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The acquisition of word order in L2 Norwegian: The case of subject and object shift

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2018

Merete Anderssen ,
Kristine Bentzen ,
Guro Busterud ,
Anne Dahl ,
Björn Lundquist  and
Marit Westergaard
Merete Anderssen
Affiliation:
Merete Anderssen, Kristine Bentzen, Björn Lundquist & Marit Westergaard, CASTL/The Department of Language and Culture, The University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway, NO-9037 Tromsø, Norway. merete.anderssen@uit.no, kristine.bentzen@uit.no, bjorn.lundquist@uit.no, marit.westergaard@uit.no
Kristine Bentzen
Affiliation:
Merete Anderssen, Kristine Bentzen, Björn Lundquist & Marit Westergaard, CASTL/The Department of Language and Culture, The University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway, NO-9037 Tromsø, Norway. merete.anderssen@uit.no, kristine.bentzen@uit.no, bjorn.lundquist@uit.no, marit.westergaard@uit.no
Guro Busterud
Affiliation:
Anne Dahl & Guro Busterud, Department of Language and Literature, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway. anne.j.dahl@ntnu.no, guro.busterud@ntnu.no
Anne Dahl
Affiliation:
Anne Dahl & Guro Busterud, Department of Language and Literature, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway. anne.j.dahl@ntnu.no, guro.busterud@ntnu.no
Björn Lundquist
Affiliation:
Merete Anderssen, Kristine Bentzen, Björn Lundquist & Marit Westergaard, CASTL/The Department of Language and Culture, The University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway, NO-9037 Tromsø, Norway. merete.anderssen@uit.no, kristine.bentzen@uit.no, bjorn.lundquist@uit.no, marit.westergaard@uit.no
Marit Westergaard
Affiliation:
Merete Anderssen, Kristine Bentzen, Björn Lundquist & Marit Westergaard, CASTL/The Department of Language and Culture, The University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway, NO-9037 Tromsø, Norway. merete.anderssen@uit.no, kristine.bentzen@uit.no, bjorn.lundquist@uit.no, marit.westergaard@uit.no
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Abstract

This article reports on a syntactic acceptability judgement study of 59 adult L2/Ln learners of Norwegian and a group of native controls, studying subject and object shift. These constructions involve movement of (mainly) pronominal subjects or objects across negation/adverbs. Both subject shift and object shift display considerable micro-variation in terms of syntax and information structure, dependent on factors such as nominal type (pronoun vs. full DP), function (subject vs. object), and information status (given vs. new/focused). Previous studies have shown that Norwegian children have an early preference for the unshifted position in both constructions, but that they acquire subject shift relatively early (before age 3). Object shift, on the other hand, is typically not in place until after age 6–7. Importantly, children are conservative learners, and never shift elements that should not move in the adult language. The results of the current study show that L2/Ln learners do not make all the fine distinctions that children make, in that they have a clear preference for all subjects in shifted position and all objects in unshifted position, although some distinctions fall into place with increased proficiency. Importantly, unlike children, the L2/Ln learners are not conservative learners; rather, they over-accept syntactic movement in several cases. The equivalent to this in language production would be to apply syntactic movement where it is not attested in the target language, which would be the opposite behaviour to that observed in L1 children.

Keywords

conservative learningeconomyfrequencyinformation structureL1 vs. L2/Ln acquisitionmicro-variationsyntactic movement
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , December 2018 , pp. 247 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © Nordic Association of Linguistics 2018 

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