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In:Generative SLA in the Age of Minimalism: Features, interfaces, and beyond
Edited by Tania Leal, Elena Shimanskaya and Casilde A. Isabelli
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 67] 2022
► pp. 117–136

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Feature dependency and the poverty of the stimulus in the acquisition of L2 German plural allomorphy

 | University of Victoria
Published online: 17 August 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.67.05arc
Abstract
In this study, I investigated the acquisition of L2 German plural allomorphy via a written production task of classroom learners in North America. Trommer (2015) has argued that the mutual exclusivity of marking plural by either an [n] suffix or an umlauted (i.e. [CORONAL]) stem vowel derives from a universal property of phonological representations. The crossing of association lines, which would result from doubly linking the [CORONAL] feature (which marks the plural), is banned. The data show that the learners made many errors, but that the number of forms which suggested a violation of this universal property were statistically insignificant. I argue that these data are consistent with models showing that interlanguage phonologies are governed by universal phonological principles.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Interfaces in SLA
  • 3.Multiple exponence versus allomorphy
    • 3.1Feature geometry
  • 4.SLA and allomorphy
    • 4.1Methodology
      • 4.1.1Test items T1
      • 4.1.2Test Items T2: The test items at time 2 are given in Table 4
      • 4.1.3Data analysis
      • 4.1.4The task
      • 4.1.5Phonology, silent reading, and lexical activation
      • 4.1.6Bilingual lexicon and non-selective access
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Errors X word type: T1
    • 5.2Errors X word type: T2
    • 5.3No impossible Turkish grammars
      • 5.3.1Secondary feature spreading
      • 5.3.2No crossing constraint
    • 5.4No impossible German grammars
    • 5.5Poverty of the stimulus
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (44)
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