Do orders cross borders? Acquiring German verb clusters Dorothee Bliem* Thesis Research Master’s in Linguistics Supervisor: prof. dr. Fred Weerman Second reader: dr. Jan Don July 3, 2015 Abstract This paper presents the results from a sentence repetition task (SRT) conducted with 27 L1 (M=7;6) and 26 early L2 (M=7;3) speakers of Austrian German in their acquisition of verb clusters. Previous studies (Meyer & Weerman 2014 for Dutch, De Haan et al. 2014 for Dutch-‐Frisian bilingualism) suggest that ascending orders such as wil lezen (‘want to read’; lezen wil, respectively for the descending alternative) are crucial for the acquisition of this syntactic phenomenon, as they lead to the application of a general verb raising rule. In contrast to Dutch, however, German exhibits quite a rigid descending system and allows for (partly) ascending orders only in complex tripartite constructions, which are furthermore acquired later than bipartite constructions (Meyer & Weerman 2014). In this paper I show that in German the acquisition of order differences among tripartite clusters does not affect the acquisition of bipartite clusters, but that it may influence the acquisition of rigid tripartite clusters. This suggests that in contrast to Dutch, at most the latter are acquired via a verb raising rule. From a theoretical point of view this means that whereas German tripartite clusters can be explained by a verb raising analysis (cf. Evers 1975), the formation of bipartite clusters must be explained in a different way. 1 Introduction In recent decades, verb clusters have been subject to on-‐going theoretical debates within both generative (e.g. Evers, 1975; Haegeman & Van Riemsdijk) and functionalist frameworks (e.g. De Sutter, 2005; Arfs, 2007). The inseparable sequences of verbs at the end of (West-‐) Germanic * I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor prof. dr. Fred Weerman for his guidance and support throughout the entire course of this project. Furthermore I would like to thank dr. Jan Don for agreeing to serve as the second reader for this thesis. I am moreover indebted to Caitlin Meyer, who gave me valuable suggestions and very useful feedback. I would also like to thank Suzana Ilic for her help with the experiments, Lena Krämer for lending me her voice for the audio recordings, and, last but not least, all of the children from the Volksschule Wörgl who participated in my experiment. 1 subordinate clauses mainly received attention for the huge variation across, and also within these languages (cf. Wurmbrand 2005). Research on the acquisition of these clusters, however, is still in its infancy. So far, claims have only been put forward based on data from Dutch L1 acquisition (Zuckerman 2001, Meyer & Weerman 2014) and Dutch-‐Frisian bilingualism (De Haan, Faber, Meyer & Weerman 2014). All of these studies suggest that so-‐called ascending cluster orders (e.g. wil lezen ‘want to read’ and wil hebben gelezen ‘want to have read’) are crucial in the acquisition of verb clusters. Whereas these orders were overgeneralised by Dutch Kindergardners, descending cluster orders (e.g. lezen wil ‘want to read’ and gelezen hebben wil ‘want to have read’) were found to be vulnerable. Based on these findings, Meyer & Weerman (2014) propose that Dutch verb clusters are acquired according to one general rule, rather than by the application of several construction-‐specific ones. Assuming that ascending orders indeed provide such an important trigger for the acquisition of verb clusters, a question arises of how verb clusters are acquired by children, whose L1 provides them with less evidence for ascending orders. Whereas Dutch allows for both ascending and descending orders in most cluster types, German only allows for (partly) ascending orders in complex types of tripartite clusters (IPP constructions and future tense forms of modal verbs). Among all other cluster types, only descending orders (e.g. lesen will ‘to want to read’ and gelesen haben will ‘gelesen haben will’) are grammatical. As tripartite constructions are acquired relatively late, however, this means that acquirers of German not only encounter less evidence for ascending orders, but also start to analyse them at later ages than their Dutch peers. It shall be the aim of this paper to shed more light on the acquisition of verb clusters in Austrian German (henceforth: AG). By the means of an SRT with both L1 and early L2 acquirers of AG, I also want to investigate whether German verb clusters are acquired via the application of a general rule and, if so, whether this affects both bi-‐ and tripartite clusters. Or, whether the abovementioned differences lead to a construction-‐specific acquisition of different cluster types. The children’s performance clearly shows that the acquisition of bipartite clusters is not dependent