Article published In: Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 14:6 (2024) ► pp.915–933
That-trace effects in Najdi Arabic L2 learners of English
A partial replication
Published online: 27 August 2024
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.24008.ald
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.24008.ald
Abstract
The current study is a partial replication of Kim, B., & Goodall, G. (2024). The
source of that-trace effect: New evidence from L2 English. Second Language
Research, 40(1), 79–102. ,
who tested competing predictions of two prominent accounts of that-trace effects, which are argued to emerge due
to either syntactic constraints or considerations of the production system. To tease apart these possibilities, Kim and Goodall
examine L2 sensitivity to that-trace effects, as the two accounts implicitly have different expectations
regarding L2 performance. Their results showed a non-native pattern of acceptability judgments for Korean and Spanish learners of
English, whose L1s do not display that-trace effects, which are argued to support a production-based account. The
current study extends their experiment to Nadji Arabic L2 learners of English, whose L1 critically exhibits
that-trace effects, allowing us to probe whether previous findings can be accounted for by processing
difficulties or L1 background. Our results indicated that despite L2 learners’ native-like sensitivity at the group level, lower
proficiency was associated with non-native-like subject extraction effects, in line with Kim and Goodall’s results. Overall,
findings from an acceptability judgment task suggest that L2 sensitivity to that-trace effects does not involve
transfer of a syntactic constraint, but is something that develops with proficiency, more in line with a production-based
account.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Theoretical accounts of that-trace effects
- 1.2That-trace effects in L2 learners
- 2.Current study
- 2.1That-trace effect in Najdi Arabic
- 2.2Method
- 2.2.1Participants
- 2.2.2Materials
- 2.2.3Procedure
- 2.3Predictions
- 3.Results
- 4.Discussion
- 4.1The role of proficiency
- 5.Conclusion
- Data availability statement
- Notes
References
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