From V2 to V2: Swedish learners of German
(2005) 1. p.73-84- Abstract
- Germanic verb second (V2) is often said to be difficult for L2ers irrespective of their L1. Recent work on Swedish/German (e.g. vulnerable C-domain (Platzack 2001), processability (Håkansson, Pienemann & Sayehli 2001)) claims that speakers of a V2-language learning another V2-language start with a non-V2 interlanguage grammar, i.e. they don’t transfer V2, but follow a universal developmental path of verb placement. The author contests this claim, presenting quantified new oral production data from 6 post-puberty L1 Swedish ab-initio learners (4 & 9 months of exposure to classroom German). She documents extremely early productive use of non-subject-initial V2 declarative clauses after only 4 months, at a time when the informants’... (More)
- Germanic verb second (V2) is often said to be difficult for L2ers irrespective of their L1. Recent work on Swedish/German (e.g. vulnerable C-domain (Platzack 2001), processability (Håkansson, Pienemann & Sayehli 2001)) claims that speakers of a V2-language learning another V2-language start with a non-V2 interlanguage grammar, i.e. they don’t transfer V2, but follow a universal developmental path of verb placement. The author contests this claim, presenting quantified new oral production data from 6 post-puberty L1 Swedish ab-initio learners (4 & 9 months of exposure to classroom German). She documents extremely early productive use of non-subject-initial V2 declarative clauses after only 4 months, at a time when the informants’ interlanguage syntax elsewhere is nontargetlike (e.g. head-initial VPs (VO)), cf. Bohnacker 2005. She also documents a categorical difference between informants depending on whether they have prior knowledge of L2 English. Swedish informants acquiring German as their first L2 produce 100% targetlike V2, but informants with substantial previous exposure to English only produce 45% targetlike V2 in their L3 German, also allowing nontargetlike V3 (Adv-SVX). This suggests that there is no universal developmental route to L2/L3 German verb placement, that learners make use of their V2-L1 syntax (Swedish), and that knowledge of a non-V2 language (English) can make it initially more difficult to acquire another V2 language (German). The findings are interpreted as strong empirical support for transfer approaches to the nonnative acquisition of syntax (e.g. Schwartz & Sprouse 1994, 1996). (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/536849
- author
- Bohnacker, Ute LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2005
- type
- Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
- publication status
- published
- subject
- host publication
- Proceedings of the 29th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development
- editor
- Brugos, Alejna ; Clark-Cotton, Manuella and Ha, Seungwan
- volume
- 1
- pages
- 73 - 84
- publisher
- Cascadilla Press
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000229579500007
- ISBN
- 1-57473-054-1; 1-57473-054-1
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- The information about affiliations in this record was updated in December 2015. The record was previously connected to the following departments: Swedish (015011001)
- id
- eff57af6-5c63-47ed-a0cc-7e1f20143684 (old id 536849)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-04 10:24:43
- date last changed
- 2018-11-21 20:58:37
@inproceedings{eff57af6-5c63-47ed-a0cc-7e1f20143684,
abstract = {{Germanic verb second (V2) is often said to be difficult for L2ers irrespective of their L1. Recent work on Swedish/German (e.g. vulnerable C-domain (Platzack 2001), processability (Håkansson, Pienemann & Sayehli 2001)) claims that speakers of a V2-language learning another V2-language start with a non-V2 interlanguage grammar, i.e. they don’t transfer V2, but follow a universal developmental path of verb placement. The author contests this claim, presenting quantified new oral production data from 6 post-puberty L1 Swedish ab-initio learners (4 & 9 months of exposure to classroom German). She documents extremely early productive use of non-subject-initial V2 declarative clauses after only 4 months, at a time when the informants’ interlanguage syntax elsewhere is nontargetlike (e.g. head-initial VPs (VO)), cf. Bohnacker 2005. She also documents a categorical difference between informants depending on whether they have prior knowledge of L2 English. Swedish informants acquiring German as their first L2 produce 100% targetlike V2, but informants with substantial previous exposure to English only produce 45% targetlike V2 in their L3 German, also allowing nontargetlike V3 (Adv-SVX). This suggests that there is no universal developmental route to L2/L3 German verb placement, that learners make use of their V2-L1 syntax (Swedish), and that knowledge of a non-V2 language (English) can make it initially more difficult to acquire another V2 language (German). The findings are interpreted as strong empirical support for transfer approaches to the nonnative acquisition of syntax (e.g. Schwartz & Sprouse 1994, 1996).}},
author = {{Bohnacker, Ute}},
booktitle = {{Proceedings of the 29th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development}},
editor = {{Brugos, Alejna and Clark-Cotton, Manuella and Ha, Seungwan}},
isbn = {{1-57473-054-1; 1-57473-054-1}},
language = {{eng}},
pages = {{73--84}},
publisher = {{Cascadilla Press}},
title = {{From V2 to V2: Swedish learners of German}},
volume = {{1}},
year = {{2005}},
}