Conceptual and Grammatical Plurality of Conjoined NPs in L2 Sentence Comprehension/JASELE2016

Tamura, Y. (2016). Conceptual and grammatical plurality of conjoined NPs in L2 sentence comprehension. Paper presented at The 42nd Annual Conference of the Japan Society of English Language Education (JASELE 2016). Saitama, Japan.

Transcript

1. Conceptual and Grammatical Plurality of Conjoined NPs in L2 Sentence Comprehension August 20, 2016 The 42nd JASELE Dokkyo University 1
2. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion 2
3. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion 3
4. Yu TAMURA Graduate School, Nagoya University Japan Society for the Promotion of Science 4
5. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion 5
6. • Mike and Tom are/*is going to help us. • Coordinate NPs = always plural? -> NO • It depends on the referent • Harry and only Harry is/*are going to be allowed to read this. • Pickles and ice cream is delicious. • Pickles and ice cream are delicious. (Morgan, 1984, p.72) Semantic properties matter! Number determination 6 Background
7. • Always semantics win? -> NO • * There are a cat and a dog in the yard. • There is a cat and a dog in the yard. • Native speakers of English tend to make the first conjunct agreement (Sobin, 1997) Number determination is a mixture of syntax, morphology, and semantics • In this study, I will use conceptual plurality to refer to the semantics of number. Number determination 7 Background
8. Mechanism for L1 Production 8 Background •Marking and Morphing (Bock, Eberhard, & Cutting, 2004) •Marking (Clause level procedure) •conceptual number -> grammatical number Subject -> plural Subject -> singular
9. Mechanism for L1 Production 9 Background •Marking and Morphing (Bock, Eberhard, & Cutting, 2004) •Morphing (Phrase level procedure) •Morphological number -> grammatical number bananas scissors NP[plural] NP[plural]
10. Mechanism for L1 Production 10 Background • Conceptual number and grammatical number sometimes differ • Scissors, tweezers, etc. • Conceptually singular but grammatically plural • Family, audience, etc. • Conceptually plural but grammatically singular • Conceptual number could override grammatical number (Humphreys & Bock, 2005; Vigliocco, Butterworth, & Garrett, 1996) • The two number marking processes are independent (Bock et al., 2004) • Marking and Morphing approach works for L1 sentence comprehension too(Wagers, Lau, & Phillips, 2009)
11. • Processing plural morphemes is difficult for L2 learners • They know the rule but can’t use it in online (Jiang, 2004, 2007, Jiang et al., 2011) • What is easier for L2 learners? • Syntactically denoted plurality (Shibuya & Wakabayashi, 2008) • e.g., Tom and Mary • Lexically denoted plurality (e.g., Jiang et al., 2015) • e.g., these books, several bags, two cats, many apples Processing Plurality in SLA 11 Background
12. • Garden-path effects (Tamura et al., 2015) • (a) When the lovers kissed the boy played… • (b) When the boy and the girl kissed the boy played… • No garden-path effects in (b) • L2 learners are capable of representing conjoined NPs as conceptually plural • Is syntactically denoted plurality easier? • Shibuya and Wakabayashi (2008) only investigated over the use of the third-person singular -s • e.g., Tom and Mary cook/*cooks… Conceptual Plurality in L2 Comprehension 12 Background
13. • Advanced L2 learners were able to utilize conceptual number information during production (Foote, 2010) • Few studies investigated the role of conceptual number information during sentence comprehension (except Kusanagi, Tamura, Fukuta, 2015; Tamura et al., 2015) Problems 13 Background Shouldn’t we examine conceptual number processing in L2 sentence comprehension?
