Subject: subject inversion; information structure; word order; interface hypothesis
Year: 2023
Type: Article
Title: Acquisition of Structures at Syntax-Discourse Interface: Post-Verbal Subjects in L2 English
Author: Liljana Mitkovska, Eleni Bužarovska, Natasha Stojanovska-Ilievska
Abstract: The present study explores the acceptability of postverbal subjects by intermediate and advanced L2 English learners with L1 Macedonian, a pro-drop Slavic language with rich verbal morphology. The two languages differ regarding the distribution of subject-verb inversion (SVI): in Macedonian, it is a default pattern in thetic sentences, but English severely restricts SVI to specific contexts. To test the hypothesis that Macedonian learners encounter difficulties in acquisition of English SVI because of crosslinguistic influence, a grammaticality judgement and correction task was administered to two groups of Macedonian learners of English and a control group of English native speakers. The results revealed that L2 learners find English VS sentences and VS + it-insertion examples more acceptable than the native speakers, but the performance of the advanced group is closer to the native speakers than to the intermediate learners. Both non-native groups accept more readily inappropriate English sentences that conform to typical L1 structures.
Publisher: University of Silesia Press
Relation: Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition
Identifier: oai:repository.ukim.mk:20.500.12188/28996
Identifier: Mitkovska L., Bužarovska E., & Stojanovska-Ilievska N. (2023). Acquisition of Structures at Syntax-Discourse Interface: Post-Verbal Subjects in L2 English. Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition, 9(2), 1-22.
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12188/28996Identifier: 10.31261/TAPSLA.13311