Academic Paper |
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| Title: | Introduction |
| Author: | Yasuhiro Shirai |
| Institution: | University of Pittsburgh |
| Author: | Hiromi Ozeki |
| Institution: | University of Tokyo |
| Linguistic Field: | Applied Linguistics |
| Abstract: | Typological linguistics has made important contributions to our understanding of SLA processes, especially in the early days of SLA research (e.g., Eckman, 1977; Hyltenstam, 1977; Rutherford, 1984). In particular, the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy (NPAH), originally proposed as a generalization based on typological work by Keenan and Comrie (1977), has served as a basis on which many SLA studies are conducted. The NPAH predicts the ease of relativization as a function of the grammatical role of the head noun phrase (NP) modified by the relative clause (RC) observed in languages of the world: subject (SU), direct object (DO), indirect object (IO), oblique (OBL), genitive (GEN), object of comparison (OComp). If a language can relativize on a position on the hierarchy, then it follows that any other higher position (or position to the left in the given schematic) can also be relativized on. For example, if a language has an OComp relative (e.g., the man who I am taller than), then it has a GEN relative (e.g., the man whose father I know) and all of the others higher on the hierarchy (i.e., OBL, IO, DO, and SU). |
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This article appears in Studies in Second Language Acquisition Vol. 29, Issue 2, which you can read on Cambridge's site or on LINGUIST . |
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