%). While the native speakers repeated clitics after complementizers less often than after verbs, the Americans did so much less often; the native speakers repeated clitics after verbs 1.4 times more frequently than after complementizers, but the Americans repeated clitics after verbs nine times more frequently. Lack of cliticization to functional elements is an indication that the Americans have not identified COMP as the position to which clitics in German adjoin. An examination of the patterns of repetition by the other groups is necessary before we can definitively conclude that the Americans are simply transferring their English rules of reduction and deletion. If speakers from all four language backgrounds manifest similar patterns, then we will have to search for the additional factors which are responsible. None of the other three groups of learners share the advantage that the Americans have of being able to transfer the realization of unfocused pronouns as clitics (except perhaps for the Spanish speakers). From the above discussion it is evident that the extent of this advantage is limited; American learners show few signs of having acquired the syntactic conditions on cliticization. If the Americans' problems are connected to the operation of the Subset Principle, which puts learners in such a position that they will require negative evidence if they cannot access the Principle directly, then at least some of the learners in the other three groups should be in a position to use positive evidence to acquire the syntactic conditions.

5.4.4.2. The Korean, Spanish and Turkish scores The chart in (5.25) illustrates the patterns of cliticization for the three other non-native speaker groups. While there is variation, there are also some commonalities across all four non-native speaking groups, including the Americans. The trend of non-resemblance to the native speakers' pattern continues.

157

(5.25)

Non-American groups

key: a. after nominative full form pronoun (DET) b. determiner clitic in NP after preposition c. sentential clitic before subject pronoun d. assimilated form [ΖΙΠΙΛ] e. PRO after pronoun f. denn [n] after adverb g. non-dative clitic after all verbs (COMP) h. accusative clitic after nominative clitic (DET) i. after non-subject full form pronouns (DET) j. after complementizer (COMP) k. *dative clitic after 1. *clitic in a coordination

m. *main verb assimilated form n. 'single dative clitic o. *after adverb p *PRO after adjective q. »accusative clitic after dative clitics r. »after NP s. *in Spec (CP) t. »after prep. u. *after parenthetical v. *clitic form [ς] w. /hat=r/ 'has he1 x. assimilated form »[hanv] y. »possessive form Μ

158 The realization of unfocused pronouns and the morphology of the learners' native languages was previously mentioned as a possible predictor of problems relating to both overall acquisition of cliticization and to acquisition of the syntactic conditions. Because Korean realizes unfocused pronouns as empty elements and because Korean morphology does not mark subject-verb agreement, the Korean learners are at a disadvantage; neither can they transfer the notion of cliticization nor do they have the advantage of having suffixes which could act as a morphological bootstrap. The Turkish learners start from a similar position with respect to the realization of unfocused pronouns, but the presence of agreement suffixes in Turkish can aid these learners in acquiring the morphological categorization of clitics, the result being that they might follow a developmental path. However, the Korean learners should be in a position to make optimal use of positive evidence since they are virtually starting from scratch in their acquisition of cliticization. Thus it might also turn out that the Koreans also follow a developmental path. If adult second language learners have access to UG, the Koreans should be able to acquire the syntactic conditions on cliticization. If the Spanish learners are aided at all by the preverbal clitics in their native language and transfer their cliticization, this should be reflected in a willingness to allow clitics preverbally in German. The clitics in German, which are solely postverbal (i.e. enclitics) may be difficult for the Spanish speakers to acquire because of the fact that clitics occur in this position in Spanish only when stressed (see the example in (5.11)). There were two clitic positions/types for which all three groups, as well as the Americans, showed some of their highest frequencies of repetition. These are given in the first two lines of the table in (5.26). (5.26) Highest frequencies of repetitions cliticization

American

Korean

Spanish

preposition=determiner verb=non-dative clitic nominative full. form pronoun=clitic non-nom. full, form pronoun=clitic adverb=n (denn) (denn) n=subject pronoun-PRO=clitic preposition=clitic main verb assimilated form

55% 54% 59% 6% 78% 33% 11% 22% 11%

30% 32% 20% 0% 60% 0% 0% 20% 0%

33% 29% 0% 17% 0% 0% 33% 0% 0%

Turkish 38% 53% 50% 25% 50% 25% 0% 0% 25%

The obligatory cliticizations of a determiner after a preposition (b.) and cliticizations to verbs (g.) were frequently repeated. While these frequencies were normally lower for the other three groups than for the Americans, in their repetitions of clitics postverbally, the Turkish

159 group was on par with the Americans. All four groups also frequently repeated clitics after full form pronouns, either when the pronoun was a subject (a.) or when it was a direct/indirect object (i.). All groups except the Spanish speakers repeated the sentential clitic [n] after an adverb. Moreover, the repetition of the construction adverb=n was quite high for these three groups, suggesting that the factors responsible for the overall lower frequency of repetition manifested by the Spanish speakers may be involved. We will discuss what these factors are in the following section. Finally, there were several relatively high frequencies of repetitions by the American group and one of the other non-native groups. The Spanish speakers more frequently repeated constructions with a clitic following a pronoun and PRO. The Turkish speakers repeated the sentential clitic [n] in pre-subject position frequently, and main verb assimilation even more frequently than the Americans. In addition, the Americans and Koreans showed some repetition after NPs (although recall that a good number of NP=clitic constructions were involved in misperceptions), with the Americans' frequency 14% and the Koreans' 11%. The Americans and Koreans also repeated clitics after prepositions with equal frequency. Only two groups repeated any single dative clitics and these repetitions were rather low: both the Americans and the Spanish speakers repeated these 11% of the time. The three non-American groups also failed to repeat constructions, with repetitions of between 5% and 1% of the time in categories for which Americans repeated clitics at least some of the time. These were the grammatical clitic [ΖΙΠΙΛ] (repeated by the control group at an 80% frequency by the Americans at an 22% frequency) and the ungrammatical clitics after an adverb, topicalized clitics and clitics after parentheticals. Based on this distribution of frequencies, it does appear that all three other language groups are somewhat more conservative than the Americans. It can be noted, however, that at the rightmost edge of the chart, learners from all four language groups did behave similarly; none of the speakers repeated the ungrammatical possessive clitics, the assimilated form [haniAjor the host-clitic configuration /hat=r/. Other clitic positions/types which showed no repetition by any of the four groups were not clustered at the right edge of the control group's chart. These nonrepetitions were of a clitic after an adjective and PRO, a clitic in a coordination, a dative clitic following an accusative clitic and an accusative clitic following a nominative clitic. While only the final example is grammatical, because all non-native speakers had difficulties repeating two adjacent clitics and the native speakers did not (repeating them with frequencies 50% and 60%) this suggests that the non-native speakers success in repeating clitics has more to do with phonological factors than syntactic ones. An additional example of this is the lack of repetition by the Korean, Spanish and Turkish speakers and the low frequency of repetition (5%) by the Americans of an accusative clitic after a dative clitic. As was the case for the Americans, the repetition of clitics after complementizers (this figure includes relative pronouns) was much lower than it was after verbs. The table in (5.27) gives the figures for all five groups. These figures are a clear indication that none of the nonnative speakers have identified COMP as the host, but rather have acquired a version of cliticization involving attachment to lexical rather than functional heads. An alternative analysis is that the non-English-speaking learners cliticize to rhythmically prominent hosts, and, in effect, have a version of cliticization in German not unlike that which obtains in English.

160

(5.27) Frequency of repetition after elements in COMP group/ host verb complementizer

control

74% 51%

American

54% 6%

Turkish

53% 4%

Korean

Spanish

32%

29% 0

3%

The overall pattern of repetition by the Korean speakers resembles that of the American speakers, suggesting that transfer is not the sole determinant driving Americans' cliticization. Both the Korean and the American groups exhibit the tendency to repeat clitics after verbs, full NPs and after prepositions. It was suggested that the Koreans might actually fare better than the other three (non-American) groups since their native language provides them with no basis on which to make any assumptions about cliticization in German. The data do not support such a conclusion. The Spanish speakers did not repeat cliticizations to prepositions or adverbs and showed a very low frequency of repetition of cliticizations to NPs. In this respect they do not resemble the Koreans. However, like the Korean speakers, the Spanish speakers' scores demonstrate that they do not allow cliticizations in the preverbal position. The lack of repetition of preverbal clitics is an indication that the Spanish speakers do not transfer the preverbal position of their object clitics from Spanish. The Spanish speakers' cliticization is more conservative than the Americans' and Koreans' and indicates that these speakers have a version of cliticization in German which allows enclitics on the verb and marginallly allows pronominal and nominal elements to separate the clitic from the verbal host. Even though the Turkish speakers showed the second highest overall rate of repetition, their pattern of repetition differs from that of the Americans; in this respect they are nearly as conservative as the Spanish speakers. Apart from repetition of the obligatory determiner clitics, the Turkish speakers most frequently repeated cliticizations to verbs and to pronominal elements directly following verbs. The Americans and the Turkish speakers both showed the only high frequencies of repetition out of all the groups of the the sentential clitic /n/ denn following a verb and preceding a subject pronoun. In that their cliticization is generally to verbs and pronouns following verbs, the Turkish speakers seem to be analyzing the clitics as verbal suffixes. Such an analysis can also be offered for the Spanish speakers. It was suggested above that learners have adopted a version of cliticization which involves encliticization to lexical heads. Even for the conservative Spanish and Turkish speakers we see a tendency to cliticize to lexical elements over functional elements. Not only for the Americans and Koreans, but for the Turkish and Spanish speakers as well can their cliticization be characterized by the over-involvement of lexical hosts and the underinvolvement of functional hosts. That all speakers also cliticize to full form pronouns might be explained by the fact that these elements receive some stress. While the groups show an overall tendency to reject cliticizations which are universally held to be ungrammatical (e.g. in

