The acquisition of discourse-pragmatic rules for null and overt first-person subjects by Greek learners of Turkish

Abstract

In Turkish, null and overt arguments do not show the same distributional properties at discourse level. There are discourse-pragmatic factors affecting this distribution (Kerslake, 1987; Ruhi, 1996; Turan, 1995; Çeltek & Oktar, 2014; Çeltek Kaili, 2017). Previous studies suggest that the acquisition of argument realization system in second language (L2) poses a major acquisition problem for adult L2 learners, especially the properties that constrain the native use of null and overt subjects at the syntax-discourse interface are reported to cause persistent difficulty. Based on this assumption, this study investigates this problematic area in L2 acquisition from a discourse-pragmatic view. More specifically, the purpose of the present study is to inspect the acquisition of the following discourse-pragmatic rules governing the use of null and overt first-person subjects in L2 Turkish oral narratives produced by first language Greek speakers: a) salient referent, b) switch focus, c) contrastive focus, d) pragmatic weight, e) epistemic parenthetical. The data were collected via three oral narrative tasks. The participants were 10 advanced L2 Turkish learners and 10 native Turkish speakers. Results obtained from the three oral narrative tasks demonstrate that advanced L2 learners of Turkish present practically no deficiency on the use of discourse-pragmatic rules that govern the use of null and overt first-person subjects.

Keywords

• adult L2; L2 Turkish; L2 acquisition of discourse-pragmatic rules; null and overt subjects; syntax-discourse interface

References

1. Allen, S.E.M., Skarabela, B. and Hughes, M. (2008). Using corpora to examine discourse effects in syntax. In H. Behrens (Ed.) Corpora in language acquisition research: Finding structure in data (pp. 99-137). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
2. Altan, A. (2013). Acquisition of a Null Subject Language. TÖMER Dil Dergisi. 5-23.
3. Ariel, M. (1990). Accessing Noun-Phrase Antecedents. London: Routledge.
4. Ateş-Şen, A.B., Demir, Ö.E., Küntay, A.C. (2016). Children’s referential choices in Turkish: Experimentally elicited and conversationally occasioned determinants. In B. Haznedar & N. Ketrez (Eds), The Acquisition of Turkish in Childhood (TİLAR Series) (pp. 153-175). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
5. Aygen, G. (2004). Finiteness, Case and Clausal Architecture. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics 23.
6. Azar, Z., Backus, A. and Özyürek, A. (2016). Pragmatic relativity: Gender and context affect the use of personal pronouns in discourse differentially across languages. In A. Papafragou, D. Grodner, D. Mirman and J. Trueswell (Eds), Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2016), (pp. 1295-1300). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
7. Bulut, T. and Can, C. (2000). Acquiring a Pro-drop Language. Dil Dergisi, 88, 54-60.
8. Brinton, L. J. (1996). Pragmatic Markers in English: Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions. De Gruyter Mouton.

