Cross-Linguistic Aspects of Processability Theory
1st Edition
Published on 14. December 2005
XIV, 303 pages
978-90-272-9391-6 (ISBN)
Description
Seven years ago Manfred Pienemann proposed a novel psycholinguistic theory of language development, Processability Theory (PT). This volume examines the typological plausibility of PT. Focusing on the acquisition of Arabic, Chinese and Japanese the authors demonstrate the capacity of PT to make detailed and verifiable predictions about the developmental schedule for each language. This cross-linguistic perspective is also applied to the study of L1 transfer by comparing the impact of processability and typological proximity. The typological perspective is extended by including a comparison of different types of language acquisition. The architecture of PT is expanded by the addition of a second set of principles that contributes to the formal modeling of levels of processability, namely the mapping of argument-structure onto functional structure in lexical mapping theory. This step yields the inclusion of a range of additional phenomena in the processability hierarchy thus widening the scope of PT.
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Manfred Pienemann
Cross-Linguistic Aspects of Processability Theory
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12/2005
John Benjamins Publishing Co
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Content
- Cross-Linguistic Aspects of Processability Theory
- Editorial page
- Title page
- LCC data
- Table of contents
- Abbreviations
- Preface
- The focus of this book
- How to read this book
- Acknowledgements
- An introduction to Processability Theory
- 1. The interplay between language processing and language acquisition
- 1.1. The wider context
- 1.2. Key psychological factors in language processing
- 1.3. Incremental language generation
- 1.4. A hierarchy of processing resources
- 1.5. Exchange of grammatical information
- 1.6. Principles of processability
- 1.7. LFG and processability
- 1.8. A brief sketch of LFG
- 2. Second language development: ESL
- 3. Second language development: German as L2
- 4. Comparing L1 and L2 acquisition
- 5. Developmental dynamics and generative entrenchment
- 6. Variation and processing constraints
- 7. Ultimate attainment and stabilisation
- Notes
- References
- Discussing PT
- 1. Typological plausibility
- 2. Feature unification and the case of perceptual salience
- 3. Competence and performance
- 4. A rough sketch of the development of PT ideas
- 5. The explanatory power of PT
- Notes
- References
- Processability, typological distance and L1 transfer
- 1. Competing theoretical approaches to L1 transfer
- 2. Processing constraints on L1 transfer
- 3. Typological proximity without an advantage
- 4. Typological proximity with an advantage
- 5. Typological distance without a disadvantage
- 6. Typological distance with an advantage
- 7. Summary and conclusion
- Notes
- References
- Agreement morphology in Arabic as a second language
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Studies on Arabic SLA
- 3. An LFG approach to agreement marking in Arabic language
- 4. Agreement marking in Arabic
- 4.1. Phrasal agreement (agreement within constituent)
- 4.2. Inter-Phrasal Agreement (agreement across constituents)
- 4.3. The pro drop phenomenon in Arabic agreement marking
- 4.4. A typological account of inter-phrasal agreement patterns
- 4.5. A summary of inter-phrasal agreement structures in Arabic
- 5. PT and Arabic agreement marking
- 6. Predictions for Arabic SLA
- 7. Empirical evidence for the PT-generated predictions
- 7.1. Acquisition criteria and data analysis
- 7.2. Empirical findings
- 8. A processability perspective on the findings
- 9. Conclusion
- Key phonetic symbols
- Notes
- References
- Processing and formal instruction in the L2 acquisition of five Chinese grammatical morphemes
- 1. Chinese: A brief sketch
- 2. Grammatical description
- 2.1. Aspect markers
- 2.2. Classifier
- 2.3. Particle de
- 3. Information exchange and processing hierarchy
- 4. Methodology and findings
- 4.1. Informants
- 4.2. Syllabus and textbook
- 4.3. Data collection
- 4.4. Data analysis and emergence criterion
- 4.5. Findings
- 5. Discussion
- 5.1. Developmental sequence
- 5.2. Instructional syllabus and language processing
- 6. Limitation and conclusion
- Notes
- References
- Similarities and differences in L1 and L2 development
- 1. Introduction
- Earlier L1-L2 comparisons
- 2. Research on children with SLI
- 2.1. Nature or nurture?
- 2.2. What is the linguistic problem?
- 3. Processability Theory
- A processing perspective on L1 and L2 acquisition
- 4. A processability perspective on children with SLI
- 4.1. German
- 4.2. Swedish
- 4.3. Relation between MLU and word order
- 5. Summary
- Notes
- References
- Extending Processability Theory
- 1. Introduction
- 2. The psycholinguistic focus of PT and the role of LFG
- 3. Correspondence principles
- 3.1. Correspondence and linearity
- 3.2. Mapping c-structure onto f-structure
- 3.3. Lexical Mapping Theory
- Hierarchically ordered semantic role structures
- A classification of syntactic functions
- Lexical mapping principles from semantic roles to syntactic functions
- Well-formedness conditions on lexical forms
- 3.4. Language-specificity
- Processability Theory and correspondence principles
- 3.5. Non-linearity
- 3.6. The Unmarked Alignment Hypothesis
- 3.7. Non-linearity and discourse functions: The TOPIC hypothesis
- 3.8. Non-linearity and Lexical Mapping Theory
- 4. Conclusion
- Notes
- References
- Argument structure and syntactic development in Japanese as a second language
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Brief review of the application of PT to Japanese L2
- 3. Typology of Japanese and brief sketch of its grammar
- 4. Hypotheses
- 5. Empirical study
- 5.1. Research Design
- 5.2. Results
- 6. Discussion
- 7. Conclusion
- Notes
- References
- Subject index
- The series Studies in Bilingualism
