Cover not available

In:Second Language Acquisition of Turkish
Edited by Ayşe Gürel
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 59] 2016
► pp. 107–133

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

The causative/inchoative morphology in L2 Turkish under the Feature Reassembly Approach

ORCiD logo with link | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Published online: 25 May 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.59.05mon
According to the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere 2009), L2 learners must acquire, reassembly, or reconfigure features into lexical items in the L2 from the way represented and bundled in their L1. This study extends this approach to the acquisition of two classes of causative verbs – change of state verbs with agentive subjects (kırmak-break) and psychological change of state verbs with experiencer objects (korkutmak-frighten) in L2 Turkish by L1 speakers of English, Spanish and Japanese. The results of a picture judgment task with transitive and intransitive sentences manipulating overt/non-overt morphology on the verbs showed that the L2 learners’ judgments were constrained by the morphological patterns of the learners’ L1s, experiencing different degrees of difficulty with the lexical realization of those features.
References (57)
References
Aksu-Koç, A. & Slobin, D. 1985. The acquisition of Turkish. In The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, D. Slobin (ed.), 839–878. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Allen, S. 1996. Aspects of Argument Structure in Inuktitut [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 13]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bailey, N., Madden, C. & Krashen, S. 1974. Is there a “natural sequence” in adult second language learning? Language Learning 24: 235–243. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beard, R. 1995. Lexeme-morpheme Based Morphology. Albany NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berman, R. 1993. Marking of verb transitivity by Hebrew-speaking children. Journal of Child Language 20: 642–669. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, J.D. 1980. Relative merits of four methods for scoring cloze tests. Modern Language Journal 64: 311–317. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chen, D. 1996. L2 Acquisition of English Psych Predicates by French and Chinese Native Speakers. PhD dissertation, McGill University, Montréal.
Chierchia, G. 2004. A semantics for unaccusatives and its syntactic consequences. In The Unaccusativity Puzzle: Explorations of the Syntax-Lexicon Interface, A. Alexiadou, E. Anagnostopoulou, & M. Everaert (eds), 22–59. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clahsen, H. Blakhair, L., Schutter, J. S. & Cunnings, I. 2013. The time course of morphological processing in a second language. Second Language Research 29: 7–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeKeyser, R. 1997. Beyond explicit rule learning: Automatized second language morphosyntax. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 19: 195–221. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dressler, W. 2012. On the acquisition of inflectional morphology. Morphology 22: 1–8. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dowty, D. 1979. Word Meaning and Montague Grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Friedline, B. 2011. Challenges in the Second Language Acquisition of Derivational Morphology. From Theory to Practice. PhD dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
Göksel, A. & Kerslake, C. 2005. Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grimshaw, J. 1990. Argument Structure. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haegeman, L. 1985. The Get passive and Burzio’s generalization. Lingua 66: 53–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halle, M. & Marantz, A. 1993. Distributed morphology. In The View from Building 20. Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger, K. Hale & S. Keyser (eds), 111–176. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harley, H. & Noyer, R. 2000. Formal versus encyclopedic properties of vocabulary: Evidence from nominalizations. In The Lexicon-encyclopedia Interface, B. Peters (ed.), 349–374. 
Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haspelmath, M. 1993. More on the typology of inchoative/causative verb alternations. In Causatives and Transitivity [Studies in Lanuage Companion Series 23], B. Comrie & 
M. Polinsky (eds), 87–120. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hirakawa, M. 1995. L2 acquisition of English unaccusative constructions. In Proceedings of the 19th Boston University Conference on Language Development, D. MacLaughlin & S. McEwen (eds), 291–302. Sommerville MA: Cascadilla Press.
Hwang, S.H. & Lardiere, D. 2013. Plural marking in L2 Korean: A feature-based approach. Second Language Research 29: 57–86. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jiang, N. 2002. Form-meaning mapping in vocabulary acquisition in a second language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 24: 617–637. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Juffs, A. 1996. Learnability and the Lexicon: Theories and Second Language Acquisition Research [Language Acquisition and Language Disorder 12]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kornfilt, J. 1997. Turkish. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lardiere, D. 2009. Some thoughts on a contrastive analysis of features in second language acquisition. Second Language Research 25: 173–227. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Ultimate Attainment in Second Language Acquisition: A Case Study. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lardiere, D. & Schwartz, B.D. 1997. Feature-marking in the L2 development of deverbal compounds. Journal of Linguistics 33: 327–353. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Legate, A.J. & Yang, C. 2007. Mophosyntactic learning and the development of Tense. Language Acquisition 14: 315–344. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levin, B. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations. Chicago IL: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levin, B. & Rappaport Hovav, M. 1995. Unaccusativity at the Syntax-semantics Interface. 
Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marantz, A. 1984. On the Nature of Grammatical Relations. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1997. No escape from syntax: Don’t try morphological analysis in the privacy of your own lexicon. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 4: 201–225.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Montrul, S. 1999a. Causative errors with unaccusative verbs in L2 Spanish. Second Language Research 15: 191–219. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999b. Se o no se: Transitive and intransitive verbs in L2 Spanish. Spanish Applied Linguistics 3: 145–194.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000a. Transitivity alternations in second language acquisition: Toward a modular view of transfer. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 22: 229–274. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000b. Causative psych verbs in Spanish L2 acquisition. In Spanish Applied Linguistics at the Turn of the Millennium: Papers from the 1999 Conference on the L1 & L2 Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese , R. Leow & C. Sanz (eds), 97–118. Sommerville MA: Cascadilla Press.
. 2001a. First-language-constrained variability in the second-language acquisition of argument-structure-changing morphology with causative verbs. Second Language Research 17: 144–194. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001b. Causatives and transitivity in L2 English. Language Learning 51: 51–106. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morales, A. 2014. Production and Comprehension of Verb Agreement Morphology in Spanish and English Child L2 Learners: Evidence for the Effects of Morphological Structure. PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Morikawa, H. 1991. Acquisition of causatives in Japanese. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 30: 80–87.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oshita, H. 2000. What is happened may not be what appears to be happening: a corpus study of ‘passive’ unaccusatives in L2 English. Second Language Research 16: 293–324.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pesetsky, D. 1995. Zero Syntax. Experiencers and Cascades. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ramchand, G. 2013. Argument structure and argument structure alternations. In The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax, M. den Dikken (ed.), 265–321. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reinhart, T. 2002. The theta system – an overview. Theoretical Linguistics 28: 229–290.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwartz, B. & Sprouse, R. 1996. L2 cognitive states and the Full Transfer/Full Access Model. Second Language Research 12: 40–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slabakova, R. 2008. Meaning in the Second Language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Toth, P. 1999. Preemption in instructed learners of Spanish as a foreign language: Acquiring a rule for se . Spanish Applied Linguistics 3: 195–246.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000. The interaction of instruction and learner-internal factors in the acquisition of L2 morphosyntax. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 22: 169–208. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Teacher- and learner-led discourse in task-based grammar instruction: Providing procedural assistance for L2 morphosyntactic development. Language Learning 58: 237–283. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. Social and cognitive factors in making teacher-led classroom discourse relevant for second language development. The Modern Language Journal 95: 1–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Underhill, R. 1976. Turkish Grammar. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Verkuyl, H. 1993. A Theory of Aspectuality. Cambrige: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
VanPatten, B. 1996. Input Processing and Grammar Instruction in Second Language Acquisition. Norwood NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Volpe, J. 2005. Japanese Morphology and its Theoretical Consequences. Derivational Morphology in Distributed Morphology. PhD dissertation, State University of New York, Stony Brook.
White, L., Montrul, S., Hirakawa, M., Chen, D., Bruhn-Garavito, J. & Brown, C. 1998. L2 psych verbs and the T/SM restriction: The status of a zero causative morpheme. In Morphology and its Interfaces in Second Language Knowledge [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 19], M. Beck (ed.), 257–282. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zobl, H. 1989. Canonical typological structure and ergativity in English L2 acquisition. In Linguistic Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition, S. Gass & J. Schachter (eds), 203–221. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Gonzalez, Becky
2023. A lexical semantic approach to the L2 acquisition of Spanish psych verbs. Second Language Research 39:3 ► pp. 731 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue