Linguistics Colloquium: Processability and Development of Syntax and Agreement in Arabic L2

a talk by Dr. Ghassan Husseinali, Arabic, Modern and Classical Languages, GMU

Linguistics

Thursday, February 23, 2012 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM EST
Johnson Center, D

This talk presents the results of a study investigating the development of the interlanguage of learners of Arabic as a foreign language from a developmental perspective as presented in Pienemann (1998). Pienemann's Processability Theory (PT) procedures were applied to seven syntactic structures of Arabic and four agreement combinations. According to PT, second language development should proceed in an implicational hierarchy i.e. no stage skipping. PT makes no claim as to agreement combinations development within the same procedure. The distribution of the seven structures over three stages follows this order. Attributive adjectives predicted to be acquired at stage 3, followed by predicative adjectives, SV and VS word orders at stage 4. Vcomp (to+Vclause), embedded clauses (that+clause) and adjectival clauses were predicted to be acquired at stage 5. The results of this study indicate that although there was no stage skipping confirming PT predictions, still there was variability between structures within the same stage. For example, both VS and SV were predicted to develop at stage 4; however, SV was acquired before VS. Among the seven syntactic structures a sequential order was found, independent of stages, represented in five developmental sequences. In terms of gender –number agreement combinations, the findings indicate that, in general, combination in which the number is singular were acquired before combinations in which the number is plural regardless of gender and that combinations in which the gender is masculine were acquired before combinations in which the gender is feminine regardless of number. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed in light of input, L1 transfer, markedness and restructuring.