14. • Number agreement between the conjoined NP and copula • e.g., My mother and his father *is/are in New York City. • Two possibilities • Conceptual plurality ̋ & Grammatical plurality ̋ • Conceptual plurality ̋ & Grammatical plurality ☓ Hypothesis 14 Background Focus of the present study
15. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion 15
16. • 32 Japanese undergraduate and graduate students • Identical to those who participated in Tamura et al. (2015) Participants 16 The Present Study n M SD Min Max skew kurtosis Age 31 24.77 5.35 20 40 1.57 1.23 TOEIC 32 824.22 113.12 550 990 -0.61 -0.44 Study abroad (month) 18 11.36 13.28 0.5 54 1.89 3.28 Years of learning English 32 13.59 5.85 8 36 2.18 5.05 Starting age 31 11.03 4.66 2 25 1.02 2.47 Table 1. Demographic Information of the Participants
17. • Word by word self-paced reading task on PC • developed by Hot Soup Processor (ver 3.3.2) Experiment 17 The Present Study __ ___ __ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ____ The ____ __ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ___ ____ mother __ _____ __ _____ ___ ____ ____ __ boy __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ___ ____ __ boy __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ___ ___ ____ __ _____ __ _____ ___ __ now. __ ____ __ ___ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ࣍΁
18. • 20 pairs of target sentences (DP and DP BE PP) • *The mother and his son is in the cottage now. • The mother and his son are in the cottage now. • 68 distractor items • One-third of the distractor items was followed by comprehension questions • Mean Accuracy of the comprehension questions • 82.8% (SD = 11.4) • Two counterbalanced lists • Two sessions with a few minutes break Materials 18 The Present Study
19. • Outliers • Each participant’s means and SDs of RTs in each condition were calculated • Responses above the Mean RTs +/- 3SD were removed • Responses below 200ms were removed • Overall, 4.4% of all the responses were removed Analysis 19 The Present Study
20. • Generalized Linear Mixed-Effects Model (GLMM) by R 3.3.0 • Explanatory variables • Agreement condition (2 levels) • singular or plural •Covariate •The number of letters •Response variables •Raw RTs • Distribution family and link function • Inverse-Gaussian distribution and identity-link Analysis 20 The Present Study
21. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion 21
22. Reading Time Differences 22 Results father is/are in New York sg 593 (194) 471 (113) 462 (134) 478 (134) 535 (153) pl 570 (187) 486 (104) 434 (82) 441 (110) 519 (130) Table 2. Mean RTs (ms) and SDs (parentheses) in each condition Note. sg = singular; pl = plural
23. Reading Time Differences 23 Results father is/are in New York sg 593 (194) 471 (113) 462 (134) 478 (134) 535 (153) pl 570 (187) 486 (104) 434 (82) 441 (110) 519 (130) Table 2. Mean RTs (ms) and SDs (parentheses) in each condition Note. sg = singular; pl = plural
24. Reading Time Differences 24 Results 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 father is/are in New York RT(ms) sg pl
25. Reading Time Differences 25 Results 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 father is/are in New York RT(ms) sg pl
26. Reading Time Differences 26 Results father is/are in New York Note. Dotted lines are mean RTs
27. Region 4 27 Results Random effects Fixed effects By Subject By Items Parameters Estimate SE t p SD SD Intercept 617.34 37.55 16.44 <.001 91.73 43.11 c.letters 16.33 7.98 2.05 .04 — — Condition 7.30 19.93 0.37 .71 64.47 — My mother and his father is/are in New York City. Table 3. The Results of GLMM in Region 4
28. Region 5 28 Results My mother and his father is/are in New York City. Random effects Fixed effects By Subject By Items Parameters Estimate SE t p SD SD Intercept 496.45 35.85 13.85 <.001 63.30 31.94 c.letters -3.84 21.17 -0.18 .86 — — Condition -21.50 27.15 -0.79 .43 26.39 45.39 Table 4. The Results of GLMM in Region 5
29. Region 6 29 Results My mother and his father is/are in New York City. Random effects Fixed effects By Subject By Items Parameters Estimate SE t p SD SD Intercept 509.78 24.21 21.06 <.001 53.88 22.49 c.letters 25.88 7.08 3.66 <.001 — — Condition 26.06 18.75 1.39 .16 63.72 — Table 4. The Results of GLMM in Region 6
