poverty of the stimulus in second language acquisition roumyana slabakova university of iowa
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Poverty of the Stimulus in Second Language Acquisition
Roumyana Slabakova
University of Iowa
Nutshell The Poverty of the Stimulus argument claims that
natural language grammar is unlearnable to the full, given the relatively limited data available to children and adults learning a language, and
therefore that this knowledge is supplemented with some sort of innate linguistic capacity.
Humans are born with a specific representational adaptation for language that both supports and constrains their competence to acquire linguistic representations in the course of their linguistic maturation.
Important terms Positive evidence: the set of grammatical sentences
and interpretations the language learner has access to, by observing the speech of others and the extralinguistic situation in which these sentences are uttered.
Negative evidence: the evidence available to the language learner about what is not grammatical (in descriptive, not prescriptive terms). In L2A, negative evidence can take the form of explicit corrections, but not recasts, in the language classroom.
Positive and negative evidence It is argued that only positive but not negative
evidence informs the linguistic development of children acquiring their mother tongue
In L2A, however, this argument is much less clear-cut. Schwartz (1993) argues that negative data and explicit data result in a type of knowledge that is not to be equated with linguistic competence. Only positive data can effect the construction of an interlanguage grammar comparable to that of native speakers
The shape of the argument
Premises: There are patterns in all natural languages that cannot be
learned by children using positive evidence alone. Children are only ever presented with positive evidence for
these particular patterns. For example, they only hear others speaking using sentences that are "right", not those that are "wrong".
Children do learn the correct grammars for their native languages.
Conclusion: Therefore, human beings must have some form of innate linguistic capacity that provides additional knowledge to language learners.
The PoS argument in L1A
The most often cited example of children being aware of syntactic structure is based on children’s knowledge if subject-auxiliary inversion in questions:
The unicorn is grazing Is the unicorn is grazing?
The unicorn which is in the garden is grazing Is the unicorn which is in the garden is grazing? NO!
Is the unicorn which is in the garden is grazing? YES!
The PoS argument in L2A
Has mostly been made within the realm of semantics: Adult L2 learners already have a grammar, the
grammar of their mother tongue, to be expected to violate structure dependence in a second language
If it can be shown that a native interpretation does not exist in the target language (therefore, there is no positive evidence for it in the L2 input) but its absence is still acquired by adult speakers, then a clear case of UG access can be made.
Morphosyntax-semantics mismatches
Meaning 1 Meaning 2
Sentence 1 √ √
Sentence 2 √ *
Where sentence 1 and sentence 2 are a minimal pair (differ in only one characteristic)
Complex syntax—simple semantics
Properties falling under this learning situation have quite complex syntax. Sentences involve less frequent constructions such as double genitives, discontinuous constituents, quantifiers at a distance, scrambling, etc.
In a lot of cases, alternative ways of articulating the same message exist, making the tested constructions dispreferred.
Complex syntax—simple semantics
However, at the syntax-semantics interface, these same properties do not present much difficulty, as there are no mismatches.
If learners have acquired the relevant Functional Lexicon item and have constructed the right sentence representation, the presence or absence of semantic interpretation follows straightforwardly from universal computational mechanisms.
Dekydtspotter and Sprouse 2001
Tense-dependent interpretations of discontinuous quantifiers:
Qui de célèbre fumait au bistro dans les année 60?
Who of famous smoked in the bar in the 60ies?
‘Which famous person smoked in bars in the 60ies?’
√present celebrity √past celebrity
Qui fumait de célèbre au bistro dans les année 60?
Who smoked of famous in the bar in the 60ies?
‘Which famous person smoked in bars in the 60ies?’
#present celebrity √past celebrity
Linguistic analysis
The linguistic facts that engender these interpretations can be explained by combining language-specific movement for checking of a wh-feature, the possibility of left-branch extraction (again, language-specific) and a universal semantic-computational mechanism. When a wh-phrase (qui) moves to Spec, CP to check a wh-feature (pied-piping the rest of the phrase with it, or checking a strong feature) it can optionally take its adjectival restrictions (de célèbre) along for the ride.
Linguistic analysis
[CPQui de célèbre [C [TP tqui de célèbre fumait [VP tqui de célèbre
[V' tfumait ]]]]?