on order differences among tripartite clusters. Though the overall results are not as straightforward with respect to tripartite clusters, an individual analysis reveals a pattern, which suggests that tripartite clusters may be acquired via such a general rule. These findings also yield consequences for a more theoretical analysis, since they imply that at least the formation bipartite clusters cannot be ascribed to verb raising. The present paper is structured as follows: I will first give an overview of German verb clusters and introduce some theoretical notions that will be recurrent in the subsequent sections. I will then present two types of arguments for the vulnerability of descending clusters orders. My research question is formulated in Section 3. Section 4 provides information about the sentence 2 repetition task and the participants. The results will be presented in Section 5 and linked to my research question in Section 6. I will summarize my findings in a conclusion. 2 Theoretical Background Verb clusters are usually defined as inseparable sequences of two or more verbs in clause-‐final position (cf. Evers 1975). They are among others attested in the West-‐Germanic O-‐V languages, mainly German, Dutch, Frisian, West-‐Flemish and Afrikaans (Wurmbrand 2004). A striking property about these clusters is the variation in word order, which is found not only between, but also within the verb cluster languages. Depending on the construction, i.e. the number and types of verbs involved (e.g. modals, auxiliaries, participles), different orders may be required within one language. One construction may furthermore allow for two or more orders as semantically identical alternatives, which adds the notion of optionality to the already puzzling variation within and across verb-‐cluster languages. It is beyond the scope of this paper to give a full account of the variation and optionality in all of the abovementioned languages. For an extensive overview, I refer to Wurmbrand (2004). As the acquisition of (Austrian-‐) German (henceforth AG) constitutes the centre of the present study, I will limit my elaborations in section 2.1 to this variety, sometimes drawing comparisons to verb clusters in Dutch. Besides an overview about verb clusters in AG, the following part will introduce the theoretical notion of verb raising, which will be recurrent in the subsequent sections. In Section 2.2, I will discuss the verb cluster variation in terms of vulnerability. I will present arguments from language contact and first language acquisition, which both suggest that the order, which is found to be most frequent in German, should be vulnerable. 2.1 German verb clusters & verb cluster formation With only one grammatical word order in 2-‐verb (or bipartite) constructions, German is a language that displays a very rigid verb cluster pattern. Bipartite clusters can be formed by both combinations of infinitives and modals (henceforth: INF-‐MOD), as well as participles and auxiliaries (henceforth: PART-‐AUX). The following examples are taken from Bader & Schmid (2009). (1) INF-‐MOD cluster …dass Peter ein Buch lesen muss. …that Peter a book read.INF must ‘...that Peter must read a book’ 3 (2) PART-‐AUX cluster …dass er dir geholfen hat. …that he you help.PART has ‘...that he has helped you’ In these constructions, the finite verb strictly has to appear in clause-‐final position. Note that this is in line with the underlying O-‐V word order, according to which complements strictly have to precede the finite verb in subordinate clauses: (3) ...dass er einen Apfel isst. ...that he an apple eats. ‘...that he is eating an apple’ Also Dutch is considered an underlying O-‐V language (cf. Koster 1976). The order among Dutch verb clusters, however, is less strict. Besides the order attested in German, also the reverse is possible in Dutch bipartite clusters: (4) INF-‐MOD cluster a. ...dat Peter een boek lezen moet. ...that Peter a book read.INF must b. ...dat Peter een boek moet lezen. ...that Peter a book must read. INF both: ‘...that Peter must read a book’ (5) PART-‐AUX cluster a. …dat hij jou geholpen heeft. …that he you help.PART has b. …dat hij jou heeft geholpen. ...that he you has help.PART both: ‘...that he has helped you’ These examples only give a brief impression of different types of bipartite clusters and the variation, which is found with respect to the verb order. Whereas (1) and (2) illustrated the rigidity of German 4 clusters, (4) and (5) showed examples for a less rigid system, as in Dutch bipartite clusters two orders can be used interchangeably. As far as the formation of verb clusters is concerned, different theories have been put forward. Probably the first is Evers’ (1975) verb raising approach, which implies a process of movement. 