ÇUKUROVA UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES ... · shifted from investigating this issue to...

ÇUKUROVA UNIVERSITY

INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH SYNTACTIC MOVEMENT BY

TURKISH ADULT LEARNERS

Esra ALTUNKOL

MASTER OF ARTS

ADANA – JULY 2005

ÇUKUROVA UNIVERSITY

INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING



ESRA ALTUNKOL

SUPERVISOR: ASSISTANT PROFESSOR DOCTOR CEM CAN

MASTER OF ARTS

ADANA – JULY 2005

I certify that this thesis is satisfactory for the award of the degree of Master of Arts. ________________________ Assist. Prof. Dr. Cem CAN Supervisor ________________________ ____________________________ Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hatice SOFU Assist. Prof. Dr. Ergün SERİNDAĞ Member of Committee Member of Committee Certified that this thesis conforms to the formal standards of the Institute of Social Sciences. ________________________ Director of the Institute Prof. Dr. Nihat KÜÇÜKSAVAŞ Note: The uncited usage of the reports, charts, figures, photographs in this thesis, whether original or quoted from other sources, is subject to the law of Works of Art and Thought No: 5846.

Not: Bu tezde kullanılan özgün ve başka kaynaktan yapılan bildirişlerin, çizelge, şekil ve fotoğrafların kaynak gösterilmeden kullanımı, 5846 Sayılı Fikir ve Sanat Eserleri Kanunu’ndaki hükümlere tabidir.

ABSTRACT



Esra ALTUNKOL

MA Thesis, ELT Department

Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Cem CAN

July, 2005, 96 pages

This study aims at investigating L2 acquisition of syntactic movement in English noun

clauses by Turkish adults. Recent studies in SLA domain have been influenced by the

Generative Grammar based approaches to a great extent. The question of whether

Universal Grammar originally developed and proposed to account for first language

acquisition also constrains the acquisition of second language has been the major

concern of the studies conducted in SLA field. However, as growing research into this

issue has not yielded clear-cut answers, L2 studies within the generative framework

shifted from investigating this issue to whether interlanguage grammars exhibit natural

language characteristics.

This study seeks answers to the following questions:

1 Do Turkish adult L2 learners of English have problems in handling the

syntactic movement involved in noun clauses in English in their gradual

proficiency level of English stemming from their L1 linguistic

characteristics?

2 Is there any order of acquisition between the noun clauses in subject

position and object position along with the various WH-words?

The study was conducted with 87 ELT students whose English proficiency levels were

determined by Michigan Placement Test and ranged from intermediate to advanced.

Three different data collection tools were utilized in order to collect data as well as two

international corpora TICLE and LOCNESS.

i

Key Words: Second Language Acquisition, Universal Grammar, Interlanguage,

Syntactic Movement, Noun Clauses.

ii

ÖZET

İNGİLİZCEDEKİ SÖZDİZİMSEL TAŞIMANIN TÜRK YETİŞKİNLER

TARAFINDAN EDİNİMİ

Esra ALTUNKOL

Yüksek Lisans Tezi, İngiliz Dili Eğitimi Anabilim Dalı

Danışman: Yrd. Doç. Dr. Cem CAN

Temmuz, 2005, 96 sayfa

Son yıllarda İkinci Dil Edinimi (İDE) alanında yapılan çalışmalar Üretici/Üretimsel

Dilbilgisi kuramı çerçevesinde yapılan araştırmalardan büyük ölçüde etkilenmiştir.

Çocukların dil edinimini açıklamak için Chomsky tarafından ortaya atılan Evrensel

Dilbilgisi (ED) kuramının ikinci dil ediniminde de geçerli olup olmadığı konusu İDE

alanında yapılan çalışmaların başlıca konularından birisi olmuştur. Fakat, bu alanda

yapılan çalışmaların kesin sonuçlar vermemesi İDE çalışmalarının ED’ye erişim

konusundan aradillerin doğal dillerin özelliklerinin ne kadarını gösterdiğine doğru bir

değişim göstermesine neden olmuştur.

Bu çalışma aşağıdaki soruları cevaplamayı amaçlamaktadır:

1 İngilizceyi edinen Türk yetişkinler İngilizce ad cümleciklerindeki

sözdizimsel taşımayı kullanırken İngilizce yeterliklerine ve

anadillerinin dilbilimsel özelliklerine bağlı olarak bir problem

yaşıyorlar mı?

2 Değişik NE- sorularının kullanımında özne durumunda kullanılan ad

cümlecikleriyle nesne durumunda kullanılan ad cümlecikleri arasında

bir edinim sırası var mıdır?

Çalışma İngilizce dil yeterlik seviyeleri orta ve ileri olarak Michigan Placement Test ile

belirlenen 87 katılımcı ile yapılmıştır. TICLE ve LOCNESS gibi iki uluslararası bütünce

yanı sıra üç değişik veri toplama aracı kullanılmıştır.

iii

Anahtar Kelimeler: İkinci Dil Edinimi, Evrensel Dilbilgisi, Aradil, Sözdizimsel

Taşıma, Ad Cümlecikleri.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to a number of people who have assisted

me in one way or another during the completion of this thesis.

First of all, I would like to thank Associate Professor Hatice Sofu for being my

supervisor in my first year in MA, and for her guidance and support during that period. I

also want to thank her for kindly directing me to the person she thought would best help

me in my thesis.

Assistant Professor Cem Can, my supervisor, I actually do not know how I can

express my gratitude to him. First of all, I am much obliged to him for sharing his

incredible expertise and knowledge in the field with me. During this one-year period, he

was not only my supervisor but also a friend who, whenever I walked into his office

desperate, made me believe that I can do this. I do not remember a time when I left his

office with a gloomy face. Apart from sharing his time and energy, I would also like to

thank him for letting me use his library and providing me with all the materials I needed.

Without his educational and psychological support I could not have finished this thesis.

Also, I would like to express my gratitude to Assistant Professor Abdurrahman

Kilimci who spent his invaluable time helping me with the analysis of the corpora.

I warm-heartedly thank Assistant Professor Ergün Serindağ for accepting to be

a member of my committee.

My special thanks goes to Assistant Professor Türkay Bulut who always

welcomed me whenever I had questions especially about statistics. Moreover, I want to

thank Assistant Professor Ahmet Doğanay for his suggestions about the analysis of the

data. I am also much obliged to Pınar Babanoğlu who helped me very much with the

data collection.

My sisters Özlem and Nilgün are the invisible forces who made this thesis

possible. I am indebted to Özlem who ran my errands when I did not have time to do

anything except working on my thesis, and to Nilgün for her courage and support during

the every phase of this thesis.

v

Lastly, I want to dedicate this thesis to my mother to whom I am eternally

grateful for her unconditional love and support. She will never read these lines, but I

want to thank her for always believing in me in whatever I do, and never questioning my

decisions.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract (English) ............................................................................................... i

Abstract (Turkish) ............................................................................................. iii

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................ v

List of Abbreviations.......................................................................................... x

List of Tables....................................................................................................xii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………..1

1.1. Background of the Study............................................................................. 1

1.2. Statement of the Problem ............................................................................ 2

1.3. Research Questions ..................................................................................... 2

1.4. The Importance of the Study....................................................................... 3

1.5. Limitations .................................................................................................. 3

1.6. Operational Definitions ............................................................................... 4

CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ..................................................... 5

2.1. Introduction ................................................................................................ 5

2.2. Contrastive Analysis .................................................................................. 6

2.3. Creative Construction.................................................................................. 7

2.4. Universal Grammar ..................................................................................... 8

2.4.1. The Innateness Hypothesis.............................................................. 10

2.4.2. The Role of Positive and Negative Evidence in

Language Acquisition ..................................................................... 12

2.4.3. Principles and Parameters Theory................................................... 14

2.4.3.1. Principles........................................................................... 14

2.4.3.2. Parameters ......................................................................... 17

2.5. UG and SLA.............................................................................................. 18

2.5.1. Direct Access Hypothesis................................................................ 19

2.5.2. No Access Hypothesis..................................................................... 19

2.5.3. Indirect Access Hypothesis ............................................................. 20

2.6. Interlanguage............................................................................................. 24

vii

2.6.1. Fossilization .................................................................................... 25

2.7. Syntactic Movement and Noun Clauses

in English and Turkish .............................................................................. 26

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .................................................................. 30

3.1. Introduction .............................................................................................. 30

3.2. Research Design ....................................................................................... 30

3.3. Subjects ..................................................................................................... 30

3.4. Instruments and Data Collection ............................................................... 31

3.4.1. Grammaticality Judgment Task ...................................................... 31

3.4.2. Scrambled Sentences Task .............................................................. 33

3.4.3. Elicited Imitation Task .................................................................... 34

3.4.4. TICLE and LOCNESS.................................................................... 35

3.5. Data Analysis ............................................................................................ 35

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .............................................. 36

4.1. Analysis of GJT........................................................................................ 36

4.2. Analysis of SST........................................................................................ 45

4.3. Analysis of EIT ........................................................................................ 55

4.4. Overall Findings of Three Tasks.............................................................. 61

4.5. Analysis of TICLE and LOCNESS.......................................................... 66

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION........................................................................ 73

5.1. Introduction .............................................................................................. 73

5.2. Evaluation of the Research Questions...................................................... 73

5.2.1. Evaluation of Research Question 1 ................................................ 73

5.2.2. Evaluation of Research Question 2 ................................................ 74

5.3. Implications for English Language Teaching .......................................... 75

5.4. Future Prospects ....................................................................................... 76

References ........................................................................................................ 77

Appendices ....................................................................................................... 87

viii

Appendix A ............................................................................................... 87

Appendix B ............................................................................................... 91

Appendix C ............................................................................................... 94

Curriculum Vitae.............................................................................................. 95

ix

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

3rd prs. - Third Person

ACC - Accusative

aux - Auxiliary

CA - Contrastive Analysis

CC - Creative Construction

COMP - Complementizer

CPH - Critical Period Hypothesis

DAT - Dative

EIT - Elicited Imitation Task

ELT - English Language Teaching

FA - Full Access

FLA - First Language Acquisition

FT - Full Transfer

FUT - Future

GB - Government and Binding

GEN - Genitive

GJT - Grammaticality Judgment Task

IL - Interlanguage

IP - Inflection Phrase

L1 - First Language

L2 - Second Language

LOC - Locative

LOCNESS - Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays

NOM - Nominative

NP - Noun Phrase

NS - Native Speaker

NSS - Non-Native Speaker

NT - No Transfer

PA - Partial Access

x

PL - Plural

POS - Poverty of the Stimulus

POSS - Possessive

PROG - Progressive

PT - Partial Transfer

SING - Singular

SLA - Second Language Acquisition

SOV - Subject-Object-Verb

SST - Scrambled Sentences Task

t - trace

TICLE - Turkish International Corpus of Learner English

TL - Target Language

UG - Universal Grammar

VP - Verb Phrase

xi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Summary of the claims on UG availability and transfer..................... 21

Table 2 Participant characteristics.................................................................... 31

Table 3 GJT: Distribution of the items............................................................. 32

Table 4 SST: Distribution of the items............................................................. 33

Table 5 EIT: Distribution of the items ............................................................. 34

Table 6 Results obtained from the GJT............................................................ 37

Table 7 Descriptive statistics for the GJT ........................................................ 38

Table 8 Results obtained from the SST............................................................ 46

Table 9 Descriptive statistics for the SST ........................................................ 47

Table 10 Results obtained from the EIT. ......................................................... 56

Table 11 Descriptive statistics for the EIT....................................................... 57

Table 12 Overall results of data analysis ......................................................... 63

Table 13 The sizes of the corpora .................................................................... 66

Table 14 Distribution of grammatically acceptable and unacceptable

Wh-noun clauses in object position across the corpora.. ................. 68

Table 15 Distribution of grammatically acceptable and unacceptable

Wh-noun clauses in subject position across the corpora.................. 71

xii

1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This section consists of the statement of the problem and research questions.

Also, the importance of the study and the limitations of the study are discussed.

1.1. Background of the Study

Studies in second language acquisition (SLA) which are influenced by

Universal Grammar (UG) based approaches most of the time investigate the parametric

variations across languages. By investigating such linguistic characteristics of

languages, researchers try to shed light on how languages are learned and how

languages can be taught. Early SLA studies within a generative framework were held

around whether learners have access to UG or not. As hypothesis about UG developed,

this interest was replaced by questions such as how UG is represented in learner

language, and how learner language displays properties of natural languages (White,

2003).

Keeping this in mind, this study aims at investigating how Turkish adult learners

of English acquire the syntactic movement process in English noun clauses. The reason

for selecting this operation is that English has syntactic movement, whereas, Turkish

does not. In English, to construct a noun clause (for example in reported statements) we

need to make a few operations one of which is to move the auxiliary out of its original

place as in the following (see chapter 2 for a more detailed explanation):

[Where is he going]?

She asked me [where he is going].

However, as Kornfilt (1997) asserts, in Turkish, indirect wh- questions (in the

form of noun clauses) are the same as corresponding direct questions.

[Kim öl-dü]?

Who die-PAST

2

Hasan bana [kim-in öl –düğ -ün] –ü sordu.

Hasan I –DAT. who-GEN. die-FNOM.-3rd person SING ACC. ask-PAST

Hasan asked me who had died.

(Example adapted from Kornfilt, 1997, p. 53)

As the position of wh- questions do not change in indirect forms, there is not a

grammatical operation involved in the formation of Turkish noun clauses. Consider the

following:

Affirmative Form: O gidiyor.

S/he is going.

Direct wh- question: O [nereye gidiyor]?

Where is s/he going?

Indirect wh- question O, onun [nereye gittiğini] sordu.

in a noun clause: S/he asked where s/he is going.

1.2. Statement of the Problem

The purpose of this study is to investigate how Turkish adult speakers acquire

the syntactic movement in the formation of noun clauses in L2 English. In other words,

it aims to find out:

• whether the parametric difference between L1 and L2 in terms of syntactic

movement poses a problem for the learner or not,

• whether there is an order of acquisition between the noun clauses in subject and

object position.

The reason for selecting this grammatical operation is that English has an

instantiated syntactic movement feature, whereas, Turkish does not within the restriction

of the syntactic movement parameter.

1.3. Research Questions

This study seeks answers to the following questions:

3

1. Do Turkish adult L2 learners of English have problems in handling the

syntactic movement involved in noun clauses in English in their

gradual proficiency level of English stemming from their L1 linguistic

characteristics?

2. Is there any order of acquisition between the noun clauses in subject

position and object position along with the various wh- noun clause

constructions?

1.4. The Importance of the Study

In Turkey, not so many studies in the domain of applied linguistics have taken

the adult second language acquisition into consideration from the generative

perspective. There are only a few SLA studies which try to account for the syntactic

discrepancies between English and Turkish (Bulut, 1996, 2000; Bulut and Can, 1999,

2001; Can, 2000a, 2000b; Ekmekçi, Can and Çaylaklı, 2000; Ekmekçi and Çaylaklı,

2001). However, it is an established fact in the SLA field that bringing out the

parametric differences between the L1 and L2, and highlighting these differences and

raising the consciousness of the learner would enhance the learning process (Ellis,

1991). Hence, the focus in this thesis is one parameter of UG, syntactic movement,

which we believe is important because it would shed light into Turkish adult learners’

strategies in coping with parametric differences between their L1 and L2. This study

aims at pointing out the possible differences in terms of the syntactic movement

parameter in the formation of noun clauses. We believe that pinpointing the possible

problems which cause parametric conflicts for Turkish L2 learners would shed light into

the later research concerning the ELT methodology. For example, long discussed

“parametric grammar books” revealing variations across languages would only be made

possible as a result of these sort of studies.

1.5. Limitations

This study is only limited to the students attending the English Language

Teaching Department at Çukurova University (and partially the ones at Mustafa Kemal

University and Mersin University). Also, the results of the study are limited to the

Grammaticality Judgment Task, Scrambled Sentences Task, Elicited Imitation Task,

Turkish International Corpus of Learner English (TICLE) and Louvain Corpus of Native

English Essays (LOCNESS) used in the data collection.

4

1.6. Operational Definitions

Below are the definitions of some of the key concepts in this study:

1. Auxiliary: In a general sense, an auxiliary verb combines with another verb to

form the tense, mood, voice, or condition of the verb it combines with. In this

study, the term auxiliary will also be used for copula be which combines the

subject of a sentence with a predicate.

2. Elicited Imitation Task: A task in which the learner is supposed to repeat the

sentences s/he hears.

3. Final state: The outcome or end point of acquisition (in L2).

4. Grammaticality Judgment Task: A task where the learner has to choose between

grammatical and ungrammatical sentences.

5. Initial state: The learner’s cognitive state prior to any linguistic evidence. When

referred to in L1 acquisition it is characterized by Universal Grammar (Ritchie and

Bhatia, 1996). When referred to in L2 acquisition, though, it is characterized by

L1.

6. Interlanguage: The language of the learner which displays the characteristics of the

learner’s first language and the characteristics of the language being acquired and

sometimes characteristics of neither.

7. L1: The native language of the learner.

8. L2: The language that is being acquired.

9. LOCNESS: A corpus which consists of native English essays.

10. Second Language Acquisition: The acquisition of ‘any language other than the first

language learned’ (Lightbown and Spada, 1999, p. 178). In this study, the term

will be used to refer to both second language acquisition and second language

learning.

11. Subjacency: A principle of UG which restricts the movement of wh- phrases into

one bounding node at a time.

12. Task of Scrambled Sentences: A task where the learner has to make grammatical

sentences with the given words.

13. TICLE: A corpus that is developed from Turkish adult learners’ essays.

14. Universal Grammar: The theory that all human beings are born with the

knowledge of language, usually referred to as UG.

5

CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1. Introduction

Recent studies in SLA domain have been influenced by the Generative

Grammar based approaches to a great extent. The question of whether Universal

Grammar originally developed and proposed to account for first language acquisition by

Chomsky (1965) also constrains the acquisition of second language has been the major

concern of the studies conducted in SLA field (Bley-Vroman, Felix and Ioup, 1988;

Hilles, 1991; Schwartz and Sprouse, 1998; Hawkins, 2001; White, 2003). This concern

in UG has provided a deeper insight into the nature of SLA research.

Most of the controversy raised by the issue of UG in SLA is that the

knowledge of L2 is never as perfect as L1 except some extreme examples. According to

Ellis (1999), only five percent of the L2 learners attain a native like proficiency. For

this very reason, L2 is expected to have unique characteristics different from L1, and

should be studied accordingly. If the same processes are involved in the second

language acquisition, one should expect to get the same outcome as in L1. However, the

outcome is usually what is called ‘steady interlanguage’.

The concept of interlanguage, as put forward by Selinker (1969, 1972, 1992),

is the “separate linguistic system based on observable output which results from a

learner's attempted production of a target language norm,” where the target language is

defined as “one norm of one dialect” (1972, p. 214). Hence, the language the L2 learner

comes up with is not the L2 in fact. For this reason, it can be considered as “an

attempted production” of L2.

After the emergence of interlanguage, later studies the earlier of which were

conducted within a generative framework asking whether UG is still available to the L2

learner concentrated on interlanguage itself (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1998; White, 1998).

As stated by White (2003), “the main focus of UG studies shifted from access issue to

whether interlanguage grammars exhibit properties characteristic of natural language”

(P.17). Within the same line of reasoning, studies in this regard such as Schwartz and

Tomaselli’s (1990) and Schwartz and Sprouse’s (1994) investigated the UG trace (in

6

terms of word order) in German interlanguage of L1 Turkish speakers, and they claimed

support for UG in adult SLA.

2.2. Contrastive Analysis

The early SLA studies (from 1950s to 1970s) were held around what was

called Contrastive Analysis (CA) Hypothesis which followed the structural linguistics

and behaviorist psychology (Towell and Hawkins, 1994). Fries (1945) and Lado (1957)

were the first proponents of this hypothesis.

As behaviorist psychology sees learning as an associative task that involves

developing a set of linguistic habits, CA Hypothesis proposes that L1 acquisition is

rendered possible through reinforcement, association, and generalization (Flynn, 1987).

The primary premise of CA Hypothesis is that L1 and L2 learning are similar since both

of them are seen as processing a set of habits. Since second language learning is the

same as first language learning, then, L2 is acquired in the same way as L1 is acquired.

The only difference between the two is that L2 also involves the transfer of L1 linguistic

properties (James, 1981).

The general assumption of CA is that “individuals tend to transfer the forms

and meanings and the distribution of the forms and meanings of their native language

and culture” (Lado, 1957, p. 2). This means that the L2 learner’s work is to transfer the

linguistic patterns and habits from the L1 to the L2. If the pattern to be learned is the

same as the one already present in L1, positive transfer of these linguistic habits, but not

the learning, takes place. When the two patterns do not match, then, there is a negative

transfer of L1 linguistic habits resulting in interference. Therefore, the L2 learner must

learn the new linguistic patterns to overcome such interference in L2 learning (Lado,

1957).

Basically, CA studies try to account for similarities and differences in L1 and

L2 learning. Soon after its emergence in 1950s, many studies were conducted aiming at

investigating CA’s role in L2 acquisition. There was supporting evidence for CA as well

as non-supporting evidence which mainly came from foreign language classrooms. The

errors and mistakes of the language learners were observed to stem from the negative

transfer from their native languages. For example, Dommergues and Lane (1976)

reported the L1 transfer effect on a study they conducted with French native speakers

learning English. Also, Shim (1994) found that Korean learners of English tend to use

bilabial fricatives instead of dental fricatives – a transfer effect of Korean on a phonemic

7

level. Although other studies (Duskova, 1969; Selinker, 1969; Oller and Redding, 1971;

Baik and Shim, 1993) provided supporting evidence, CA theory was generally

empirically unsupported.

As structuralist approaches to language learning processes were shaken by

Chomskyian cognitive theories of language acquisition, CA Hypothesis was also left

unsupported. Other studies, for example, have shown that differences between L1 and

L2 do not always interfere with learning (Sciarone, 1970), and similarities do not always

facilitate learning (Duskova, 1969). Moreover, as Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991) put

it, not all contrasts between L1 and L2 lead to learning difficulties, and not all

similarities guarantee a simple and error free acquisition.

2.3. Creative Construction

As CA theory was proven to fail to answer the crucial questions of L2

acquisition, another theory, theory of Creative Construction, was proposed in 1970s.

The major claim of this theory was that L1 has no remarkable effect on L2 acquisition,

and the L2 acquisition process is determined by the structure of the language to be

learned and creative constructive powers of the language learners (Flynn, 1987).

The theory of Creative Construction came into question first with the work of

Dulay and Burt (1974a; 1974b). They investigated the order of acquisition for

morphemes in English. They found that learners with different L1s ended up with the

same order of morpheme acquisition. They concluded that L1 has no major influence in

L2 acquisition. Therefore, they claimed that instead of L1 effect, an innate learning

process is involved in L2 acquisition. As they put it (Dulay and Burt, 1978):

Language learners have a predisposition to organize input in ways that exhibit

a creative independence from external environmental characteristics. This

aspect of language acquisition is believed to be rooted in innate and universal

structural properties of mind. (p. 68)

Studies such as Bailey, Madden, and Krashen’s (1974) provided supporting

evidence to CC theory. Bailey et al. (1974) found similar results to Dulay and Burt’s,

and they argued that L1 had no influence on the order of acquisition of English

morphemes. Similarly, Gass (1980) reported that error patterns of L2 are not determined

8

by the L1 background. Also, d’Anglejan and Tucker’ s (1975) and Apel’s (1984) works

can be accounted for data supporting CC theory.

However, CC theory of L2 acquisition, despite above supporting evidence,

fails to define the role of L1 in L2 acquisition. CC theory was abandoned as a

comprehensive theory of language acquisition since later studies, such as Ellis in 1985

(in Mitchell and Myles, 1998), underlined the role of L1 in SLA, and since it failed to

specify the nature of the innate mechanisms claimed to have a role in L2 acquisition

(Flynn, 1987).

2.4. Universal Grammar

Universal Grammar (UG) (Chomsky, 1981, 1986a, 1993, 1995) is a theory

which hypothesizes that human beings are born with knowledge of universal principles

underlying the structure of human language. It claims that a person knows a set of

principles which are fixed and shared by all languages, and a set of parameters which

vary across languages. As Chomsky (1976) puts it “UG is the system of principles,

conditions and rules that are elements or properties of all human languages…” (p. 29).

The starting point of UG is Government and Binding (GB) theory (Chomsky,

1981) which was later termed as Principles and Parameters Theory. As its name

suggests Principles and Parameters Theory holds that languages have principles which

are common properties in all languages, and parameters which are the different features

languages have.

The central claim of the theory is that children acquire the language on the

basis of UG. That is, with the interaction of the innate principles and the triggering of

the relevant parameters present in the primary linguistic data, the child acquires the

language (see Figure 1. below).

Figure 1. Language acquisition from a generative perspective.

(based on Cook and Newson 1996, p. 81).

9

From this point of view UG postulates that human language is clearly a work

of human mind. As Cook and Newson (1996) put it:

Each principle or parameter of language that is proposed is a substantive claim

about the mind of the speaker and about the nature of language acquisition. UG

theory is not making vague or unverifiable suggestions about properties of the

mind but precise statements based on specific evidence. The general concepts

of the theory are inextricably connected with the specific details; the

importance of UG theory is its attempt to integrate grammar, mind, and

language at every moment. (p. 2)

UG principles represent the “initial state” of the L1 learners’ mind (Flynn,

1987). Hence they are not to be learnt by the language learner. They are the abstract

properties common to all languages. Parameters, on the other hand, are only set with the

interaction of UG and the primary linguistic data.

Principles and Parameters Theory is an attempt to answer the question of

“What constitutes knowledge of language?” as it is the first of the three crucial

questions of a linguist, put forward by Chomsky (1986b). According to the Principles

and Parameters Theory, the knowledge of language constitutes the knowledge of

principles and parameters. Then comes the second question which is “How is the

knowledge of language acquired?”

The process of language acquisition is most of the time perfect, more perfect

than the primary linguistic data that is available to the acquirer. Chomsky in his

renowned Poverty of the Stimulus (POS) Argument embarks upon this phenomenon.

POS argument postulates that the knowledge of language we acquire is far more

qualified than the immediate language evidence, primary linguistic data that is available

to us (Laurence and Margolis, 2001). Stated in a different way, the language acquisition

process is underdetermined by the input.

Inspired from Plato’s Problem which is “With so little evidence how do we

know so much?” Chomsky tried to shed light on the language acquisition problem, and

ended up with the Innateness Hypothesis.

10

2.4.1. The Innateness Hypothesis

H

ow do children acquire the complex system of language by mere exposure to it?

Chomsky (1959) in his attempt to address this problem generated the Innateness

Hypothesis. Innateness Hypothesis argues that since at the final state of L1 acquisition

the language system attained is too complex and subtle, there must be some other

mechanism involved in the brain that allows the L1 learner to process the primary

linguistic data, which would otherwise be insufficient to account for the language

acquisition. Primary linguistic data do not provide the child with the grammatical

sentences all the time (Haegeman, 1991), nor does it always contain examples of all of

the linguistic rules and patterns which children know (Lightbown and Spada, 1999).

Also, the child is not always corrected on his/her errors nor is s/he taught the language

by formal instruction.

The fact that despite these handicaps the child acquires the language in an

almost perfect way is explainable in terms of innateness. Chomsky’s (1986) hypothesis

that human beings are born with the knowledge of universal principles underlying the

structure of human language is justified by the argument that “what we know innately

are the principles of various subsystems and the manner of their interaction, and the

parameters associated with these principles” (Chomsky, 1986, p. 150). As illustrated in

the below figure (Braidi, 1999, p. 49), language acquisition process is an interaction of

UG and the primary linguistic data.

11

(a) Japanese Child with UG Core

linguistic grammar

environment of Japanese

Input � Parameter X

Setting a or b Xa,

Parameter Y

Setting a or b Ya,

Parameter Z

Setting a or b Zb,

… …

+ Japanese Input �

(b) English Child with UG Core

linguistic grammar

environment of English

Input � Parameter X

Setting a or b Xa,

Parameter Y

Setting a or b Yb,

Parameter Z

Setting a or b Za,

… …

+ English Input �

Figure 2. The language acquisition process from a generative perspective.

As can be seen in Figure 2, the claim of UG theory is that the child selects the

parameter values according to the language s/he is exposed to. If a child is exposed to

Japanese input, s/he will set the parameter values present in the Japanese language.

Similarly if the child is exposed to English, s/he will set the parameter values of the

English language. The first requisite to acquire a language, then, is the linguistic input,

12

put in a different way evidence which may in some cases be positive whereas in some

cases negative.

2.4.2. The Role of Positive and Negative Evidence in Language Acquisition

In the process of language acquisition children need evidence or input

according to which they are going to select the parameter values. The primary evidence

they receive is what is called positive evidence. Positive evidence is basically the actual

language a child hears. On hearing a sentence like “Eve gidiyorum.” (I am going home),

for example, children discover that Turkish is a pro-drop language, and its word order is

SOV, and so on. This kind of evidence enables the child to set the relevant parameter

values of the language in question.

Children also receive negative evidence which tells them that an utterance is

ungrammatical. This can happen in two ways: directly and indirectly. Direct negative

evidence is merely the correction of a child’s utterance and letting the child know that

his/her utterance is ungrammatical. It is argued that direct negative evidence does not

play a crucial role in the acquisition process, that is correcting a child’s errors would not

necessarily enhance the acquisition process. The following dialogue from McNeill

(1966) supports this argument:

Child: Nobody doesn’t like me.

Mother: No, say, “nobody likes me.”

Child: Nobody doesn’t like me.

(dialogue repeated eight times)

Mother: No, now listen carefully: say “Nobody likes me.”

Child: Oh, nobody don’t likes me.

As can be seen from this example the mother provides both positive and direct

negative evidence to the child, however, the child tends to ignore both. Another example

attributed to Martin Braine by Jackendoff (1994) supports this:

Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy.

Father: You mean, you want the other spoon.

Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please Daddy.

Father: Can you say “the other spoon”?

Child: Other…one…spoon.

13

Father: Say “other”.

Child: Other.

Father: “Spoon”.

Child: Spoon.

Father: “Other spoon”.

Child: Other…spoon. Now give me other one spoon.

Here, again, the instruction the parent provides to the child seems futile.

Negative evidence also comes in an indirect way by not occurring in the input

provided to the children. It is argued that since children have no overt example of

ungrammaticality about particular structures, the knowledge of ungrammaticality stems

from UG. The knowledge of ungrammaticality clearly does not come from positive

evidence, hence there must be some other mechanism that lead children ignore

unacceptable structures in the language they are exposed to.

The role of negative evidence has also been investigated in L2 acquisition. The

early negative evidence studies in L2 concentrated on teacher’s error correction

(Chaudron, 1977; Long, 1988). These studies showed that the correction of teachers was

not consistent, and the role of negative feedback could not be judged clearly. Later

studies though, with strict experimental conditions, investigated the role of feedback in

terms of teacher error correction. Lyster and Ranta (1997) found that teacher correction

was not so influential on the students’ incorrect utterances. Iwashita (2003) in a recent

study investigated the role of negative feedback and positive evidence in task-based

conversations. Her results showed that implicit negative feedback was beneficial on

short-term development of the grammatical structures. However, whether this short-term

development caused by negative feedback enhances the language acquisition process in

the long term is not certain. For instance, Lightbown, Spada and Wallace (1980) found

that although immediate correction seemed to have positive effects in short-term

learning, the effects reported disappeared in follow-up tests. Moreover, in his analysis of

negative feedback studies, Ellis (1990) concludes that there are limitations on the effects

negative feedback on language acquisition, and that ‘…instruction can improve

accuracy in careful, planned speech production but that this improvement may disappear

over time…” (p. 151). As Towell and Hawkins (1994) reason out, all these studies

14

suggest that negative feedback does not result in parameter resetting, but rather it results

in learned linguistic behavior.

2.4.3. Principles and Parameters Theory

The central claim of UG that language faculty is innate has set the foundations

of the Principles and Parameters Theory. Within the boundaries of the Government and

Binding Theory lie the principles and parameters which together form UG. As UG is

hypothesized to consist of a set of principles and parameters, it is essential to know how

these two concepts make the language acquisition relatively easier and simpler for the

child.

2.4.3.1. Principles

The principles which are said to be invariant across languages can be viewed in

following main headings:

The Subjacency Principle: A constituent such as a WH-word may only be moved

across only one bounding category at a time (White, 1989).

The Projection Principle: All structure is projected from the Lexicon (Haegeman, 1991).

Case Theory: All overt NPs require abstract case (White, 1989).

C-command: A c-commanded node cannot be higher in the tree than the node it is c-

commanded by (Flynn, 1987).

Binding Theory: The relationship between a pronoun and its antecedent is

represented in Binding Theory (White, 1989).

The Empty Category Principle: Traces must be properly governed (Cook and Newson,

1996).

X-bar Theory: An X Phrase consists of an optional specifier and an X-bar (Cook and

Newson, 1996).

Theta Theory: Theta Theory deals with the assignment of thematic roles (Haegeman,

1991).

Structure Dependency: Operations on sentences require a knowledge of the structural

relationships of the words rather than their linear sequence (Cook and Newson, 1996).

The above principles are universal in all languages, but they do not necessarily

have to be activated in all languages (White, 1989). For example, the subjacency

principle is not activated in Turkish, whereas, in English it is. As the main purpose of

15

this study is to investigate the acquisition of syntactic movement in English noun

clauses, it is essential to have a look at this principle in more detail.

In languages where there is syntactic movement within a sentence, the

subjacency principle comes into question. English is a language which allows syntactic

movement hence subjacency principle operates in English. Turkish, on the other hand,

does not allow syntactic movement which leaves the subjacency principle out of the

question.

Subjacency, in principle, restricts the movement of elements in a sentence.

Elements can only move over one bounding node (In English IP and NP) at a time. wh-

movements in English best illustrate this:

(1) What did Jim believe that Jenna wore to the party?

In sentence (1), subjacency principle is not violated, because the trace (t) has

moved over only one bounding node:

(1) What t1 [did Jim believe [ COMP that [Jenna wore to the party t]]]

In sentence (1), at face value the wh-word seems to travel a long distance.

However, the complementizer (COMP) that saves the wh-word from violating

subjacency, because wh-words can move into the COMP position in one movement, and

then move into another position in another.

(2) * What did Susie believe the claim that Jan believed?

Here, though, since t for the wh-word has crossed over two bounding nodes,

the subjacency principle is violated ( * indicating ungrammatical sentences):

(2) * What t3 [did Susie believe [NP t2 the claim [ COMP that [Jan believed t]]]]

In (2), the wh-word has moved over two bounding nodes resulting in an

ungrammatical sentence.

In Turkish, however, subjacency principle does not operate. Consider the

following:

16

(3a) Ali Ahmet’in eve girdiğini gördü.

Ali Ahmet-POSS. home-DAT. entering see-PAST-3rd

person SING.

(3b) Ali Ahmet’in nereye girdiğini gördü?

Ali Ahmet-POSS. where-DAT. entering see-PAST-

3rd person SING.

(4a) Ali Ahmet’in film izlediğini söyledi.

Ali Ahmet-POSS. movie watching tell-PAST-

3rd person SING.

(4b) Ali Ahmet’in ne izlediğini söyledi?

Ali Ahmet-POSS. what watching tell-PAST-

3rd person SING.

Notice the wh-words in Turkish nereye (where to) in (3b), and ne (what) in

(4b) remain in the same position as in their deep structure while in English they move

out of their deep structures.

An experiment was conducted by Bley-Vroman, Felix, and Ioup (1988) with

Korean L2 learners of English since Korean does not have subjacency similar to

Turkish. In this study, Korean learners were half the way right in identifying subjacency

violations compared to the native speakers of English. This suggests that “adults appear

to have some sort of access to knowledge of UG”; their short-fall compared to the

natives is due either to UG being ‘attenuated’ or to the use of ‘a general problem-solving

system” (Bley-Vroman et al., 1988, p. 27).

Another study by Schachter (1989) indicated that Chinese and Korean learners

of English were less successful in identifying subjacency violations than native speakers

of English. In this study, Schachter tested her subjects on both syntax and subjacency.

Her subjects performed better on syntax test than they did on subjacency test. She found

this fact as “a major difficulty for those who believe that the principles of UG are

available and accessible to post-puberty language learners” (Schachter, 1989, p. 85).

17

These and most of the studies which take subjacency as a controlling principle

in testing UG access in L2 acquisition do not support a strong UG claim. Cook (1993)

believes that “attention should be turned to the many contemporary areas of principles

and parameters theory that are simpler to research and yield more clear-cut answers” (p.

227).

2.4.3.2. Parameters

The grammatical principles of language are universal, however, there are also

parameters which vary across languages. As stated earlier, parameter values are set

according to the linguistic data available to the child. Parameter values in UG, with few

exceptions such as the Governing Category Parameter, have binary values. That is, they

have either plus (+) or (-) values. Also, the setting of a parameter usually determines the

setting of other parameters. For example, as pointed out by Chomsky (1981) and Rizzi

(1982), a positive setting for the pro-drop parameter (a parameter which allows null

subjects) brings along null subject pronouns, subject-verb inversion in declarative

sentences, and also extraction of subjects from embedded clauses with overt

complementizers (as cited in Braidi, 1999).

Parameters in UG are “…open parameters, to be fixed by (linguistic)

experience” (Chomsky, 1980, p. 38), and they usually have two values. The setting of

the parameter is open to the preference of the child, yet restricted to the linguistic

experience s/he receives. In other words, the child determines the parameter values

according to the linguistic experience s/he is exposed to. Some parameters, though, are

set by default (Yates, 1990). This means that children start with an unmarked parameter

value before exposure to positive evidence. When the evidence they are exposed to has a

different value, they switch over to the marked parameter value. To name an example,

the research into the pro-drop parameter has shown that children, no matter which

language they acquire, start with the unmarked value, that is they presume that their L1

has a +pro-drop value.

Finally, the setting of parameters leads to the construction of a core grammar,

where all relevant UG principles are instantiated, and characterizes the language of the

child (Epstein, Flynn and Martohardjono, 1996).

Like principles, there are a number of parameters some of which have been

investigated to a great extent such as the pro-drop parameter or head-position parameter.

18

In this specific study, we will discuss the syntactic movement parameter in more detail

in the following sections.

2.5. UG and SLA

UG theory gained a prominent reputation in FLA field because of its

explanatory adequacy that as a theory of syntax it also accounts for how children

acquire their language. However, UG as a model of L2 acquisition, despite the rich

evidence - supporting and non-supporting, is still met with much debate. For example,

Carroll (2001) states that UG fails to solve the problem of second language acquisition,

because it lacks the transition theory which a theory of SLA requires. That is, “it does

not describe the changes in what is represented in a learner, and how one knowledge

state develops into another” (p. 37). On the other hand, Schwartz and Sprouse (1998)

conclude that:

In the 1980s, we were—metaphors aside—asking the right question

for adult L2 acquisition research: "Is Universal Grammar accessible to the

(adult) L2 learner?" And we even had the right answer: "To find out requires

testing for the operation of UG constraints." Where we got side-tracked is in

not giving the argument for UG from the underdetermination problem—the

bedrock of the Chomskyian paradigm—the respect it's due. It's time we should.

(p. 10)

Also Chomsky’s (2000) remark on this issue is worth considering: “We should

like to strongly encourage taking it seriously, and to continue aiming at a truly

explanatory theory of the acquisition of language(s)” (p. 169).

The UG claim in SLA mainly hypothesizes that language acquisition is

actually the resetting of the parameters. Parameter resetting comes into question when

L1 and L2 have different parametric values, and there is a mismatch. As UG is the

initial state of the language faculty prior to any linguistic experience, in L2 acquisition

the learner has already a grammar with fixed principles and parameters. Thus, the L2

acquisition process is seen as the resetting of the parameters not present in the native

language. UG, as an L2 acquisition model, became a major topic in the field in the early

1980s. Early studies were conducted around the issue of access to UG, sometimes

19

termed as availability of UG to the L2 learner. The research aiming at finding an answer

to the question “Is UG accessible to the L2 learner?” yielded with new hypotheses

which can be viewed in three main headings:

- Direct Access Hypothesis

- No Access Hypothesis

- Indirect Access Hypothesis

2.5.1. Direct Access Hypothesis

Direct access hypothesis claims that UG is still available to the adult L2

learners. This view, however, denies the role of L1 in L2. It supposes that UG is in

direct interaction with L2 data irrespective of L1 values. This hypothesis assumes that

L2 acquisition has a process similar to the L1 acquisition. That is, the learner has to set

the principles and parameters relevant to the L2 in question. As can be seen from Figure

3, L1 and L2 have no interaction during the L2 acquisition.

L1 learning → L1 competence

↕

Universal Grammar

↕


Figure 3. Direct Access model of L2 learning

(adapted from Cook and Newson, 1996, p. 292).

The hypothesis gained evidence mainly from Bley-Vroman et al. (1988), Felix

(1988) and White’s (1988, 1992) studies. In these studies subjects were able to display

knowledge of UG in their judgments of grammaticality.

2.5.2. No Access Hypothesis

No access hypothesis claims that UG has no role in the acquisition of L2, and

that transfer from L1 cannot be explained in terms of UG. As Figure 4 shows, no access

hypothesis implies that L2 learner makes no use of UG in the acquisition process.


20


↕

Universal Grammar

Figure 4. No Access model of L2 learning


The central claim of this view comes from the errors of L2 learners which

violate the principles of UG. The hypothesis is that if there is violation of the principles

of UG in L2 acquisition, then UG is not available to the L2 learner. Instead of UG

existence, no access hypothesis followers claim that general learning and problem

solving strategies play a major role in L2 acquisition. The proponents of this claim are

Clahsen and Muysken (1986).

2.5.3. Indirect Access Hypothesis

Finally, indirect access hypothesis assumes that UG is partially available to the

L2 learner, that is only the principles of UG which are constrained by L1 are constrained

by L2. L2 learner has access only to the principles already present in the L1 data.

Therefore, the claim is that UG is accessible by means of L1. However, if there is a

mismatch of the parameter values between L1 and L2, there will be no parameter

resetting. Figure 5 shows the indirect access model of L2 learning. As can be seen from

the figure, UG is accessible to the L2 learner only through the L1.


↕


↕

Universal Grammar

Figure 5. Indirect Access model of L2 learning


This hypothesis was supported by the studies of Schachter (1988, 1996), and

Johnson and Newport (1991). Another view is that when there is a mismatch of the

parameter values between L1 and L2, the learner resets the parameter values appropriate

for the L2. This view was supported by the work of White (1989, 1996) and Cook

21

(1993). Later research into the access to UG issue, however, yielded with diverse claims

about the UG availability and transfer. White (2000) summarizes five hypotheses in the

following table:

Table 1. Summary of the claims on UG availability and transfer (based on White,

2000, p. 149).

_____________________________________________________________________

FT/PA NT/FA FT/FA PT/FA PT/PA

_____________________________________________________________________

Initial

State L1 UG L1 UG and Parts of

parts of UG and L1

L1

Grammar UG principles UG principles UG principles UG principles (Some) UG

Development (via L1) principles

L1 parameter L2 parameter Parameter Parameter Parameters

settings + settings resetting resetting associated

local from from with

adjustments L1 � L2 L1 � L2 functional

features

remain

unspecified

Possibility No wild No wild No wild Locally

of wild grammars grammars grammars wild

grammars grammars

Final State L1 (+ local L2 L2 L2 L2 not

adjustments) possible attainable

L2 not but not

attainable inevitable

_____________________________________________________________________

22

As can be inferred from Table 1, Full Transfer/Partial Access (FT/PA)

hypothesis claims that L2 initial state consists of the L1 final state. Properties which are

absent in L1 are not available, and ILs do not show new parameter settings. No

Transfer/Full Access (NT/FA) hypothesis implies that L2 grammar is acquired on the

basis of UG principles, and parameters interact directly with L2 input. L1 final state

does not constitute the L2 learner’s grammar or mental representation at any stage. Full

Transfer/Full Access (FT/FA) hypothesis assumes that L1 and L2 acquisition differ with

respect to their starting point, but are similar with respect to involvement of UG. L1

grammar is assumed to constitute the L2 initial state. Partial Transfer/Full Access

(PT/FA) hypothesis claims that L2 initial state draws on properties of both L1 and UG

mutually. Only part of the L1 grammar is represented in the L2 initial state. Partial

Transfer/Partial Access (PT/PA) hypothesis rejects the view that a native-like

competence in L2 is attainable.

Moreover, no access view is left out of the picture, since it underdetermines the

final grammar the L2 learner achieves (White, 2000). Furthermore, the POS argument

which counts for L1 acquisition also accounts for L2 acquisition, and no access view

fails to provide an answer to the logical problem of L2 acquisition.

With supporting and non-supporting data, UG access in L2 acquisition is still

an unanswered question puzzling the minds of the researchers in the field. On one hand,

evidence from Felix’s (1988) research indicates that “adult L2 learners do have

consistent intuitions about grammaticality contrasts involving principles of UG” (as

cited in Cook, 1993, p. 206). On the other hand, similar research by Felix and Weigl

(1991) claims “none of the effects associated with UG; whatever the basis for their

judgments was, it was almost certainly not UG” (as cited in Cook, 1993, p. 206).

Instead of trying to find an answer to this overwhelming question, White

(1998) suggests:

…that it is time to focus more on the nature of the representations that L2

learners achieve. Not that we ignored this in the past, but it

always seems to be secondary. Is UG available? - let’s take a look at the

grammar ...... I think we should be prepared to reverse this focus and

concentrate more on the nature of the IL representation. We must recognize

that it may not always be appropriate to dwell on the UG question. (p. 4)

23

And in her analysis of the recent SLA research, White (2003) reasons that the

mainstream in the field “shift[ed] from overarching questions like ‘Is UG available?’ or

‘What kind of UG access is there in L2?’ to a closer examination of the nature of the

interlanguage grammar, with particular focus on whether interlanguage grammars

exhibit properties characteristic of natural language” (p.17).

The UG accessibility has also been investigated with Turkish learners of

English, testing the hypotheses discussed above. Bulut and Can (1999) investigated the

parameter resetting of Turkish learners concerning the pro-drop parameter since there is

parametric variation between Turkish and English, Turkish being a (+) pro-drop

language and English being a (-) pro-drop language. Their results suggested that Turkish

learners have an indirect access to UG, and parameter resetting is available as far as the

pro-drop parameter is concerned.

In a similar vein, Bulut (2000), in her investigation of the acquisition of

structure dependency and subjacency principles, found that Turkish learners have full

access to UG. Moreover, she concluded that even though subjacency is not an active

principle in Turkish, her subjects were sensitive to the syntactic movement in the target

language.

Can (2000b) found similar results in his analysis of UG access regarding the

word order parameter. His results were in line with Bulut’s (2000) and he concluded that

Turkish adult learners have full access to UG in their acquisition of English.

Moreover, Bulut and Can (2001) in their further investigation of access to UG

found that even though their subjects had problems in resetting the relevant parameters,

they still had access to UG.

Ekmekçi et al. (2000) looked into the acquisition of binding principles A and B

this time in child L2 acquisition. Their results revealed that children do have an indirect

access to UG in their acquisition of binding principles A and B in English and that their

IL was constrained by UG. They also concluded that “UG plays an active role in L2

acquisition in conjunction with L1 grammar and does not function in the same way as in

L1 acquisition” (Ekmekçi et al., p. 501).

In a more recent study Çelik (2003) investigated the availability of UG for

word order parameter. Her results indicated that Turkish adult learners of English do

have partial access to UG in acquiring the word order parameter of English which is

different from Turkish. It is important to note that her results affirm Can’s (2000b)

results.

24

Inspired from the studies listed above, we aim to find out the possible problems

that would stem from different linguistic features concerning the syntactic movement

parameter in Turkish and English. However, in this particular study we are not focusing

on the issue of access to UG since all of the studies listed above one way or another

claim some sort of access to UG. Instead of investigating UG availability we are more

interested in describing what happens in the language of the learner when coping with

parametric variations.

2.6. Interlanguage

Leaving aside the issue of UG access theories, later research in SLA field

concentrated on interlanguage phenomenon as cited in White (2003). Before going into

specifics of the interlanguage studies, it is better to look at what interlanguage is.

Although interlanguage (IL) can be seen as a fairly new hypothesis, its roots go

back to early CA studies. In the analysis of CA data, it was seen that some language

evidence of L2 learners showed similarities to the native language of the L2 learner,

however, some were identical neither to the target language in question nor to the native

language of the learner.

The term ‘interlanguage’ was first worded by Selinker in 1969 as in:

An ‘interlanguage’ may be linguistically described using as data the observable

output resulting from a speaker’s attempt to produce a foreign norm, i.e, both

his errors and non-errors. It is assumed that such behavior is highly structured.

In comprehensive language transfer work, it seems to me that recognition of

the existence of and interlanguage cannot be avoided and that it must be dealt

with as a system, not an isolated collection of errors. (p. 71)

In his later work (1992) Selinker proposed that the idea to be highlighted in this

definition is that the learner’s “observable output…is highly structured…” and that it

“…must be dealt with as a system, not as an isolated collection of errors” (p. 231). The

idea that ILs are systematic was in fact nothing new. It was also pointed out by

Adjémian (1976) that ILs have a system of their own. However, as Eckman (1996) and

Mitchell and Myles (1998) state, the claim that ILs are systematic does not haphazardly

mean that ILs are systematic in a way L1s are.

25

IL, then, as put by Selinker (1972), is the “separate linguistic system based on

observable output which results from a learner's attempted production of a target

language norm,” where the target language is defined as “one norm of one dialect” (p.

214). Hence, the language L2 learner comes up with is not the actual L2. It is only “an

attempted production” of L2. It neither completely shows the features of L1 (language

transfer) nor does it completely possess the characteristics of the L2. Furthermore, IL is

a separate linguistic system which is systematic in its own way.

IL consists of the following items (Selinker, 1972):

1. First language transfer - transfer from the native language mostly in the form of

interference.

2. Transfer of training - particular methods and techniques used in training.

3. Strategies of second language learning - learner’s strategies to the material

being learned.

4. Strategies of second-language communication - learner’s strategies to

communication in the target language.

5. Overgeneralization of target language linguistic material - overgeneralization

of target language rules.

2.6.1. Fossilization

A central issue in SLA studies is that learning at some point stops progressing

in spite of continuous exposure to linguistic data in various forms. This phenomenon is

called ‘fossilization’. The term was first introduced to SLA field by Selinker (1972) on

his observation that L2 learners, no matter how much exposure they have to L2 or no

matter what age they are, do not fully master the target language (TL):

Fossilization, a mechanism . . . underlies surface linguistic material

which speakers will tend to keep in their IL productive performance,

no matter what the age of the learner or the amount of instruction he

receives in the TL. (p. 229)

As the research into the concept of fossilization grew, the definition of the term

also expanded:

26

Fossilization is the process whereby the learner creates a cessation of

interlanguage learning, thus stopping the interlanguage from developing,

it is hypothesized, in a permanent way . . . The argument is that

no adult can hope to ever speak a second language in such a way that

s/he is indistinguishable from native speakers of that language.

(Selinker, 1996b)

According to Han (2004) fossilization can be defined at two different levels:

cognitive and empirical. At the cognitive level “fossilization involves those cognitive

processes or underlying mechanisms that produce permanently stabilized IL forms”. At

the empirical level “[it] involves those stabilized interlanguage forms that remain in

learner speech or writing over time, no matter what the input [is] or what the learner

does” (p. 20).

Han (2004) lists various factors that might lead to fossilization. Absence of

feedback, quality of input, lack of access to universal grammar (UG), failure of

parameter resetting, avoidance are some of the behavioral and causal variables that

might be involved in the fossilization process. Besides behavioral reasons, the role of

critical period has also been the subject of fossilization studies. Schachter (1996), for

instance, has claimed that there is a period of “heightened sensitivity or responsiveness

to specific types of environmental stimuli or input…” and that “gradual increases to

such [a period] or declines from such [a period] are expected to occur as well as

variability from one individual to another” (p. 165).

The notion that after a particular age language learning is hindered was first

hypothesized by Lenneberg (1967) under the name of Critical Period Hypothesis

(CPH). The CPH, which also accounts for first language acquisition, has been studied in

SLA context by many researchers, and it has been found that age factor leads to a

general failure in second language learning (Hyltenstam 1992; Patkowski 1980, 1990;

Schachter 1988, 1990, 1996).

2.7. Syntactic Movement and Noun Clauses in English and Turkish

As stated earlier, a principle or a parameter does not necessarily have to be

active in every language (White, 1989). The subjacency principle, for instance, is not

activated in Turkish. Once activated, the subjacency principle brings along the syntactic

27

movement parameter to operate in the language in question. As defined in Radford

(1997), movement is “an operation by which a word or phrase is moved from one

position in a structure to another” (p.265). Some languages, in which the subjacency

principle does not operate, do not allow syntactic movement. Turkish, Japanese and

Korean are examples of such languages. However, English is a language which allows

syntactic movement in various grammatical operations. For example, for the formation

of noun clauses in English we have the following process:

S � NP aux VP wh-

you are going where

1 – S � aux NP VP wh-

Are you going where

2 – S � wh- aux NP VP

Where are you going

3 – S � wh- NP aux VP

Where you are going

These steps of the formation process have been observed in native speaker

corpus. The following example excerpted from the native speaker corpus implies such

an order of acquisition for the noun clauses in English;

While hoping not to cause dissension, it is my opinion that the overall

decision of [what is art is linked] to the artists ideas behind his or her

creation.

