judith stone-preston: copula pressing and grammar development in jsla

8/4/2019 Judith Stone-Preston: Copula pressing and grammar development in JSLA

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Copula processing and grammar

development in JSLA

Judith PrestonUMass-Boston/Educational Testing Service

September 12, 2011

[email protected]



Study objectives

- define the morphosyntactic environments inwhich the Japanese copula emerges based onlinguistic research

- integrate a set of emergence criteria stemmingfrom formal research into a hierarchy of grammatical procedures based on aprocessability theory approach (PT, Pienemann,1998)

- apply those criteria in empirical analyses of JSLAbased on profiling adult Japanese L2 learnerspontaneous speech



Study overview

1. Review literature related to Japanese copula

2. Implement hierarchical language processing

model based on PT

3. Analyze spontaneous speech of adult JSLA

participants



Research question

Question: Can PT’s theory-model accurately predict the order of emergence of target grammatical contexts involving the copula in thespontaneous speech of adult L2 learners of Japanese?

Hypothesis: If the various grammatical processing procedures

involving the copula are constrained by morphosyntactic environmentsbased on a procedural call hierarchy, then a PT approach to the studyof empirical data based on spontaneous speech production by adultlearners of JSL will show that

a) longitudinally, the order of emergence of target criteria will followthe procedural grammar hierarchy of the language

b) cross-sectionally, the emergence of target morphosyntax of higher stages in the hierarchy implies emergence of each lower-stagefor every sample



Definition of copula targeted in the

JSLA study

The copula is treated as a verbal (V) morpheme

that affixes to non-inflecting categories N/NA in

predicative environments (↑SUBJ); A verbal

morpheme (V) that combines with a host noun

or nominal adjective to head a clause (S or S’)



Literature review (1)

Initial review

C-structure “syntax”:

Nakau (1973)

Konomi (1991)Murasugi (1991)

Morphology:

Sells (1997)

Semantics:

Narahara (2002)



Copula inflection system

Narahara (2002, p. 74)



Literature review (2)

Additions

-f-structure in syntactic tier analysis: Attia (2008),

Nordlinger & Sadler (2006), Dalrymple, Dilvik &

Halloway King (2004)

-HPSG lexical sharing: Kim, Sells, & Westcoat

(2004)*

*Note correct publication date. See references.



Single and double tier analyses

See Attia (2008)



Single tier analysis for Japanese

Adjective PREDs in Japanese (Dalrymple et al., 2004)



Lexical sharing

Kim, Sells & Westcoat (2004)

Discussing the Korean copula, the authorsexplain how atoms (smaller than words)

combine to form words. The projected lexical

item is shared—it belongs to more than one

constituent which then may combine with

higher-up syntactic constituents.



Lexical sharing and the copula in

JapaneseLexical sharing (following Kim, Sells & Westcoat: 2004) can account for pre-Nand pre-C affixes on host nouns heading Japanese S and S’ clauses.

-na/-no/-datta in pre-N

-na/-datta in pre-nominalizer (NMLZ)

-da/-datta, and pre-complementizer –da/datta forms of the copula

Example: “sensei-da-kedo” (teacher-COP-however) is a word and sentence atonce. “sensei” is only a word, but in combination here a subject issubcategorized for as a result of sharing the syntactic properties of atoms that

are inherited. C indicates the sentence may combine with another sentence(but it does not have to).

e.g. sensei -da -kedo

N° V C



Abstract examples (1)-(6):

proposed emergence criteria

4 obligatory contexts

1 sometimes obligatory1 non-obligatory context



Lexical

Category

S headed by lex:

PRED(LFG)/

HEAD(HPSG)/

dictionary form

S headed by lex share:

pre-complementizer (C)

(e.g. –kara ‘because’, -kedo ‘but’)

S headed by lex share:

pre-nominalizer (NMZ)

