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Abstract

Abstract

The current study is a partial replication of Kim and Goodall (2024), who tested competing predictions of two prominent accounts of -trace effects, which are argued to emerge due to either syntactic constraints or considerations of the production system. To tease apart these possibilities, Kim and Goodall examine L2 sensitivity to -trace effects, as the two accounts implicitly have different expectations regarding L2 performance. Their results showed a non-native pattern of acceptability judgments for Korean and Spanish learners of English, whose L1s do not display -trace effects, which are argued to support a production-based account. The current study extends their experiment to Nadji Arabic L2 learners of English, whose L1 critically exhibits -trace effects, allowing us to probe whether previous findings can be accounted for by processing difficulties or L1 background. Our results indicated that despite L2 learners’ native-like sensitivity at the group level, lower proficiency was associated with non-native-like subject extraction effects, in line with Kim and Goodall’s results. Overall, findings from an acceptability judgment task suggest that L2 sensitivity to -trace effects does not involve transfer of a syntactic constraint, but is something that develops with proficiency, more in line with a production-based account.

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/content/journals/10.1075/lab.24008.ald
2024-08-27
2024-09-19

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/content/journals/10.1075/lab.24008.ald
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That-trace effects in Najdi Arabic L2 learners of English
John Benjamins ; https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.24008.ald
/content/journals/10.1075/lab.24008.ald
/content/journals/10.1075/lab.24008.ald
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keywords: syntactic constraint ; acceptability judgments ; that-trace effects ; Najdi Arabic ; L2 learners

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