On the other hand, learners of English as an L2 normally start with step 2, and

then go to 3. This is probably due to the learning strategies and teaching techniques

utilized in L2 classroom.

In Turkish, however, there is no movement in the formation of wh- questions

(Kornfilt, 1997; Aygen, 1999; Uzun, 2000; Miyagawa, 2004). For this reason, Turkish is

considered a wh- in situ language. The wh- words stay in situ, that is they stay in their

non-interrogative positions (Aygen, 1999).

28

Example:

(5a) Ali ne/kitap okuyor?/

Ali what/book read-PROG.-3rd person SING.

(5b) Ali kitabı kime/Ayşe’ye verdi?/

Ali the book-ACC. to whom/Ayşe-DAT. give-PAST-3rd person

SING.

(5c) Ali ne zaman/dün eve gitti?/

Ali when/yesterday home-DAT. go-PAST-3rd person SING.

(6) Ayşe [kimin/Ahmet’in dün uyuduğun] -u

Ayşe [whose/Ahmet-POSS. yesterday sleep-PAST-3rd person SING.] ACC.

söyledi?/

tell-PAST-3rd person SING.

(Examples adapted from Uzun, 2000, p. 301)

As Uzun (2000) indicates, examples (5a), (5b), (5c) and (6) show that the wh-

words are in the same position as in their non-interrogative counterparts. However, there

are also instances where wh- words move out of their original positions. Consider the

following example (adapted from Uzun, 2000, p.301):

(7) Kime Ali kitabı verdi?

To whom-DAT. Ali the book-ACC. give-PAST-3rd person SING.

Although the wh- word has moved to the front in (7), such kind of a movement is

not common in Turkish, and only is in question when the speaker wants to emphasize a

certain constituent in the sentence.

As there is no movement in wh- questions, there is no movement involved in the

formation of noun clauses, either. As can be inferred from the following examples, such

kind of a syntactic movement is not involved in the formation of noun clauses except for

pragmatic purposes.

(8a) Nereye yerleşecekleri herkes için

[Where-DAT. settle- FUT- 3rd prs. PL -.ACC. ] everybody for

merak konusuydu.

wonder

29

Where they were going to settle was a wonder to everybody.

(8b) Nereye yerleş-ecek-ler?

Where-DAT. settle-FUT.-3rd person PL.-NOM.

Where are they going to settle?

(9a) Partide ne giyeceği kimseyi ilgilendirmez.

[Part-LOC. what wear- FUT.-3rd person SING.-DAT.] nobody interest

What she is going to wear at the party is nobody’s business.

(9b) Partide ne giyecek?

Party-LOC. what wear- FUT.-3rd person SING.

What is she going to wear at the party?

Notice the wh-words in Turkish nereye (where to) in (8a), and ne (what) in (9a)

do not change their positions. They do not move from their original position unlike in

English. Hence, syntactic movement is a parametric variation between Turkish and

English, and Cook and Newson (1996) restate that “a language with movement requires

a complex theory to relate the moved and unmoved forms; it assumes an original level at

which the elements are unmoved” (p. 279).

For this reason, Turkish L2 English users are expected to experience some

problems in the construction of English noun clauses.

30

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

3.1. Introduction

The methodology for this study is based on a descriptive research design. This

study focuses on diagnosing possible problems encountered when handling the syntactic

movement in English noun clauses.

In this chapter information about the research design, subjects, instruments,

data collection procedure are presented. The results of data analysis conducted through

SPSS are also discussed.

3.2. Research Design

This study is designed to be a descriptive research in which the reaction of the

subjects (intermediate and advanced levels) to noun clauses in English is described with

the help of the statistical results gathered through various tools. The differences between

the two groups in terms of their reaction to the syntactic movement are described and

discussed. The variables are the syntactic movement as an independent variable, and the

performances of the subjects on the tasks as a dependent variable.

3.3. Subjects

The Turkish subjects in this study are selected from the students attending

English Language Teaching Department of Çukurova University, Adana through

stratified purposive sampling. The English proficiency levels of all of the subjects are

measured with the Michigan Placement Test which was administered in December,

2004. In total there are 87 subjects involved in the study, 46 intermediate and 41

advanced. The ages of the subjects range between 18 and 23. In order to avoid any

mother tongue effect subjects with different mother tongues (such as Arabic) are

excluded from the study. None of the subjects ever lived in a country where English was

spoken as a native language. Gender is not a variable in the study, so the subjects are

chosen randomly regardless of their gender.

Besides, students at ÇU, MKU and MU are also involved in the study with

their essays in the TICLE (Turkish International Corpus of Learner English). Apart from

31

TICLE, also the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS) is scanned to

see the native speakers’ tendency in forming noun clauses in English. The subject

characteristics can be summarized as follows:

Table 2. Participant characteristics

Intermediate Advanced

N 46 41

L1 Turkish

TICLE 168,265 words

LOCNESS

(L1 English)

169,422 words

Department ELT

Age Range 18 – 23

3.4. Instruments and Data Collection

The instruments of this study include a Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT)

(see Appendix A), a Scrambled Sentences Task (SST) (see Appendix B), an Elicited

Imitation Task (EIT) (see Appendix C), TICLE and LOCNESS. Data were collected in

February and March, 2005 by the researcher and another MA student in ELT.

3.4.1. Grammaticality Judgment Task

The first instrument used in the study is a Grammaticality Judgment Task

(GJT). The GJT contains 36 sentences 18 of which are ungrammatical violating the

syntactic movement of English and 18 of which are grammatical sentences in English.

There are four sentences with all of the question words what, where, why, who, whose,

whom, when, which and how.

In this task, subjects are asked to read sentences and judge them as Correct (C)

or Incorrect (I). The purpose of the GJT is to test subject’s intuitions about

grammaticality. It is essential here to define the term ‘intuition’ since the term might be

misleading. ‘Intuition’ when used in generative grammar means ‘tapping into our

subconscious knowledge’. As Carnie (2001) states, intuition elicited through GJTs “has

a scientific basis [and] it is replicable under strictly controlled experimental conditions”

(p. 12).

32

The subjects are to judge the sentences in the task in a very short period of time

(approximately 15 seconds for each item) so that their first intuitions about

grammaticality are elicited. The task contains sentences such as the following:

• Please tell me how old are you.

( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect

• I don’t know who those people are looking for.


• To whom did she give the key is still unknown.


• How she acted at the party drew everybody’s attention.


The distribution of the items according to their structures is presented in Table

3:

Table 3. GJT: Distribution of the items

Object position Subject Position Wh-word

+aux -aux +aux -aux

when 3 1 - -

where 3 1 - -

how 3 - - 1

which 4 - - -

what 2 - - 2

why 3 1 - -

who 4 - - -

whose 4 - - -

whom 2 1 1 -

33

3.4.2. Scrambled Sentences Task

The second instrument used in collecting data is a Scrambled Sentences Task

(SST) developed by the researcher. This task, too, consists of 36 sentences. The

distribution of the positions of noun clauses and the question words are equal in this

task, that is each wh- word is used twice in subject position with and without an overt

auxiliary verb, and twice in object position with and without an auxiliary verb. To

complete the task, subjects are asked to use the given words to make a grammatical

sentence as in the following:

• left / is / how / mystery / they / the / still / country / a

(How they left the country is still a mystery.)

• wanted / what / to / the / she / was / time / know

(She wanted to know what the time was.)

The purpose of this task is to see the subjects’ written production of noun

clauses, to see whether they are able to construct noun clauses in English. The

distribution of the items according to their structures is presented in Table 4:

Table 4. SST: Distribution of the items

Object position Subject Position Wh-

word +aux -aux +aux -aux

when 1 1 1 1

where 1 1 1 1

how 1 1 1 1

which 1 1 1 1

what 1 1 1 1

why 1 1 1 1

who 1 1 1 1

whose 1 1 1 1

whom 1 1 1 1

34

3.4.3. Elicited Imitation Task

Another instrument used in collecting data is an Elicited Imitation Task (EIT)

in which the subjects repeat the sentences they hear. As Munnich, Flynn and

Martohardjono (1994) state, EITs are different from GJTs in that GJTs measure the

knowledge of ungrammaticality, whereas, EITs focus on grammaticality in the

reproductions of the subjects. Hence, the utterances of the subjects are evaluated on the

basis of their correctness in terms of syntactic movement (the relevant syntactic island).

The purpose of this task is to see whether subjects are able to reconstruct the sentences

they hear.

Again, the subjects are asked to respond to the sentences they hear in a short

period of time. There are 18 sentences in this task which are taken from the SST, and the

sentences used in EIT are controlled in terms of length for the number of the words. The

following sentences are taken from the EIT:

• The woman at the door wants to know where the post office is.

• Who those people were was the topic of their conversation.

The distribution of the items according to their structures is presented in Table 5:

Table 5. EIT: Distribution of the items

Object position Subject Position Wh-word

+aux -aux +aux -aux

When 1 - 1 -

Where 1 - 1 -

How 1 - 1 -

Which 1 - - 1

What 1 - 1 -

Why 1 - 1 -

Who 1 - 1 -

Whose - - 1 1

Whom 1 - 1 -

35

3.4.4. TICLE and LOCNESS

Apart from the tasks described above, the researcher also benefited from the

Turkish International Corpus of Learner English (TICLE), the Turkish sub-corpus of

International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) directed by the Universite Catholique

de Louvain in Belgium, and coordinated and collected by researchers at the ELT

department, Çukurova University, Turkey. The TICLE aims at making an outline of the

interlanguage of Turkish learners of English. It is a collection of Turkish adult learners’

argumentative essay writings in English. The corpus is scanned for the specific purpose

of this study – to see how the syntactic movement in English is handled by the Turkish

adult learners of English in their written performances. TICLE consists of

approximately 168,265 words.

Another corpus utilized is the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays

(LOCNESS) which is a collection of the essays written by American university students.

It consists of approximately 169,422 words.

3.5. Data Analysis

Data gathered through the GJT, EIT and SST are analyzed with the help of the

computer program SPSS (statistical package for social scientists). Chi-square statistical

procedure is applied, and the frequency counts of both groups for all tasks are compared

to see if there is any significant difference between the groups.

The TICLE and LOCNESS are scanned by WordSmith (a corpus concordance

software by the University of Oxford). The results are analyzed with the chi-square

frequency analysis procedure.

36

CHAPTER 4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1. Analysis of GJT

As mentioned before (see Chapter 3, section 3.4.1.), the GJT contains a set of

36 sentences in which each wh- word was used four times (see also Appendix A). The

only purpose of this task is to elicit the first intuitions of the subjects, and to have a

general idea of subjects’ knowledge about grammaticality and ungrammaticality of the

structures presented in the sentences. The distribution of the wh- words in subject or

object position is not controlled in this task. Moreover, sentences with an auxiliary verb

outnumber the sentences without an auxiliary verb. The reason for this is that sentences

without an auxiliary verb do not have a moved form in them on the surface level,

therefore do not allow us to measure subjects’ intuitions about grammaticality and

ungrammaticality concerning syntactic movement.

Table 6 below shows the frequencies and percentages of correct judgments and

chi-square results of two groups’ correct judgments for each item in GJT. The numbers

shown in parentheses after each wh- word indicate the item number of the sentences in

the task. Table 7 shows the descriptive statistics obtained from the GJT.

37

Table 6. Results obtained from the GJT. Not

e: * statistically significant (p ≤.05) Values in bold indicating almost significance

Subject Position Object Position

- aux/copula # f (Int) % f (Adv.) % x²

+ aux/copula # f (Int) % f (Adv.) % x²



What (17, 29, 5, 13)

17 45 97,8 41 100 ,342 29 46 100 41 100 -

5 44 95,7 40 97,6 ,626 13 36 78,3 30 73,2 ,580

Where (2, 9, 24, 31)

2 46 100 41 100 - 9 37 80,4 38 92,7 ,098 24 43 93,5 40 97,6 ,364 31 43 93,5 39 95,1 ,742

Why (6, 7, 10, 26)

6 42 91,3 40 97,6 ,211 7 40 87,0 39 95,1 ,188 10 46 100 39 95,1 ,130 26 36 78,3 36 87,8 ,239

Who (8, 12, 20, 33)

8 32 69,6 31 75,6 ,529 12 31 67,4 28 69,3 ,928 20 34 73,9 34 82,9 ,310 33 35 76,1 40 97,6 ,004*

Whose (15, 23, 27, 34)

15 36 78,3 36 87,8 ,239 23 32 69,6 30 73,2 ,711 27 30 65,2 28 68,3 ,761 34 41 89,1 36 87,8 ,847

Whom (16, 21, 35, 36)

16 35 76,1 33 80,5 ,620 35 45 97,8 40 97,6 ,934 21 46 100 41 100 - 36 38 82,6 37 90,2 ,303

When (1, 11, 14, 18)

14 46 100 40 97,6 ,287 1 43 93,5 40 97,6 ,364 11 42 91,3 39 95,1 ,483 18 41 89,1 38 92,7 ,567

Which (4, 22, 28, 32)

4 43 93,5 41 100 ,096 22 42 91,3 39 95,1 ,483 28 43 93,5 38 92,7 ,884 32 42 91,3 39 95,1 ,483

How (25, 3, 19, 30)

23 46 100 41 100 - 19 42 91,3 35 85,4 ,386 30 30 65,2 28 68,3 ,761 3 38 82,6 38 92,7 ,158

38

Table 7. Descriptive statistics for the GJT

Intermediate Advanced _____________________ ____________________ GJT # M SD M SD

1 1,0652 ,24964 1,0244 ,15617 2 1,0000 ,00000 1,0000 ,00000 3 1,1739 ,38322 1,0732 ,26365 4 1,0652 ,24964 1,0000 ,00000 5 1,0435 ,20618 1,0244 ,15617 6 1,0870 ,28488 1,0244 ,15617 7 1,1304 ,34050 1,0488 ,21808 8 1,3043 ,46522 1,2439 ,43477 9 1,1957 ,40109 1,0732 ,26365 10 1,0000 ,00000 1,0488 ,21808 11 1,0870 ,28488 1,0488 ,21808 12 1,3261 ,47396 1,3171 ,47112 13 1,2174 ,41703 1,2683 ,44857 14 1,0000 ,00000 1,0244 ,15617 15 1,2174 ,41703 1,1220 ,33129 16 1,2391 ,43127 1,1951 ,40122 17 1,0217 ,14744 1,0000 ,00000 18 1,1087 ,31470 1,0732 ,26365 19 1,0870 ,28488 1,1463 ,35784 20 1,2609 ,44396 1,1707 ,38095 21 1,0000 ,00000 1,0000 ,00000 22 1,0870 ,28488 1,0488 ,21808 23 1,3043 ,46522 1,2683 ,44857 24 1,0652 ,24964 1,0244 ,15617 25 1,0000 ,00000 1,0000 ,00000 26 1,2174 ,41703 1,1220 ,33129 27 1,3478 ,48154 1,3171 ,47112 28 1,0652 ,24964 1,0732 ,26365 29 1,0000 ,00000 1,0000 ,00000 30 1,3478 ,48154 1,3171 ,47112 31 1,0652 ,24964 1,0488 ,21808 32 1,0870 ,28488 1,0488 ,21808 33 1,2391 ,43127 1,0244 ,15617 34 1,1087 ,31470 1,1220 ,33129 35 1,0217 ,14744 1,0244 ,15617 36 1,1739 ,38322 1,0976 ,30041

M=mean, SD=Standard Deviation

39

As can be seen from Table 6, what is used two times in subject position and

two times in object position. However, sentences with what in subject position do not

have an auxiliary verb. It can be seen from the table that subjects perform better on the

task when what is used in subject position without an auxiliary verb. Almost all of the

subjects in both groups are correct in their judgment of grammaticality. On the other

hand, when what is used in object position with an auxiliary verb, subjects’ intuitions

are less correct. Item 13 is judged incorrect only by 78,3% subjects in the intermediate

group and 73,2% subjects in the advanced group. This shows that not all subjects

identify the auxiliary verb was which remains unmoved in the following sentence:

13. She was trying to learn [what was the population of the USA in

1938].

The wh- word where is only used in object position once without an auxiliary

verb and three times with an auxiliary verb. As can be seen from the table, all of the

subjects in both groups are correct in their judgment of grammaticality for Item 2 which

has no auxiliary verb:

2. I don’t know [where he lives].

On the other hand, subject’s judgments for Item 9 are almost significantly

different with a x² value of .098 (p ≤.05). The advanced group performs almost

significantly better in identifying the unmoved auxiliary verb is in the following

sentence:

9. Do you know [where is he going tomorrow]?

Subjects’ performance on Item 2 may also be affected by the length of the

sentence. Since Item 2 is relatively shorter than Item 9, the performance of the subjects

may be affected by both the length of the sentences and the involvement of an auxiliary

verb.

For items 24 and 31, subjects’ judgments in both groups do not differ

significantly which might suggest that subjects in both groups have a gradual

development of syntactic movement, and their judgments are not well established yet.

40

24. We finally decided [where are we going for the holiday]!

31. The man at the information desk told me [where the group was

going].

The wh- word why is used in object position four times, three times with an

auxiliary verb and once without an auxiliary verb. Results for this wh- word do not

show a significant value in terms of both groups. However, it is important to note that

the intermediate group is slightly better (x²=,130, p ≤.05) than the advanced group on

item 10:

10. She doesn’t know [why he is angry].

100% of the subjects in the intermediate group judge this item correct,

whereas, 95,1% of the subjects in the advanced group judge this sentence incorrect.

Subjects do not show a significant difference in other items with why:

6. She said she would never tell anybody [why she called the police

that day].

7. Although she knew the correct answer, she was unable to tell us

[why was the other incorrect].

26. Are you going to tell me [why did you leave like that] on

Monday?

This might again suggest that subjects have a gradual development in their

knowledge of grammaticality concerning syntactic movement.

The wh- word who is used in object position four times with an auxiliary verb.

