The L2 acquisition of case absorption effects in Japanese and English passives by English and Japanese speakers

Abstract

This paper presents findings on the second acquisition (L2) of passives involving case absorption effects by English-speaking learners of Japanese and Japanese-speaking learners of English. Chomsky (1981; 1986) proposes that the defining property of passives is the absorption of structural case and that such parameter settings vary across languages. In English, case absorption by passive morphology is obligatory, yet is optional in Japanese (Nakamura, 1991). To explore the implications of such cross-linguistic differences in passive constructions, a bi-directional study was conducted, using a grammaticality judgment (GJ) task with pictures, with a total of 257 subjects: six different L2 groups (two L1 groups, each with three levels of L2 experience) and two native control groups. The results support the Full-Transfer/Full-Access Hypothesis (Schwartz & Sprouse, 1994; 1996), demonstrating that the L1 case absorption settings are implicated in the initial stages of both L2 passive acquisitions, and based upon L2 input, a restructuring of the L1 settings to the L2 settings can occur. Furthermore, the results from the L2 Japanese study indicated that L1 transfer effects lasted longer with less L2 input, suggesting that L1 transfer effects are influenced by the amount of input and the acquisitional directions between English and Japanese.