7.1320, Disc: Ergatives in lang acq

[The Linguist List]

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-7-1320. Tue Sep 24 1996. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  135
 
Subject: 7.1320, Disc: Ergatives in lang acq
 
Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Texas A&M U. <aristar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at emunix.emich.edu> (On Leave)
            T. Daniel Seely: Eastern Michigan U. <dseely at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Associate Editor:  Ljuba Veselinova <lveselin at emunix.emich.edu>
Assistant Editors: Ron Reck <rreck at emunix.emich.edu>
                   Ann Dizdar <dizdar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
                   Annemarie Valdez <avaldez at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Editor for this issue: dizdar at tam2000.tamu.edu (Ann Dizdar)
 
---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Thu, 19 Sep 1996 23:21:43 PDT
From:  oshita at scf-fs.usc.edu (oshita)
Subject:  clarification of sum on ergatigves in L1 acq
 
2)
Date:  Fri, 20 Sep 1996 15:30:19 +0800
From:  dwible at simon.pu.edu.tw (David-Wible)
Subject:  passive ergatives in L2 acq
 
---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Thu, 19 Sep 1996 23:21:43 PDT
From:  oshita at scf-fs.usc.edu (oshita)
Subject:  clarification of sum on ergatigves in L1 acq
 
Dear Linguists,
 
In my recent summary on "passives" on ergatives in L1 acquisition, one
of the reference I listed was incomplete.  Prof. Frank Wijnen provided
the following information as soon as my summary appeared in the List.
I thank him for the information and appologize for the delay in
posting it.
 
Sincerely,
 
Hiro Oshita
Dept. of Linguistics
USC
 
 
Maaike Verrips & Frank Wijnen (Eds.), The Acquisition of Dutch
(Amsterdam Series in Child Language Development 1). Amsterdam:
Institute for General Linguistics, 1993. 120 pp.
 
Price: Dfl. 15,--
 
Contents:
 
Loekie Elbers, A. van Loon-Vervoorn & M. van Helden-Lankhaar,
`Contrastive usage and the development of lexical organization and
innovative labelling'.
Paula Fikkert, `The acquisition of Dutch stress'.
Claartje Levelt, `Consonant harmony: a reanalysis in terms of
vowel-consonant interaction'.
Maaike Verrips, `Comprehension of passive and anti-causative by Dutch
children'.
Mieke Beers, `Phonological acquisition in Dutch children: subsitution
patterns of continuants'.
Angeliek van Hout, J. Randall & J. Weissenborn, `Acquiring the
unergative-unaccusative distinction.
 
Ordering information (credit card orders accepted): ASCLD at let.uva.nl
 
                    +-------------------------------+
                    |         Frank Wijnen          |
                    |   Utrecht University -- OTS   |
                    |          Trans 10             |
                    |     3512 JK Utrecht (NL)      |
                    |    tel. ++ 31 30 253 6052     |
                    |    fax. ++ 31 30 253 6000     |
                    +-------------------------------+
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2)
Date:  Fri, 20 Sep 1996 15:30:19 +0800
From:  dwible at simon.pu.edu.tw (David-Wible)
Subject:  passive ergatives in L2 acq
 
I have a thought on the possible source of L2 learner errors such as
the example mentioned in the Sept 14 summary on "passive" unergative:
 
	*A strange thing was happened before my eyes.
 
The contributor mentioned that native speakers of Chinese make such
English errors though Chinese doesn't have something comarable to
French's passe compose or Italian's passato prossimo.
 
Chinese does however allow the sole argument of certain unaccusative
type verbs to appear postverbally under certain conditions (one being
an indefiniteness requirement, it seems).  For example:
 
	Houlai fashengle yi jian hen qiguai de shi
	Then	happened one CL  very strange thing
 
Could L2 learners in making errors like the English example above be
doing something like the following:
 
	They know English (unlike Chinese) requires a subject in
		canonical subject position.
	The L1 (Chinese) version of the sentence has no (pronounced)
		canonical subject, and they realize the English version
		would require one.
	Passivization is a strategy for "raising to subject" and
		(depending on your theory) is a way supplying a
		subject for a non-thematic subject position.
	So, passivize, raising the sole (postverbal) argument to subject
		position as part of the deal along with supplying
		passive morphology.  Hence, from:
 
			Fashengle yi jian qiguai de shiqing
			happened  [one  CL  strange  matter]
		TO:
 
			[A strange thing] was happened....
 
Has this been looked at?  It would require a look at the classes of
verbs that are in the attested L2 "passive ergative" errors, and maybe
at the (in)definiteness of the sole argument in the attested errors.
Just a thought.
 
David Wible
Tamkang University
Taiwan
 
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