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Article published In: Language, Interaction and Acquisition
Vol. 11:2 (2020) ► pp.232–267

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Word formation in the earliest stages of L2 Polish

The use of derivational morphology in reference to human entities

 | Università degli Studi di Bergamo
Published online: 25 November 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lia.19012.sat
Abstract
This paper examines word formation strategies in initial SLA, with particular regard to the implicit processing of the distributional properties of the input. Learners with various L1s and no experience of the target language (n=163) took a 14-hour L2 Polish course under controlled input conditions. In an oral production task, these learners were asked to describe properties of human referents who had never appeared in the input by stating their nationality or profession. In their output, the learners most often referred to the target referents by attaching a -k(-) sound cluster to a lexical morpheme borrowed from a known language. Quantitative analysis shows that indeed, within the input considered, the same -k(-) cluster is characteristic of most words referring to human entities. The study concludes that learners can analyse the morphological structure of target words even after minimal exposure to the input, identifying at first the derivational formants characterised by the strongest association to the intended meaning.
Résumé
Dans cet article, nous analysons les stratégies de formation des mots dans les premières étapes de l’acquisition d’une nouvelle L2 à la lumière des propriétés distributionnelles de l’input. 163 apprenants débutants de différentes langues sources ont été exposés à l’input en polonais sous la forme d’un cours d’initiation à cette langue d’une durée de 14h. L’input a été entièrement enregistré, transcrit et codé. Dans une tâche de production orale, les apprenants ont répondu à des questions sur l’identité (nationalité et profession) d’un certain nombre d’entités humaines qui étaient absentes de l’input. Dans les productions recueillies, les items cibles sont le plus souvent accompagnés par le morphème -k(-); ce morphème est associé à un morphème lexical appartenant à une des langues connues des apprenants. En effet, -k(-) dans l’input correspond aux caractéristiques d’un grand nombre de mots référant aux entités humaines. Les résultats montrent que les apprenants peuvent analyser la structure morphologique des mots de la L2 même après une exposition minimale à l’input, en identifiant d’abord les morphèmes dérivationnels dont la relation avec une signification donnée semble particulièrement évidente.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Theoretical background
    • 1.2The target structure: Polish nominal inflection
  • 2.Research questions and hypotheses
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1The VILLA project
    • 3.2Participants
    • 3.3The question & answer task
    • 3.4Input: Word-final clusters
      • 3.4.1The word-final -k(-) cluster in the input
      • 3.4.2Form-function association in the VILLA input
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Learner output: Quantitative results
      • 4.1.1Variation by target noun
      • 4.1.2Input exposure and cross-linguistic influence
      • 4.1.3Inferential statistics
    • 4.2Learner output: Qualitative overview
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Primitive and derived words
    • 5.2Measures of form-function association: Function
    • 5.3Measures of form-function association: Form
    • 5.4Limitations and suggestions for future work
  • 6.Summary and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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