161 a coordination) and to reject individual clitic forms which do not occur in German (datives and possessives), the version of cliticization which all learners appear to have acquired is one which is less syntactically constrained than in German, resembling that of English. There are two approaches the language learner can take in the acquisition of cliticization. If she has access to the Subset Principle, she will assume from the start that cliticization is conservative, i.e. that cliticization is syntactically constrained. However, if she takes the less conservative route, presumably due to lack of access to the Subset Principle, then she will assume that cliticization is a more general P2 phenomenon. The version of cliticization these learners have adopted is one which allows an unstressed pronominal element to be dependent on a rhythmically pronominent host, typically lexical element. While the lack of recognition of functional elements as clitic hosts by the learners points to their being unable to access the Subset Principle, their problems are more likely to be related to problems with functional categories at a deeper level. It is not yet clear what underlies post-puberty second language learners' problems with functional categories. Before making any final indictments regarding the ability of non-native speakers to acquire the syntactically restricted cliticization of German, let us look at the two learners with the highest overall frequencies of repetition. We will compare the American, Beth, to the Turkish speaker, Nebahat who not only repeated clitics more frequently than any non-American, but also repeated them more frequently than all other learners except for Beth. Both Beth and Nebahat also showed quite a low number of misunderstood clitic constructions (8), although these scores were not the lowest in the entire non-native speaking group; the American Amy, the Korean Yun Tang and Spanish speakers Jorge and Pablo had even lower scores. If Beth's repetition of clitics in German in positions where they are not allowed is connected to transfer of English P2 rules of reduction and deletion, it may be nearly impossible for her to acquire the more syntactically restricted cliticization in German. Further support for such a scenario being the result of lack of access to the Subset Principle are the findings from Rubach (1984) and Broselow (1987a), who both conclude that exceptionless postlexical rules (i.e. P2 rules) are subject to transfer. The effect of such postlexical transfer presages an inability to retreat from the superset (English) when the subset (German) obtains in the target language. The chart in (5.28) demonstrates that Beth's and Nebahat's peaks and troughs are nearly in complementary distribution, except on the left edge: both frequently repeat clitics after verbs and the obligatory determiner clitics. Nebahat's frequency of repetition for grammatical clitic constructions other than these two does not resemble that for the native speakers at all. While Beth's resembles the native-speaker pattern to a greater extent, her lack of repetition of clitics after pronouns and PRO and in grammatical double clitic constructions reveals that her competence is not completely native-like. Although the conclusion was offered above that transfer plays a minor role in the acquisition of cliticization, if we apply the transfer-based predictions made in section 5.3 to Beth's and Nebahat's frequencies of repetition, the role of their native languages are apparent. Beth's version of cliticization is one in which the vowels in all unstressed pronouns are reduced and/or deleted. Nebahat's version is much more conservative, generally allowing clitics only where suffixes would occur in Turkish.

162 (5.28)

Beth and Nebahat - ο -ο

ο

/ο ^-^-,ί-^-οΙ+Α*-^-^•ύ et' £—ι—hau-Q—Q α b c d e f i j k l m n o p q r t u v w χ y Type of cliticization - Ο-

key: a. after nominative full form pronoun (DEI) b. determiner clitic in NP after preposition c. sentential clitic before subject pronoun

d. assimilated form [ΖΙΠΙΛ] e. PRO after pronoun f. denn [n] after adverb g. non-dative clitic after all verbs (COMP) h. accusative clitic after nominative clitic (DET) i. after non-subject full form pronouns (DET) j. after complementizer (COMP) k. 'dative clitic after 1. 'clitic in a coordination

- Beth

— -Δ- — Nebahat

m. 'main verb assimilated form n. 'single dative clitic o. 'after adverb p 'PRO after adjective q. 'accusative clitic after dative clitics r. »after NP s. 'in Spec (CP) t. 'after prep. u. 'after parenthetical v. 'clitic form [ς] w. /hat=r/ 'has he' x. assimilated form '[hanu]

y. 'possessive form /r/

163 Not only does Beth allow pronominal cliticization to verbs, but she also allows it — even more frequently — to prepositions. She does follow the general trend exhibited by the other nonnative speakers in frequently failing to repeat clitics after functional elements. Her frequency of repetition of clitics after verbs was 70%, while the frequency of clitics after complementizers was 14%. In fact this trend is even more marked for Beth in what she fails to repeat: her only repetition of a clitic after DET is when the pronoun is a full form subject. Further supporting the role of transfer are her frequent repetitions of the non-occurring assimilated main verb forms and of [zinv\] "are we' (although not [haniA] 'have we'), and dative clitics. Beth produced repetitions which provide additional confirmation that she is transferring rules of reduction and deletion from English. Although not one of the speakers in the control group repeated the potential clitic [ ], Beth repeats it. She also produces the weak form [ns] for uns 'us* twice; this was not even in the input sentences as a clitic, but as a füll form. Production of this form at a normal rate of speech indicates that Beth has not acquired the restriction of clitics in German to a single, non-branching mora. It is evident from her pattern of repetitions that Beth has assumed that cliticization in German involves exceptionless rules of deletion and reduction, just as it does in her native English. Nebahat's cliticization is much more conservative than Beth's and the reasons for this can be traced in part to transfer of verbal suffixation in Turkish. Her most frequently repeated clitics were the obligatory determiner clitics following prepositions and pronominal clitics following verbs; at 85% this frequency even exceeds the mean for the native speakers, which was 74%. Like Beth, Nebahat repeated clitics after complementizers only 14% of the time; neither learner can be said to have identified COMP as host. Nebahat manifests two other high frequencies: after a full form non-subject pronoun and after an adverb. The former repetition can be traced to transfer from Turkish in that other suffixes may intervene between the verb root and agreement suffixes in Turkish and Nebahat would thus expect German clitics to allow the intervention of other pronouns after the verb. This interpretation is somewhat problematic since Nebahat did not repeat clitics when they followed other full forms (i.e. subjects, in (a.) on the charts). Because she fails to repeat clitics whenever they follow DET, it cannot be said that she has identified DET as a functional head to which clitics can also adjoin. The two frequently repeated cliticizations which defy a transfer-based explanation are of (ungrammatical) clitics after adverbs (50%) and clitics in topic position (less frequently, 21% of the time.) Her cliticization to adverbs can be explained if Nebahat is also following the course of cliticizing to lexical heads. However, she does not repeat any clitics following lexical heads other than verbs and adverbs. That these two frequencies far exceed the means of the non-native groups indicates she has followed a different course of acquisition than what has been proposed for the entire non-native speaking group, that of ewcliticization to lexical items. Nonetheless, what we can conclude from Nebahat's pattern of repetition is that her native language has given her a boost in cliticizing in German to elements where suffixation occurs in Turkish, but it has not helped her any further along in the identification of COMP and DET as hosts. Why should transfer play an even more important role for these two learners than for the others? It is possible that a more intensive examination of every test subject's pattern of repetition would reveal that all learners are influenced by their native languages. However, a

164 probable explanation is that the other learners are not as advanced as Beth and Nebahat in their acquisition of cliticizaiton. Assuming that Beth and Nebahat are the most advanced in their acquisition of cliticization, their competence is a reflection of what is likely to fossilize in their German interlanguages and the German interlanguages of their compatriots. At any rate, Beth's and Nebahat's patterns of repetition enforce the point made in the analysis of the speakers by native language group: the cliticization which the non-native speakers have acquired does not resemble that of the German native speakers. Whether learners transfer their P2 rules (the Americans) or their agreement suffixation (the Turkish speakers) or their special clitics (the Spanish speakers) or nothing at all (the Koreans), none of the speakers can be said to have identified COMP and DET as hosts and all of the speakers show a tendency to cliticize to lexical elements. We might invoke the Subset Principle to predict which learners will be the most successful over the long term. (Although given the advanced level of proficiency the speakers as a group represent and the amount of input they have received, we can assume that at least for some of the speakers, theiy will make no further progress). While there is some evidence that learners adopt a more conservative cliticization when transfer from their native languages enables them to do so, we have no way of telling how the learners actually began in their acquisition of cliticization without looking at less advanced learners or at longitudinal data. Nonetheless, we can surmise that for some of the learners their patterns of repetition do not represent their finishing point, as cliticization is predicted to be acquired late for developmental reasons. Contrary to the envisaged scenario, the Korean learners have not adopted a more restrictive version of cliticization than the other learners, and in this respect show lack of access to the Subset Principle. Lacking any correlate of cliticization, their native language should have left the Koreans free to adopt the subset position; however they show few signs that they have done so. Of course the intervening factor may be the realization of unfocused elements in Korean as empty elements, as discussed earlier in this chapter. While the realization of unfocused elements was cited as a predictor of overall success in the acquisition of cliticization, this may affect the acquisition of cliticization in more specific ways. Without further investigation, it is unclear, exactly how transfer of realization of unfocused elements results in the pattern of cliticization exhibited by the Koreans. If the learners in this study continue to follow the route which they appear to have taken thus far in their acquisition of cliticization, it is not clear how they would acquire the syntactic restrictions since this requires negative evidence. The inability of the learners to identify COMP and DET as hosts reveals where learners' problems lie: with functional elements and their projections. That such advanced adult learners experience difficulty with functional elements — leading to the adoption of an overly general version of the phenomenon at hand — is an indication that adults do not have complete access to the domain-specific mechanisms that drive first language acquisition. Of all the four non-native groups, the low overall frequency of repetition by the Spanish speakers remains puzzling. Why is it that the Spanish speakers in general repeated far fewer clitics than the other three groups, when by all other indications they were at least as advanced as speakers from the other three language groups? The area in which we will look for causes is phonology; this search will be undertaken with the goal of determining the causes of

165 persistent problems in phonology. We now turn to a discussion of the learners' phonological competence with respect to syllable and rhythmic structure.

5.4.5. Acquisition of the phonological prerequisites We can gain initial insight into the learners' phonological problems by looking at the phonological form of clitics which were misunderstood by the learners. If adults follow developmental sequences similar to those described for children in Chapter 4, then we would expect the clitics with schwa, [d] and syllabic sonorants to be acquired last, and would therefore expect greater difficulty in the comprehension of these clitics than of the clitic [s]. However, factors relating to the rhythmic and syllable structures of the learners' native languages will most likely intervene. The table in (5.29) shows that the clitic [s] was not always the least frequently misunderstood, but rather it was the clitics with schwas which were the least frequently misunderstood by all four non-native groups. Earlier in this chapter we saw that the Spanish speakers manifested the lowest overall frequency of misunderstood clitic constructions. When their comprehension of the individual clitic forms is examined, we further note that their comprehension by form shows the nearly same distribution; theirs are usually the lowest frequencies for all the non-native groups (5.29) Means for misunderstood clitics by phonological type Group

[Λ],[ΥΛ]

[n],*[m]

[s]

6% 15% 14% 17% 24%

2% 6% 8% 10% 7%

[da],[z5]

*[mA],*[dA] Control Spanish American Turkish Korean

11% 7% 20% 20% 24%

0% 0% 3% 2% 4%

The Spanish speakers also follow the general trend exhibited by the speakers in the three other non-native groups and the native speaking group, except for their comprehension of clitics with [Λ], which is far superior to that of the other non-native groups. The overall pattern of misunderstood clitics with respect to clitic form is one in which the clitics with schwa are understood the most frequently and the clitics with [Λ] the least. The clitics [n] and [m] are understood a bit more frequently than those with [Λ] and the clitic [s] is understood even more frequently, in fact much more so by some groups (the Americans and especially the Koreans). The Americans and Turkish speakers show similar frequencies of comprehension of clitics by

166

form, which may indicate these learners are at a more advanced stage of acquisition which in turn translates into their higher overall high frequencies of repetition. For all speakers, the clitics whose peaks are [ ] or syllabic sonorant consonants are more difficult for the learners to hear than the clitics with schwas. We can propose several reasons why the learners have fewer problems with schwa than with other similar segments. First, schwa occurs more frequently in German morphology than the vocalized M or syllablic consonants, since schwa is heavily involved in the inflectional morphology of German. While an explanation involving input frequency is generally difficult to support in syntax or morphology, in phonology one might expect that, all things being equal, certain segments which are more frequent in the input would be acquired earlier than others. A possible explanation for difficulties with vocalized /r/ over schwa is that speakers continue to transfer their native language /r/ and apply strategies of syllable structure simplification. There is some evidence in the test subjects' transcripts that this is the case. For example, three of the Korean learners transferred their Korean flapped /r/ and epenthesized a vowel after it in the word /gEstErn/ —> [gEstErin] 'yesterday.1 The syllabic sonorant consonants may be more difficult to perceive due to the assimilation which often occurs between the consonant and the final consonant in the host, as discussed in Chapter 3. Based on their ability to understand the most sentences with clitics in them, the Spanish speakers should show the highest frequency of repetition of the clitics, as mentioned previously in this chapter. The table in (5.29) underscores the observation that the Spanish speakers experience either fewer problems than the other speakers or problems similar to theirs in the comprehension of the individual clitic forms. However, we saw that this has not translated into the production of these clitics. The table in (5.30) provides comparable figures for the repetition of clitics by phonological form. (5.30) Means for clitic repetition by phonological form Group

American Turkish Korean Spanish

[s]

[dö],[z5]

27% 18% 13% 11%

7% 15% 6% 0%

[A],[VA] *[m/\],*[dA] 9% 5% 1% 0%

[n], *[m]

14% 7% 7% 4%

While the highest frequency of repetition for speakers in all groups is for the clitic [s], the rest of the speakers produce at least some repetitions of the other clitics. While the other three groups repeat clitics other than [s] at least some of the time, the Spanish speakers do not repeat clitics with schwas or [A] at all and hardly produce any clitics with sonorant consonant peaks. The Americans and the Koreans also follow this trend, showing their lowest

167 frequencies of repetition for the schwa and [Λ] clitics, with an increase in the frequency of repetition for the sonorant consonant clitics. Quite predictably, the Americans frequently produce clitics with syllabic sonorant consonants, since clitics of this form also exist in English. Although the Turkish speakers produce the highest frequency of repetition of schwa clitics, their lower frequency of repetition for clitics with [Λ] is comparable to the frequencies of the other three groups. In their production of clitics, these speakers show clear signs that developmental factors are involved; those clitics which represent late-acquired rhythmic structure are those which are repeated with less frequency because the relevant structure has presumably not yet been acquired. In the two sections below we will investigate the variable repetition of the clitic /s/ and the other three clitic types. The repetition of the clitic /s/ is related to the acquisition of syllable structure, while the repetition of the clitics with vowel peaks is related to the acquisition of rhythmic structure. We we then take a closer look at how the learners repeated various types of syllables when clitics were not involved in order to arrive at an explanation for these patterns of repetition. First we will determine whether the learners from native language backgrounds other than English have acquired German syllable structure.

5.4.5.1. Acquisition of syllable structure We predicted in section 5.3 that the speakers in the three language groups with syllable structures less complex than German would have varying problems with the acquisition of the clitic /s/. The Koreans were predicted to have problems with the attachment of this clitic to syllable codas consisting of even a single consonant, while the Spanish and Turkish speakers were predicted to experience problems only when the attachment of /s/ formed a threemember consonant cluster. We saw above in the table in (5.30) that for all the speakers, the clitic /s/ was the most frequently repeated. Although the Spanish speakers were predicted to fare better than the Korean speakers, the Koreans proved to be marginally superior. The table in (5.30) provides a general indication that the Koreans, once at an advanced stage in their acquisition of German, have been able to acquire a syllable structure more complex than that of Korean. The table in (5.31) below paints a more detailed picture of the Koreans' ability to repeat the clitic /s/ when it forms a two-member cluster beginning with a sonorant or an obstruent, showing a comparable ability to repeat the clitic /s/ when it forms a three-member cluster commencing with a sonorant and then an obstruent, none of which would be allowed in Korean (see Table C.5. in Appendix C for individual scores). While the Koreans show an appreciable drop in repeating clusters of the form obstruent + /s/, their frequency of repetition of /s/ in three-member clusters is higher. The factors underlying this pattern must remain unclear. The Spanish and Turkish speakers also show evidence of having acquired a more complex syllable structure; while the two-member clusters with /s/ which they produce in German are allowed in their native languages, the three-member clusters with /s/ which they are also able to produce are not.

168

(5.31) Group means for repetition of the clitic /s/ Clitics in:

Group Turkish Spanish Korean

2-member clusters sonorant + /$/ obstruent + /$/ «=7 n=7

26% 21% 20%

18% 23% 10%

3-member clusters

n=3 25% 22% 33%

While the results indicate that the learners have acquired a syllable structure more complex than that of their native languages, the low frequencies continue to reflect the overall low frequency with which learners repeated clitics. It is therefore desirable to have more support for these claims regarding the learners' acquisition of syllable structure. Because repetition of the clitics is not strictly obligatory, the speaker may opt for an unstressed full form, thus avoiding the production of final consonant clusters. However, consonant clusters within a word are usually obligatory (unless rules of final consonant deletion apply). In order to offer an additional means of assessment regarding the extent to which learners had acquired a syllable structure which superceded that of their native languages, the repetition of a total of 17 words from the test sentences which contained final consonant clusters was examined. This yielded the results given in (5.32a) and (5.32b) below, where "repeated" signifies an accurate repetition, "deleted" the deletion of a consonant and "epenthesis." the addition of an epenthetic vowel (see Table C.6. in Appendix C for individual scores). Recall that none of the learners native languages allow three-member consonant clusters and only Spanish and Turkish allow two-member clusters. However, the only two-member obstruent clusters allowed in Spanish are those in which the second member is an /s/, while in Turkish obstruent clusters are allowed as long as the first member is a fricative. On that basis, the Turkish speakers were predicted to be the most advanced in their acquisition of German syllable structure and the Korean speakers the least. The results in the tables below bear out these predictions for three-member clusters and for clusters consisting of a sonorant and an obstruent (although there is a reduced number of tokens for three-member clusters). What the results in these two tables most clearly confirm, particularly for the Koreans and the Spanish speakers, is that these learners have acquired a syllable structure more complex than that of their native languages. The results also show that the Turkish speakers have acquired a syllable structure beyond that which their native language allows. Of the eight words with obstruent clusters in the input sentences examined, three of these words contained syllables with two final stops (see Appendix A for the list of words); such syllables are not allowed in Turkish but were nonetheless repeated by the Turkish speakers. Furthermore, the Turkish speakers repeated three-member consonant clusters consisting of a sonorant followed by two obstruents.

169 (5.32) (a) Mean repetition of two-member final clusters CLUSTER

obstruent+obstruent «=8

sonorant + obstruent n=6

GROUP

repeated

Turkish Spanish Korean

100% 89% 83%

deleted

epenthesis

repeated

deleted

epenthesis

0%

0%

78%

19%

3%

11% 0%

0% 17%

67% 85%

33% 0%

0% 15%

(b) Mean repetition of three-member final clusters CLUSTER

GROUP Turkish Spanish Korean

sonorant+obstruent+obstruent w=2 repeated 88% 83% 70%

deleted epenthesis 0% 17% 10%

12% 0% 20%

obstruent+obstruent+obstruent n=\ repeated

deleted

0% 33% 40%

100% 67% 60%

epenthesis 0% 0% 0%

Apart from providing additional evidence that the learners have acquired a syllable structure more complex than that of any of their native languages, what stands out most clearly in the above tables is that there are still remnants of syllable repair strategies, some of which are related to rules in their native languages (see section 5.3). These strategies (and rules) consist primarily of epenthesis and some deletion for the Koreans, both epenthesis and deletion for the Turkish speakers and deletion for the Spanish speakers. Based on the continued presence of these strategies and rules in the learners' interlanguages, it seems safe to assume that at least some of what appear to be empty subjects and full forms in relation to the repetition of the clitics may, in fact, be the result of rules of deletion and epenthesis. Most of the deletions by speakers in all three groups involved the deletion of I\J in two- and three-member clusters, which is possible at normal rates of informal speech in German. Accordingly, the deletion scores do not necessarily represent lack of acquisition of German syllable structure. However, the Spanish speakers committed more of what are impermissible deletions of/t/ in German than did the other speakers. This is an expected outcome based on the Spanish speakers' lower repetition of the clitic /s/ Yet it remains unclear why, given the more complex syllable structure of Spanish, these speakers should not be further along in their

170 acquisition of German syllable structure than speakers with simpler syllable structure, i.e. the Koreans. All learners exhibited a high frequency of deletion of the third obstruent in the one threemember cluster consisting only of obstruents. This cluster was in the word [nlcts] 'nothing1 which in the context could have been construed as either [nlcts] or [nlct] 'not.' (The input sentence was Ich hab ihm nichts gesagt Ί told him nothing' but could have been construed as Ich hab ihm nicht gesagt Ί didn't tell him'). In informal speech in standard German, the deletion of lit can occur, yet none of the non-native speakers deleted this segment, deleting /s/ instead. Of note is that this pattern of deletion by the non-native speakers does not confirm Tropfs findings that the least sonorous member of a cluster is deleted. However, the speakers nonetheless appear to heed the sonority hierarchy in their deletion of /s/ since it violates the hierarchy in following a less sonorous segement in the word [nlfts]. The resultant sequence no longer violates the hierarchy. What emerges from the two tables above is evidence that these advanced learners have acquired a syllable structure more complex than their own, despite the probable initial transfer of their simpler native language syllable structure (or adoption of a syllable structure even simpler than their own, as proposed by Tarone (1976)). These findings offer additional support for similar claims by Broselow and Finer (1991), based on evidence that Korean learners of English were able to acquire initial consonant clusters more complex than Korean allows, yet less complex than English demands. Remnants of earlier syllable repair strategies or rules transferred from the learners' native languages which act as syllable repair strategies often persist when these learners are already quite advanced. The problem remains that what the learners have acquired cannot be described as German syllable structure. In other words, the learners have not achieved native-like competence in their German. To what might this be attributed? One of the avenues of investigation which we have sought to pursue is the differential access to the principles and parameters of the phonological component of Universal Grammar. The findings discussed in Chapter 2 offer support for the claim that adult second language learners retain access to the principles of UG which relate to syllable structure. Such access would account for their ability to acquire a syllable structure more complex than that of the native language. Broselow and Finer (1991) conceptualize the acquisition of a more complex syllable structure differently, regarding syllable structure as a multi-valued parameter. Their evidence points not only to the learners' access to the principles involved, but also to their access to the parameter. However, the learners in their study, similar to those in the present study, did not acquire the target language syllable structure, but rather a structure in between the native and target language syllable structures. Broselow and Finer attribute this to the resetting of the parameter to a value midway between the native and target languages. The problem with an analysis which allows access to the parameters of UG is that it fails to offer an explanation for why advanced learners settle on an intermediate parameter setting rather than the target language setting. That further explanation is required if such an approach is adopted is even more apparent if one takes the stance that acquisition is not problematic when learners are in a position to make use of positive evidence. If a parameter is not necessarily involved in the acquisition of more complex syllable structure, then one can

171

seek other explanations for why the target language syllable structure is not acquired. The most adequate explanation we can currently offer is Zobl's (1980a) proposal that rules or structures in the learner's native language which mirror developmental processes will be most resistant to further modification over time. The syllable simplification strategies employed by the Korean, Spanish and Turkish learners resemble to a great extent the universal/developmental rules of deletion and epenthesis discussed in the section (5.3) on transfer. Intralingual overgeneralization (cf. Selinker 1972) is also involved. The Spanish speakers, for example, have overgeneralized the rule of final /t/-deletion in German to a broader context than that in which the German rule applies. The assumption of a more general rule by second language learners is a situation we have already observed with respect to the acquisition of the syntactic conditions on cliticization. While it would be desirable to determine the underlying causes of the failure to adopt more restrictive rules, this must remain one of the goals of future research. What we will propose is that, on the basis of their continued access to the principles of syllabification, second language learners are successful in acquiring a syllable structure more complex than their own. However, they are not completely successful in their acquisition of the target language syllable structure. Ultimate acquisition is curtailed by additional factors, among which are the strengthening influence of those native language rules mirrored by developmental processes and the tendency to adopt a more general version of a target language rule.

5.4.5.2. Acquisition of rhythmic structure Given that learners from language backgrounds with simpler syllable structures acquire more complex syllable structures, is there evidence that they acquire a rhythmic structure different from that of their native language? Here we will look at the acquisition of the clitics with vowel peaks and then at the acquisition of non-clitic syllables which contain schwa in order to ascertain whether these learners have acquired the stress-timed rhythm of German. As we saw in the table in (5.30) the repetition of the vowel clitics was low for all groups. Moreover, this low frequency unexpectedly included the Americans. The table (5.33) again illustrates the repetition of clitics by phonological form, but in this instance only for those forms which are dependent on the acquisition of metrical and rhythmic structure. In order for learners to have acquired these clitics, their metrical structure in German must allow for single, non-branching moras. Such syllables maximally contain as peaks schwa, [Λ] or (syllabic) sonorant consonants. If learners show evidence of frequently repeating such clitics, then we can assume they have acquired both the necessary metrical and rhythmic structures. Although one would expect the Americans to repeat the clitics with vowels the most frequently, if transfer of the parameter value for stress-timing occurs, this is not the case. This expectation is strengthened by the fact that there are clitics which terminate in schwa in English. Yet the high frequency of repetition for the clitic Isl can, in fact, be seen as the result of such facilitative transfer — of English syllable structure and of the presence in English of /s/ as an agreement suffix and clitic. The dichotomy displayed by the high frequency of /s/ repetitions

172 and low frequency of schwa repetitions underscores the likelihood that the acquisition of syllable and rhythmic structure do not proceed in tandem. (5.33) Frequency of repetition for vowel clitics Group

Turkish American

Korean Spanish

[do], [zd]

[Λ], [VA] *[dA],*[mA]

15% 7% 6% 0%

5% 9% 1% 0%

[n],*[m]

7% 14% 7% 4%

The table in (5.33) also lends credence to the claim that Turkish rhythmic structure is stresstimed, since the Turkish speakers produced more schwa clitics than did the Americans. What is unexpected, based on the data from misunderstood clitics, is that the Spanish speakers would show no repetitions of the schwa clitics, since they understood every construction with such clitics. Based on their comprehension of the schwa cities, the Spanish speakers (as well as the speakers in the three other groups) should be best at repetition of these clitics, since these were the ones they understood most often. The explanation we can offer for the performance of the Spanish speakers is that they have transferred their syllable-timed rhythmic parameter setting to German. The result is that the rhythmic structure which they have adopted for German does not allow the reduced and centralized vowels found in the unstressed syllables which comprise the German clitics. If Korean, like Spanish, has a syllable-timed rhythm, Korean speakers would also be expected to transfer their rhythmic setting. The Koreans do fare somewhat better, which can be attributed to the presense of schwa in Korean. As was done with respect to the acquisition of syllable structure in the previous section, because the overall repetition of clitics was low for all groups, it is necessary to examine the repetition of schwa in words other than clitics. If these second language learners have not (yet) reset the rhythmic parameter at its stress-timed value for German, then they should even more clearly demonstrate the inability to produce the schwas in inflectional suffixes. (As was stated above, speakers have the option of repeating the pronouns as full forms, since pronominal clitics are, for the most part, not strictly obligatory). A total of 14 of the schwas in the inflectional suffixes and prefixes in the test sentences were examined to ascertain the manner in which these schwas were realized. The results given in the table in (5.34) support the claim that neither the Spanish speakers nor the Korean speakers have acquired the stresstimed rhythm of German (see Table C.9. in Appendix C for individual learners' scores).

173 (5.34) Frequency of realization of schwa in inflectional affixes («=14) Group American Turkish Korean Spanish

as schwa

64% 55% 36% 17%

syllabic consonant

21% 27% 12% 12%

lax vowel

14% 13% 45% 45%

tense vowel

1% 4% 26% 26%

What the percentages in the first and second columns of the table above clearly show is that these learners have done more that just transfer their parameter settings, since they do produce some schwas and syllabic sonorant consonants (recall from Chapter 3 that realization of the suffix -n as syllabic rather than with an epenthesized schwa is optional). Predictably, the American learners manifest the highest frequency of repetition of schwa, in contrast to their low frequency of repetition for schwa clitics. Both the Americans and the Turkish speakers clearly demonstrate that they have acquired a stress-timed rhythm in German. These two groups' scores for schwas and syllabic consonants are comparable; the Americans combined score for schwas and syllabic consonants represents a mean frequency of repetition of 85% and the Turkish speakers' 82%. The question is why these learners did not repeat schwas or syllabic consonants 100% of the time. One factor may, of course, be the testing situation which could have been expected to elicit overly careful speech at least some of the time. However, the repetition of unstressed vowels in inflection suffixes in German as other than schwa may simply reflect the Americans' transfer of their gradient P2 rules of reduction and deletion. Such gradient rules, typical of rules located at the P2 postlexical level, might not always result in complete reduction to schwa when speech becomes more deliberate. It is entirely possible that the Turkish speakers have also acquired such gradient rules in their German. In other words, it is not clear that speakers from either group have acquired the rule of schwa epenthesis in German. The adoption of a P2 rule in this instance is much like these learners' adoption of P2 rules to yield the clitics instead of their acquisition of the more restricted cliticization which obtains in German. Nonetheless, realization of the vowels in unstressed syllables as short, lax vowels is an indication that the learners have indeed acquired the rhythmic structure of German. The scores of the Americans and Turkish speakers are much higher than the scores of the Koreans and Spanish speakers. In fact, the repetitions by the Koreans and particularly the Spanish speakers represent a near mirror image to those of the Americans and Turkish speakers, with lax vowels or even tense vowels in place of schwa. The Koreans' combined score for these last two columns is 60% and the Spanish speakers 71%. The stressed syllables in words in which the syllable with schwa was realized as a lax or tense vowel by the Koreans