(e.g. –no, -koto) S headed by lex share:

pre-Noun

(eg. -tokoro ‘place’, -kodomo ‘child’) Verb

(inflected) iku(↑SUBJ)

go/goes

X goes iku-kara

go-because

(it is) because X goes iku-no (+alpha)

go-NMZ

(it is) (that) X goes; X’s going iku-kodomo

go-child

(those are) the children (who are)

going; the child that goes Adjective

(inflected) takai(↑SUBJ)

expensive

X is expensive takai-kara

expensive-because

(it is) because X is expensive takai-no (cf. –no ‘one’) takai-tokoro

expensive-place

(it’s an) expensive place

Nominal

Adjective benri(↑SUBJ)

convenient

X is handy benri-da-kedo

convenient-COP-however

(however, it’s convenient) benri-na-no

convenient-COP-NMZ

benri-na-tokoro

convenient-COP-place

Noun sensei (↑SUBJ)

teacher

X is a teacher sensei-da-kara

teacher-COP-because

because X is a teacher sensei-na-no

teacher-COP-NMZ

(it’s that) X is a teacher sensei-no-kodomo

otousan-ga teacher-COP-kodomo

the child whose father is a teacher

Categorial heads of S



Stage 2: categories and canonical

structures

1. Otousan-ga sensei-desu

2. Otousan (-ga) sensei?3. Sensei, otousan (-wa)

etc.



Canonical structures with nominal

word in predicate

N N V N N



Category-based canonical structure

PRED ‘teacher<(↑SUBJ)>

SUBJ [ ]TOP [PRED ‘father’]

FIN +



Obligatory and forbidden contexts for

Japanese copula affix

Obligatory on N/NA:

• pre-C (complementizer)headed S

•

pre-NMZ headed S• noun-modifying S

• as interrogative “-ka”heading S’

Non-obligatory:Preceding some “to”-headed C

Preceding “-ka” headed S’

Forbidden:

• verb-headed S

• -i adjective headed S

• preceding interrogativemain clause



Copula optional and obligatory

contexts in SNon-obligatory when thecomplementizer (C) “-to” heads a GFsharing N/NA lex that is predicatedas main clause dependent(argument) in A-G.

A. Otousan-ga sensei da to omou

B. Otousan-ga sensei to omou

C. Ima oshigoto da to omou

D. Koko-wa chuushajou-to omou

E. Koko-wa chuushajou-da-to omou

F. Kore-wa benri to itta

G. Kore-wa benri-da-to itta(f. *Kore-wa atarashii da to omou)

Obligatory when C is not main clausedependent: when N/NA precedingadverbial (“-to”) modifier orconjunction-sharing S modifiers suchas “-kara/-kedo/-ga/-shi” (etc.)

A. Toukyou-da to shibuya-ga ii

B. Otousan-wa amerika da kedokodomo-wa nihon.

C. Otousan-wa america da/dattakedo.

Non-obligatoryA. Otousan-wa sensei (da/datta)

B. Otousan-wa sensei (da) kawakaranai.



Preston, Judith. 2011. Copula processing and

grammar development in Japanese second

language acquisition. Paper presentation, 11th

PALA (Processing Approaches to Language

Acquisition) International Symposium. University

of Innsbruck, September 12.



References

• Attia, Mohammed. (2008) . A unified analysis of copula constructions in LFG. Proceedings of theLFG08 Conference. (Miriam Butt and Tracy Holloway King (Eds). Stanford: CSLI Publications

• Dalrymple, Mary, Helge Dyvik & Tracy Holloway King. 2004. Copular complements: Closed or open?Proceedings of the LFG04 Conference. (Miriam Butt and Tracy Holloway King (Eds).

• Kim, Jong-Bok, Peter Sells & Michael Westcoat. 2004. Korean copula constructions: A lexical sharingapproach. Proceedings of the 13th Japanese-Korean Linguistics Conference. Stanford: CSLI.

•

Konomi, Emiko. 1994. The Structure of the Nominal Predicate in Japanese. Ithica, NY: CornellUniversity dissertation.

• Murasugi, Keiko. 1991. Noun Phrases in Japanese and English: A Study in Syntax, Learnability and Acquisition. Storrs, CT: UConn dissertation.

• Nakau, Minoru. 1973. Sentential Complementation in Japanese. Tokyo: Kaitakusha.

• Narahara, Tomiko. 2002. The Japanese Copula: Forms and Functions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

• Nordlinger, Rachel, and Sadler, Louisa. 2006. Verbless clauses: revealing the structure within. In Architectures, Rules and Preferences: A Festschrift for Joan Bresnan (2007). Jane Grimshaw, Joan

Maling, Chris Manning, Jane Simpson and Annie Zaenan (Eds). Stanford: CSLI Publications.• Pienemann, Manfred. 1998. Language Processing and Second Language Development. Studies in

Bilingualism, 15. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

• Sells, Peter. 1997. The expression of the Japanese copula: The survival of the weakest. Ms. [14 pp.]Stanford University, Department of Linguistics.

judith stone-preston: copula pressing and grammar development in jsla

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