Abstract
This study uses a sentence completion task with Swedish and Chinese L2 English speakers to investigate how L1 morphosyntax and L2 proficiency influence L2 English subject-verb agreement production. Chinese has limited nominal and verbal number morphology, while Swedish has robust noun phrase (NP) morphology but does not number-mark verbs. Results showed that like L1 English speakers, both L2 groups used grammatical and conceptual number to produce subject-verb agreement. However, only L1 Chinese speakers - and less-proficient speakers in both L2 groups - were similarly influenced by grammatical and conceptual number when producing the subject NP. These findings demonstrate how L2 proficiency, perhaps combined with cross-linguistic differences, influence L2 production and underscore that encoding of noun and verb number are not independent.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 907-921 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Studies in Second Language Acquisition |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 1 2018 |
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All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Education
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language
Cite this
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THE PRODUCTION of SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT among SWEDISH and Chinese SECOND LANGUAGE SPEAKERS of ENGLISH. / Jackson, Carrie N.; Mormer, Elizabeth; Brehm, Laurel.
In: Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Vol. 40, No. 4, 01.12.2018, p. 907-921.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
TY - JOUR
T1 - THE PRODUCTION of SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT among SWEDISH and Chinese SECOND LANGUAGE SPEAKERS of ENGLISH
AU - Jackson, Carrie N.
AU - Mormer, Elizabeth
AU - Brehm, Laurel
PY - 2018/12/1
Y1 - 2018/12/1
N2 - This study uses a sentence completion task with Swedish and Chinese L2 English speakers to investigate how L1 morphosyntax and L2 proficiency influence L2 English subject-verb agreement production. Chinese has limited nominal and verbal number morphology, while Swedish has robust noun phrase (NP) morphology but does not number-mark verbs. Results showed that like L1 English speakers, both L2 groups used grammatical and conceptual number to produce subject-verb agreement. However, only L1 Chinese speakers - and less-proficient speakers in both L2 groups - were similarly influenced by grammatical and conceptual number when producing the subject NP. These findings demonstrate how L2 proficiency, perhaps combined with cross-linguistic differences, influence L2 production and underscore that encoding of noun and verb number are not independent.
AB - This study uses a sentence completion task with Swedish and Chinese L2 English speakers to investigate how L1 morphosyntax and L2 proficiency influence L2 English subject-verb agreement production. Chinese has limited nominal and verbal number morphology, while Swedish has robust noun phrase (NP) morphology but does not number-mark verbs. Results showed that like L1 English speakers, both L2 groups used grammatical and conceptual number to produce subject-verb agreement. However, only L1 Chinese speakers - and less-proficient speakers in both L2 groups - were similarly influenced by grammatical and conceptual number when producing the subject NP. These findings demonstrate how L2 proficiency, perhaps combined with cross-linguistic differences, influence L2 production and underscore that encoding of noun and verb number are not independent.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85045045103&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85045045103&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S0272263118000025
DO - 10.1017/S0272263118000025
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85045045103
VL - 40
SP - 907
EP - 921
JO - Studies in Second Language Acquisition
JF - Studies in Second Language Acquisition
SN - 0272-2631
IS - 4
ER -