As Table 6 shows, the frequencies of the correct judgments for this wh- word are

relatively low for both groups. Again the intermediate group is slightly but not

significantly (x²=,928, p ≤.05) better than the advanced group on Item 12. Moreover,

regardless of the groups, subjects generally have difficulty in identifying the unmoved

auxiliary verb is in Item 12 which may be deduced from low percentages of correct

judgments (67,4% intermediate, 69,3% advanced).

12. I don’t know [who is the president of Somalia].

41

Both groups’ intuitions on items 8 and 20 do not differ significantly (x²=,529

and x²=,310 respectively, p ≤.05). However, performances of the subjects in both groups

are relatively low for these items (69,6% intermediate, 75,6% advanced and 73,9%

intermediate, 82,9% advanced respectively) which suggests that even though the

advanced group is still better in relating moved and unmoved forms within a noun

clause structure, their knowledge about grammaticality concerning syntactic movement

is not well established yet. Moreover, as can be seen from Table 7, subjects’ judgments

show variance with standard deviation values of ,46522 for the intermediate and ,43477

for the advanced group on Item 8 and ,47396 for the intermediate and ,47112 for the

advanced group on Item 20. This means that the groups’ judgments are not

homogenous.

8. I don’t know [who those people are looking for].

20. Mary didn’t tell me [who was that woman].

When we look at Item 33 though, we see that the advanced group is

significantly better than the intermediate group with a x² value of .004 (p ≤.05).

33. Did you see [who she was talking to at the party]?

76,1% of the subjects in the intermediate group judge this sentence correct,

whereas, 97,6% of the subjects in the advanced group judge it correctly. The results

concerning this item are actually justified by the results of Item 9.

9. Do you know [where is he going tomorrow]?

Item 9 is also a question sentence with an unmoved auxiliary in the noun

clause structure, and the intermediate group has difficulty in identifying the unmoved

verb. Subjects in the intermediate group differ almost significantly (x²= ,098, p ≤.05)

from the subjects in the advanced group for Item 9. Item 33 is a grammatically correct

sentence in which the auxiliary has moved, however the intermediate group treats this

item as incorrect, and differs from the advanced group significantly with a x² value of

.004 (p ≤.05). Intermediate group’s judgments for Item 9 and Item 33 might suggest that

subjects’ shortfall in their judgments is not accidental.

42

The wh- word whose is used in object position with an auxiliary verb four

times. The frequency of correct judgments is also relatively lower for this item, and

groups’ judgment for this item do not show homogeneity (s=,48154 for the intermediate

and s=,47112 for the advanced group). Both groups have difficulty with Item 27 which

is:

27. Even if you won’t tell me [whose e-mail address is this], I will find it.

Only 68,3% of the subjects in the advanced group and 65,2% of the subjects in

the intermediate group judge this item incorrect, whereas, the rest are unable to identify

the ungrammaticality of Item 27 stemming from unmoved auxiliary verb is.

Subjects also have difficulty with Item 23:

23. He asked everyone at the party, but nobody knew [whose dog was it].

Here again, only 69,6% of the subjects in the intermediate group and 73,2% of

the subjects in the advanced group identify the unmoved auxiliary verb was, and judge

the item incorrect. Furthermore, subjects’ judgments for this item show great variance in

both groups (s=,46522 for the intermediate and s=,44857 for the advanced group).

Subjects’ general shortfall for this wh- word might suggest that they have not

internalized the syntactic movement in English noun clauses yet, or their performance is

affected by the marked usage of whose in noun clauses.

The wh- word whom is used in subject position with an auxiliary verb once.

The results of that item, Item 16, show that only 80,5% of the subjects in the advanced

group and 76,1% of the subjects in the intermediate group identify the unmoved

auxiliary. If we look at Table 7, we also see that groups’ judgments do not show

homogeneity (s=,43127 for the intermediate and s=,40122 for the advanced group).

16. [To whom did she give the key] is still unknown.

When we look at the results of Item 35 in which whom is used in object

position but without an auxiliary verb, we see that subjects in both groups perform better

than Item 16 (Item 35: 97,8% intermediate and 97,6% advanced). As this sentence does

43

not have a moved form in it, subjects do not have to relate the moved and unmoved

items, hence almost all of them are correct in their judgments for Item 35 which is:

35. She didn’t tell me [whom she loved].

All of the subjects in both groups are correct in their judgment of Item 21

although it contains an auxiliary verb.

21. Although I asked her a lot, she never told me [with whom she was] that

day.

However, only 82,6% of the subjects in the intermediate group and 90,2% of

the subjects in the advanced group are correct in their judgment of Item 36 which has

similar syntactic features to Item 21:

36. Professor Smith wanted to tell us [to whom did he send the letter], but

unfortunately he was unable to do so.

The wh- word when is only used in object position with and without an

auxiliary verb. The results for Item 14 which is a sentence without an auxiliary verb

show that almost all of the subjects (100% intermediate and 97,6% advanced) are

correct in their judgments of grammaticality since again they do not have to relate

moved and unmoved forms.

14. She will be there [when the holiday season starts].

For items 1, 11, and 18, we can say that subjects in the advanced group display

a slightly better performance in their judgments (Item 1: 93,5% intermediate, 97,6%

advanced; Item 11: 91,3% intermediate, 95,1% advanced; Item 18: 89,1% intermediate,

92,7% advanced). The x² results (Item 1: x²=,364; Item 11: x²=,483; Item 18: x²=,567 p

≤.05) indicate that subjects in both groups do not differ significantly for these items.

1. They wanted to learn [when they were supposed to take the test].

11. It’s still unknown [when was he killed].

44

18. Jim wants to know [when will Bryan’s plane arrive].

The wh- word which is only used in object position with an auxiliary verb four

times. For Item 4, the difference between the intermediate and advanced group is almost

significant with a x² value of .096 (p ≤.05).

4. I can’t remember [which book did she buy].

While all of the subjects in the advanced group are correct in their judgments,

only 93,5% of the subjects in the intermediate group judge this sentence incorrect. The

results of the items 22, 28 and 32 do not indicate a significant difference in two groups’

judgments (Item 22: x²=,483; Item 28: x²=,884; Item 32: x²=,483 p ≤.05). This difference

in the performance of the advanced group might suggest that although subjects in the

advanced group apparently perform better in their judgments, their acquisition of

syntactic movement shows a gradual development:

22. She told me [which house did they decide to buy].

28. I finally know [which high school she is going].

32. Can you show me [which game you were good at] at high school?

The question word how is used in subject position without an auxiliary verb

once and in object position with an auxiliary verb three times. All of the subjects in both

groups are correct in their judgments of Item 25 in which the noun clause is in subject

position without an auxiliary verb. This maybe due to the fact that Item 25 does not

require the subjects to relate moved and unmoved forms.

25. [How she acted at the party] drew everybody’s attention.

When we look at Item 30 on the other hand, we see that subjects in both

groups are less correct in their judgments, and show great variance in their judgments

(s=,48154 for the intermediate and s=,47112 for the advanced group):

30. Do you know [how far is Denver from Texas]?

45

Only 68,3% of the subjects in the advanced group and 65,2% of the subjects in

the intermediate group are correct in their judgment for this item. It may mean that

subjects have difficulty in recognizing the unmoved auxiliary verb is. Besides, for Item

19, it is important to note that the intermediate group is slightly but not significantly

(x²=, 386, p ≤.05) better than the advanced group in their judgment of grammaticality.

19. Sheila wonders [how much milk there is] in the jug.

While 91,3% of the subjects in the intermediate group are correct in their

judgments, only 85,4% of the subjects in the advanced group judge this item correctly.

To sum up, the analysis of the GJT shows that subjects have problems in their

judgments of grammaticality when presented items which have auxiliary verbs that

require movement within a noun clause. Subjects’ shortfall in their judgments, however,

may also be the result of the length of the items and the marked usages of certain wh-

words especially in subject position. In the light of this analysis, we can conclude that

although subjects generally have not fully acquired the syntactic movement parameter,

the advanced group performs better than the intermediate group suggesting that learners

have a gradual development in the acquisition of the parameter in question.

4.2. Analysis of SST

SST is a reproduction task in which subjects’ performance on constructing

noun clauses is measured. Therefore, the purpose of this task, as we mentioned before,

is to see the written production of the subjects’ on noun clauses. SST contains 36

sentences as the GJT. However, the distribution of the wh- words in subject and object

position and noun clauses with and without auxiliary verbs is controlled in this task.

Each wh- word is used once in subject position with and without an auxiliary verb and

in object position with and without and auxiliary verb so that they are equally

distributed (see Appendix B).

Table 8 below shows the frequencies and percentages of correct answers and

chi-square results of two groups’ correct noun clause constructions for each item in

SST. The numbers shown in parentheses after each wh- word indicate the item number

of the sentences in the task. Table 9 shows the descriptive statistics obtained from the

SST.

46

Table 8. Results obtained from the SST.

Note:

* statistically significant (p ≤ .05) Values in bold indicating almost significance






What (3, 11, 20, 30)

3 24 52,2 22 53,7 ,612 11 29 63,0 34 82,9 ,115 30 39 84,8 37 90,2 ,456 20 34 73,9 37 90,2 ,050*

Where (21, 12, 31, 22)

21 46 100 41 100 - 12 42 91,3 39 95,1 ,598 31 44 95,7 40 97,6 ,233 22 40 87,0 38 92,7 ,381

Why (5, 14, 33, 24)

5 44 95,7 40 97,6 ,626 14 38 82,6 36 87,8 ,749 33 45 97,8 41 100 ,342 24 40 87,0 40 97,6 ,172

Who (13, 23, 4, 32)

23 46 100 41 100 - 13 11 23,9 17 41,5 ,190 32 43 93,5 41 100 ,250 4 22 47,8 21 51,2 ,752

Whose (35, 26, 16, 7)

35 25 54,3 33 80,5 ,030* 26 17 37,0 21 51,2 ,155 16 45 97,8 40 97,6 ,934 7 27 58,7 25 61,0 ,829

Whom (25, 34, 6, 15)

25 42 91,3 41 100 ,053 34 39 84,8 37 90,2 ,590 6 44 95,7 41 100 ,177 15 42 91,3 38 92,7 ,347

When (36, 25, 17, 8)

36 41 89,1 39 95,1 ,305 27 29 63,0 34 82,9 ,155 17 45 97,8 40 97,6 ,934 8 45 97,8 40 97,6 ,934

Which (18, 28, 9, 1)

18 45 97,8 40 97,6 ,934 28 28 60,9 27 65,9 ,645 9 43 93,5 41 100 ,250 1 35 76,1 35 85,4 ,177

How (2, 10, 29, 19)

2 41 89,1 41 100 ,094 10 21 45,7 24 58,5 ,097 29 38 82,6 39 95,1 ,110 19 45 97,8 40 97,6 ,365

47

Table 9. Descriptive statistics for the SST

Intermediate Advanced ______________________ _________________ SST # M SD M SD

1 ,8913 ,48204 1,0488 ,38414 2 1,0652 ,32675 1,0000 ,00000 3 1,0870 ,69366 1,2195 ,65239 4 1,5217 ,50505 1,4878 ,50606 5 1,0435 ,20618 1,0244 ,15617 6 1,0435 ,20618 1,0000 ,00000 7 1,4130 ,49782 1,3902 ,49386 8 1,0217 ,14744 1,0244 ,15617 9 1,0217 ,25726 1,0000 ,00000 10 ,5435 ,58525 ,8293 ,62859 11 1,0217 ,61424 1,0244 ,41760 12 ,9565 ,29488 ,9512 ,21808 13 ,8478 ,86839 ,8049 ,74898 14 1,0000 ,42164 1,0244 ,35269 15 1,0000 ,29814 1,0732 ,26365 16 1,0217 ,14744 1,0244 ,15617 17 1,0217 ,14744 1,0244 ,15617 18 1,0217 ,14744 1,0244 ,15617 19 ,9783 ,14744 1,0244 ,15617 20 1,2609 ,44396 1,0976 ,30041 21 1,0000 ,00000 1,0000 ,00000 22 1,1304 ,34050 1,0732 ,26365 23 1,0000 ,00000 1,0000 ,00000 24 1,0435 ,36249 1,0244 ,15617 25 1,0870 ,28488 1,0000 ,00000 26 1,0652 ,80006 1,2439 ,66259 27 ,9783 ,61424 ,9756 ,41760 28 1,0000 ,63246 ,9024 ,58330 29 1,0000 ,42164 1,0488 ,21808 30 1,0217 ,39379 ,9512 ,31235 31 ,9565 ,20618 1,0244 ,15617 32 1,0217 ,25726 1,0000 ,00000 33 ,9783 ,14744 1,0000 ,00000 34 ,9348 ,38885 1,0000 ,31623 35 ,6739 ,59831 ,9024 ,43617 36 ,8913 ,31470 ,9512 ,21808


48

The wh- word what, as all of the other question words in SST, is used both in

subject and object position with and without an auxiliary verb. Table 8 shows that

subjects have difficulty in constructing a noun clause with what in subject position

without an auxiliary verb. Almost half of the subjects in both groups (52,2%

intermediate, 53,7% advanced) are unable to construct a grammatical noun clause using

what in subject position. However, subjects show a better performance on using what in

object position without an auxiliary verb (84,8% intermediate, 90,2% advanced).

When we look at the usage of what in object position with an auxiliary verb,

we see that the advanced group performs significantly better than the intermediate group

with a x² value of .050 (p ≤.05). 90,2% of the subjects in the advanced group are able to

construct a grammatical noun clause using what in object position with an auxiliary verb

while only 73,9% of the subjects in the intermediate group are able to construct a

grammatical noun clause (Item 20). In subject position, subjects in both groups have

difficulty. 63% of the intermediate subjects and 82,9% of the advanced subjects are able

to construct a grammatical noun clause (Item 3). Moreover, for Item 3, subjects’

answers show great variance, and the groups do not show homogeneity in their answers

(s=,69366 for the intermediate and s=,65239 for the advanced group). The results show

that the advanced group, although not significantly (x²=,115, p ≤.05) is still better than

the intermediate group as can be deduced from the percentages of correct noun clause

constructions for this item. According to Table 8 then, two groups’ performances differ

significantly in Item 20, and both groups are almost only half the way right in Item 3:

20. wanted / what / to / the / she / was / time / know

She wanted to know [what the time was].

3. for / what / me / gave / I / stomachache / had / breakfast / a

[What I had for breakfast] gave me a stomachache.

The wh- word where is used correctly in subject position in a noun clause

without an auxiliary verb by all of the subjects in both groups. However, when used in

object position without an auxiliary verb, performances of the subjects decrease slightly

from %100 to %95,7 in the intermediate group and to %97,6 in the advanced group.

Table 8 also shows that the subjects have difficulty with Item 31 which contains a noun

clause in object position with an auxiliary verb:

49

31. where / didn’t / the / went / we / group / want / know / to

We didn’t want to know [where the group went].

Again almost all of the subjects in both groups are able to construct

grammatical noun clauses with the wh- word why in subject and object position without

an auxiliary verb. When the sentence they are expected to construct requires an auxiliary

verb, though, subjects’ performances decrease. This might stem from the fact that they

are required to display their knowledge of syntactic movement in items which have

auxiliary verbs. For example, both groups’ performances are low (82,6% intermediate,

87,8% advanced) in Item 14 which requires them to construct a noun clause with an

auxiliary verb in subject position:

14. problem / was / was / why / late / so / everybody / she / to / a

[Why she was so late] was a problem to everybody.

For object position, the advanced group is more successful with a percentage

of 97,6% compared to the intermediate group’s 87%. That is, subjects in the advanced

group are slightly better in constructing the clause in Item 24:

24. why / so / they / asking / nervous / her / she / keep / is

They keep asking her [why she is so nervous].

The performances of the subjects in both groups for the noun clauses with the

wh- word who show a great difference when used with and without an auxiliary verb.

Subjects in the advanced group are able to construct grammatical noun clauses with who

in both subject and object position without an auxiliary verb. Similarly, 93,5% of the

subjects in the intermediate group are able to construct a noun clause without an

auxiliary verb. In items requiring an auxiliary verb though, both groups’ performances

decrease dramatically. For subject position only 23,9% of the subjects in the

intermediate group and 41,5% of the subjects in the advanced group are able to

construct a grammatical noun clause. In addition to that as Table 9 shows, subjects in

both groups show great variability in their answers (s=,86839 for the intermediate and

s=,74898 for the advanced group). That means subjects have difficulty in the

construction of the following item:

50

13. of / who / people / conversation / those / topic / were / was / the / their

[Who those people were] was the topic of their conversation.

Similarly, subjects show low performance on Item 4 which requires a noun

clause with an auxiliary verb in object position:

4. even / didn’t / who / President / the / of / they / Turkey / was / know

They didn’t even know [who the President of Turkey was].

Only 47,8% of the subjects in the intermediate group and 51,2% of the

subjects in the advanced group are able to construct the grammatical noun clause within

Item 4. This might mean that subjects are generally less able to use auxiliary verbs in

noun clauses correctly which maybe due to the fact that auxiliary verbs should move to

the end of the noun clause in these items.

The wh- word whose is used correctly in a noun clause in object position

without an auxiliary verb by almost all of the subjects in both groups. 97, 8% of the

subjects in the intermediate group and 97,6% of the subjects in the advanced group are

able to construct the required noun clause in Item 16.

16. whose / Richard / to / head / ball / wants / hit / know / his

Richard wants to know [whose ball hit his head].

However, when subjects are required to use whose in subject position without

an auxiliary verb, their performances decrease. Groups’ performances on Item 35 differ

significantly with a x² value of .030 (p ≤.05), and only 54,3% of the subjects in the


construct the noun clause in the following item:

35. finger / whose / so / the / find / easy / triggered / gun / not / was / to / out

[Whose finger triggered the gun] was not so easy to find out.

Subjects’ performances are also low on items which require an auxiliary verb.

Although not significantly (x²=,155, p ≤.05), subjects in the advanced group show better

performance than the intermediate group on Item 26, and compared to the intermediate

51

group, the advanced group is more homogenous (s=,80006 for the intermediate and

s=,66259 for the intermediate group).

26. very / whose / important / books / read / the / was / was / to / going / class

[Whose books the class was going to read] was very important.