174 and Spanish speakers also tended to be of shorter duration than would be the case in a stresstimed language. For example, the Korean and Spanish speakers reproduced gegeben 'given' as [gegeben] rather than [g3ge:bdn] or [gSge.brn], the typical (and correct in German) pronunciations of the Americans and Turkish speakers. In terms of metrical structure, the Korean and Spanish speakers produce words in which the inflectional suffixes constitute their own feet 26% of the time. Instead of producing words with the metrical structure like that of modest, which is composed of a single, branching foot, they produce words with the metrical structure similar to that of gymnast, which is composed of two feet (see Chapter 2). Such branching feet are dependent upon a rhythmic structure which involves the reduction of vowels in unstressed syllables. These results indicate that rhythmic parameters are resistant to resetting; even though the Spanish speakers appeared to be the most advanced in terms of their ability to understand the most sentences on the imitation task, they were the worst at repeating the vowel clitics, and also show a marked tendency to realize schwas in inflectional affixes as lax or tense vowels. However, both the Korean and Spanish speakers demonstrate that they have acquired a rhythmic structure in German which is not solely based on transfer from their native languages. Other researchers who have studied the acquisition of schwa by Spanish speakers have arrived at similar conclusions. In their investigation of the acquisition of English by Spanish speakers, Flege and Bohn (1989) found that while these speakers were sensitive to altered vowel quality in their production of unstressed syllables in English, they nonetheless failed to completely reduce vowels. Our results on the acquisition of rhythmic structure are not dissimilar to those obtained for the acquisition of syllable structure and the acquisition of syntactic conditions on cliticization. In this instance it is difficult to arrive at an explanation for the learners' adoption of a parameter setting which seems to be midway between that of stress-timed and syllable-timed. An explanation which was not entertained in the previous section, but which would also apply to the acquisition of syllable structure, involves the non-instantaneous setting of a parameter. While it is assumed that the setting of a parameter is an all-or-nothing event (see e.g.. Clahsen 1991), there is evidence from the acquisition of syntax that second language learners vacillate between previous and new structures or parameter settings (cf. Birdsong 1989; Vainikka and Young-Schölten forthcoming). Reasons why all the learners in this study appear to experience problems with the vowel clitics may relate to James1 (1987) observation that second language learners in general start with a syllable-timed rhythm. Even though the Americans showed a predictably high rate of repetition of schwas in inflectional suffixes, their ability to repeat them in clitics was quite low. This might be attributable to their backsliding to a previous stage when acquiring something new (i.e. cliticization) or it may simply be due to the performance pressure of a testing situation. That the Turkish speakers repeated more clitics with vowels is simply an indication that they are more advanced in their overall acquisition of cliticization than the Americans. It is apparent that the Turkish speakers are to be regarded as more advanced when one considers that these speakers lack the advantages of both a syllable structure comparable in complexity to German or a system of pronominal cliticization similar to German (an advantage held by the Americans).

175

5.5. Summary and conclusions The goal of this study was to isolate those areas in which adult learners experience persistent problems in their acquisition of the phonology of a second language and to arrive at the underlying causes of this fossilization. To that end we considered the competence of advanced learners of German with respect to pronominal cliticization. Pronominal cliticization offers the opportunity to view acquisition in several areas because it is a syntactically constrained process predicated on the learner's mastery of syllable structure, metrical structure and rhythmic structure. The outcome of the discussion in Chapter 4 on the first language acquisition of cliticization was that the acquisition of cliticization by children is late. One of the primary reasons for the delay in the acquisition of this phenomenon is due to the relatively late acquisition of a stress-timed rhythmic structure by children. On the basis of the assumption that a phenomenon which is acquired late by children will also be acquired late by adults, it was expected that even though the test subjects recruited for this study were advanced learners of German, they would not have completely acquired cliticization. The results from the second language learners supported the prediction that cliticization is developmentally late for learners, regardless of their native language. The overall scores for frequency of repetition by the non-native speakers were, for the most part, considerably lower than those for the native German control group. However, predictable variation was found across the four language groups, which was traceable to native language transfer. There were three indicators of incomplete acquisition and a lack of native-competence with respect to cliticization. First, the learners exhibited a lower overall rate of repetition of the clitics than did the control group. However, four Americans and one Turkish speaker represented exceptions, repeating clitics as much as or more than two of the control group speakers (although these two control group speakers were overly conservative in their repetitions, due to different pre-test instructions). The overall rate of repetition was as predicted: as a group, the Americans repeated the clitics the most frequently and the Korean, Spanish and Turkish groups all repeated them less often. When the comprehension of constructions with clitics was examined it was found that both the non-native speakers as well as the native speakers showed a strong tendency to misperceive ungrammatical cliticizations. That the non-native speakers behaved like the native speakers with respect to ungrammatical cliticizations pointed to their sensitivity to some of the syntactic conditions, namely those involving ungrammatical cliticization to a full NP. Yet while the native speakers only misperceived ungrammatical cliticizations, the non-native speakers also misperceived grammatical cliticizations, indicating that their ability to comprehend colloquial German is not completely native-like. Two important conclusions regarding the non-native speakers also emerged from the investigation of misunderstood clitic constructions. As would be expected, those learners with very high frequencies of misunderstood clitic constructions exhibited very low frequencies of repetition. On the other hand, those learners who were shown to be very successful at comprehending clitic constructions did not necessarily repeat the clitics frequently. This lack of correlation was most obvious for the Spanish speakers who understood clitics the most frequently and repeated them the least.

176 The second indicator that the learners have not acquired cliticization completely is the pattern of cliticizations with respect to clitic host and clitic type (e.g. dative clitic) which the nonnative speakers repeated compared to the pattern of cliticizations which the control group repeated. Learners demonstrated a strong tendency to cliticize to lexical elements, cliticizing less often to functional elements. The more frequent repetition by all learners of clitics after verbs as opposed to clitics after complementizers was seen as a clear indication that COMP had not been identified as the host. This pattern of repetition was exhibited even by the two learners who repeated the most cliticizations, Beth and Nebahat. On the basis of these patterns of repetition, it was concluded that all learners have arrived at a less conservative version of cliticization which involves few, if any, syntactic conditions. Learners from some language backgrounds (particularly the Americans) were able to arrive at this point sooner than others through advantages provided them by the structural similarities between German and their native language. The third indicator of incomplete acquisition is that the learners were shown not to have acquired all of the individual clitic forms. There was evidence that they had acquired the clitic [s], as this was the clitic most frequently repeated by speakers in all four groups. However, there was little evidence that the learners had acquired any other clitics, except for the Turkish speakers' acquisition of the clitics with schwa and the Americans' acquisition of the clitics with sonorant consonants. Lack of phonological acquisition was shown to have several sources: the transfer of P2 postlexical rules of reduction and deletion (by the Americans), the continued transfer of syllable structure repair strategies or LI rules (by the Koreans, Spanish speakers and Turkish speakers) and the transfer of the parameter value at syllable-timed (by the Koreans and Spanish speakers).

5.5.1. Causes of fossilization: no access to UG? What claims can we offer regarding the nature of phonological fossilization? We have seen that advanced learners of German from four different language backgrounds experience persistent problems with respect to both the syntactic and phonological aspects of cliticization. These problems are experienced by all learners, but the severity of the problems can be related to transfer. One question we can ask is whether adults have access to the syntactic principles and parameters of UG. Does this study provide further evidence that adults have access to principles, but not to parameters? The analysis of our results with respect to syntax does not directly contribute to the debate on whether parameters can be reset by adults learning a second language. However, the results in this study do reveal yet another way in which functional elements are problematic for the learner. One of the ways in which functional elements are seen to operate is in the acquisition of syntax. It has been proposed that the acquisition of certain functional elements trigger parameter setting. Clahsen (1988), for example, shows that the acquisition of subject-verb agreement by children learning German coincides with an advance in syntactic development, suggesting that agreement triggers the setting of a parameter. According to Clahsen, no such correlation can be found for second

177 language learners; the acquisition of syntactic structure and agreement proceed independently of one another. Clahsen claims that adults show no evidence of using triggers because they are unable to access and reset the parameters of UG. Joining various other researchers who have proposed that adults have access to parameters (see Chapter 2), Vainikka and YoungScholten (forthcoming) additionally suggest that adults are unable to employ functional elements as triggers. It is not clear at present what underlies the problems that adults have with functional elements; much more research is required. Our results further illustrate the various problems in second language acquisition which difficulties connected to functional elements can lead to. In place of syntactically conditioned cliticization, the adults have formulated postlexical rules of reduction and deletion. Their rules may have the additional requirement that the reduced pronoun be the weak member of a right-branching foot (i.e. for the Americans and the Turkish speakers). The rules may also have lexical conditions, applying solely to pronouns.14 The proposal by Rubach (1984) and Broselow (1987a) that postlexical rules (i.e. P2 rules) are subject to transfer is substantiated by the results of this study by the American speakers' transfer of their more general cliticization. Beth's repetitions were particularly revealing, as she repeated clitic forms not allowed under the requirement that German clitics be single, nonbranching moras. The forms Beth repeated were forms derivable from English rules of reduction and deletion which apply to cliticization in English. The learners from the other three language groups behaved like the Americans, although they had no opportunity to transfer simple cliticization from their native languages. Based on the learners' clitic attachment to lexical items, we proposed that these learners had acquired the P2 rules which the Americans transferred. When confronted with a postlexical phenomenon in the input, adult learners appear to opt in favor of P2 rules, rather than more restrictive, syntactically conditioned rules. As has been mentioned above, transfer may accelerate this process, but it does not appear to influence the final outcome; all learners have arrived at a more general version of cliticization, even when their native languages put them in a position from which they could have adopted a more restrictive grammar from the start. There is scant evidence that learners lacking correlates to cliticization in their native language (the Koreans), learners with agreement suffixes (the Turkish speakers) or even learners with special cliticization (the Spanish speakers) have an advantage over the Americans in that they have been able to start with a more restritive grammar. The Koreans are the only learners who have virtually nothing to transfer, which means they can adopt the most restrictive version of cliticization if they have access to the Subset Principle. Their failure to do so could be attributable to their inability to access the Subset Principle. If adults have no access to the Subset Principle, they have nothing to direct them to the most restrictive grammar. These second language learners will thus end up assuming a more general grammar, irregardless of the position their native language might put them in with respect to the use of positive evidence. The adoption of an overly general grammar is held to be impossible to retreat from, given the likelihood that negative evidence, even when it exists, has no effect on the (first language) learner's competence (cf. Hornstein and Lightfoot 1981). Acquisition can be accomplished through positive evidence only when the learner adopts the subset grammar. Children's initial acquisition in German of the clitics as agreement suffixes on

178 the verb can be interpreted as the assumption of an even more restrictive version of cliticization than actually obtains in adult German. Neither the Korean learners nor the Turkish learners, who might have transferred the notion of clitics as agreement suffixes from their native language, showed evidence of having followed the same developmental sequences as children. It is, however, not clear whether learners' problems stem from the inability to access the Subset Principle or from difficulties with functional elements. Most likely, these problems involve a combination of both factors. To what can we attribute the learners' problems in the acquisition of the phonological aspects of cliticization? An analysis of the phonological forms of the clitics the learners produced along with an accompanying analysis of learners' repetition of final consonant clusters and unstressed syllables demonstrated some differences between the acquisition of syllable structure and rhythmic structure. While only the Americans can be said to have acquired German syllable structure, learners from all other language backgrounds are more advanced in their acquisition of syllable structure than in their acquisition of rhythmic structure. If the acquisition of syllable structure involves the application of principles to the data the learner hears rather than the resetting of parameters, then we have an explanation for why learners are relatively successful in their acquisition of a more complex syllable structure. As has been claimed by various researchers regarding the acquisition of syntax (see. for example Clahsen and Muysken 1989), adult learners have access to the principles of UG but not to the parameters. All learners, including the Koreans with the simplest syllable structure, have acquired something more complex than their native language syllable structure. Their inability to completely acquire German syllable structure can be attributed to the persistence of native language rules which mirror developmental processes (cf. Zobl 1980a). All learners, including the Americans, appear to have at least some problems with rhythmic structure. If we are dealing with the resetting of a parameter and learners have no access to the parameters of UG, one would only expect those learners who transfer their dissimilar parameter setting to German — namely, the Koreans and Spanish speakers — to have problems. Because the Americans, and to some extent the Turkish speakers, also demonstrated problems with the rhythmic structure which allows the clitics constituting syllables, we can propose that all learners commenced with a syllable-timed rhythm in German, confirming James* (1987) general observations. In that this mirrors the earlier developmental stage in children's acquisition of rhythmic structure in a stress-timed language, adults could be said to set the parameter at what is actually the most restrictive setting. The Americans and Turkish speakers demonstrate, at least with respect to inflectional affixes, that they have already adopted the stress-timed setting of German. The lower frequency with which both groups (particularly the Americans) repeat the reduced vowel clitics may stem from their adoption of P2 gradient rules which, when they are applied to unstressed syllables, do not invariably result in a reduced and centralized vowel. The Koreans and Spanish speakers presumably also initially adopted a syllable-timed rhythm, either for the same reasons that the Americans and Turkish speakers did so, or because they transferred this setting. However, unlike the Americans and Turkish speakers, the Koreans and Spanish speakers show little evidence that they have reset the parameter. Whether this is a question of lack of access to the Subset Principle (based on which they

179 should be able to use positive evidence to acquire the superset setting) or lack of access to parameters is not clear. The fact that all learners appear to have started with a syllable-timed rhythm, and that only those learners for whom it is the parameter setting of their native language continue to maintain the setting into advanced stages of acquisition, again suggests other factors may be involved. Here we refer to Zobl's (1980a) claim that fossilization results when the learner's native language structure is mirrored by a developmental process (or stage). This certainly applies to the Spanish and Korean learners. It is, however, possible to maintain the analysis that the involvement of principles vs. parameters influences the final outcome as well. Because only principles are involved in the acquisition of syllable structure, fossilization occurs at a more advanced stage of development.

5.5.2. Future directions In this study we have attempted to uncover to the underlying causes of the persistent problems adults experience in their acquisition of the phonology of a second language. The question of whether adults have access to the syntactic principles and parameters of UG has been debated for over a decade now. In the field of L2 phonology contradictory assumptions have contributed to the failure to address the acquisition of phonology in the same way the acquisition of syntax has been addressed. On the one hand, most L2 phonologists assume the phonology of adult learners will fossilize at some point. On the other hand, it is assumed that adults have access to the phonological component of Universal Grammar, since the interlanguage phonologies of these fossilized learners do not violate phonological universals. Unless L2 phonologists are prepared to attribute those specific areas in which fossilization can be shown to occur to the frozen tongue syndrome, access to the phonological component of UG needs to be much more rigorously investigated. The further examination of adult learners' ability to reset rhythmic parameters and to acquire syntactically conditioned phonological phenomena are appropriate starting points.

180

Notes to Chapter S 1. A grammaticality judgement task using the same set of sentences as were used in the imitation task was also administered to the test subjects participating in this study. While carefully constructed grammaticality judgement tasks have been successful in measuring syntactic competence (see for example Bley-Vroman, Felix and loup 1988) there is always the problem of determining the basis for learners' judgements. The results from the present study revealed a lack of systematic and consistent positive correlations between the learners' judgements and their repetitions on the imitation task, suggesting that their judgements were based on a variety of reasons clearly impossible to ascertain without much more extensive probing than was carried out 2. Flynn (1983, 1986) also administered an elicited imitation task to her test subjects., although her aim was to collect syntactic rather than morphological or phonological data. 3. Bielefeld is a university and manufacturing city of 300,000 in eastern Westphalia. Inhabitants of this area in Germany (particularly Hannover, 100 kilometers to the northeast) are considered to be native speakers of a standard German which is unmarked by regional or dialect features. 4. Use of a distractor task was suggested to me by D. Gibbon of the University of Bielefeld. 5. There is one isolated case in English where schwa has been analyzed to be the result of epenthesis. When the past morpheme -d or the morpheme -s follow a stem-final strident, a schwa or an [i] is epenthesized between the two underlyingly adjacent stridents. 6. It should be noted that I have been interpreting the learner's problem in a slightly different manner than White (1989b). White argues that if learners do not have access to the Subset Principle, they will not be able to perceive any superset-subset relationship at all between LI and L2 structures. What I have implicitly proposed is that, even if the learners have no direct access to the Subset Principle, if the structure in their LI constitutes a subset, then this will have the same effect as if the learner had direct access to the Principle. However, if the learner has no such direct access and if her LI structure constitutes a superset, then she will be unable to retreat to the L2 subset. 7. I am grateful to Upyong Hong for providing me with additional Korean examples. 8. The proposal that Korean does not exhibit a stress-timed rhythm is further strengthened by the moratimedness of Japanese, a related language. 9. Pennington (1990) reaches a conclusion for Japanese learners of English similari to the conclusions reached, for example, by Major (see Ch. 2): English weak stress is very late to develop, I hypothesize, based on the evidence at hand, and is closely linked to the development of schwa in the vowel system. (1990:552). If the rhythmic structures of Korean and Japanese are similar, this suggests that Koreans may experience the same problems acquiring rhythmic structure German as Japanese experience in English. 10. For an elaboration on the syntactic acquisition of speakers from these languages learning German see Eubank (forthcoming), Schwartz and Sprouse (forthcoming) or Vainikka and Young-Scholten (forthcoming). 11. That the non-native speakers comprehend unstressed syllables is supported by the fact that they rarely exhibited problems with the repetition of inflectional affixes or of non-clitic occurrences of schwa in the imitation task. 12. Recall from Chapter 3 that the full form es also exhibits behavior typical of clitics. 13. The figures for clitics following complementizers include clitics following relative (Wh) pronouns as well. 14. It is possible for P2 rules to have lexical exceptions (see Kaisse 1990).

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APPENDIX A: Test sentences

Question/comment

Imitated sentence

1. Wie wird morgen das Wetter? Es wird bestimmt wieder regnen. What's the weather going to be tomorrow? It'll rain again for sure. 2. Was hat sie gesagt? What did she say?

*Se=erzählt immer das gleiche. She's always saying the same thing.

3. Wo's Gudrun? Where's Gudrun?

*Se=hab ich in der Stadt gesehen. I saw her in town.

4. Wann kriegst du das Buch? When are you getting the book?

*S=gibt sie mir später She's giving it to me later.

5. Weiß Martin das schon? Does Martin know that already?

*M=hab ich nichts gesagt. I haven't told him a thing.

6. Was machst du im Sommer? What are you doing this summer?

Um Juli w///=f nach Frankreich. In July I want to go to France.

7. Warum sieht er so böse aus? Why does he look so angry?

*Ich glaube, daß Anna=n geärgert hat. I think that Anna upset him.

S.Weiß Kohl, ob er wieder gewält wird? Does Kohl know if he'll be re-elected?

* Wissen kann=s er nicht. He can't tell.

