THE ROLE of L1 PHONOLOGY in L2 MORPHOLOGICAL PRODUCTION

Amaro, Jennifer Cabrelli and Campos-Dintrans, Gonzalo and Rothman, Jason (2018) THE ROLE of L1 PHONOLOGY in L2 MORPHOLOGICAL PRODUCTION. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 40 (3). pp. 503-527. ISSN 0272-2631

Abstract

This study considers the role of L1 phonological influence in L2 English past tense morphology production by native speakers of Spanish, Mandarin, and Japanese. While these L1s share similar phonological restrictions on consonant cluster formation needed for English past tense morphology, differences arise in L1 syntax (only Mandarin lacks syntactic past) and L1 prosodic structure (only Japanese has English-equivalent structure). Aggregate analyses indicate that an L1 English control group outperforms all L2 groups in oral suppliance of past tense morphology. Results therefore reveal that having the syntactic feature for past in the L1 does not translate into targetlike performance and that L1 phonological restrictions alone cannot fully explain nontargetlike performance. Considering previous and the current data sets, we argue that evidence from production of L2 English past tense cannot be used to adjudicate between representational deficit approaches and full access approaches, contrary to what has been argued previously.