Abstract
Research into the second language acquisition of quantifiers (every, any, some, etc.) sheds light on the L2 development of form and meaning in an area of language that is not usually a key focus of the language classroom. This chapter begins with an overview of some existing studies of L2 acquisition of quantifiers, the majority of which investigate phenomena that are not only absent from classroom instruction but are also not directly deducible from the input: “poverty of the stimulus” phenomena. The findings show that subtle properties of quantifiers are difficult to acquire—particularly if they involve the syntax-pragmatics interface—but they often emerge in advanced learners, even without teaching or direct evidence in the input. The chapter then explores how language teaching might accelerate acquisition of such late-emerging aspects of the L2. We report the findings of a pilot study (Gil K-H, Marsden H, Whong M. Can explicit grammar instruction serve as evidence for L2 grammar restructuring? In: Stavrakaki S, Konstantinopoulou P, Lalioti M (eds) Proceedings of GALA 2011. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge, to appear) on the effect of providing focus on form instruction about the English quantifier any. Though inconclusive, the findings raise new research questions that are of interest to both generative L2 acquisition researchers and classroom researchers. We conclude that collaborative research will enrich both fields.
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Notes
- 1.
For the purposes of this chapter, we will gloss over the form versus forms distinction (see Doughty and Williams 1998), considering both to fall under the focus on form umbrella.
- 2.
The first answer, ‘three’, arises from an interpretation of the indefinite object livres ‘books’ below the scope of the universal quantifier tous ‘all’ (i.e. ‘for every student, how many books is he/she buying?’; narrow scope of the object), while the second answer ‘two’ arises from an interpretation in which the indefinite object livres takes scope above the quantifier tous (i.e. ‘for how many books is it the case that every student is buying those books?’; wide scope of the object).
- 3.
The ‘greater than’ symbol, >, is used to indicate that the element preceding > takes scope over the element following >. ‘S’ means ‘subject’ and ‘O’ means ‘object’. Thus ‘S>O answer’ means ‘an answer in which the universally quantified subject is understood to take scope over the indefinite object’, in other words, an answer of ‘three’ to questions (1) and (2).
- 4.
‘Scrambling’ refers to optional rearrangement of the standard word order into an allowed but non-standard order. The standard word order in Japanese is SOV, and since it is a wh-in situ language, the standard form of a wh-object question is S wh-O V? In (4), the wh-object is scrambled because it has been moved in front of the subject. Marsden (2008) investigated scrambled wh-questions because the non-scrambled counterpart of the specific question type illustrated in (4) is reported to be of dubious grammaticality due to independent properties of the quantifier daremo (Hoji 1985; Tomioka 2007, among others).
- 5.
Marsden (2008) also investigates Korean-speaking learners.
- 6.
Tomioka (2007) proposes that the source of this variation involves crosslinguistic differences in mechanisms for expressing focus. Briefly, he argues that scrambling has the effect of focusing the scrambled element and that a focused element (here, the wh-object) cannot be interpreted under the scope of a non-focused element. Consequently, the pair-list reading cannot arise, since this reading requires a subject-wide scope interpretation. Notice that, similarly, if everyone receives prosodic focus in the English version of the question What did everyone buy? the pair-list reading is harder to obtain than with neutral intonation.
- 7.
Marsden (2009) also investigated sentences containing collective universal quantifiers like ‘all’ as well as scrambled counterparts of (5).
- 8.
Marsden (2009) argues that this crosslinguistic variation may be a corollary of Japanese universal quantifiers being unspecified for number, whereas every in English must be [+singular].
- 9.
Other downward-entailing adverbs include hardly and barely. Other negative factive verbs include deny, be sorry and be shocked.
- 10.
Other nonfactive verbs include believe, think and suppose.
- 11.
Henceforth, we will use the term ‘wh-expression’ to refer to the Chinese words that can be used either as interrogatives or as existentials. When referring to the interrogative use, we use the term ‘wh-interrogative’, and when referring to the existential use, we use the term ‘wh-existential’. When glossing wh-expressions, we will use the corresponding English wh-word sense in small caps; the translation will show the actual sense in the context.
- 12.
- 13.
No ungrammatical counterparts for the yes-no question frames (20d–e) were included.
- 14.
Yuan proposes that advanced English speakers’ lower accuracy in the yes-no questions compared with the Japanese speakers may be due to the fact that Japanese, like Chinese, employs question particles in question formation (e.g. no in (18–19)), whereas English does not. Therefore, L1 transfer of question particles may have facilitated accuracy for the Japanese speakers on these items.
- 15.
The question in (23) can also have the meaning ‘Who is drinking tea?’ depending on the intonation (Jun and Oh 1996).
- 16.
There is, of course, debate within theoretical SLA research over whether metalinguistic knowledge can ever affect a learner’s unconscious linguistic knowledge of the L2 (Schwartz 1993, among others). This debate requires philosophical discussion of the nature of knowledge beyond the scope of this chapter.
- 17.
Each group was a subset of the members of two different classes, each with 18 students. However, some members of each class could not be included in the groups because of absence, especially at testing sessions.
- 18.
None of these 20 Chinese-speaking learners had received explicit instruction about any, of the type received by the instructed group.
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Gil, KH., Marsden, H., Whong, M. (2013). Quantifiers: Form and Meaning in Second Language Development. In: Whong, M., Gil, KH., Marsden, H. (eds) Universal Grammar and the Second Language Classroom. Educational Linguistics, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6362-3_8
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