Similarly, the advanced group performs slightly better than the intermediate

group on Item 7 (58,7% intermediate, 61% advanced).

7. is / know / whose / I / want / car / to / that

I want to know [whose car that is].

While there is not a statistically significant difference on groups’ performances

on whom in object position without an auxiliary, two groups’ performances differ almost

significantly when subjects are required to use whom in subject position without an

auxiliary verb. Table 8 shows that the advanced group is almost significantly better than

the intermediate group on item 25 with a x² value of .053 (p ≤.05).

25. secret / whom / the / Mary / with / a / left / is / party

[With whom Mary left the party] is a secret.

84,8% of the subjects in the intermediate group and 90,2% of the subjects in

the advanced group are able to construct a grammatical noun clause with whom in

subject position. However, subjects are more successful in constructing a noun clause in

object position (Item15) with an auxiliary verb (91,3% intermediate, 92,7% advanced).

15. must / to / you / you / to / decide / going / send / whom / the / are /

invitations

You must decide [to whom you are going to send the invitations].

The wh- word when is used correctly in a noun clause in object position

without an auxiliary verb by almost all of the subjects. 97,8% of the subjects in the



52

17. arrive / they / he / does / when / know / not

He does not know [when they arrive].

With a slight decrease, subjects show a similar performance (89,1%

intermediate, 95,1% advanced) on Item 36 which has a noun clause in subject position

without an auxiliary verb.

36. their / not / by / when / house / known / was / they / anybody / sold

[When they sold their house] was not known by anybody.

However, when subjects are required to use when in subject position with an

auxiliary verb, their performances decrease. Only 63% of the subjects in the



27. should / the / in / when / project / start / is / we / contract / the / stated

[When we should start the project] is stated in the contract.

In Item 8 which requires a noun clause in object position with an auxiliary

verb, subjects show a better performance (97,8% intermediate, 97,6% advanced) in

constructing a grammatical noun clause:

8. is / when / coming / me / she / they / not / telling / are

She is not telling me [when they are coming].

This difference between the performances of the subjects on noun clauses with

an auxiliary verb in subject and object position shows that subjects’ performances

display fluctuations which might mean that although subjects reveal instances of

syntactic movement knowledge, we can say that they have not yet fully adopted the

relevant parameter. Apart from this, subjects’ performances on items without auxiliary

verbs in regard to the wh-word when do not tell us whether they have acquired the

syntactic movement in noun clauses or not.

53

When we look at the usage of which in subject and object position with and

without an auxiliary verb, we see that subjects perform better in constructing noun

clauses without an auxiliary verb in either positions. While almost all of the subjects in

both groups are able to construct grammatical noun clauses either in subject or object

position without an auxiliary verb, their performances decrease when they are required

to use an auxiliary verb in constructing a noun clause. As can be seen from Table 8,

97,8% of the subjects in the intermediate group and 97,6% of the subjects in the

advanced group are able to construct a grammatical noun clause without an auxiliary in

subject position.

18. won / unknown / the / is / which / election / still / candidate

[Which candidate won the election] is still unknown.

Similarly, 93,5% of the subjects in the intermediate group and 100% of the

subjects in the advanced group are successful in constructing a noun clause without an

auxiliary in object position.

9. yesterday / to / which / you / want / I / took / know / bus

I want to know [which bus you took] yesterday.

However, subjects’ performances in both groups decrease in the following

items in which an auxiliary verb is required in constructing the noun clause:

28. car / told / was / the / which / witnesses / stolen / not / was / to

[Which car was stolen] was not told to the witnesses.

1. book / him / didn’t / class / to / to / asked / which / bring / he / want / she /

the

She asked him [which book he didn’t want to bring to the class].

Only 60,9% of the subjects in the intermediate group and 65,9% of the subjects

in the advanced group are able to construct the noun clause in Item 28. Again only

76,1% of the subjects in the intermediate group and 85,4% of the subjects in the

advanced group are able to construct the grammatical noun cause in Item 1.

54

When we examine how, we see that subjects’ performances in the advanced

group almost significantly differ from the performances of subjects in the intermediate

group on items 2 and 10 where subjects are required to use how in subject position with

and without an auxiliary verb. On Item 2, the advanced group’s performance differs

from the intermediate group’s performance with a x² value of .094 (p ≤.05). While 100%

of the subjects in the advanced group are able to construct a grammatical noun clause in

Item 2, only 89,1% of the subjects in the intermediate group are able to do so.

2. left / is / how / mystery / they / the / still / country / a

[How they left the country] is still a mystery.

Similarly, both groups’ performances decrease dramatically when subjects are

expected to use how in subject position this time with an auxiliary verb. Although both

groups’ performances are low for Item 10, the advanced group performs almost

significantly better on this item with a x² value of .097 (p ≤.05). Only 45,7% of the

subjects in the intermediate group and 58,5% of the subjects in the advanced group are

able to construct the noun clause in the following item:

10. going / test / how / interest / her / pass / she / a / was / great / among / to /

the / developed / teachers

[How she was going to pass the test] developed a great interest among the

teachers.

Subjects in both groups perform better on using how in object position with

and without an auxiliary verb. 82,6% of the subjects in the intermediate group and

95,1% of the subjects in the advanced group are able to construct a grammatical noun

clause in object position without an auxiliary verb in Item 29.

29. how / steak / waiter / she / her / asked / wanted / the / her

The waiter asked her [how she wanted her steak].

Also, 97,8% of the subjects in the intermediate group and 97,6% of the

subjects in the advanced group are able to construct the noun clause in Item 19 which

requires a noun clause in object position with an auxiliary.

55

19. would / to / how / the / she / he / race / win / wanted / know

She wanted to know [how he would win the race].

In the light of this analysis, we can say that subjects have a general difficulty in

constructing noun clauses in subject position. Overall analysis of the SST shows that

subjects especially in the intermediate group perform poorly when they are required to

construct a noun clause in subject position. Moreover, subjects’ performances decrease

severely with the wh- word whose in subject position which may be due to its infrequent

usage in noun clauses in subject position.

4.3. Analysis of EIT

EIT consists of 18 sentences which are taken from the SST. In EIT there are

only 2 sentences which contain noun clauses without an auxiliary verb. The rest of the

sentences contain an auxiliary verb in noun clause structures. This is because noun

clauses without an auxiliary verb do not have a moved form, thus do not allow us to

assess the interlanguage performances of the subjects on syntactic movement. Items

without auxiliary verbs are included in this task and other tasks to function as distractive

so that the subjects’ are presented not only with one form of noun clause (see Appendix

C).

As mentioned before (see Chapter 3, section 3.4.3.), EIT is a reproduction task

in which subjects are asked to reconstruct the sentences they hear in a controlled time.

Table 10 below shows the frequencies and percentages of correct

reproductions and chi-square results of two groups’ correct reproductions for each item

in EIT. The numbers shown in parentheses after each wh- word indicate the item

number of the sentences in the task. Table 11 shows the descriptive statistics obtained

from the EIT.

56

Table 10. Results obtained from the EIT.

Note: * statistically significant (p ≤.05) Values in bold indicating almost significance






What (17, 13)

17 40 87,0 41 100 ,017* 13 38 82,6 38 92,7 ,158

Where (8, 3)

8 41 89,1 37 90,2 ,865 3 39 84,8 38 92,7 ,249

Why (16, 7)

16 45 97,8 39 95,1 ,490 7 40 87,0 33 80,5 ,412

Who (11, 9)

11 35 76,1 33 80,5 ,620 9 32 69,6 34 82,9 ,146

Whose (15, 4)

15 35 76,1 30 73,2 ,755 4 28 60,9 28 68,3 ,470

Whom (1, 14)

1 44 95,7 34 82,9 ,052 14 31 67,4 34 82,9 ,096

When (18, 12)

18 41 89,1 38 92,7 ,567 12 32 69,6 27 65,9 ,711

Which (5, 2)

5 38 82,6 38 92,7 ,158 2 39 84,8 36 87,8 ,683

How (10, 6)

10 42 91,3 35 85,4 ,386 6 36 78,3 37 90,2 ,129

57

Table 11. Descriptive statistics for the EIT

Intermediate Advanced _____________________ __________________

EIT # M SD M SD

1 1,0435 ,20618 1,1707 ,38095 2 1,1522 ,36316 1,1220 ,33129 3 1,1522 ,36316 1,0732 ,26365 4 1,3913 ,49344 1,3171 ,47112 5 1,1739 ,38322 1,0732 ,26365 6 1,2174 ,41703 1,0976 ,30041 7 1,1304 ,34050 1,1951 ,40122 8 1,1087 ,31470 1,0976 ,30041 9 1,3043 ,46522 1,1707 ,38095 10 1,0870 ,28488 1,1463 ,35784 11 1,2391 ,43127 1,1951 ,40122 12 1,3043 ,46522 1,3415 ,48009 13 1,1739 ,38322 1,0732 ,26365 14 1,3261 ,47396 1,1707 ,38095 15 1,2391 ,43127 1,2683 ,44857 16 1,0217 ,14744 1,0488 ,21808 17 1,1304 ,34050 1,0000 ,00000 18 1,1087 ,31470 1,0732 ,26365


58

As we look at Table 10 for the wh- word what, we see that the advanced group

performs significantly better than the intermediate group when subjects are asked to

reproduce a noun clause in subject position with an auxiliary verb. While 100% of the

subjects in the advanced group are able to reproduce the noun clause in Item 17, only

87% of the subjects in the intermediate group are able to do so. This means that the

advanced group performs significantly better than the intermediate group on Item 17

with a x² value of .017 (p ≤.05).

17. [What she is going to wear to the party] is nobody’s business.

However, in object position with an auxiliary verb (Item 13) both groups’

performances decrease slightly (82,6% intermediate, 92,7% advanced), and there is no

statistically significant difference (x²=,158, p ≤.05) between the groups for Item 13.

13. The man on the street wanted to know [what the time was].

The wh- word where is also used twice with an auxiliary verb in subject and

object position (Items 8 and 3). There is again no statistically significant difference

(Item 8: x²=,865; Item 3: x²=249, p ≤.05) between the groups, however, the advanced

group performs slightly better (Item 8: 89,1% intermediate, 90,2%advanced; Item 3:

84,8% intermediate, 92,7% advanced) on items 8 and 3 in the EIT.

8. [Where they were going to settle] was a wonder to everybody.

3. The woman at the door wants to know [where the post office is].

The wh- word why is used twice with an auxiliary verb in subject and object

position. The results show that subjects in both groups perform better when they are

required to reproduce a noun clause in subject position compared to object position.

While 97,8% of the subjects in the intermediate group and 95,1% of the subjects in the

advanced group are able to reproduce the noun clause in Item 16, only 87% of the

subjects in the intermediate group and 80,5% of the subjects in the advanced group

could preserve the grammatical noun clause in their utterances for Item 7.

16. [Why she was so late] was a problem to everybody.

59

7. Her classmates have been asking her [why she is so nervous].

When we look at the usage of who, we see that subjects’ performances in both

groups decrease compared to the previous wh- words discussed above. On Item 9, the

advanced group’s performance is better than the intermediate group. 82,9% of the

subjects in the advanced group are able to reproduce the noun clause in Item 9 while

only 69,6% of the subjects in the intermediate group are able to do so.

9. They didn’t even know [who the President of Turkey was].

The advanced group performs better on Item 11 as well. Although not

significantly (x²=,620, p ≤.05), subjects in the advanced group are more successful

(76,1% for the intermediate and 80,5% for the advanced) in reproducing the noun clause

in the following item:

11. [Who those people were] was the topic of their conversation.

The wh- word whose is only used in subject position with and without an

auxiliary verb. As can be seen from Table 10, the intermediate group is better (76,1%

intermediate, 73,2% advanced) in reproducing the noun clause in Item 15 which does

not require an auxiliary verb.

15. [Whose finger triggered the gun] was not so easy to find out.

However, the advanced group is slightly better (60,9% intermediate, 68,3%

advanced) on Item 4 which requires an auxiliary verb. Morover, subjects in both groups

show variance in their answers (s=,49344 for the intermediate and s=,47112 for the

advanced group).

4. [Whose books the class was going to read] was very important.

When we look at the usage of whom in subject and object position, we see that

the intermediate group performs almost significantly better (x²=,052, p ≤.05) in subject

position (Item 1). Only 82,9% of the subjects in the advanced group are able to

60

reproduce the noun clause in Item 1, whereas, 95,7% of the subjects in the intermediate

group are able to do so. This difference in performances of the subjects may stem from

the fact that whom is infrequently used in noun clauses especially in subject position:

1. [Whom you are going to play chess with] is important.

However, on Item 14 in which subjects are required to reproduce a noun clause

in object position with an auxiliary verb, the advanced group performs almost

significantly better with a x² value of .096 (p ≤.05). Only 67,4% of the subjects in the

intermediate group are able to reproduce the noun clause in Item 14, whereas, 82,9% of

the subjects in the advanced group are able to do so. Similarly, the advanced group is

more homogenous (s=,47396 for the intermediate and s=,38095 for the advanced

group).

14. You must decide [to whom you are going to send the invitations].

The wh- word when is also used twice with an auxiliary verb in subject and

object position. Table 10 shows that subjects in both groups perform better in

reproducing a noun clause in subject position. While only 69,6% of the subjects in the


reproduce a noun clause in object position, 89,1% of the subjects in the intermediate

group and 92,7% of the subjects in the advanced group are able to reproduce a noun

clause in subject position. According to these results, then, subjects have a common

difficulty with the following item:

12. The woman at the information desk is not telling me [when they are

coming].

The wh- word which is used in subject position without an auxiliary verb and

in object position with an auxiliary verb (items 5 and 2 respectively). Table 10 shows

that the advanced group, although not significantly (Item 5: x²=,158; Item 2: x²=683, p

≤.05) perform better (Item 5: 82,6% intermediate, 92,7% advanced; Item 2: 84,8%

intermediate, 87,8 advanced) than the intermediate group on both items.

61

5. [Which candidate won the election] is still unknown.

2. She asked him [which book he didn’t want to bring to the class].

How is used twice with an auxiliary verb in subject and in object position. As

can be seen from Table 10, the intermediate group performs better than the advanced

group on Item 10 which requires an auxiliary verb in subject position. 91,3% of the

subjects in the intermediate group are able to reproduce the noun clause in the following

item, whereas, only 85,4% of the subjects in the advanced group are able to do so:

10. [How she was going to pass the test] developed a great interest among the

teachers.

However, the advanced group performs better on Item 6 which requires an

auxiliary verb in object position. 90,2% of the subjects in the advanced group are able to

reproduce the noun clause in Item 6, whereas, only 78,3% of the subjects in the

intermediate group are able to do so:

6. She wanted to know [how he would win the race].

Overall analysis of the EIT suggests that the advanced group performs better

than the intermediate group. Also, subjects again generally perform poorly on wh-

words (whose, whom) which have a marked usage in noun clauses.

4.4. Overall Findings of Three Tasks

As discussed above, the tasks used in the study are a judgment task (GJT) in

which subjects are required to display their intuitions about grammaticality, a

production task (SST) in which subjects are required to display their knowledge of

syntactic movement in noun clauses in their written production, and a reproduction

task (EIT) in which subjects are required to display their knowledge of syntactic

movement in their oral reproductions. The reason for selecting such a variety of tasks

which measure subjects’ knowledge on different levels (written and oral) is to see an

overall panorama of the learners’ knowledge at different levels of representations.

62

Table 12 below shows the overall results obtained from GJT, SST, and EIT.

The frequencies and percentages of correct answers are given for noun clauses in

subject and object position regardless of whether an auxiliary verb is involved or not.

63

Table 12. Overall results of data analysis.

Object position Subject Position Wh-word Tasks f (Int.) % f (Adv.) %

f (Int.) % f (Adv.) %

GJT 39 84,77 41 100 - - - -

SST 45 97,82 40 97,56 34 73,91 38 91,46

when

EIT 27 58,69 32 78,04 41 89,13 38 92,68

where GJT 40 86,95 41 100 - - - -

SST 43 92,38 39 95,12 44 95,65 40 97,56

EIT 39 84,78 38 92,68 41 89,13 37 90,24

GJT 33 71,73 36 87,80 46 100 41 100

SST 42 90,21 40 96,36 31 67,39 33 79,26

how

EIT 36 78,26 37 90,24 42 91,30 35 85,36

GJT 41 89,13 39 95,12 - - - -

SST 36 77,16 34 82,92 37 79,34 34 81,70

which

EIT 39 84,78 36 87,80 38 82,60 38 92,68

64

GJT 35 76,08 40 97,56 45 97,82 41 100

SST 37 79,34 37 90,24 27 57,60 28 68,28

what

EIT 38 82,60 38 92,68 40 86,95 41 100

GJT 39 84,77 41 100 - - - -

SST 43 92,38 41 100 41 89,12 38 92,68

why

EIT 40 86,95 33 80,48 45 97,82 39 95,12

GJT 33 71,73 35 85,36 - - - -

SST 33 70,64 31 75,60 29 61,95 29 70,73

who

EIT 32 69,56 34 82,92 35 76,08 33 80,48

GJT 35 76,08 33 80,48 - - - -

SST 36 78,25 33 79,28 21 45,64 27 65,84

whose

EIT - - - - 32 68,47 29 70,73

GJT 38 81,51 39 93,90 33 71,73 35 85,36

SST 43 93,47 40 96,34 41 88,04 39 95,12

whom

EIT 31 67,39 34 82,92 44 95,65 34 82,92

65

As can be seen from Table 12, performances of subjects on all tasks show that

the advanced group, although there are some fluctuations, generally performs better

than the intermediate group. As for GJT, the advanced group is generally higher in

percentages regarding the correct judgments for each wh-word.

Wh- word % in Subject Position % in Object Position

Int - Adv Int - Adv

When 84,70 – 100

Where 86,95 – 100

How 100 – 100 71,73 – 87,80

Which 89,13 – 95,12

What 97,82 – 100 76,08 – 97,56

Why 84,77 – 100

Who 71,73 – 85,36

Whose 76,08 – 80,48

Whom 71,73 - 85,36 81,51 – 93,90

In a similar vein, same can be said about the SST. Close examination of Table

12 shows that the advanced group for the most part performs better than the

intermediate group regarding the percentages of correct answers.