9. Kann ich jetzt den Wagen nehmen? Can I take the car now?

Ich weiß nicht, ob=n Kurt zurück gebracht hat. I don't know if Kurt has brought it back.

10. Wird er morgen kommen? Will he come tomorrow?

*Tja, wissen kann keiner=s. Well, nobody knows.

11 .Ich meine, wir sollen das trotzdem machen. Wenn=de wirklich willst. If you really want to. I think we should do that in spite of things. 12.Wir sind gestern abend noch dazu noch dazu gekommen. We still got to it last night.

Ach so, gestern habt=r=s doch gemacht Oh, so you did it yesterday.

Wo hal=se=n überhaupt kennengelernt 13.Diesen Amerikaner wird Elke wahrscheinlich heiraten. Where'd she meet him? Hike's probably going to marry that American 14.Kaufst du ein neues Auto dieses Jahr? Are you going to buy a new car this year?

Ja und ich weiß genau was ich will und wo ich=s bekomme. Yes, and I know just what I want and where to get it.

15. Was ist, wenn Peter es nicht schaft? What will happen if Peter can't do it?

Dann wird=s der Markus probieren. Then Markus'll try it.

194 16.Weiß Peter, daß wir uns heute treffen? ^Gestern hat=m Klaus das gesagt. Does Peter know that we're meeting today? Klaus told him yesterday. 17.Das Müsli ist fast alle. The muesli is almost gone.

Wieviel haben=vr noch übrig! How much do we have left?

18.Hast du den Brief bekommen? Did you get the letter?

*Er hat=mr=n geschickt. He sent me it.

19.Hast du mit Werner gesprochen? Have you talked to Werner?

Hans hat=s=m, sagt er, noch nicht erzählt. Hans hasn't, so he says, told him yet.

20. Sollen wir ihn am Bahnhof abholen? Should we pick him up at the station?

Er ist mit=m Auto gekommen. He came by car.

21. Willst du jetzt das Krokodil futtern? Do you want to feed the crocodile now?

*Ja ich hab wasfür=s hier. Yes, I have something for it here.

22.Bringst du es mir morgen? Are you going to bring me it tomorrow?

IWas soil dasjetzt=n heißen? What do you mean by

23.Hast du Maria das Geld gegeben? Did you give Maria the money?

Ihr würde ich keinen Pfennig geben. I wouldn't give her one cent!

24.Kommt sie irgendwann bei Peter vorbei? Is she going to visit Peter?

Ja, sie wird heute auch ihn treffen. Yes, she's also going to see him today.

25.Kennst du Christiana und Wolfgang? Do you know Christiana and Wolfgang?

Na, ich hab gerade gestern sie kennengelernt, aber ihn noch nicht. I just met her yesterday, but not him yet.

26.Wer muß das tun? Who has to do that?

*C=armes Schwein muß das machen. I, poor soul, have to do it.

27.Hast du Hans heute oder gestern gesehen? *Ich hab heute=n gesehen. Did you see Hans today or yesterday? I saw him yesterday. 28.Hast du Peter das Buch gegeben? Did you give Peter the book?

*Ja ich hab=m=s schon gegeben. Yeah, I've already given him it.

29.Wann ist der Ring verschwunden? When did the ring disappear?

Einige Minute danach hat dieser Dieb dem Touristen ihn aus der Tasche gezogen. Several minutes later the thief pulled it out of the tourist's pocket.

SO.Kann ich auf dem Computer arbeiten? Can I work on the computer?

Wenn dir=s Peter zeigt. If Peter shows you how to do it.

31 .Hat jemand das Meerschweinchen gefuttert? Ich weiß nicht, ob^s seine Schwester Has anyone fed the guinea pig? oder sein Bruder gefüttert hat. I don't know if his sister or his brother

195 32.Wann kommt sie? When is she coming? 33.Kriegen wir ein Eis? Can we have some ice-cream?

*C=weiß es leider nicht. Unfortunately I don't know. *R=habt schon doch gestern eins gekriegt. You already had some yesterday.

34.Kommt ihr heute abend? Are you coming tonight?

* Vr=versuchen zu kommen. We'll try to come.

35.Hast du mit Roland heute gesprochen? Did you talk to Roland today?

*N=hab ich gar nicht gesehen. I haven't seen him at all.

36.Hast du dem Baby das Essen gegeben? Did you feed the baby?

*S=hab ich gerade gefüttert. I just fed it.

37.Gefällt Hans das neue Auto? Does Hans like his new car?

*M=gefällt es ganz gut He likes it alot.

38.Ich werde heute Großvater im Krankenhaus besuchen. I'm going to visit Grandfather in the hospital today.

*Das wäre lieb=m zu besuchen. it would be nice (of you) to visit him.

39.Wo ist mein Buch? Where is my book?

*Heute hat Frank=s zu dir gebracht. Frank brought it to you today.

40.Schulzes haben ein Baby bekommen. The Schulzes have a new baby.

?lch freue mich=s zu sehen. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

41 .Die beiden haben das Theaterstück gesehen. *Hat Otto=s auch wirklich gesehen! Both of them saw the play. Did Otto really see it too? 42.Weiß Markus schon Bescheid? Does Markus know already? 43.Ich gehe heute zu Fitneßtraining I'm going to fitness training class today. 44.Wird Monika Peter oder Elke treffen. Is Monika going to meet Peter or Elke?

* Gestern hat Paula=m was daurber gesagt. Yesterday Paula told him about it. Grüß Peter, wenn=de=n siehst. Say hello to Peter ifyou him. Ich weiß nicht, ob=se Peter oder Elke trifft. I don't know if she's meeting Peter or Elke.

45.Weißt du wo Frank ist? Do you know where Frank is?

Ich hab=n gerade getroffen. I just ran into him.

46.Wird das Ozonloch größer? Is the hole in the ozone layer getting bigger?

Tja, wissen kann=s keiner. Nobody knows for sure.

47.Gestern hatte ja Hubert Geburtstag. Yesterday was Hubert's birthday.

Va, ja, ich hab=m die Konzertkarten geschenkt. Yes, yes, I gave him the concert tickets.

196 48.Das Meer ist heute warm genug zum baden. *Siimmt schon. Schwimm=vr bis zur The ocean is warm enough to go Insel? swimming today. You're right. Shall we swim to the island? 49.Ich hatte davon keine Ahnung I had no idea about that.

*Ich hab=dr=s doch gesagt. But I told you.

SO.Weiß er schon Bescheid? Does he already know?

*Sie hat, glaub ich s=m gesagt. She has, I believe, told it to him.

51 .Hast du mit Hans heute darüber gesprochen? *Nein gestern hob ich mit=m geredet. Have you talked to Hans about today? No, I talked to him yesterday. 52. Versuchen wir es noch mal? Shall we try it again?

*Na wie willst du=n=s machen? So how do you want to do it?

5 3. Sie darfauch mitkommen. She can come too.

* Was soil Maria=n dabei? Why should Maria come?

54. Weiß er das schon? Does he already know?

Ihm hab ich das gerade gesagt. I've just told him.

55.Hast du das Krokodil im Zoo gesehen? Have you seen the crocodile in the zoo?

"Das große? Es fand ich total ekelhaft. The big one? I found it totally disgusting.

56. Wer trifft morgen deine Großmutter? Who's meeting your grandmother tomorrow?

Ich weiß nicht, ob=se meine Mutier oder Vater trifft. I don't know if my mother or father is meeting her.

57.Ich habe gehört, daß sie ihr Boot nie gefunden hat. I heard that she never found her boat.

*Ja, aber sie hat r^Segel gefunden. Yes, but she did find sail.

58. Wer hat Brigitte gesehen? Who's seen Brigitte?

*Gestem hat lnge=se gesehen. Inge saw her yesterday

59.Kennst du Peter? Do you know Peter?

Den kenn ich seit zehn Jahren. I've know him for ten years.

60. Wie gefällt Christiana ihr neues Auto? How does Christiana like her new car?

Ihr gefällt es ganz gut She likes it alot.

61. Willst du mit ins Steakhouse? Do you want to come along with us to the steakhouse?

*De weißt, daß ich kein Fleisch esse. You know I don't eat meat.

62.Du sollst die Taste noch mal drücken You should push the button again.

!S=hab ich schon gemacht. I've already done it.

63.Hat sie Ingrid was gesagt? Did she say anything to Ingrid? 64.Das Essen soll jetzt fertig sein. The meal should be ready by now

*R=hal sie kein einziges Wort dazu gesagt. She didn't say a thing to her. *Ich hab schönes auf den Tisch gestellt. I've already put it on the table.

197 65.Hat das Krokodil wirklich so viele Menschen gefressen? Has the crocodile really eat that many people?

Ich weiß nicht, ob=s so viele Menschen gefressen hat. I don't know if it's eaten that many poeple.

oo.Darf ich dich was fragen? Can I ask you something?

Was willst de=n wissen? What do you want to know?

67.Hast du das Buch schon zurück gegeben? Wieso? Ich hab=s doch noch nicht gelesen. Have you already returned the book? What do you mean? I haven't read it yet. 68.Wem hat er die Karte gegeben? Whom did he give the ticket?

Elke hat=r die Karte gegeben. He gave the ticket to Elke.

69.Warum müssen wir immer Spazierengehen? ^Früher hat=r das immer gefallen.. Why do we always have to go strolling? You used to like it. 70. Wie lange seid ihr schon da? How long have you been there?

*Seit einem halben Jahr leben=vr in Köln. We've lived in Cologne for half a year.

71 .Hast du einem von uns was mitgebracht? Did you bring one of us something?

Ja ja, ich hob wasfür=s Kind. Yeah, I have something for the child.

72.Bitte, komm mal her. Please come here.

Was willst=n du? What do you want now?

73 .Hast du Petra gesehen? Have you seen Petra?

Die hab ich gerade im Cafe gesehen. I just saw her in the cafe.

74.Hast du Markus heute gesehen? Have you seen Markus today?

Ihn hab ich seit langem nicht mehr gesehen. I haven't seen him for a long time.

75.Ich muß sofort mit Claudia reden. I have to talk to Claudia right away.

Sie mußt du aber erst finden. You'll have to find her first.

76.Er will nicht darüber sprechen. He doesn't want to talk about it.

*Ja stimmt, m=ist das furchtbar peinlich That's true. It's very embarrassing to him.

77.Wer hat das Baby gefuttert? Who fed the baby?

Ich weiß nicht, ob=s der Vater oder die Mutter diesmal gefüttert hat. I don't know if the mother or the father fed it this time.

78. Hast du mit Markus und Inge geredet? Have you spoken to Markus and Inge?

*Nein. Ich hab=se und ihn heute nicht gesehen. No, I haven't seen her and him today.

79.Naja, die Tür ist schon zu. Oh well, the door's already shut.

Ja. Jetzt sind=vr zu spät. Yes, now we're too late.

SO.Hast du das Geld zurück bekommen? Did you get the money back?

*Ja, aber sie hal=mr zu wenig gegeben Yes, but she didn't give me enough.

APPENDIX B: Details of the input

1. Form and case of clitics in the test sentences Ce= schwa clitics pro/en clitic

total

1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 1

2

4 1 2 3 4 2

1 8 3 19 1 3

9 22 4

2 2 3 5 1 1

2 2 8 2

totals/type s n r

Ce

9

nominative *9

ich

de

du

r

er

se

sie

s

es

vr

wir

r

ihr

2

4 1 2 3 4 2

accusative n

ihn

s

es

se

sie

9 22 4

dative *mr mir *dr

dir

*m

ihm

*rihr

2 2 8 2

other s das m dem

n denn r ihr(possessive)

1 1 5 1

1 1 5 1

199

2. Words with Final consonant clusters (re. the acquisition of syllable structure) A. Words with sonorant + obstruent clusters: l.[eAtse:lt] 2. [gdfElt]

'told' 'pleased'

3. [göitElt]

'put'

4. [klnt] 5. [gEstAn] 6. [galeAnt]

'child1 'yesterday1 'learned'

B. Words with obstruent clusters: I.[g3zakt] 2. [y:bAhaupt] 3. [gaflkt] 4. [gabraxt] 5. [trlft]

'said' 'above all' 'sent1

6. [e:kolhaft] 7. [ftjAxtbaA]

•brought1 'met1 'disgusting' 'frightful1

8. [eAst] 9. [nicts] 10. [vllst] 11. [ga/Enkt]

'first1 'nothing' 'want1 'gave'

* Although in Standard German the Idrl in words such as gestern and gelernt vocalizes to [A], not all non-native speakers have acquired this rule in German and hence the /r/ may surface as a consonant.

3. Words with schwas (re. the acquisition of rhythmic structure) 1. [bökomö] 2. [ge:ban]

'receive1 'give'

3. [trEfön] 'meet1 4. [f£Azu:xon] 'try1 5. [koman] 'come1

6. [bözu:xön] 7. [gage:ban] 8. [gdtrofdn] 9. [Es5] 10. [halbön]

1

visit1 'gave1

'met1 'eat1 'half

APPENDIX C: Results for individual test subjects

Table C.I. Number of misunderstood clitic constructions - NNS Group «=69 control

American

Korean

Spanish

Andrea 2 Marie Luise 3 Brigitte 4 Marianne 4 Wolfgang 4 Christel 4 Karin 4 Thorsten 4 Claudia 5 Guido 5

Amy 5 Beth 8 Ron 8 Jack 8 Mary 9 Connie 9 Marilyn 10 Peter 10 Allen 20

Yun Tang 7 Jorge 6 Hae Ran 1 1 Pablo 7 Ja Yang 12 Maria 10 YongHyeon 13 Ho Sung 20

Turkish Nebahat 8 Fehti 9 Özlem 9 Mesut 12

Table C.2. Raw scores for repeated clitics n=75

Control

American

Korean

Spanish

Turkish

Christiane 46 Wolfgang 44 Andrea 44 Guido 41 Karin 41 Marie Luise 3 5

Beth 26 Connie 16 Marilyn 15 Amy 15 Ron 13 Jack 12 Mary 8 Peter 8 Allen 2

Hae Ran 13 Jorge 7 Ja Yang 8 Pablo 5 Ho Sung 5 Maria 1 Yun Tang 4 Yong Hyeon 0

Nebahat Mesut Özlem Fehti

Claudia 34

Thorsten 33 Brigitte 21 Marianne 1 S

17 7 7 4

201 Table C.3. Frequency of repetition of clitics by type/syntactic position

control

a b c d e f g h

i j k 1 m n o P

q

r s t u v W X

y

90% 90% 90% 80% 80% 80% 74% 60% 55% 51% 50% 40% 40% 37% 35% 30% 25% 23% 21% 20% 20% 10% 0% 0% 0%

American

59% 55% 33% 22% 11% 78% 54% 0% 6% 6% 0% 0% 11% 11% 17% 0% 5% 14% 9% 22% 11% 11% 0% 0% 0%

Korean

Spanish

Turkish

20% 30% 0% 0% 0% 60% 32% 0% 0% 3% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 11% 1% 20% 1% 0% 0% 0% 0%

0% 33% 0% 0% 33% 0% 29% 0% 17% 0% 0% 0% 0% 11% 0% 0% 0% 5% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

50% 38% 25% 0% 0% 50% 53% 0% 25% 4% 0% 0% 25% 0% 0% 0% 0% 3% 5% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

key: clitic position/type a. after nominative full form pronoun (DET)

b. determiner clitic in NP after preposition c. sentential clitic before subject pronoun d. assimilated form [zlnv\] e. PRO after pronoun f. denn [n] after adverb g. non-dative clitic after all verbs (COMP) h. accusative clitic after nominative clitic (DET) i. after non-subject full form pronouns (DET)

j. after complementizer (COMP) k. »dative clitic after I. *clitic in a coordination

m. »main verb assimilated form n. »single dative clitic o. *after adverb p *PRO after adjective q. 'accusative clitic after dative clitics r. »after NP s. »in Spec (CP) t. »after prep.

u. »after parenthetical v. »clitic form [ς]

w. /hat=r/ 'has he' x. assimilated form *[hanv\] y. »possessive form /r/

202

Table C.4. Frequency of repetition of clitics by the two best speakers Beth

Nebahat

a b c d e f g h i i k l m n o p q r s t u v

100% 100% 100% 100% 0% 100% 70% 0% 0% 14% 0% 0% 50% 67% 0% 0% 0% 14% 13% 100% 0% 100%

0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 85% 0% 50% 14% 0% 0% 0% 0% 50% 0% 0% 0% 21% 0% 0% 0%

w χ

0% 0%

0% 0%

y

0%

0%

Table C.5. Attachment of the clitic /s/ by non-Americans Name

HaeRan Ja Yang Ho Sung Yun Tang Yong Hyeon Pablo Jorge Maria Nebahat Ozlem Mesut Fehti

in 2-member clusters son.+ /$/ obstr + /s/ «=7 ii=7 42% 29% 17% 13% 0% 50% 13% 0% 75% 29% 0% 0%

30% 20% 0% 0% 0% 25% 45% 0% 50% 0% 12% 10%

in 3-member clusters Λ=3

33% 67% 33% 33% 0% 33% 0% 33% 33% 33% 33% 0%

203 Table C.6. Overall acquisition of syllable structure rep=repeated the cluster; del=deleted a member of the cluster, epen= inserted a vowel 2-member clusters son+obst obst+obst

Name

«=6

HaeRan Ja Yang Yun Tang Ho Sung Yong Hyeon Nebahat Özlem Fehti Mesut Maria Pablo Jorge

3-member clusters son+obst+obst obst+obst+obst n=l n=2

rep del epen

rep del epen

rep del epen

rep del epen.

6

8

1 2 2 2

1

5

1

6 4 4 6 6 6 6 6 5 5

2 2

1 1

7 7 8 4 6 8 5 6 7 5 4

1 1

1

1

1

4

2 3 1 1 3 4

1

2 2 1 2 2 2 1

1 1 1

Table C.7. Repetition of clitics with vowels by non-Americans Name Nebahat Özlem Mesut Fehti HaeRan Ho Sung Ja Yang Yun Tang Yong Hyeon Jorge Pablo Maria

schwa «=10

2 1 1 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

M «=14

1 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 1 1 1 1

2

syllabic /n/ or /m/ «=23

2 2 1 1 2 1 2 2 0 3 0 0

1 1

204 Table C.8. Repetition by the Americans of clitics with vowels Name

schwa =10

Beth Amy Jack Peter Marilyn Connie

Ron Mary Allen

Irl n=14

1 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 0

syllabic /n/ or Iml /i=23

3 0 3 1 1 1 1 0 1

8 5 1 3 4 2 2 4 1

Table C.9. Realization of schwa in inflectional suffixes by the non-American groups Name Özlem Nebahat Fehti Mesut Ja Yang Yun Tang HaeRan Ho Sung Yong Hyeon Maria Pablo Jorge

as schwa

10 8 7 6 8 7 5 3 2 3 3 1

syllabic consonant

3 3 4 5 2 1 0 0 0 2 2 1

lax vowel

1 2 2 2 4 5 7 5 8 7 4 8

tense vowel

0 0 1 1 0 1 2 6 4 2 5 4

Table C.10. Realization by Americans of schwa in inflectional suffixes «=14 Name lax vowel tense vowel as schwa syllabic consonant Peter Allen Jack Elizabeth

Ron Mary Amy Marilyn Connie

12 10 9 9 9 9 8 8 7

2 0 3 3 3 5 5 1 5

0 4 2 1 2 0 1 5 2

0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0