Syntactic Priming in Bilinguals:Effects of verb repetition

in an L2-monolingual and cross-lingual setting

Sofie Schoonbaert1, Robert Hartsuiker1, & Martin Pickering2

1Ghent University, Belgium 2University of Edinburgh, Scotland

ISB2005, March 20-24th, Barcelona

Some background

Speaking in a second language

Bilingualism

Speech production

Some background

The Architecture of BILINGUAL MEMORY

At least ‘some’ information is shared between languages(perception studies of Dijkstra et al., Brysbaert et al.;

production studies of Costa et al., Colome et al.)

mainly studying semantic & lexical representations)

‘SHARED SYNTAX’ vs. ‘SEPARATE SYNTAX’ hypothesis

syntactic rules like: passive-active / prepositional dative [PO]-double object

dative [DO]

Syntactic priming in bilinguals??

SEMANTIC/LEXICAL

SYNTACTIC

Syntactic priming studies

Speech production SYNTACTIC PRIMING: tendency to repeat a recently encountered structure

In monolinguals: (Bock, 1986, 1989; Bock & Loebell, 1990; Branigan et al., 2000; Hartsuiker & Kolk, 1998; Hartsuiker et al., 1999; Hartsuiker & Westenberg, 2000; Pickering & Branigan, 1998, 1999; Pickering et al., 2002; Potter & Lombardi, 1998)

BOCK (1986): repeating auditory prime sentence – describing visually presented picture with passive-active / DO-PO structures

VERB REPETITION BETWEEN PRIME-TARGET (Pickering & Branigan, 1998) lexical boost to syntactic priming

Model (adopted from Pickering & Branigan, 1998)

lemma stratum

lemma nodes

combinatorial nodes

category node

word-form stratum

send

[DO] [PO]

give

unrelated verbs

PRIME:‘The chef gives a gun to the boxer’ (PO)

TARGET verb: to send

Model (adopted from Pickering & Branigan, 1998)

lemma stratum

lemma nodes

combinatorial nodes

category node

word-form stratum

[DO] [PO]

give send

identical verbs condition

PRIME:‘The chef gives a gun to the boxer’ (PO)

TARGET verb: to give

Syntactic priming studies

Between monolinguals in dialogue:

Confederate technique (► dialogue game; Branigan et al.,

2000)

Participant

Confederate

(L2)

PRIME

‘The chef gives a gun to the boxer’

[PO]

Dialogue game

(introduced by Branigan, et al., 2000)

The chef gives the boxer a gun

Match: press 1

Mismatch: press 2

Participant

(L2)

Confederate

TARGET

‘- - - - - - - -’ ?

[PO or DO]

nun swimmer

Match: press 1

Mismatch: press 2

Dialogue game

(introduced by Branigan, et al., 2000)

Syntactic priming studies

Between monolinguals in dialogue:

Confederate technique (► dialogue game; Branigan et al., 2000)

In bilinguals:- (Loebell & Bock, 2003;Meijer & Fox Tree, 2003)

- In a dialogue game: Hartsuiker, et al., 2004

L2 L1

L1 prime:Passive(verb perseguir)

L2 response on target picture

(verb ‘to hit’):

More Passives than Actives in L2

combinatorial nodes

lemma nodes

conceptual nodes

category node

language nodes

Model (adopted from Hartsuiker et al., 2004)

Present study

syntactic priming in L2 ? cross-linguistic priming (L1->L2)?

• with dative structures • with Dutch-English bilinguals in dialogue

verb manipulation

Participant (L2)

Confederate

(L2)

PRIME TARGET

‘- - - - - - - -’ ?

[PO or DO]

Looking for syntactic priming of dative structures in Dutch-English bilinguals

Experiment 1 : L2 -> L2

‘The chef gives a gun to the boxer’

[PO]

The chef gives the boxer a gun

Experiment 1 : L2 -> L2

Design:

2 (DATIVE PRIME: DO - PO) x 2 (VERB TYPE: identical - unrelated)

MAIN Syntactic priming effect !

INTERACTION

verb repetition enhances the syntactic priming effect

Prime Type Identical Unrelated

DO .55 .72PO .91 .81

PRIMING 36% 9%

Verb Type

LEXICAL BOOST

give-give give-show

Prop. PO responses

Participant

(L2)

Confederate

(L1)

PRIME TARGET

‘- - - - - - - -’ ?

[PO or DO]

‘De kok geeft de bokser een geweer’

[PO]

Bilingual version of a dialogue game (introduced by Branigan, et al., 2000)

De kok geeft de bokser een geweer

Looking for syntactic priming of dative structures in Dutch-English bilinguals

Experiment 2 : L1 -> L2

Experiment 2 : L1 -> L2

Design:

2 (DATIVE PRIME: DO - PO) x 2 (VERB TYPE: translation - unrelated)

MAIN Syntactic priming effect !