Int - Adv Int - Adv

When 73,91 – 91,46 97,82 – 97,56

Where 95,65 – 97,56 92,38 – 95,12

How 67,39 – 79,26 90,21 – 96,36

Which 79,34 – 81,70 77,16 – 82,92

What 57,60 – 68,28 79,34 – 90,24

Why 89,12 – 92,68 92,38 – 100

Who 61,95 – 70,73 70,64 – 75,60

Whose 45,64 – 65,84 78,25 – 79,28

Whom 88,04 – 95,12 93,47 – 96,34

66

As we look at the percentages of correct reproductions for EIT, we see that with

few exceptions, again the advanced group performs better than the intermediate group.


Int - Adv Int - Adv

When 89,13 – 92,68 58,69 – 78,04

Where 89,13 – 90,24 84,78 – 92,68

How 91,30 – 85,36 78,26 – 90,24

Which 82,60 – 92,68 84,78 – 87,80

What 86,95 – 100 82,60 – 92,68

Why 97,82 – 95,12 86,95 – 80,48

Who 76,08 – 80,48 69,56 – 82,92

Whose 68,47 – 70,73

Whom 95,65 – 82,92 67,39 – 82,92

These results suggest that the advanced group performs better than the

intermediate group on three different tasks involved in the study. However, this does not

suggest that the advanced group has acquired the syntactic movement involved in noun

clauses. Although the subjects in both groups show knowledge of syntactic movement on

three tasks, they still have problems in relating moved and unmoved forms within a noun

clause structure.

4.5. Analysis of TICLE and LOCNESS

Table 13. The sizes of the corpora.

NNS CORPUS (TICLE)

168,465 words

NS CORPUS (LOCNESS) 169,422 words

As can be seen from Table 13, the corpora utilized in the study are of similar size

and produced under similar circumstances and are the result of typical academic,

67

argumentative writing assignments. The NNS corpus was produced by advanced

Turkish university students of English. Similarly, the NS corpus utilized in the study

was extracted from the LOCNESS database and consists of similar writing tasks

performed by native American university students. The slight difference in the size of

the corpora does not pose any threat since the computation for the occurrences of noun

clauses across corpora was carried out for every thousand word.

The chi-square analysis of the corpora is carried out with the help of a corpus

concordance software by the University of Oxford, WordSmith (v. 3.0). The probability

level of the frequencies is taken as p ≤.01, and the significantly underused items are

shown with an asterisk (*).

68

Table 14.Distribution of grammatically acceptable and unacceptable Wh-noun clauses in object position across the corpora..

NNS (TICLE) NS (LOCNESS) NCO NCOA NCOU NCOAU NCO NCOA NCOU NCOAU

WH WORDS f % f % f % f % f % f % f % f %

What 87 0,05 53 0,03 1 2 123 0,07 98 0,06 1 2 How* 25 0,01 42 0,02 - 2 76 0,05 89 0,05 - - Whatever 19 0,01 7 - - 12 1 - - Why* 8 9 - - 29 0,02 51 0,03 - 2 When - 7 - - 12 9 - - Whenever 4 - - - - - - - Which 2 6 - - 3 - - - Where 3 3 - - 12 17 0,01 - - Who 3 3 - - 6 18 0,01 - - Wherever - - - - 1 - - - Whom 2 1 - - 3 - - - Whichever 1 1 - - - - - - Whomever 1

-

-

-

1

-

-

-

NNS: Non-native Speaker Corpus (TICLE) NS: Native Speaker Corpus (LOCNESS)

NCO: Noun Clause Object Position without Auxiliary NCOA: Noun Clause Object Position with Auxiliary

NCOU: Noun Clause Object Position without Auxiliary Grammatically Unacceptable NCOAU: Noun Clause Object Position with Auxiliary Grammatically

Unacceptable

P < 0.01 *: significantly underused

69

Table 14 shows the occurrences of noun clauses in object position with and

without an auxiliary. Both corpora display similar frequencies of usage of noun clauses

in object position with the exception that how (25) and why clauses (9) are significantly

(p ≤.01) underused by Turkish learners of English in the NNS as opposed to the same

clauses, (76) and (51) respectively, by native American university students in the NS.

As can be seen from Table 14, there are 3 grammatically unacceptable sentences (in

regard with noun clause formation) with what and 2 unacceptable sentences with how in

the NNS corpus. Following sentences are taken from the NNS corpus (* indicating

ungrammaticality):

* 1. I mean it is not enough to invent any machine, scientist should not ignore,

which social class mostly make use of the machine, and who can effort to

buy it and [what do people think about it].

* 2. When you ask a person [what his/her plans for the future] or why s/he

wants to a job ;the answer firstly will be that. TO EARN MONEY AND

BY EARNİNG MONEY HAVİNG A HİGH -STANDART LİFE...

* 3. No one would ask [how do you get this mark], by studying hard or

cheating .

* 4. so many students don’t have knowledge of what they do and [how can they

do] something

* 5. so we learn that only by memory instead of knowing totally [what is it].

Items 4 and 5 are grammatically unacceptable in that subjects have not moved

the auxiliary verbs in the noun clause structures. Item 2, on the other hand, is

grammatically unacceptable in that the subject has omitted the auxiliary verb are. Items

1 and 3 are grammatically unacceptable, because subjects have constructed the noun

clauses in the form of a question.

Of the 3 grammatically unacceptable usages of what clauses, one instance is

observed in the object position without an auxiliary (Item 2), while the other two are in

the object position with an auxiliary (Item 1 and Item 5).

70

Moreover, there are 3 grammatically unacceptable sentences (in regard with

noun clause formation) with what and 2 unacceptable sentences with why in the NS

corpus. Following sentences are taken from the NS corpus:

* 6. He should ask [what does the person attempting suicide thinking]?

* 7. While hoping not to cause dissension, it is my opinion that the overall

decision of [what is art is linked] to the artists ideas behind his or her

creation.

* 8. Whenever asked [why shouldn't women be admitted] there are two things

that always come out first.

* 9. No one can argue that crime is not a means of making money, if it were not

[why would people commit them].

Item 6 is grammatically unacceptable in that the subject has chosen the wrong

auxiliary verb does where the appropriate auxiliary would be is. Apart form wrong

choice of auxiliary, the sentence is ungrammatical because the auxiliary has not moved

from its original position. Items 8 and 9 are ungrammatical because the auxiliary verbs

should and would have not moved out of their deep structure marking the sentence

ungrammatical. In Item 7 the subject has used the auxiliary verb is twice.

71

Table 15.Distribution of grammatically acceptable and unacceptable Wh-noun clauses in subject position across the corpora.

NNS NS NCS NCSA NSU NSAU NCS NCSA NCSU NCSAU

WH WORDS f % f % f % f % f % f % f % f %

What 13 16 - - 13 13 - - How - 1 - - - - - - Whatever 1 - - - 1 1 - - Why 1 1 - - - - - - When - - - - - - - - Whenever - - - - - - - - Which - - - - - - - - Where 1 - - - - - - - Who - 1 - - - 1 - - Wherever - - - - - - - - Whom - - - - - - - - Whichever - - - - - - - - Whomever -

-

-

-

1

-

-

-

NNS: Non-native Speaker Corpus NS: Native Speaker Corpus

NCS: Noun Clause Subject Position without Auxiliary NCSA: Noun Clause Subject Position with Auxiliary

NSU: Noun Clause Subject Position without Auxiliary Grammatically Unacceptable NSAU: Noun Clause Subject Position with Auxiliary Grammatically

Unacceptable

P < 0.01 *: significantly underused **: significantly overused

72

Table 15 displays the distribution of the instances of noun clauses in subject

position. This type of constructions occur less frequently in both corpora. As is obvious

from Table 15, only noun clauses with what emerge as the most frequent type of

construction invariably across both corpora. The chi-square analysis indicates that there

is no statistically significant difference between the NNS and the NS in the use of noun

clauses in subject position. The findings also reveal that there are no instances of

grammatically unacceptable usages in both corpora.

The overall analysis of both corpora reveals that the noun clauses in object

position are more frequent than the noun clauses in subject position in both corpora.

Moreover, while subjects in both corpora show similar preferences regarding the noun

clause usage and wh- word choice in subject position, their preferences change in the

usage of noun clauses and wh- word choice in object position. While, subjects in the NS

corpus tend to use how and why clauses more frequently, subjects in the NNS corpus

significantly (p ≤.01) underuse these wh- words.

The few grammatically unacceptable sentences in the corpora do not suggest

that subjects have problems with the usage of noun clauses, because there are

grammatically unacceptable sentences in the NS corpus as well as the NNS. This maybe

due to performance errors of the subjects.

73

CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

5.1. Introduction

This thesis focuses on the characteristics of learner language regarding the

acquisition of syntactic movement parameter. The possible problems that might stem

from the parametric variation between English and Turkish and how these problems are

handled by Turkish adult learners have been described and discussed. In addition to

that, the study has sought for an order of acquisition between the noun clauses in

subject position and object position along with various wh- words. We selected the

syntactic movement parameter as the dependent variable of the study because of the

fact that English has an instantiated syntactic movement feature, whereas, Turkish does

not within the restriction of the syntactic movement parameter.

As the purpose of the study is to investigate how Turkish adult learners acquire

the syntactic movement in the formation of noun clauses in L2 English, various tasks

(GJT, SST and EIT) and two international corpora (TICLE and LOCNESS) have been

utilized so that we would have a chance to see an overall picture of the learner

language. The data obtained from three tasks and corpora help us to see the variance

between adult L2 learner’s IL ability and the target language grammar at different

levels of L2 proficiency.

5.2. Evaluation of the Research Questions

In this section the evaluation of the research questions of this study regarding

the acquisition of syntactic movement parametric value in noun clauses by Turkish

adults learning English as a second language is presented. In addition to that,

implications for English Language Teaching and future prospects are discussed.

5.2.1. Evaluation of Research Question 1

Our first research question is:

1. Do Turkish adult L2 learners of English have problems in handling

the syntactic movement involved in noun clauses in English in their

74

gradual proficiency level of English stemming from their L1

linguistic characteristics?

In line with the results obtained from data analysis, it can be said that subjects

do not fully lack knowledge of syntactic movement nor have they fully mastered the

usage of noun clauses which requires them to display their knowledge of syntactic

movement. While subjects in the advanced group are more competent in terms of

handling syntactic movement operations, they still have problems with noun clauses

especially when there is an auxiliary verb involved. The results of the study also imply

that subjects in both groups have problems with noun clauses which contain an

auxiliary verb. This is actually what one expects since noun clauses which have an

auxiliary verb require syntactic movement, whereas, noun clauses without auxiliaries

do not. Consider the following:

1. She told me [where she is going].

2. She told me [where she went].

Subjects’ shortfall with sentences as in 1 is explainable in terms of syntactic

movement. Since an auxiliary is involved in 1, subjects need to have the knowledge that

the auxiliary should be moved. However, in 2 no such knowledge is needed.

Despite the fact that subjects in both groups have not fully mastered the

knowledge of syntactic movement, the results show that the advanced group performs

better in handling the problems stemming from their L1 linguistic characteristics. This

shows that, although there are fluctuations in their performances, subjects have a

gradual development in the acquisition of this particular parameter.

5.2.2. Evaluation of Research Question 2

Our second research question is:

2. Is there any order of acquisition between the noun clauses in subject

position and object position along with the various wh- noun clause

constructions?

In the analysis of the data, our first hypothesis was that there might be an order

of acquisition since subjects in both groups tend to use noun clauses in object

75

position with more ease. Moreover, it was observed that in EIT and SST even when

the noun clause they were expected to use was in subject position, subjects tended to

use pseudo-clefts so that the noun clause was constructed in object position. To name

an example the following can be given:

1. Whom you are going to play chess with is important. (EIT)

While subjects were asked to reproduce this item in EIT, some of the subjects

came up with the following:

It is important with whom you are going to play chess.

However, the analysis of the corpora reveals that subjects in the NS group also

have a preference to use noun clauses in object position. This means that the excessive

use of noun clauses in object position by NNS does not necessarily imply an order of

acquisition. Nonetheless, data obtained from our tasks and corpora reveal that a

grammatical preference is involved in the usage of noun clauses by both NS and NNS.

5.3. Implications for English Language Teaching

As we discussed in Chapter 1, in Turkey not many studies in SLA have been

carried out regarding the principles and parameters of UG. However, we believe that

it is important to highlight the parametric variations between L1 and L2, because

raising an awareness or consciousness of the learner might be a useful technique

since such consciousness or knowledge of language allows the learner to notice L2

characteristics with more ease (Ellis, 1991). Moreover, as Gass and Varonis (1994)

assert “the awareness of the mismatch serves the function of triggering a

modification of existing L2 knowledge, the results of which may show up at a later

point in time” (p. 299).

Most of the time, learners have fossilized forms in their ILs which possibly

stem from learners’ not monitoring themselves, lack of access to UG, failure of

parameter resetting and avoidance (Han, 2004). By pinpointing these parametric

variations across languages, fossilization might be avoided, and learners would be

aware of the existence of such differences between their L1 and L2. Hence, an

understanding of SLA would ease the teacher’s role in the classroom. Since UG is

76

thought to be an innate mechanism in human mind, what the learners need in order to

acquire a language is already there. In this respect, teacher’s role might be creating

an awareness of parameter resetting. In addition to that, textbooks used in language

classrooms might provide exercises which highlight the parametric variations

between L1 and L2. While teaching the noun clause structures, for example, the

teacher and the textbook can emphasize the role of auxiliary verbs and their

movement within a noun clause. Moreover, since learners have problems with

structures that have different values in their L1 and L2, more emphasis would be

given on such grammatical structures.

5.4. Future Prospects

This study is only limited to the syntactic movement involved in noun clauses.

For further research, movement within various structures (such as adjective clauses) in

English can be investigated in comparison to Turkish. Furthermore, studies which

describe the characteristics of Turkish learner’s interlanguage might provide valuable

insight into what happens in the learner language, what problems are encountered in

the course of acquisition, and how these problems might be overcome. Hence, we

believe that interlanguage studies are important in terms of providing theoretical

background for ELT methodology.

77

REFERENCES

Adjémian, C. (1976), “On the nature of interlanguage systems”, Language Learning, 26,

297- 320.

d’Anglejan, A. and Tucker, R. (1975), “The acquisition of complex English structures

by adult learners”, Language learning, 25 (2), 281-296.

Apel, R. (1984), Immigrant Children Learning Dutch, Dordrecht, Holland: Foris.

Aygen, G. (1999), “Q –Particle in Turkish Japanese and Sinhala”, Proceedings of the

International Conference, Havana: Cuba, Retrieved May 25, 2005, from

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~lingpub/misc/tosun/Q%20Particle.pdf

Baik, M. J. and Shim, R. J. (1993), “Yes, we have no bananas: English negative tags in

cross-linguistic communication”, Studies in Linguistic Sciences, 24, 235-243.

Bailey, N., Madden, C. and Krashen, S. (1974), “Is there a 'natural sequence' in adult

second language learning?”, Language Learning, 24, 235-243.

Bley-Vroman, R., Felix, S. and Ioup, G. I. (1988), “The accessibility of Universal

Grammar in adult language learning”, Second Language Research, 4 (1), 1-32.

Braidi S. M. (1999), The Acquisition of Second Language Syntax, London: Arnold.

Bulut, T. (1996), “The availability of Universal Grammar to adult Turkish learners of

English: Parameter resetting”, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Çukurova

Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Adana.

Bulut, T. (2000), “İngilizce’nin ikinci dil olarak edinimi ve ED’ye erişim: yapı

bağımsallığı ve alttaşlık”, In Ö. Ekmekçi, S. Akıncı, N. Aslan and T. Bulut

(Eds.), 14. Dilbilim Kurultayı Bildiriler (pp. 160-170), Adana: Çukurova

Üniversitesi.

78

Bulut, T. and Can, C. (1999), “İkinci dil edinen yetişkinlerde değiştirgen ayarlanması”,

In S. Özsoy and E. Taylan (Eds.), 13. Dilbilim Kurultay Bildirileri (pp. 179-

188), İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi.

Bulut, T. and Can, C. (2001), “Çoklu ne- sorularının edinimi: Kim niçin geldi?”,

In Ö. Demircan and A. Erözden (Eds.), 15. Dilbilim Kurultayı Bildiriler (pp.

63-69), İstanbul: Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi.

Can, C. (2000a), The accessibility of Universal Grammar in Turkish adults learning

English as a second language: Head-complement parameter resetting,

Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Çukurova Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler

Enstitüsü, Adana.

Can, C. (2000b), “Türk yetişkinlerin İngilizce’yi ikinci dil olarak edinimlerinde

sözdizimi: ED’ye erişim savlarının sınanması”, In Ö. Ekmekçi, S. Akıncı, N.

Aslan and T. Bulut (Eds.), 14. Dilbilim Kurultayı Bildiriler (pp.171-180),

Adana: Çukurova Üniversitesi.

Carnie, A. (2001), Syntax, Oxford: Blackwell.

Carroll, S. E. (2001), Input and Evidence: The Raw Material of Second Language

Acquisition, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Chaudron, C. (1977), “A descriptive model of discourse in the corrective treatment of

learners’ errors”, Language Learning, 27, 29–46.

Chomsky, N. (1959), “Review of verbal behavior by B. F. Skinner”, Language 35 (1),

26-58.

Chomsky, N. (1965), Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chomsky, N. (1976), Reflections on Language, London: Temple Smith.

79

Chomsky, N. (1980), Rules and Representations, New York: Columbia University

Press.

Chomsky, N. (1981), Lectures on Government and Binding, Dordrecht: Foris.

Chomsky, N. (1986a), Barriers, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chomsky, N. (1986b), Knowledge of Language, its Nature, Origin, and Use, New York:

Praeger.

Chomsky, N. (1993), A minimalist program for linguistic theory, In K. Hale and S.

Keyser (Eds.), The view from Building 20 (pp. 1-52), Cambridge, MA:

MIT Press.

Chomsky, N. (1995), The Minimalist Program, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chomsky, N. (2000), New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind, Cambridge:

CUP.

Clahsen, H. and Muysken, P. (1986), “The availability of universal grammar to adult

and child learners: a study of the acquisition of German word order”, Second

Language Research, 2, 93-119.

Cook, V. J. (1993), Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition, Basingstoke:

Macmillan.

Cook, V. J. and Newson, M. (1996), Chomsky’s Universal Grammar (2nd Ed.), Oxford:

Basil Blackwell.

Çelik, İ. (2003), “The availability of Universal Grammar for Turkish adult learners of

English: Word order parameter resetting”, Unpublished master’s thesis,

Çukurova Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Adana.

80

Dommergues, R. J. and Lane, H. (1976), “On two independent sources of errors in

learning the syntax of a second language”, Language Learning, 26 (1), 111-

123.

Dulay, H. and Burt, M. (1974a), “Natural sequences in child second language

acquisition”, Language learning, 24, 37-53.

Dulay, H. and Burt, M. (1974b), “A new perspective on the creative construction

processes in child second language acquisition”, Language learning, 24, 253-

278.

Dulay, H.C. and Burt, M. (1978), Some remarks on creativity in language acquisition,

In W.Ritchie (Ed.), Second Language Acquisition Research (pp. 65-86),

New York: Academic Press.

Duskova, L. (1969), “On sources of errors in foreign language”, IRAL, 4 (11), 11-36.

Eckman, F., R. (1996), A functional-typological approach to second language

acquisition theory, In W. Ritchie and T. Bhatia (Eds.), Handbook of Second

Language Acquisition (pp. 195-209), San Diego: Academic Press.

Ekmekçi, Ö. and Çaylaklı, Y. (2001), “İngilizceyi öğrenen Türk çocuklarının bağlama

kuramına Evrensel Dilbilgisi çerçevesinde erişimi”, In Ö. Demircan and

A. Erözden (Eds.), 15. Dilbilim Kurultayı Bildiler (pp. 223-232),

İstanbul: Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi

Ekmekçi, Ö., Can, C. and Çaylaklı, Y. (2000), “Accessibility of UG in child l2

acquisition of English: Acquisition of binding principles A and B”, In L.

Zybatow (Ed.), Atken Des 35. Linguistischen Kolloquiums in Innsbruck 2000

(pp. 489-502), Innsbruck: Peter Lang.

Ellis, R. (1990), Instructed Second Language Acquisition, Oxford: Blackwell.

Ellis, R. (1991), Grammar teaching-practice or consciousness-raising, In R. Ellis (Ed.),

Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Pedagogy (pp. 232-241),

Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

81

Ellis, R. (1999), Second Language Acquisition, Oxford: OUP.

Epstein, S., Flynn, S. and Martohardjono, G. (1996), “Second language acquisition:

theoretical and experimental issues in contemporary research”, Behavioral and

Brain Sciences, 19, 677-738.

Felix, S. (1988), UG-generated knowledge in adult second language acquisition, In

S. Flynn and W. O’Neil (Eds.), Linguistic Theory in Second Language

Acquisition (pp. 277-294), Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Flynn, S. (1987), A Parameter-setting Model of L2 Acquisition, Dordrecht: Reidel.

Fries, C. (1945), Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language, Ann Arbor:

University of Michigan Press.

Gass, S. (1980), An investigation of syntactic transfer in adult second language learners,

In S. Krashen and R. Scarcella (Eds.), Research in Second Language

Research (pp. 132-141), Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Gass, S. and Varonis, E. (1994), “Input, interaction, and second language production”,

Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16, 283-302.

Haegeman, L. (1991), Introduction to Government & Binding Theory (2nd

Ed.), Oxford:

Blackwell.

Han, Z-H. (2004), Fossilization in Adult Second Language Acquisition, Clevedon:

Multilingual Matters.

Hawkins, R. (2001), “The theoretical significance of universal grammar in second

language acquisition”, Second Language Research, 17 (4), 345-367.

Hilles, S. (1991), Access to universal grammar in second language acquisition, In L.

Eubank (Ed.) Point Counterpoint: Universal Grammar in the Second

Language (pp. 305-338), Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Hyltenstam, K. (1992), Non-native features of near-native speakers: On the ultimate

attainment of childhood L2 learners, In R. Harris (Ed.) Cognitive Processing in

82

Bilinguals (pp. 351-368), Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Iwashita, N. (2003), “Negative feedback and positive evidence in task-based

interaction”, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25, 1-36.

Jackendoff, R. (1994), Patterns in the mind: Language and Human Nature, New York:

Harper Collins.

James, C. (1981), Contrastive Analysis, England: Longman.

Johnson, J. S. and Newport, E. L. (1991), “Critical period effects on universal

properties of languages: the status of subjacency in the acquisition of a second

language”, Cognition, 39, 215-58.

Kornfilt, J. (1997), Turkish, London: Routledge.

Lado, R. (1957), Linguistics Across Cultures, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Laurence, S. and Margolis, E. (2001), “The poverty of the stimulus argument”, Brit. J.

Phil. Sci., 52, 217-276, Retrieved March 13, 2005, from

http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~margolis/publications/POS.pdf

Larsen-Freeman, D. and Long, M.H. (1991), An Introduction to Second Language

Acquisition Research, London: Longman.

Lenneberg, E. (1967), Biological Foundations of Language, New York: Wiley & Sons.

Lightbown, P. M, Spada, N. and Wallace, R. (1980), Some effects of instruction on

child and adolescent ESL learners, In R. Scarcella and S. Krashen (Eds.).

Research in Second Language Acquisition (pp. 162-172), Rowley, MA:

Newbury House.

Lightbown, P. M. and Spada, N. (1999), How Languages are Learned (Rev. Ed.),

Oxford: OUP.

83

Long, M. H. (1988), Instructed interlanguage development, In L. M. Beebe (Ed.), Issues

in Second Language Acquisition: Multiple Perspectives (pp. 115–141),

Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Lyster, R. and Ranta, L. (1997), “Corrective feedback and learner uptake”, Studies in

Second Language Acquisition, 19, 37–66.

McNeill, D. (1966), The creation of language by children, In R. Wales (Ed.),

Psycholinguistics Papers, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.

Mitchell, R. and Myles, F. (1998), Second Language Learning Theories, London:

Arnold.

Miyagawa, S. (2004), “Wh-in-situ and Scrambling in the Context of Comparative Altaic

Syntax”, Proceedings of the First Workshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics, MIT

Working Papers in Linguistics, Retrieved May 31, 2005, from

http://web.mit.edu/miyagawa/www/pdfs/Wh-in-situ_scramble_WAFL.pdf

Munnich, E., Flynn, S. and Martohardjono, G. (1994), Elicited imitation and

grammaticality judgment tasks: what they measure and how they relate to each

other, In E. Tarone, S. Gass, and A. Cohen (Eds.), Research Methodology in

Second Language Acquisition (pp. 227-243), New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum

Publishers.

Oller, J. and Redding, J. (1971), “Article usage and other language skills”, Language

Learning, 21 (1), 85-95.

Patkowski, M. (1980), “The sensitive period for the acquisition of syntax in a second

language”, Language Learning, 30, 449–72.

Patkowski, M. (1990), “Age and accent in a second language: A reply to James Emil

Flege”, Applied Linguistics, 11, 73–89.

Radford, A. (1997), Syntax: A minimalist Introduction, Cambridge: CUP.

84

Ritchie, W. and Bhatia, T. (1996), Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, San

Diego: Academic Press.

Schachter, J. (1988), “Second language acquisition and its relationship to Universal

Grammar”, Applied Linguistics, 9 (3), 219-235.

Schachter, J. (1989), Testing a proposed universal, In S. M. Gass and J. Schachter

(Eds.), Linguistic Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition (pp. 73-88),

Cambridge: CUP.

Schachter, J. (1990), “On the issue of completeness in second language acquisition”,

Second Language Research, 6, 93-124.

Schachter, J. (1996), Maturation and the issue of Universal Grammar in second

language acquisition, In W. Ritchie and T. Bhatia (Eds.), Handbook of Second

Language Acquisition (pp. 159–94), San Diego: Academic Press.

Schwartz, B. D. and Tomaselli, A. (1990), Some implications from an analysis of

German word order, In W. Abraham et al. (Eds.), Issues in Germanic

Syntax (pp. 251-274), Berlin: Mouton.

Schwartz, B. and Sprouse, R.A. (1994), Word order and nominative case in non-native

language acquisition: A longitudinal study of (L1 Turkish) German

interlanguage, In T. Hoekstra and B.D. Schwartz (Eds.), Language Acquisition

Studies in Generative Grammar (pp. 317-368), Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Schwartz, B. D. and Sprouse, R. A. (1998), “Back to basics in generative second

language acquisition research”, Retrieved May 31, 2005 from,

http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/networks/NW09/schwartz.pdf

Sciarone, A. G. (1970), “Contrastive Analysis: Possibilities and limitations”, IRAL, 8

(2), 115-131.

Selinker, L. (1969), “Language Transfer”, General Linguistics 9 (2), 67- 92.

Selinker, L. (1972), “Interlanguage”, International Review of Applied Linguistics, 10

(3), 209-231.

85

Selinker, L. (1992), Rediscovering Interlanguage, London: Longman.

Selinker, L. (1996), Research proposal for grant application to the British Library.

Shim, R. J. (1994), “Englishized Korean: Structure, status and attitudes”, World

Englishes, 13, 225-244.

Towell, R. and Hawkins, R. (1994), Approaches to Second Language Acquisition,

Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Uzun, N. E. (2000), Anaçizgileriyle Evrensel Dilbilgisi ve Türkçe, İstanbul:

Multilingual.

White, L. (1988), Island effects in second language acquisition, In S. Flynn and W.

O’Neil (Eds.), Linguistic Theory in Second Language Acquisition (pp. 144-

172), Dordrecht: Kluwer.

White, L. (989), Universal Grammar and Second Language Acquisition, Amsterdam:

John Benjamins.

White, L. (1992), Subjacency violations and empty categories in L2 acquisition, In H.

Goodluck and M. Rochemont (Eds.), Island Constraints (pp. 445-464),

Dordrecht: Kluwer.

White, L. (1996), Universal grammar and second language acquisition: Current trends

and new directions, In W. Ritchie and T. Bhatia (Eds.), Handbook of Second

Language Acquisition (pp. 85-120), San Diego: Academic Press.

White, L. (1998), “Universal grammar in second language acquisition: the nature of

interlanguage representation”, Retrieved April 15, 2004, from,

http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu/

White, L. (2000), Second language acquisition: From initial to final state, In J.

Archibald (Ed.), Second Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theory (pp. 130-

155), Oxford: Blackwell.

86

White, L. (2003), Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar,

Cambridge: CUP.

Yates, R. (1990), “A parameters approach to second language research: Testing a

directionality prediction of the null subject parameter”, Unpublished doctoral

dissertation, Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois.

87

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

Grammaticality Judgment Task Name: Class: Read the sentences below. According to your understanding mark each sentence as correct or incorrect in terms of grammaticality. Example: We didn’t see who she was talking to. ( x ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect

TASK 1. They wanted to learn when they were supposed to take the test. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 2. I don’t know where he lives. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 3. Please tell me how old are you. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 4. I can’t remember which book did she buy. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 5. He told me what was he thinking about the President’s last speech on the war. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 6. She said she would never tell anybody why she called the police that day. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 7. Although she knew the correct answer, she was unable to tell us why was the other incorrect. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 8. I don’t know who those people are looking for.

88

( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 9. Do you know where is he going tomorrow? ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 10. She doesn’t know why he is angry. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 11. It’s still unknown when was he killed. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 12. I don’t know who is the president of Somalia. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 13. She was trying to learn what was the population of the USA in 1938. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 14. She will be there when the holiday season starts. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 15. Do you know whose book this is? ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 16. To whom did she give the key is still unknown. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 17. What concerned her most was his humor. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 18. Jim wants to know when will Bryan’s plane arrive. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 19. Sheila wonders how much milk there is in the jug. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 20. Mary didn’t tell me who was that woman. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect

89

21. Although I asked her a lot, she never told me with whom she was that day. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 22. She told me which house did they decide to buy. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 23. He asked everyone at the party, but nobody knew whose dog was it. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 24. We finally decided where are we going for the holiday! ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 25. How she acted at the party drew everybody’s attention. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 26. Are you going to tell me why did you leave like that on Monday? ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 27. Even if you won’t tell me whose e-mail address is this, I will find it. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 28. I finally know which high school she is going. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 29. What she wore to the party is noone’s business. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 30. Do you know how far is Denver from Texas? ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 31. The man at the information desk told me where the group was going. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 32. Can you show me which game you were good at at high school? ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 33. Did you see who she was talking to at the party? ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect

90

34. I wonder whose idea that was. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 35. She didn’t tell me whom she loved. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect 36. Professor Smith wanted to tell us to whom did he send the letter, but unfortunately he was unable to do so. ( _ ) Correct ( _ ) Incorrect

91

APPENDIX B

Task of Scrambled Sentences Name: Class: Following are scrambled sentences. Unscramble them writing the grammatical

sentence underneath.

Example:

car / do / many / you / there / in / people / how / the / know / were

Do you know how many people there were in the car?

1. book / him / didn’t / class / to / to / asked / which / bring / he / want / she / the

2. left / is / how / mystery / they / the / still / country / a

3. for / what / me / gave / I / stomachache / had / breakfast / a

4. even / didn’t / who / President / the / of / they / Turkey / was / know

5. John / like / why / that / still / unknown / behaved / is

6. whom / I / those / belonged / know / to / didn’t / books 7. is / know / whose / I / want / car / to / that

8. is / when / coming / me / she / they / not / telling / are

9. yesterday / to / which / you / want / I / took / know / bus

10. going / test / how / interest / her / pass / she / a / was / great / among / to / the /

developed / teachers

11. is / the / business / she / what / nobody’s / to / to / is / wear / going / party

92

12. was / everybody / were / to / wonder / they / where / going / a / settle / to / down

13. of / who / people / conversation / those / topic / were / was / the / their

14. problem / was / was / why / late / so / everybody / she / to / a 15. must / to / you / you / to / decide / going / send / whom / the / are / invitations

16. whose / Richard / to / head / ball / wants / hit / know / his 17. arrive / they / he / does / when / know / not 18. won / unknown / the / is / which / election / still / candidate 19. would / to / how / the / she / he / race / win / wanted / know 20. wanted / what / to / the / she / was / time / know

21. she / where / is / a / still / went / mystery

22. is / the / she / know / where / wants / post / to / office 23. hands / wanted / raised / whoever / their / to / something / say 24. why / so / they / asking / nervous / her / she / keep / is 25. secret / whom / the / Mary / with / a / left / is / party 26. very / whose / important / books / read / the / was / was / to / going / class 27. should / the / in / when / project / start / is / we / contract / the / stated 28. car / told / was / the / which / witnesses / stolen / not / was / to

93

29. how / steak / waiter / she / her / asked / wanted / the / her 30. found / told / what / her / rude / she / very / they

31. where / didn’t / the / went / we / group / want / know / to 32. stole / know / he / who / car / his / didn’t 33. him / he / his / they / sold / asked / house / why 34. important / play / are / is / going / whom / with / chess / you / to 35. finger / whose / so / the / find / easy / triggered / gun / not / was / to / out 36. their / not / by / when / house / known / was / they / anybody / sold

94

APPENDIX C

Elicited Imitation Task Name:_______________________ Class: ____________ 1. Whom you are going to play chess with is important. (___) 2. She asked him which book he didn’t want to bring to the class. (___) 3. The woman at the door wants to know where the post office is. (___) 4. Whose books the class was going to read was very important. (___) 5. Which candidate won the election is still unknown. (___) 6. She wanted to know how he would win the race. (___) 7. Her classmates have been asking her why she is so nervous. (___) 8. Where they were going to settle was a wonder to everybody. (___) 9. They didn’t even know who the President of Turkey was. (___) 10. How she was going to pass the test developed a great interest among the teachers. (___) 11. Who those people were was the topic of their conversation. (___) 12. The woman at the information desk is not telling me when they are coming. (___) 13. The man on the street wanted to know what the time was. (___) 14. You must decide to whom you are going to send the invitations. (___) 15. Whose finger triggered the gun was not so easy to find out. (___) 16. Why she was so late was a problem to everybody. (___) 17. What she is going to wear to the party is nobody’s business. (___) 18. When we should start the project is stated in the contract. (___)

95

CURRICULUM VITAE

PERSONAL DETAILS

Name: Esra ALTUNKOL

Date of Birth: 18.03.1980

Place of Birth: Adana, Turkey

Address: Yeşilevler Endüstri Meslek Lisesi, Adana, Turkey

Telephone: 0 322 361 04 65

E-mail: [email protected]

EDUCATION

2003 - 2005 : MA at Çukurova University

Institute of Social Sciences

English Language Teaching Department

Adana, Turkey

1997 - 2002 : BA at Çukurova University

Faculty of Education

English Language Teaching Department

Adana, Turkey

JOB EXPERIENCES

2004 - present : English Teacher at Yeşilevler Endüstri

Meslek Lisesi

Adana, Turkey

2002 - 2004 : English Teacher at Karaisalı Cumhuriyet

İlköğretim Okulu

Adana, Turkey

96

CONFERENCES ATTENDED

Date Institution Title

19-21 May, 2005 University of Slaski, 17th International

Poland Conference on Foreign/

Second Language

Acquisition

PAPERS PRESENTED

May 19-21 2005 To Move or not to Move: Acquisition of

L2 English syntactic movement parameter

(in collaboration with Cem Can and

Abdurrahman Kilimci)

17th International Conference

on Foreign/Second Language

Acquisition

ÇUKUROVA UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES ... · shifted from investigating this issue to...

Documents

Transcript of ÇUKUROVA UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES ... · shifted from investigating this issue to...