Variability and consistency in late bilinguals’ morphology
- Speaking a late-learned second language (L2) is supposed to yield more variable and less consistent output than speaking one’s first language (L1), particularly with respect to reliably adhering to grammatical morphology. The current study investigates both internal processes involved in encoding morphologically complex words – by recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during participants’ silent productions – and the corresponding overt output. We specifically examined compounds with plural or singular modifiers in English. Thirty-one advanced L2 speakers of English (L1: German) were compared to a control group of 20 L1 English speakers from an earlier study. We found an enhanced (right-frontal) negativity during (silent) morphological encoding for compounds produced from regular plural forms relative to compounds formed from irregular plurals, replicating the ERP effect obtained for the L1 group. The L2 speakers’ overt productions, however, were significantly less consistent than those of the L1 speakers on the same task.Speaking a late-learned second language (L2) is supposed to yield more variable and less consistent output than speaking one’s first language (L1), particularly with respect to reliably adhering to grammatical morphology. The current study investigates both internal processes involved in encoding morphologically complex words – by recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during participants’ silent productions – and the corresponding overt output. We specifically examined compounds with plural or singular modifiers in English. Thirty-one advanced L2 speakers of English (L1: German) were compared to a control group of 20 L1 English speakers from an earlier study. We found an enhanced (right-frontal) negativity during (silent) morphological encoding for compounds produced from regular plural forms relative to compounds formed from irregular plurals, replicating the ERP effect obtained for the L1 group. The L2 speakers’ overt productions, however, were significantly less consistent than those of the L1 speakers on the same task. We suggest that L2 speakers employ the same mechanisms for morphological encoding as L1 speakers, but with less reliance on grammatical constraints than L1 speakers.…
Author details: | Anna JessenORCiDGND, João Marques VerissimoORCiDGND, Harald ClahsenORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.18002.jes |
ISSN: | 1871-1340 |
ISSN: | 1871-1375 |
Title of parent work (English): | The mental lexicon |
Subtitle (German): | an ERP production study |
Publisher: | John Benjamins Publishing Co. |
Place of publishing: | Amsterdam |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2019/01/10 |
Publication year: | 2019 |
Release date: | 2022/03/02 |
Tag: | event-related potentials (ERP); harmonic grammars; morphological constraints; morphological processing; plurals in compounds |
Volume: | 13 |
Issue: | 2 |
Number of pages: | 29 |
First page: | 186 |
Last Page: | 214 |
Funding institution: | Alexander-von-Humboldt-ProfessorshipAlexander von Humboldt Foundation |
Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Linguistik / Multilingualism |
DDC classification: | 4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache |