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Title:
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The L2 Acquisition of English Finiteness by Cantonese Learners - A Generative Approach
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Author:
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Wai lan Tsang
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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University of Cambridge
, Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics
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Degree Date:
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2003
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Applied Linguistics
Syntax
Language Acquisition
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Subject Language(s):
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Chinese, Yue
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Director(s):
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Ianthi Tsimpli
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Abstract:
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This study investigates the acquisition of English finiteness by Cantonese learners from two perspectives: syntactic and developmental. Concerning the syntactic perspective, this account, upholding the universal nature of finiteness across languages, advocates the presence of this feature in Cantonese. Cantonese finiteness can be viewed in terms of the notion of 'completion of an utterance.' It can be realised by two lexical means: sentence final particles (e.g. le3) arguably labelling finite utterances and adverbial conjunctions (e.g. jan1 wai6 ‘because’) introducing nonfinite ones. This instantiation of finiteness in Cantonese strikes a contrast to the English one. First, Cantonese finiteness is lexical but the English counterpart is morphological. Second, while English finiteness is marked obligatorily, the manifestation of Cantonese finiteness can be optional: the nonfinite markers are obligatory while the finite ones are not.
As to the developmental issue, the judgements of the Cantonese learners as well as the native speakers did not display any finite/non-finite distinction. Nevertheless, when the responses to the ungrammatical test items were analysed, a difference between the natives and the learners was discerned. The native speakers showed a tendency to higher accuracy rates for ungrammatical finite items, with one test structure reaching statistical significance. By contrast, the L2ers' judgements revealed a predominantly nonfinite tendency. This outcome ¾ suggesting their non-native-like acquisition of English finiteness ¾ can be explained by the inaccessibility of finiteness, a feature of the functional category in the lexicon, in the L2 acquisitional path (cf. Tsimpli (1996) and Hawkins and Chan (1997)). The Cantonese learners could not acquire an interpretation of finiteness other than the one in their L1. In other words, the lexical realisation of finiteness is likely to be retained in their L2, resulting in the failure to make the finite/non-finite distinction in the target language. Consequently, the syntactic patterns corresponding to finiteness (and probably the morphological forms as well) in their L2 grammar are deviant from the native ones.
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