[ p. 109 ]Missing verbal inflections as a representational problem
Evidence from self-paced reading
Bill VanPatten | Michigan State University
Gregory D. Keating | San Diego State University
Michael J. Leeser | Florida State University
A continuing concern in second language acquisition (SLA) research is whether problems with inflectional morphology are representational or related somehow to performance. In this study, we examine 25 non-advanced learners of L2 Spanish and compare them with 18 native Spanish speakers on three grammatical structures: subject-verb inversion, adverb placement and person-number inflections on verbs. We use self-paced reading as a measure of underlying sensitivity to grammatical violations. Our results clearly show that the L2 learners pattern like the native speakers on the two syntactic structures; both groups demonstrate sensitivity to grammatical violations while reading sentences for meaning. For person-number on verbs, L2 learners did not show sensitivity to grammatical violations whereas the native speakers did. We argue that these results suggest a representational problem for morphology in our L2 population.
Keywords: second language inflectional morphology, representation, self-paced reading, sensitivity to grammatical violations
Published online: 30 May 2012
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.2.2.01pat
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.2.2.01pat
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