Nuclear Accent placement in broad focus intransitives in native and non-native English: an investigation of syntactic and pragmatic factors

IF 0.9 2区 文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS Glossa-A Journal of General Linguistics Pub Date : 2022-05-27 DOI:10.16995/glossa.5810
S. A. Landblom, T. Ionin
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

Simple broad focus intransitives in English have been observed to occur with variable nuclear accent (NA) placement on either the subject or verb. This variability can be difficult to acquire in a second language (L2), especially when the speaker’s first language (L1), such as Spanish, has less flexible NA placement. Learners tend to transfer L1 intonational patterns into their L2, but there is still more to understand about the learning trajectory. Furthermore, the factors driving the NA placement alternation in intransitives is still not completely understood for L1 speakers; there is a debate about whether NA placement is driven by syntactic factors, such as verb type, pragmatic factors, or a combination of the two. The study reported in this paper used an oral production task to elicit broad focus intransitives from both L1 English speakers and L1 Spanish L2 English learners. Verb type and expectedness were crossed in stimuli construction in order to test the effects of both syntactic and pragmatic factors on NA placement for both speaker groups. The results indicate that L1 speakers are most likely to produce NA on the subject in with expected unaccusative verbs, and to produce NA on the verb in all other conditions. L2 speakers show a stronger preference for utterance-final NA placement on the verb, which is likely transferred from the preferred pattern of their L1. At the same time, L2 learners of higher proficiency do show evidence of acquiring the utterance-final NA placement pattern, especially in the with expected unaccusative verbs.
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母语和非母语英语中大焦点不及物的核重音位置:句法和语用因素的研究
在英语中,简单的广焦点不及物动词在主语或动词上都有不同的核重音位置。这种可变性在第二语言(L2)中很难获得,特别是当说话者的第一语言(L1),如西班牙语,具有较不灵活的NA位置时。学习者倾向于将母语语调模式迁移到第二语言中,但学习轨迹仍有待进一步了解。此外,对于母语使用者来说,影响非及物句中NA位置变化的因素仍不完全清楚;关于NA的放置是由句法因素(如动词类型、语用因素,还是两者的结合)驱动的,存在争议。本文报道的研究使用了一个口头生产任务,从母语英语和母语西班牙语的第二语言学习者中引出广泛的焦点不及物。动词类型和期望在刺激构建中交叉,以检验句法和语用因素对两组说话者NA放置的影响。结果表明,母语使用者在使用预期的非宾格动词时,最可能在主语上产生NA,在所有其他情况下,最可能在动词上产生NA。第二语言使用者对动词的词尾NA位置表现出更强的偏好,这可能是从他们的第一语言偏好模式转移过来的。与此同时,熟练程度较高的二语学习者确实有证据表明他们习得了口末NA放置模式,特别是在带有预期非宾格动词的情况下。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
2.10
自引率
10.00%
发文量
87
审稿时长
62 weeks
期刊最新文献
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