This chapter deals with the development of case in Russian as a second language. Case is an important morphological device for marking grammatical relations among constituents, and as such of great interest for testing the interface between morphological and syntactic development proposed by Bettoni & Di Biase in the introductory chapter of this book (ch. 1, § 4.3). Yet so far, few studies have specifically dealt with the L2 acquisition of case. Among the exceptions, some are notable. Baten’s (2011, 2013) study on the acquisition of German case, and the study on Serbian case in chapter 6 of this volume are within the PT framework. Although they are different in design – the former being longitudinal on a variety of Dutch L1 learners of German L2, and the latter cross-sectional on learners of Serbian as a heritage language in Australia – they both show that learners begin to mark case first positionally in the clause (i.e., they assign NOM to preverbal SUBJ, and ACC to postverbal OBJ), and then functionally (i.e., regardless of position in c-structure). Without the PT framework, studies on the L2 acquisition of case are also scarse generally, and even more so with respect to Russian. One exception is Kempe & Macwhinney (1998), who investigate the acquisition of case marking in Russian in comparison to German. Their findings are interesting, in so far as they show that, although the Russian case-marking system is more complex than the German one, it appears to be learned faster, because its inflections are more reliable for sentence interpretation. However, their study deals with comprehension, and production remains unexplored.In line with the PT framework proposed in this book, in our chapter we explore the development of Russian case and hypothesise a developmental schedule interfacing morphology with syntax. More specifically, we focus on how case morphology is used to mark grammatical functions (GFs), with particular attention to the two core GFs, namely, SUBJ and OBJ. Our hypotheses are then tested on cross-sectional data collected among 8 learners of Russian L2. Results will show that learners progress from a first match between GFs and their default case markers in a fixed canonical word order frame to expressing GFs also with nondefault case markers as lexically required by V, and finally to marking full functional assignment by case independent of position. This allows learners to deploy more flexible word orders to express their discourse-pragmatic needs unambiguously.
Acquiring case marking in Russian as a second language. An exploratory study on subject and object
Artoni, Daniele;Magnani, Marco
2015-01-01
Abstract
This chapter deals with the development of case in Russian as a second language. Case is an important morphological device for marking grammatical relations among constituents, and as such of great interest for testing the interface between morphological and syntactic development proposed by Bettoni & Di Biase in the introductory chapter of this book (ch. 1, § 4.3). Yet so far, few studies have specifically dealt with the L2 acquisition of case. Among the exceptions, some are notable. Baten’s (2011, 2013) study on the acquisition of German case, and the study on Serbian case in chapter 6 of this volume are within the PT framework. Although they are different in design – the former being longitudinal on a variety of Dutch L1 learners of German L2, and the latter cross-sectional on learners of Serbian as a heritage language in Australia – they both show that learners begin to mark case first positionally in the clause (i.e., they assign NOM to preverbal SUBJ, and ACC to postverbal OBJ), and then functionally (i.e., regardless of position in c-structure). Without the PT framework, studies on the L2 acquisition of case are also scarse generally, and even more so with respect to Russian. One exception is Kempe & Macwhinney (1998), who investigate the acquisition of case marking in Russian in comparison to German. Their findings are interesting, in so far as they show that, although the Russian case-marking system is more complex than the German one, it appears to be learned faster, because its inflections are more reliable for sentence interpretation. However, their study deals with comprehension, and production remains unexplored.In line with the PT framework proposed in this book, in our chapter we explore the development of Russian case and hypothesise a developmental schedule interfacing morphology with syntax. More specifically, we focus on how case morphology is used to mark grammatical functions (GFs), with particular attention to the two core GFs, namely, SUBJ and OBJ. Our hypotheses are then tested on cross-sectional data collected among 8 learners of Russian L2. Results will show that learners progress from a first match between GFs and their default case markers in a fixed canonical word order frame to expressing GFs also with nondefault case markers as lexically required by V, and finally to marking full functional assignment by case independent of position. This allows learners to deploy more flexible word orders to express their discourse-pragmatic needs unambiguously.
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