9. Chafe, W. (1987). Cognitive constraints and information flow. In R. Tomlin (Ed.), Coherence and grounding in discourse (pp. 21-51). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
10. Çeltek Kaili, A. (2017). Türkçe sözlü söylemde boş nesne [Null objects in Turkish spoken discourse]. In N. Kansu-Yetkiner and M. Şahin (Eds) Dilbilim Çeviribilim Yazıları: Prof. Dr. Lütfiye Oktar'a Armağan, (pp. 67-79). Ankara: Anı Yayıncılık. ISBN: 978-605-170-157-8
11. Çeltek, A. and Oktar, L. (2004). Türkçe sözlü söylemde artgönderim örüntüleri [Anaphoric patterns in Turkish spoken discourse]. Dilbilim Araştırmaları, 1-13.
12. Çeltek, A. and Oktar, L. (2014). Türkçede boş artgönderim ve söylem atlama [Zero anaphora and discourse pop in Turkish]. Dilbilim Araştırmaları 2014/I. İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınevi, 59-79. ISSN: 1300-8552
13. Çeltek, A. and Oktar, L. (2107). Türkçe söylemde boş nesne [Null objects in Turkish discourse]. B. Makaroğlu, İ. P. Bekar and E. Arıca Akkök (Eds), 30. Ulusal Dilbilim Kurultayı Bildirileri (pp. 125-132). Ankara: Dilbilim Derneği Yayınları.
14. Davidson, Β. (1996). “Pragmatic weight” and Spanish subject pronouns: the pragmatic and discourse uses of “tú” and “yo” in spoken Madrid Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics 26: 543-565.
15. Domínguez, L. and Arche, M. J. (2008) Optionality in L2 grammars: the acquisition of SV/VS contrast in Spanish. In H. Chan, H. Jacob and E. Kapia (Eds), Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 96-107). Cascadilla.
16. Du Bois, J. W. (1987). The discourse basis of ergativity. Language 64: 805-855.
17. Enç, M. (1986). Topic Switching and Pronominal Subjects in Turkish. In D. Slobin and K. Zimmer (Eds), Studies in Turkish Linguistics (pp. 195-208). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
18. Givón, T. (1983). Topic continuity in discourse: the functional domain of switch-reference. In: J. Haiman and P. Munro (Eds) Switch reference and Universal Grammar, (pp. 51-82). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
19. Göksel, A. and Kerslake, C. (2005). Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge.
20. Gundel, J., Hedberg, N. and Zacharski, R. (1993). Cognitive Status and the form of Referring Expressions in Discourse. Language, 69, 274-307.
21. Gürel, A. (2006). L2 acquisition of pragmatic and syntactic constraints in the use of overt and null subject pronouns. In R. Slabakova, P. Prévost and S. Montrul (Eds), Inquiries in Linguistic Development (pp. 259-282). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
22. Gürel, A. (2016). Conclusion: Emerging issues in the acquisition of L2 Turkish and pedagogical considerations. In A. Gürel (Ed.), Second Language Acquisition of Turkish (pp. 333-346). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
23. Haznedar, B. (2010). Transfer at the syntax-pragmatics interface: pronominal subjects in bilingual Turkish. Second Language Research, 26 (3), 355-378.
24. Holton, D., Mackridge, P., Philippaki-Warburton, I. and Spyropoulos, V. (2012, second edition). Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar. London & New York: Routledge.
25. Kerslake, C. (1987). Noun Phrase Deletion and Pronominalization in Turkish. H. E. Boeschoten and L. T. Verhoeven (Eds), Studies on Modern Turkish: Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Turkish Linguistics (pp. 91-104). Tilburg: Tilburg University Press.
26. Kornfilt, J. (1987). Beyond Binding Conditions: The Case of Turkish. In H. E. Boeschoten and L. T. Verhoeven (Eds), Studies on Modern Turkish: Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Turkish Linguistics (pp. 105-120). Tilburg: Tilburg University Press.
27. Kornfilt, J. (1997). Turkish. London: Routledge.
28. Lomba, A. (2006). Little Red Riding Hood. New-York: McGraw-Hill.
29. Montrul, S. and Rodríguez-Louro, C. (2006). Beyond the Syntax of the Null Subject Parameter: A Look at the Discourse-Pragmatic Distribution of Null and Overt Subjects by L2 Learners of Spanish. In V. Torrens and L. Escobar (Eds) The Acquisition of Syntax in Romance Languages, (pp. 401–418). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
30. Özsoy, S. (1987). The Null Subject Parameter in Turkish. In H. Boeschoten and L. Verhoeven (Eds), Studies on Modern Turkish: Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Turkish Linguistics (pp. 82-90). Tilburg: Tilburg University Press.