1 The Dutch examples in (4) and (5), for instance, already suggest that movement must have taken place, since the surface order seems to contradict the O-‐V word order. For German, however, verb raising would imply a process of vacuous movement. But why would we assume such a process, if the same order may easily be explained by a mere O-‐V analysis? Evers (1975) defends this analysis by referring to certain characteristics of the verbal sequences. As already mentioned in the first part of this section, inseparability is a defining criterion for verb clusters. Sentences like (6), for example, where the verbs are interrupted by an adverb, are not grammatical in German: 2 (6) ...*dass Peter ein Buch lesen schnell muss. … that Peter a book read fast must In order to account for this observation, Evers (1975) suggests that also in German, the impenetrable sequences result from a verb raising rule. According to this rule, the head of the complement of the finite-‐verb has to move up in the structure and attach to the matrix-‐verb. Whereas in German bipartite constructions the verbal complement only attaches to the left of the finite verb (also called the descending or 2-‐1 order), examples (4) and (5) have illustrated that both left-‐ and rightward attachment are possible in Dutch, i.e. both 2-‐1 and 1-‐2 orders are grammatical. The numbers are used in order to refer to the verbs’ level of embedment – the higher the number, the deeper the verb is embedded in the clause. The following figure illustrates the process of verb raising with the German example already given in (1), repeated here for convenience: (1) V-‐MOD cluster …dass Peter ein Buch lesen muss. …that Peter a book read.INF must ‘...that Peter must read a book’ 1 Verb cluster formation is not the only syntactic phenomenon that Evers (1975) ascribes to verb raising. He proposes that also gapping and quantifier hopping, among others, can be attributed to this process. I refer to his dissertation (1975) for further elaborations on the topic. 2 Note that among the verb cluster languages, certain dialects allow for a restricted set of elements to occur within the verbal cluster (cf. Barbiers et al., 2008; Wurmbrand, 2005). 5 a. before raising b. after raising VP1 VP1 VP2 muss VP2 leseni muss das Buch lesen das Buch ti (1a) depicts the underlying order before verb raising has taken place. In the process of verb raising, the verb moves out of its original position and attaches to the matrix verb. As in German, the attachment is leftward, this yields a structure as in (1b). So far, I have limited my elaborations to clusters containing two verbal elements. However, verb clusters can theoretically be derived with an infinite number of verbs. Then, verb raising is repeated until no more verbs can be raised. (7) illustrates this with a 3-‐verb (or tripartite) cluster: (7) V-‐MOD-‐MOD cluster …, dass sie das Buch lesen können muss. …, that she the book read can must ‘...that she must be able to read the book’ a. before raising b. after raising VP1 VP1 VP2 muss VP2 leseni könnenj muss VP3 können VP3 titj das Buch lesen das Buch ti (7) illustrates the formation of a V-‐AUX-‐MOD cluster. The finite modal selects another modal verb, which in turn selects the infinitival form. The elements again appear in a strictly descending order. The same holds for AUX-‐AUX-‐V (8) and PART-‐MOD-‐AUX constructions (9). (8a) and (8b) illustrate that also in tripartite clusters, intervening elements are ungrammatical in German: 6 (8) AUX-‐AUX-‐V cluster a. …dass das Rätsel schnell gelöst worden ist. …that the puzzle fast solve.PART PASSIVE is ’...that the puzzle has been solved’ b. ...*dass das Rätsel gelöst schnell worden ist/gelöst worden schnell ist. ... that the puzzle solved. PART fast PASSIVE is/solved.PART PASSIVE fast is (9) PART-‐MOD-‐AUX cluster a. …dass er das Buch schnell gelesen haben muss. …that he the book fast read. PART have must ‘…that he must have read the book’ b. ...*dass er das Buch gelesen schnell haben muss/gelesen haben schnell muss. ... that he the book read. PART fast have must/read. PART have fast must (8) and (9) show that also German tripartite clusters come in strict descending orders. There are two constructions, however, that allow for deviances from the O-‐V word order. This is the case, when complex tense forms of modal verbs are involved. Then, the surface order may differ from the underlying order, which, following Evers (1975), indicates a process of non-‐vacuous movement. In AG, deviances are restricted to IPP constructions (infinitivus-‐pro-‐participio) and future tense forms of modal verbs. Wurmbrand (2005) shows that possible orders vary across German dialects. The following is based on a judgment task by Wurmbrand (2005), who shows that also in AG, orders other than 3-‐2-‐1 are accepted:3 (10) Future tense form of modal verbs a. …dass Peter ein Buch lesen können wird. (3-‐2-‐1) …that Peter a book read.INF can will b. ...?dass Peter ein Buch wird lesen können. (1-‐3-‐2) 3 A question mark indicates that 75% of Wurmbrand’s informants accepted or were uncertain about the order. The % indicates that this was the case for at least 50% of her participants. 