The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

The combinatorial variability hypothesis in the second language

The combinatorial variability hypothesis in the second language
The combinatorial variability hypothesis in the second language
Variability in the production and comprehension of inflectional morphology is widely attested and well documented in L2 acquisition. The sources of this variability are, however, disputed. In this paper, the authors look at the potential of Adger's (2006) Combinatorial Variability Hypothesis (CVH) to explain variable performance in this respect. The CVH explains intra-personal morphosyntactic variation as arising from the combinatorial mechanisms of language itself. It offers an evaluation metric of uninterpretable feature combinations, predicting which forms are going to surface more, and possibly even become defaults, in the acquisition of inflection. The experimental study involves English native speakers who are beginning or intermediate learners of German. They are asked to choose missing subjects among four options in copula sentences. Results indicate that, when choosing pronominal subjects, learners exhibit the pattern of errors predicted by the CVH. Frequency of the inflectional morphemes does not explain the results. The authors argue that there may be different underlying sources for variable L2 morphosyntactic performance: feature re-assembly, perceptual salience, phonological regularity, and semantic complexity may all be relevant. When all of these factors are held constant, though, and errors still persist, only language-internal explanations, such as combinatorial variability of features, are really credible.
978-1-57473-425-6
35-43
Cascadilla Proceedings Project
Slabakova, Roumyana
1bda11ce-ce3d-4146-8ae3-4a486b6f5bde
Gajdos, Johnathan
096d4b1e-2ee4-4c36-9c5d-4b65da3fb3d8
Bowles, Melissa
Foote, Rebecca
Perpiñán, Silvia
Bhatt, Rakesh
Slabakova, Roumyana
1bda11ce-ce3d-4146-8ae3-4a486b6f5bde
Gajdos, Johnathan
096d4b1e-2ee4-4c36-9c5d-4b65da3fb3d8
Bowles, Melissa
Foote, Rebecca
Perpiñán, Silvia
Bhatt, Rakesh

Slabakova, Roumyana and Gajdos, Johnathan (2008) The combinatorial variability hypothesis in the second language. Bowles, Melissa, Foote, Rebecca, Perpiñán, Silvia and Bhatt, Rakesh (eds.) In Selected Proceedings of the 2007 Second Language Research Forum. Cascadilla Proceedings Project. pp. 35-43 .

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Variability in the production and comprehension of inflectional morphology is widely attested and well documented in L2 acquisition. The sources of this variability are, however, disputed. In this paper, the authors look at the potential of Adger's (2006) Combinatorial Variability Hypothesis (CVH) to explain variable performance in this respect. The CVH explains intra-personal morphosyntactic variation as arising from the combinatorial mechanisms of language itself. It offers an evaluation metric of uninterpretable feature combinations, predicting which forms are going to surface more, and possibly even become defaults, in the acquisition of inflection. The experimental study involves English native speakers who are beginning or intermediate learners of German. They are asked to choose missing subjects among four options in copula sentences. Results indicate that, when choosing pronominal subjects, learners exhibit the pattern of errors predicted by the CVH. Frequency of the inflectional morphemes does not explain the results. The authors argue that there may be different underlying sources for variable L2 morphosyntactic performance: feature re-assembly, perceptual salience, phonological regularity, and semantic complexity may all be relevant. When all of these factors are held constant, though, and errors still persist, only language-internal explanations, such as combinatorial variability of features, are really credible.

This record has no associated files available for download.

More information

Published date: 2008
Venue - Dates: SLRF2007: 2007 Second Language Research Forum, 2007-10-10 - 2007-10-13
Organisations: Modern Languages

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 357212
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/357212
ISBN: 978-1-57473-425-6
PURE UUID: 3ebe3df4-1ee9-47c3-a7ae-b267310a434c
ORCID for Roumyana Slabakova: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5839-460X

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 24 Sep 2013 13:50
Last modified: 11 Dec 2021 04:44

Export record

Contributors

Author: Johnathan Gajdos
Editor: Melissa Bowles
Editor: Rebecca Foote
Editor: Silvia Perpiñán
Editor: Rakesh Bhatt

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×