31. Özsoy, S. (1992). Türkçede Eşgönderge Örüntüsü. Dilbilim Araştırmaları,77-85.
32. Özsoy, S. (1999). Türkçe/Turkish. İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınları.
33. Öztürk, B. (2004) Case, Referentiality, and Phrase Structure, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University.
34. Pérez-Leroux, A. T. and Glass, W. R. (1997). OPC effects on the L2 acquisition of Spanish. In A. T. Pérez-Leroux and W. R. Glass (Eds), Contemporary perspectives on the acquisition of Spanish (pp. 149165). Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla Press.
35. Pérez-Leroux, A. T. and Glass, W. R. (1999). Null anaphora in Spanish second language acquisition: probabilistic versus generative approaches. Second Language Research. 15(2), 220-249.
36. Prince, E. (1985). Fancy syntax and shared knowledge. Journal of Pragmatics 9, 65–81.
37. Quesada, M. and Blackwell, S. E. (2009). The L2 Acquisition of Null and Overt Spanish Subject Pronouns: A Pragmatic Approach. In J. Collentine, M. Garcia, B. Lafford and F. Marcos Marín (Eds), Selected Proceedings of the 11th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, (pp. 117-130). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
38. Quesada, M. (2015). The L2 Acquisition of Spanish Subjects: Multiple Perspectives. De Gruyter Mouton.
39. Ruhi, Ş. (1996). Zero NP Anaphora versus Full NP Anaphora in Turkish. In A. Konrot (Ed.), Modern Studies in Turkish Linguistics: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Turkish Linguistics, 12-14 August 1992 (pp. 105-116) Eskişehir: Anadolu University.
40. Serratrice, L. (2005). The role of discourse pragmatics in the acquisition of subjects in Italian. Applied Psycholinguistics, 26(3), 437-462. doi:10.1017/S0142716405050241
41. Serratrice, L., Sorace, A. and Paoli, S. (2004). Crosslinguistic influence at the syntax-pragmatics interface: Subjects and objects in English-Italian bilingual and monolingual acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7, 183–205.
42. Slabakova, R., and Ivanov, I. (2011). A more careful look at the syntax-pragmatics interface. Lingua, 121, 637–651. DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2010.05.003
43. Sorace, A. (2000). Syntactic optionality in non-native grammars. Second Language Research 16 (2), 93–102.
44. Sorace, A. (2003). Near-nativeness. In M. Long and C. Doughty (Eds), Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (pp.130-152). Oxford: Blackwell.
45. Sorace, A. and Filiaci, F. (2006). Anaphora resolution in near-native speakers of Italian. Second Language Research 22, 339–368.
46. Sorace, A. and Serratrice, L. (2009). Internal and external interfaces in bilingual language development: beyond structural overlap. International Journal of Bilingualism 13, 195–210.
47. Taylan, E.E. (1986). Pronominal versus Zero Representation of Anaphora in Turkish. In D. Slobin and K. Zimmer (Eds), Studies in Turkish Linguistics (pp. 209-231.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
48. Tsimpli, I., Sorace, A., Heycock, C. and Filiaci, F. (2004). First language attrition and syntactic subjects: A study of Greek and Italian near-native speakers of English". International Journal of Bilingualism, 8 (3), 257-277.
49. Tsimpli, I.M. and D. Papadopoulou 2006. Aspect and argument realization: A study on antecedentless null objects in Greek. Lingua 116, 1595-1615.
50. Tsimpli, I.-M. and Sorace, A. (2006). Differentiating interfaces: L2 performance in syntax-semantics and syntax-discourse phenomena. In D. Bamman, T. Magnitskaia, C. Zaller, (Eds), Proceedings of the 30th Annual BUCLD (pp. 653–664). Cascadilla Press, Somerville, MA.
51. Turan, Ümit D. (1995). Null vs. Overt Subjects in Turkish Discourse: A Centering Analysis. unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
52. Turan, Ü. D. (1998). Zero Object Arguments and referentiality in Turkish. In L. Johanson (Ed.), The Mainz Meeting, Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Turkish Linguistics August 3-6, 1994 (pp. 154-182). Harrassowitz Verlag – Wiesbaden.
53. Turan, Ü. D. (2000) The properties of null objects in Turkish. Anadolu Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi. 1 (2), 131-144.
54. White, L. (2011). Second language acquisition at the interfaces. Lingua, 121, 577–590. DOI:10.1016/j.lingua.2010.05.005