7 … that Peter a book will read.INF can c. ...%dass Peter ein Buch lesen wird können. (3-‐1-‐2) … that Peter a book read.INF will can all: ‘...that Peter will be able to read a book’ (10a) shows that also with this construction, the standard 3-‐2-‐1 order is perfectly grammatical in AG. Besides this order, Wurmbrand’s informants also accepted other orders, albeit to a more limited extent: (10b) shows that the 1-‐3-‐2 order was judged to be grammatical by at least 75% of her participants. About half of them also accepted the 3-‐1-‐2 order. Optionality is furthermore attested in so-‐called IPP constructions (infinitivus-‐pro-‐participio). The clusters do not only stand out for their deviant word order, but also because we encounter an unexpected form in these constructions: As the name indicates, an infinitival form has to be used in order to express the prefect tense of modal verbs (see Schmid 2005 for an extensive discussion of the IPP effect). Given the perfect-‐tense meaning, one may expect sentences like (11) (11) …*dass Peter das Zimmer aufräumen gemusst hat. … that Peter the room tidy.INF have.to.PART has ‘...that Peter had to tidy the room’ Instead of the participle gemusst, however the infinitival form müssen has to be used. This construction allows for the following orders in AG (judgements again based on Wurmbrand 2005): (12) Orders attested among IPP constructions a. ...?dass Peter das Zimmer aufräumen müssen hat (?3-‐2-‐1) ... that Peter the room tidy.INF must.INF has b. ...dass Peter das Zimmer aufräumen hat müssen (3-‐1-‐2) ...that Peter the room tidy.INF has must.INF c. ...dass Peter das Zimmer hat aufräumen müssen (1-‐3-‐2) ...that Peter the room has tidy.INF must.INF all: ‘…that Peter had to tidy the room’ 8 The examples in (12) show that the descending order is considered marginal, whereas the deviant orders 3-‐1-‐2 and 1-‐3-‐2 both received better judgments from Wurmbrand’s (2005) informants. Linking this to Evers’ (1975) verb raising analysis, the examples given in this section show that German distinguishes between two main types of tripartite clusters: One type where movement is vacuous and the surface order equals underlying order; and one type where movement can also result in (partly) ascending orders. Whereas most cluster types belong to type one, there are two kinds of constructions allowing for deviances from the standard 3-‐2-‐1 order. The following table will summarize the different types of verb clusters with their respective orders order(s) in AG: Construction Verb types Example V-‐MOD INF-‐FIN dass Peter singen kann 2-‐1 V-‐AUX PART-‐FIN dass Peter gesungen hat 2-‐1 MOD-‐MOD-‐V FIN-‐INF-‐INF dass Peter singen können muss 3-‐2-‐1 MOD-‐AUX-‐V FIN-‐INF-‐PART dass Peter gesungen haben muss 3-‐2-‐1 AUX-‐AUX-‐V PART-‐INF-‐FIN dass Peter gewählt worden ist 3-‐2-‐1 AUX-‐MOD-‐V FIN-‐INF-‐INF dass Peter ein Lied singen können wird 3-‐2-‐1 dass Peter ein Lied singen wird können %3-‐1-‐2 dass Peter ein Lied wird singen können ?1-‐3-‐2 dass Peter ein Lied hat singen müssen 1-‐3-‐2 dass Peter ein Lied singen hat müssen 3-‐1-‐2 ?dass Peter ein Lied singen müssen hat ?3-‐2-‐1 AUX-‐MOD-‐V FIN-‐IPP-‐INF Attested orders Table 1. Possible orders among verb clusters in Austrian German 2.2 Vulnerability of 3-‐2-‐1 The fact that verb-‐clusters are subject to a lot of language and dialect variation has led to many debates about the very nature of these clusters. In the previous section I have presented one theoretical viewpoint by introducing Evers’ (1975) verb raising analysis. Besides the question about how verb-‐clusters are formed, however, also issues about the complexity of different verb orders have been addressed. Different implications follow, for example, depending on whether one takes a head-‐final or a head-‐initial approach (see Wurmbrand 2005 and Barbiers 2008 for an overview of different analyses). Regardless of the theoretical background assumptions, however, there are two types of evidence suggesting that descending (3)-‐2-‐1 orders represent vulnerable orders. Having demonstrated that German shows a very rigid descending pattern, this may at first sight seem 9 counter-‐intuitive. Nevertheless, observations among the neighbouring languages English, Dutch and German, as well as empirical investigations on L1 acquisition point to the fact that what is found to be so stable in German should indeed be vulnerable. Weerman (2006) regards the variation among the West-‐Germanic languages from a perspective of language contact and links this to the theory of the so-‐called “Germanic Sandwich”. This “Germanic Sandwich” is formed by the languages German, Dutch and English, which have experienced different degrees of L2-‐contact throughout their history (see Van Haeringen 1956 for a comparative overview of the three languages). Whereas German has developed in a rather isolated way, English has had a long history of L2-‐contact. Dutch is located between the two languages in terms of contact and therefore constitutes the middle-‐part of the sandwich. The literature suggests (Trudgill 2001, Weerman 2006, among others) that L2-‐contact has a strong influence on a language’s complexity features: Whereas a high degree of L2-‐contact, i.e. a high number of second-‐language learners, may drive grammatical changes into the direction of a grammatical system where complex features for L2 acquisition are avoided, this will not be the case in languages with a low degree of L2-‐ contact. Comparing the grammatical properties of English, Dutch and German indeed shows that these languages do not only form a sandwich in terms of L2-‐contact, but also in some of these L2 features: German, for example, has retained three grammatical genders, followed by Dutch with two grammatical genders and finally by English, which has lost all gender distinctions. Similar developments were observed with respect to the expression of plurality: German exhibits a broad variety of plural morphemes as opposed to English with its uniform –s. Though Dutch displays more variability than English, German still stands out in terms of the plural allomorphy. Comparing the verb order in a sequence of more verbs also shows that Dutch is in an in-‐between position between German and English, which both only allow for one order (1-‐2 in English and 2-‐1 in German). As already illustrated in the previous section, both the 1-‐2 and the 2-‐1 order are grammatical in Dutch: Degree contact high low of L2 Language Verb order in a sequence Example English 1-‐2 ...that he has read the book Dutch 1-‐2 2-‐1 ...dat hij het boek heeft gelezen ...dat hij het boek gelezen heeft German 2-‐1 ...dass er das Buch gelesen hat Table 2. Sequential verb orders in English, Dutch and German. Based on these observations, Weerman (2006) suggests that Dutch is in a transitional state from 2-‐1 to 1-‐2. As 2-‐1 is the only grammatical option in the language with the lowest degree of L2-‐contact, 10 this descending order could therefore be more complex in acquisition than the reverse. The same applies to tripartite clusters. A way to test this hypothesis is by taking a look at how children acquire these clusters and especially how they deal with optionality in the input. Assuming that children should start out with a default order and that more complex orders should come in relatively late, data from acquisition can help gain valuable insights in this matter. Up to the present day, the number of studies on the acquisition of verb clusters is limited (Zuckerman 2001; Meyer & Weerman 2014 for Dutch L1 acquisition, De Haan et al. 2014 for Dutch-‐Frisian bilingualism). Zuckerman (2001) and Meyer & Weerman (2014) approach the optionality in Dutch verb-‐ clusters from a viewpoint of learnability. Both studies show that younger children (around age three) prefer 2-‐1 orders, whereas older children (around age five) show a huge preference for 1-‐2 orders. As the younger children prefer the 2-‐1 order, Zuckerman (2001) takes this as evidence for the fact that descending cluster orders are acquired earlier and therefore represent the default option. Though the children participating in Meyer & Weerman’s (2014) sentence repetition task exhibited the same patterns as found in Zuckerman (2001), Meyer & Weerman do not agree with his reasoning. First, because it is unclear why the older children would show preferences for the more complex option, though this was not found to be the most frequent option in adult speech (cf. Arfs, Coussé & De Sutter 2008, De Sutter 2005, Stroop 2009). Second, because Zuckerman’s (2001) analysis does not provide an explanation for what may finally cause the development towards adult-‐like behaviour. Meyer & Weerman (2014) therefore propose multiple stages in the acquisition of verb clusters. They argue that early instances of 2-‐1 are no real clusters yet, but a mere result of the O-‐V word order. At one point, however, children have to analyse the input, which – on a surface level – provides them with exceptions to the O-‐V order. In order to keep the O-‐V rule intact, children resort to the process of verb raising, or cluster formation. Meyer & Weerman (2014) found that once children start to analyse the deviant input, they show a strong preference for the ascending order, which provides them with obvious evidence for verb raising. Starting out with purely verbal constructions (MOD-‐INF), they soon overgeneralize the ascending order to all types of bipartite clusters. This shows that also from a viewpoint of learnability, descending cluster orders are vulnerable. Only after the acquisition of extra-‐grammatical factors, such as prestige or (in-‐)formality (see Coussé, Arfs & De Sutter 2008), children would turn to adult-‐like behaviour and use more 2-‐1 orders again, which, following Evers (1975) are then also analysed to be the result of verb raising. Meyer & Weerman (2014) also tested their participants for tripartite constructions. Though the responses were too varied for statistical analyses, the same tendencies were observed as for the bipartite constructions, i.e. there was a clear preference for ascending orders. 