Acquisition of Structures at Syntax-Discourse Interface: Post-Verbal Subjects in L2 English
Abstract
The present study explores the acceptability of postverbal subjects by intermediate and advanced L2 English learners with L1 Macedonian, a pro-drop Slavic language with rich verbal morphology. The two languages differ regarding the distribution of subject-verb inversion (SVI): in Macedonian, it is a default pattern in thetic sentences, but English severely restricts SVI to specific contexts. To test the hypothesis that Macedonian learners encounter difficulties in acquisition of English SVI because of crosslinguistic influence, a grammaticality judgement and correction task was administered to two groups of Macedonian learners of
English and a control group of English native speakers. The results revealed that L2 learners find English VS sentences and VS + it-insertion examples more acceptable than the native speakers, but the performance of the advanced group is closer to the native speakers than to the intermediate learners. Both non-native groups accept more readily inappropriate English sentences that conform to typical L1 structures.
Keywords
subject inversion; information structure; word order; interface hypothesis
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AUE-FON University in Skopje Macedonia, Republic of
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4447-4289
Liljana Mitkovska is professor emerita at AUE-FON University, North Macedonia. Her research interests comprise Macedonian linguistics from typological perspective, contrastive linguistics, second/foreign language acquisition and discourse analysis. Her research centres on the functional and discourse-pragmatic aspects of language structures, linguistic variation and grammaticalization, as well as crosslinguistic influence in language learning. Her works on various linguistic topics have been presented at numerous international conferences and published in edited volumes worldwide and in some high ranked journals.
Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje Macedonia, Republic of
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1334-0501
Eleni Bužarovska is professor of linguistics in the English department at Ss. Cyril & Methodius University in Skopje, North Macedonia. Her research encompasses issues from both theoretical and applied linguistics with a special focus on the typology of Balkan languages and contact phenomena within the Balkan context. Her special interest in the field of SLA is the role of L1 in the acquisition of English as a foreign language. Apart from co-authoring several books, she has published a number of articles in international journals and edited volumes on language change and on comparison of syntax-semantic features in South Slavic languages.
Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje Macedonia, Republic of
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1221-0999
Natasha Stojanovska-Ilievska is an associate professor at Blaže Koneski Faculty of Philology, Ss.Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. She teaches both undergraduate courses (English Syntax, Academic Writing) and graduate-level courses (Contrastive Linguistic Studies) and has had 25 years of teaching experience. Her research interests centre around the areas of syntax, discourse analysis, corpus linguistics and contrastive analysis.
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