30. Region 7 30 Results My mother and his father is/are in New York City. Random effects Fixed effects By Subject By Items Parameters Estimate SE t p SD SD Intercept 500.70 24.41 20.51 <.001 60.61 31.34 c.letters 30.63 8.09 3.79 <.001 — — Condition 26.77 21.96 1.22 .22 77.49 — Table 5. The Results of GLMM in Region 7
31. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion 31
32. • No reading time differences between singular and plural agreement conditions in the target region • No spill-over effects were found in Region 6 and 7 Summary of the Results 32 Discussion
33. • The participants succeeded in using conceptual plurality in processing conjoined NP (Tamura et al., 2015) • However, in this study • The same participants did not notice number agreement mismatches (A and B *is/are….) • They failed to utilize grammatical number Two Types of Plurality 33 Discussion
34. Processing Mechanism 34 Discussion Tamura et al. (2015) the boy and the girl The Present Study the boy and the girl [plural]
35. Discussion Temporal comprehension processing model [My mother and his father] NP NP and ConjP NP[ ] Subject Object pl MESSAGE 35
36. • Questions remained unsolved • Can L2 learners of English extract conceptual plurality from morphological plurality? • bananas -> • Can L2 learners of English extract conceptual plurality from morphological plurality if lexical support is provided? • these bananas -> Future Directions 36 Discussion
37. Bock, K., Eberhard, K. M., & Cutting, J. C. (2004). Producing number agreement: How pronouns equal verbs. Journal of Memory and Language, 51, 251–278. doi10.1016/j.jml.2004.04.005 Foote, R. (2010). Age of acquisition and proficiency as factors in language production: Agreement in bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13, 99–118. doi:10.1017/S136672890999040X Humphreys, K. R., & Bock, K. (2005). Notional number agreement in English. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12, 689–95. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16447383 Jiang, N. (2004). Morphological insensitivity in second language processing. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25, 603–634. doi:10.1017/ S0142716404001298 Jiang, N. (2007). Selective integration of linguistic knowledge in adult second language learning. Language Learning, 57, 1–33. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9922.2007.00397.x Jiang, N., Hu, G., Chrabaszcz, A., & Ye, L. (2015). The activation of grammaticalized meaning in L2 processing: Toward an explanation of the morphological congruency effect. International Journal of Bilingualism. Advance Online Publication doi: 10.1177/1367006915603823 Kusanagi, K., Tamura, Y., & Fukuta, J. (2015). The notional number attraction in English as a foreign language: A self-paced reading study. Journal of the Japan Society for Speech Sciences, 16, 77–96. Morgan, J. L. (1984). Some problems of determination in English number agreement. In Proceedings of the Eastern States conference on linguistics (pp. 69–78). Columbus, OH: Ohio State University. Shibuya, M., & Wakabayashi, S. (2008). Why are L2 learners not always sensitive to subject-verb agreement? EUROSLA Yearbook, 8, 235–258. doi:10.1075/eurosla.8.13shi Sobin, N. (1997). Agreement, default rules, and grammatical viruses. Linguistic Inquiry, 28, 318–343. Retrieved from http:// www.jstor.org/stable/info/4178979 Tamura, Y., Fukuta, J., Nishimura, Y., Harada, Y., Hara, K., & Kato, D. (2015). Conceptual plurality in Japanese EFL learners’ online sentence processing: A case of garden-path sentences with reciprocal verbs. Paper presented at the 41st Annual Conference of the Japan Society of English Language Education (JASELE 2015). Kumamoto, Japan. Vigliocco, G., Hartsuiker, R. J., Jarema, G., & Kolk, H. H. (1996). One or more labels on the bottles? Notional concord in Dutch and French. Language and Cognitive Processes, 11, 407–442. doi:10.1080/016909696387169 Wagers, M. W., Lau, E. F., & Phillips, C. (2009). Agreement attraction in comprehension: Representations and processes. Journal of Memory and Language, 61, 206–237. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2009.04.002 37 References
38. Conceptual and Grammatical Plurality of Conjoined NPs in L2 Sentence Comprehension contact info Yu Tamura Graduate School, Nagoya University yutamura@nagoya-u.jp http://www.tamurayu.wordpress.com/ 38 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 father is/are in New York RT(ms) sg pl • Conceptual Plurality ̋ • Grammatical Plurality ☓