11 In a follow-‐up study, De Haan et al. (2014) investigated the acquisition of bipartite clusters by Dutch-‐Frisian bilingual children. They conducted an adapted version of Meyer & Weerman’s sentence repetition task and tested their participants for both Frisian and Dutch bipartite clusters. In contrast to Dutch, Frisian only allows for the descending 2-‐1 order in bipartite constructions. As for the Dutch version of the test, De Haan et al.’s (2014) participants performed like their monolingual peers. In Frisian, however, they found a considerable amount of 1-‐2 orders, which is not grammatical according to the Frisian prescriptive grammar. Given that the interference was unidirectional, i.e. ‘Dutch’ orders were overgeneralized to Frisian but not the other way around, provides further evidence for the theory that descending orders are vulnerable. 3 Research Questions The previous section has shown that research on both language contact and language acquisition suggests that descending verb cluster orders are vulnerable. I have presented two types of arguments in favour of this hypothesis: The first one stems from Weerman (2006), who observes that the variation in verb cluster orders is in line with other differences between the Germanic Sandwich languages. He ascribes this variation to different degrees of language contact, which entails that the German descending order would represent the most complex option. The second argument addresses this question from a viewpoint of learnability. Meyer & Weerman (2014) found that monolingual Dutch children at kindergarden age overgeneralize ascending clusters, which leads them to conclude that 1) ascending orders are crucial for the acquisition of verb clusters, since they provide the trigger for verb raising and 2) as a result descending clusters are vulnerable, that is they are more difficult to acquire. This analysis raises several problems for languages such as German, where we find a much more rigid verb cluster system. In Section 2.1 I have shown that German bipartite clusters only allow for the descending 2-‐1 order, which Evers (1975) considers to be the result of vacuous movement. Following Meyer & Weerman (2014), this entails that the German bipartite input lacks the relevant cue to provide a child with evidence for verb raising. In German, this cue can only be found among clusters, which involve more than two verbal elements, even though also there, descending orders are much more frequent: As already discussed in the theoretical background, partly ascending orders are restricted to future tense forms of modal verbs and IPP constructions. Children would therefore have to rely on these constructions in order to infer a general verb raising rule. Besides the fact that the German input provides children with less evidence for verb raising, this also raises an issue related to the age of acquisition: Meyer & Weerman’s (2014) study suggests that tripartite clusters are acquired relatively late, which entails that German children start to analyse (partly) ascending 12 clusters much later then their Dutch peers. This, in turn, may have an impact on the way in which these clusters are acquired: Whereas in early stages of the acquisition process (until ~age 3), children mainly infer general rules about their L1, late acquisition is more likely to be construction-‐specific (cf. Meisel, 2009). Given these differences, Meyer & Weerman’s (2014) analysis raises the question of how verb clusters are acquired in German – whether, despite the fact that there is 1) less evidence for ascending orders and 2) the child will analyse them relatively late, verb clusters are acquired via the application of a general rule. Or, whether late acquisition rather leads to a construction-‐specific acquisition of verb clusters. Based on the preceding discussion, I have sketched three main scenarios, which, as I will show, also yield certain consequences for Evers’ (1975) theoretical analysis: A first scenario may be that, despite the late acquisition, ascending tripartite clusters lead to the application of a general verb raising rule, which