The adjectival restriction ‘de célèbre’ can be interpreted in CP, TP and in VP
[CP Qui [C [IP t qui [I' fumait [VP [t qui de célèbre][V' tfumait ]
The restriction can be interpreted only in VP. Since the Past tense operator is located in T, the second sentence has a past celebrity interpretation only (in the scope of the Tense operator)
What kind of knowledge is being acquired?
Knowledge of wh-movement (can be transferred from English into French)
Knowledge that discontinuous quantifiers are allowed in French (evident from the test sentences)
Knowledge that French allows adjectival restrictions with who (while in English who famous or who of famous are ungrammatical) (evident from the test sentences)
Most importantly, the UNIVERSAL DEDUCTIVE PROCEDURE is indispensable for interpretation
Test participants 47 anglophone intermediate learners of
French, 3rd and 5th semester French at Indiana U.
11 advanced speakers of L2 French One control group of 30 native French speakers One control group of 47 English natives with no
exposure to French (further divided into two)
Test instrument: The Truth Value Judgment Task
Attitudes toward smoking have changed drastically since the 1960s. In the 60s many people would go to bars and smoke every night. For example, Herman the Hermit was a famous rock star in those days and was often seen at bars smoking with Linda Tripp, who was then totally unknown. How times have changed! Now it is Linda Tripp who is famous, and neither of them smokes any more!
Continuous interrogative with past time answer:
Mme Goyette: Qui de célèbre fumait – dans le bistro – pendant les année 60?
Élève: Herman the Hermit
Question for respondents on all items:
Is this a correct answer to the question?
Percentage of acceptance of past time and speech time construals with continuous or discontinuous interrogatives
Intermediate Advanced Native French
Construal: past speech past speech past speech
Continuous interrogatives
90.7 41.2(OK) 79.6 46.6(OK) 88.8 12.5(OK)
Discontinuous interrogatives
90.7 25 (#) 90.9 15.9 (#) 96.3 5 (#)
Summary of results Past time construals are preferred across the board
by natives and learners alike. Knowledge of the missing interpretation, the speech-
time construal with discontinuous constituents is crucial in answering the research question of this study.
Both learner groups show a statistically significant difference between the available and the unavailable interpretations. In other words, they reliably treat the two constructions differently.
What the English natives chose
The English native speakers were divided into two groups and given the following sentences to judge:
*Who of famous smoked in bars in the 60ies?
*Who smoked of famous in bars in the 60ies?
?*Who famous smoked in bars in the 60ies?
*Who smoked famous in bars in the 60ies?
Dekydtspotter and Sprouse rely on the premise that speakers can attribute interpretations even to ungrammatical strings.
English native judgmentsGroup 1 (judging questions with the preposition of) (n=23)
Past Speech
Group 2 (judging questions without preposition) (n=24)
Past Speech
Continuousinterrogatives
86.95 30.98
89.06 28.12
Discontinuousinterrogatives
86.95 22.28 93.75 5.72
What the English native results mean
The past time construal is again accepted to a very high degree in answer to both continuous and discontinuous interrogatives, in both native English groups. This fact in itself confirms the authors’ hypothesis that speakers can judge the interpretation of ungrammatical strings.
Furthermore, no significant distinction is made between the two types of interrogatives in the past construal, again for both types of ungrammatical strings.
Most importantly however, acceptance of the speech time construals by Group 1 shows that a pure glossing strategy would not lead the French learners to the expected contrast in their L2 knowledge.
What the English native results mean
If English was like French in this respect: the question word who would allow an adjectival restriction,
and also would allow that restriction to be left in situ, then the universal interpretive procedure would have made
French and English equal. In their speech time construal acceptance rates, Group 2
native English speakers demonstrate the universal semantic computation at work, when the parametric differences are taken away.
Note that they accept the speech time construals with continuous interrogatives more often than the native French speakers do, and they display a significant contrast.
Poverty of the Stimulus and Universal Semantics
The interrogatives judged by Groups 1 and Group 2 of native speakers are ungrammatical strings. How did these intuitions arise in the first place?
They could not have been due to pattern noticing in the child language input, since such sentences would not have appeared in child-directed speech.
These intuitions about degrees of ungrammaticality can only arise on the basis of linguistic meaning computation regulated by UG.
Poverty of the Stimulus and Universal Semantics
The clever design of Dekydtspotter and Sprouse’s (2001) study allows us a glimpse at how speakers judge interrogative interpretations based on the universal computational mechanism only, compared to using that same universal mechanism augmented with parametric knowledge of target language interrogative structure.
Acceptance rates of the dispreferred but legitimate construal jumps from 28% (Group 2 native English speakers) to 41% (intermediate learners) to 47% (advanced learners).
Thus acquiring the French optionally discontinuous adjectival restriction of qui ‘who’ allows even low-proficiency French learners to display the French contrast reliably.
Simple syntax—complex semantics Learning situations in which some meanings
are denoted by seemingly similar morphemes. E.g. English past simple and past progressive
Spanish preterit and imperfect aspectual tenses
Mismatch at the L1-L2 syntax-semantics interface (different meanings are encoded in the seemingly similar morphemes)
English simple present tense (Slabakova 2003)
The English simple tense cannot denote ongoing events.
*She eats an apple right now. (#ongoing event)She is eating an apple right now. (ongoing event)She eats an apple (every day). (habitual event)
With stative predicates, however, the ongoing reading of the English present is possible.
Mike is lazy. (characteristic state)Mike is being lazy today. (temporary state)
English bare infinitive (Slabakova 2003)
The English bare infinitive denotes not only the process part of an event but includes the completion of that event
I saw Mary cross the street. (completion entailed)I saw Mary crossing the street.
(no completion entailed)Explanation: bare verbs are marked with a feature [Perfective] in the lexicon, because English inflectional morphology is impoverished.
Bulgarian present tense (Slabakova 2003)
No present progressive tense and the present simple tense is ambiguous between a habitual and an ongoing event or state.
Maria sega jade torta. (simultaneous event)Maria now eat-PRES cake‘Mary is eating a cake right now.’
Maria jade torta vseki den. (habitual activity)Maria eat-PRES cake every day‘Mary eats cake every day.’
Bulgarian present tense (Slabakova 2003)
This is true of stative predicates as well, ambiguous between a characteristic and a temporary state.
Maria ləže. (characteristic state)Maria lies-present‘Mary is a liar.’
Maria v momenta ləže. (temporary state)Maria at this moment lies-present‘Mary is lying (at the moment).’
Bulgarian infinitives (Slabakova 2003)
Bulgarian verbs do not need to be marked [Perfective] in the lexicon. They are amply marked with person, number, and tense endings. Consequently, Bulgarian equivalents to bare infinitives do not entail completion of the event.
Ivan vidja Maria da presiča ulicata.Ivan saw Maria to cross street-DET‘John saw Mary crossing/*cross the street.’
(no completion entailed)
Learning Task (Slabakova 2003)
.English eventive verbs
have the feature [Perfective]
Bare verbs denote a complete event.
Present tense has only a habitual interpretation
Progressive is needed forongoing interpretation
States in the progressivedenote temporary states
Experiment (Slabakova 2003)
112 Bulgarian-speaking learners of English and 24 native speakers
3 proficiency levels: low intermediate, high intermediate, and advanced
A production task for ascertaining knowledge of inflectional morphology
A truth value judgment task for checking knowledge of interpretation
Experiment (Slabakova 2003)
A quadruple testing completed interpretation of English bare forms:
Matt had an enormous appetite. He was one of those people who could eat a whole cake at one sitting. But these days he is much more careful what he eats. For example, yesterday he bought a chocolate and vanilla ice cream cake, but ate only half of it after dinner. I know, because I was there with him.
I observed Matt eat a cake. True False
I observed Matt eating a cake. True False
Results (Slabakova 2003)
Mean Accuracy on Bare Verb vs. -ing Form on Perceptual Reports ( percentage )
5865
73
64
7568
76 75
87
79 82
68
83
75
95
86
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Bare verb (F) -ing (T) Bare verb (T) -ing (T)
Incomplete event Complete event
Low IntHi IntAdvancedControls
Conclusions (Slabakova 2003)
It is possible to acquire semantic properties in the second language that do not come from the L1
All semantic effects of the triggering inflectional property appear to be engaged at the same time.
Any impact of instruction? NO
ANOVA on the data for each group, with condition as the sole factor. All groups perform equally well on all conditions.
Poverty of the Stimulus in SLA
These findings show that the universal semantic computation mechanism is at work in L2 speakers, once the respective functional morphology carrying the formal features has been acquired
The pedagogical implications are that language teachers do not need to teach universal semantics but just the inflectional morphology where language differences reside.