INTERACTION

translation equivalence enhances the syntactic priming effect

Prime Type Translation Unrelated

DO .74 .77PO .91 .85

PRIMING 17% 8%

Verb Type

TRANSLATION EQUIVALENCE BOOST

geven-give geven-show

Prop. PO responses

Prime Type Translation Unrelated

DO .74 .77PO .91 .85

PRIMING 17% 8%

Verb Type

Prime Type Identical Unrelated

DO .55 .72PO .91 .81

PRIMING 36% 9%

Verb TypeEXP 1

L2-L2

EXP 2

L1-L2

TRANSLATION EQUIVALENCE BOOST

LEXICAL BOOST

Discussion

Basic results :

Syntactic priming within L2Cross-linguistic syntactic priming (from L1 to L2)

Boost to syntactic priming by:

1/ repetition of the verb (36%)

2/ translation equivalent verbs (17%) (in prime and target)

HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN ?

Model EXP1 (adopted from Hartsuiker et al., 2004)

conceptual nodes

lemma nodes

combinatorial nodes

An integrated account of bilingual language representation

L2 prime:PO(verb ‘to give’)

L2 response on target picture

More PO than DO

L2 prime:PO(verb ‘give’)

L2 response on target picture

(verb ‘to give’)

more priming with identical verbs

Model EXP2 (adopted from Hartsuiker et al., 2004)

conceptual nodes

lemma nodes

combinatorial nodes

An integrated account of bilingual language representation

L1 prime:PO(verb ‘geven’)

L2 response on target picture

More PO than DO

L1 prime:PO(verb ‘geven’)

L2 response on target picture

(verb ‘to give’)

more priming with translation equivalents

Discussion

We believe that:

- the syntactic priming effect within L2 (EXP1) develops in a similar way as in L1 (see Pickering & Branigan, 1998)

- cross-linguistic syntactic priming occurs AND was enhanced with translation equivalent verbs

due to simultaneous activation of

--- a combinatorial node, specifying the dative structure (Pickering & Branigan, 1998) and

--- the translation equivalent’s lemma (due to the connection between the semantic representation and the lemma)

This activation increases the probability of selecting the same structure with the translation equivalent (cfr. Cleland & Pickering, 2003)

General Conclusions

Bilingualism

---> a single lexical-syntactic memory system

With… ‘SHARED SYNTAX’ vs. ‘SEPARATE SYNTAX’ hypothesis Shared concepts activating words from both languages Words from the non-target language influence syntactic

choice (via cascading of activation)

(with moderately proficient Dutch-English bilinguals)

Speech production Reliable SYNTACTIC PRIMING across languages

- a translation equivalence boost

Thanks to you

to Rob Hartsuiker & Martin Pickering (supervising)

to the FSR-Flanders (funding)

Exp 1 : L2 -> L2

Plot of Means

2-way interaction

F(1,31)=40,08; p<,0000

PRIME

Prop. of Correct PO Answers

0,50

0,55

0,60

0,65

0,70

0,75

0,80

0,85

0,90

0,95

DO PO

diff VERB

show-give

same VERB

give-GIVE

Identical

Unrelated

DO POPO responses

significant 2-way interaction

significant 2-way interactionF(1,24)=5,70; p<,0252

DATIVE PRIME

Proportion of Correct PO answers 0,70

0,73

0,75

0,78

0,80

0,82

0,85

0,88

0,90

0,93

0,95

DO PO

DIFFERENT verbex. tonen-GIVE

SAME verbex. geven-GIVE

Exp 2 : L1 -> L2

Translation

Unrelated

PO responses

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%PO Responses

DO PRIME 55% 72%

PO PRIME 91% 81%

Identical Unrelated0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%PO Responses

DO PRIME 74% 77%

PO PRIME 91% 85%

Translation Unrelated

Discussion

A closer look at the results: some models

Levelt & colleagues

Lemma = specifies syntactic proporties of a word

= contactpoint between meaning and form

(the base form of words)

Pickering & Branigan, 1998 (extension)

(include combinatorial nodes, that are linked to/shared by the lemma nodes)

To account for repeated verb effect in SP

(repeated verb: residual activation in both verb&combinat node;

different verb: only residual activation in the combinat node)

Hartsuiker et al., 2004 (extension for bilinguals)

Pickering & Branigan 1998 JML

Experiment 1 : L2 -> L2

Subject

Confederate

(L2)

PRIME

‘The chef gives

the boxer a gun’

[DO]

Monolingual dialogue game in L2 (introduced by Branigan, et al., 2000)

The chef gives the boxer a gun

Match: press 1

Mismatch: press 2

Looking for syntactic priming of dative structures in Dutch-English bilinguals

Subject

(L2)

Confederate

TARGET

‘- - - - - - - -’ ?

[PO or DO]

nun swimmer

Match: press 1

Mismatch: press 2

Looking for syntactic priming of dative structures in Dutch-English bilinguals

Experiment 1 : L2 -> L2