Article

Be-Insertion in Interlanguage: A Topic Marker, A Tense/Agreement Morpheme, or Both?

Bora Nam 1 ,
Author Information & Copyright
1Indiana University
*Corresponding Author : PhD Candidate, Department of Second Language Studies, Indiana University, 1165 E. Third Street, Bloomington, Indiana, United States, E-mail: bnam@iu.edu

ⓒ Copyright 2019 Language Education Institute, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Oct 02, 2019 ; Revised: Nov 05, 2019 ; Accepted: Dec 18, 2019

Published Online: Dec 31, 2019

ABSTRACT

In L2 production, be-forms are often inserted before thematic verbs (e.g., She is study hard). There have been two hypotheses concerning the function of be-forms, that they are topic markers transferred from L1 or tense/agreement morphemes. This study examines the explanatory adequacy of the two hypotheses by comparing acceptability judgments and self-paced listening between Korean and Russian EFL learners. The results support neither hypothesis completely. Contrary to the Topic Marker Hypothesis, both L2 groups accepted be-insertion after non-topic as well as topic subjects. Against the T/AGR Morpheme Hypothesis, participants also accepted be-insertion after topicalized non-subjects. These results suggest that be-forms can have two functions simultaneously, and thus the two hypotheses must not be considered mutually exclusive. The data also call into question the role of L1 transfer, suggesting that the phenomenon may reflect a universal L2 strategy.

Keywords: Be-insertion; interlanguage; topic marker; tense/agreement morpheme; L1 transfer

References

1.

Ahn, S. H. (2003). A note on the topic-comment stage in Korean EFL syntactic development. Studies in Generative Grammar, 13(2), 369-32 .

2.

Ahn, S. H. (2006). The grammar of verb be in early Korean EFL interlanguages. Studies in Generative Grammar, 16(4), 769-782 .

3.

Andersen, R. W. (1984). The one to one principle of interlanguage construction. Language learning, 34(4), 77-95 .

4.

de Vogelaer, G. (2003). Person marking in Dutch dialects. In B. Kortmann (Ed.), Dialectology meets typology: Dialect grammar from a cross-linguistic perspective (pp 181-210). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter .

5.

Fleta, M. T. (2003). Is-insertion in L2 grammars of English: A step forward between developmental stages. In J. M. Liceras, H. Zobl, & H. Goodluck (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6th generative approaches to second language acquisition conference (GASLA, 2002) (pp. 85-96). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project .

6.

Goldschneider, J. M. and DeKeyser, R. M. (2001). Explaining the "natural order of L2 morpheme acquisition" in English: A meta‐analysis of multiple determinants. Language Learning, 51(1), 1-50 .

7.

Gundel, J. K. and Fretheim, T. (2004). Topic and focus. In L. Horn, & G. Ward (Eds.), The handbook of pragmatics (pp 175-196). Oxford: Blackwell .

8.

Haznedar, B. (2007). The acquisition of tense-aspect in child second language English. Second Language Research, 23(4), 383-417 .

9.

Huebner, T. (1983). A longitudinal Analysis of the Acquisition of English. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma Publishers .

10.

Ionin, T., & Wexler, K. (2002). Why is 'is' easier than '-s'?: Acquisition of tense/agreement morphology by child second language learners of English. Second Language Research, 18(2), 95-136 .

11.

Jarvis, S. (2000). Methodological rigor in the study of transfer: Identifying L1 influence in the interlanguage lexicon. Language Learning, 50(2), 245-309 .

12.

Kim, K. (2011). Overgenerated be from topic marker to verbal inflection. Foreign Language Education Research, 14, 1-22 .

13.

Mayo, G., del Pilar, M., Ibarrola, A. L., & Liceras, J. M. (2005). Placeholders in the English interlanguage of bilingual (Basque/Spanish) children. Language Learning, 55(3), 445-489 .

14.

Mourssi, A. (2013). Crosslinguistic influence of L1 (Arabic) in acquiring linguistic items of L2 (English): An empirical study in the context of arab learners of English as undergraduate learners. Theory & Practice in Language Studies, 3(3), 397-403 .

15.

Partee, B. H. (1999). Focus, quantification, and semantics-pragmatics issues. In P. Bosch, & R. van der Sandt (Eds.) Focus, Linguistic, Cognitive, and Computational Perspectives (pp. 213-231). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

16.

Radford, A. (1990). Syntactic theory and the acquisition of English syntax. Oxford: Blackwell .

17.

Schmerling, S. (1975). Evidence from sentence stress for the notions of topic and comment. Texas Linguistics Forum, 19, 135-141 .

18.

Sekerina, I. A. (1997). The syntax and processing of scrambling constructions in Russian (Doctoral dissertation). City University of New York .

19.

Shibata, M. (2006). Topic marking in English composition by Japanese EFL learners. Scripsimus, 15, 1-26 .

20.

Shin, J-S. (2001). L1 influence in foreign language learning: Topic-prominence in Korean EFL learners' interlanguage grammar. Foreign language education, 8(1), 1-21 .

21.

Suzman, S. (1999) The acquisition of English as a second language by children who speak Bantu languages. Paper presented at the 8th International Congress for the Study of Child Language, San Sebastian, 1999 .

22.

Yang, H. K. (2002). Korean EFL learner's acquisition of English inflectional features. Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics, 2(2), 227-248 .

23.

Yang, H. K. (2006). Functional projection in Korean ESL learner's interlanguage syntax. The SNU Journal of Education Research, 15, 117-128 .

24.

Yang, S. (2014) The functions of the nontarget be in the written interlanguage of Chinese learners of English, Language Acquisition, 21(3), 279-303 .

25.

Zimmermann, M., & Féry, C. (2010). Information structure: Theoretical, typological, and experimental perspectives. Oxford University Press .