would affect both bi-‐ and tripartite clusters. Once children start to analyse ascending orders, they would take these as evidence for verb raising, which they in turn apply on all other types of verb clusters. Following Meyer & Weerman (2014), this yields the prediction that ascending orders would be overgeneralised to both bi-‐ and tripartite constructions. This scenario would support Evers’ (1975) formal analysis, as it would provide evidence for the fact that verb raising is applied all across the board. Given the fact that ascending orders are restricted to tripartite constructions, however, it may just as well be the case that a general rule is at play, but that this rule is restricted to tripartite constructions only. This is the second possible scenario, which would suggest that ascending orders are important in the acquisition of tripartite clusters, but that bipartite clusters are acquired in a different way. Overgeneralisations of ascending orders are then only expected among tripartite clusters. In contrast to the first scenario, this would call for an adaptation of Evers’ (1975) analysis: Recall that Evers proposes that all types of verb cluster are the result of verb raising. As Section 2.1 has shown, he uses this reasoning to account for several properties of a cluster, such as the fact that no intervening elements are allowed between its constituents. If, however, the acquisition of ascending tripartite clusters does not lead to a general verb raising rule among bipartite clusters, such properties must be explained in a different way. The fact that adverbs, for example, are not allowed to interrupt the cluster, may then be ascribed to other mechanisms. The third scenario even yields bigger consequences for Evers’ (1975) analysis. Due to the late acquisition, children may acquire different cluster types in a construction specific way, i.e. there would be no such thing as a general rule. This would therefore predict no overgeneralisation of ascending orders whatsoever. If this is the case, both descending bi-‐ and tripartite clusters, in German, cannot be the result of verb raising and must be explained in an alternative way. 13 In order to shed more light on these issues, I conducted an SRT with L1 and early L2 acquirers of AG. Studies (see Meisel 2009 for an overview of the relevant literature) have shown that early L2 acquirers go through the same developmental stages as monolingual children. Having the same memory capacity as the L1 group, child L2 speakers enable us to investigate earlier stages of the acquisition process due to the later age of onset. This, in turn, may provide us with a broader picture of how verb clusters are acquired in German and deliver insight into which of the three scenarios may offer the best explanation. 4 Method In this section I will present the method applied for the present project. Section 4.1 will contain some general information about the sentence repetition task that has been conducted with child L1 and child L2 acquirers of AG. In section 4.2 I am going to present the test design and the two conditions that have been included in the experiment. The pilot experiments will be discussed in section 4.3. In Section 4.4 I will give information about the participants. I will elaborate on the recruitment procedure and the administering of the test in Section 4.5. 4.1 Sentence repetition task As it is the goal of the present paper to shed more light on the acquisition of verb clusters in German, data is needed that informs us about what children can or tend to produce with respect to those clusters. Eliciting such clusters in a traditional production task, however, would be very challenging as, especially when being tested for tripartite clusters, children may be inclined to produce alternative constructions that are less complex. Instead, I decided to conduct a sentence repetition task, which already provides the children with the grammatical construction in question, but still requires them to use their own grammar. Sentence repetition tasks (SRT; also known as elicited imitation tasks) have already been used successfully in language acquisition research as an alternative to traditional production tasks. In an SRT, the children get to hear sentences and have to repeat what they have heard. In order to make sure the children do not only use their memory alone, the sentences have to be constructed in such a way that they are too long or too complex for their memory capacity. When trying to repeat the sentence, the children should therefore produce what is grammatical according to the current state of their grammars (Chomsky 1964, Eisenbeiss 2010, among others). As far as the design of the test is concerned, especially the sentence length has to be considered carefully: On the one hand, the sentences have to be long enough to exceed the child’s memory capacity, but on the other hand, the children should still be able to remember the gist of the sentence. The literature makes different suggestions with respect to the number of words 14 or syllables (e.g. Montgomery et al. 1978) for different age groups. Based on Zuckerman (2001) and Meyer & Weerman (2014), who also used an SRT in their study on verb clusters, I opted for a sentence length of 10 words. This is considered to be of a medium difficulty for 4-‐6 year old children. Even though the children in the present experiment are somewhat older (6-‐8 years), I decided to keep this sentence length as I expected the tripartite clusters themselves to add more complexity to the sentence. The pilot experiments showed that the sentences seemed to be appropriate for the age group in mind. In order to make the task less monotonous and more natural, each sentence was accompanied by a picture that matched its semantic content. The pictures moreover had the advantage that the children were not too focused on merely repeating phonological sequences, as their attention was partly drawn to what the pictures depicted. In case they couldn’t remember relevant parts, they were encouraged to use information from the picture to complete the sentence. 4.2 Design Section 2 has shown that there are several different types of tripartite constructions in German. So far, hardly anything is known about their acquisition. Testing all of them, however, would result in a costly and time-‐consuming experiment with lots of different variables. In order to make the task feasible, I decided to include one cluster-‐type with a rigid 3-‐2-‐1 order (descending V-‐AUX-‐MOD constructions) and IPP constructions, which involve the same kinds of verbs, but differ with respect to the possible orders. The IPP constructions are moreover a special case, as children need to learn that a perfect tense meaning of a modal verb has to be expressed with an infinitival form. Factors like prosody or kind of modal verb have been kept constant throughout the task. With respect to the latter, only the modal verb müssen (‘to have to’) was used with the rigid clusters. In the IPP condition, I alternated between müssen (‘to have to’) and wollen (‘to want to’), as there were more stimuli in the IPP condition (15 as compared to only 9 in the rigid condition). In Meyer & Weerman’s (2014) study, the type of modal did not influence the children’s performance, so that I did not expect this to be a confounding variable. As far as prosody is concerned, the sentences were presented with the same intonation patterns. Bader & Schmid (2009), however, report that also this factor did not influence their participants’ judgments on the grammaticality of tripartite clusters, suggesting that they are indeed semantically identical alternatives. With respect to word frequency, I chose verbs and contexts that should be familiar to the children. Most of the sentences are related to school, family and leisure activities. Moreover I have only chosen inseparable verbs, i.e. no verbs that with separable prefixes, as in Dutch, for example, 15 prefixes are allowed to intervene between clusters (cf. Barbiers et al. 2008). Though this is not attested for German, I decided to exclude this as a possible confounding variable. Our variables therefore were cluster type (rigid constructions and IPP constructions) and cluster order. In every condition, the child was presented with a number of grammatical and ungrammatical clusters. The stimuli were pre-‐recorded by a native speaker of AG. The reactions to these stimuli (correct repetitions/conversions to other orders) should indicate what preferences the children have with respect to (tripartite) clusters, i.e. what they can produce or what is most economical for them. Altogether, each child had to repeat 36 sentences, among which 24 experimental items and 12 fillers (to which I return below). Moreover, three trial sentences were included at the beginning. I expected that the children would be able to complete the task within 15-‐ 20 minutes, which was confirmed in the pilot experiments. In the first condition, it was tested how children handle V-‐AUX-‐MOD clusters where only one order is available in the input. Recall that in this condition, the verbs can only appear in a descending order: (13) Ich glaube, dass er den Film gesehen haben muss. (3-‐2-‐1) I think that he the movie see.PART have must. ‘I think that me must have seen the movie’ I designed 3 sets of stimuli for this condition. Each semantic content was presented once with the grammatical 3-‐2-‐1 order, once with the ungrammatical 3-‐1-‐2 order (which is a possible option in IPP-‐ constructions) and once with the ungrammatical 1-‐2-‐3 order, which is not grammatical in any cluster types. As already mentioned, only the modal verb müssen (‘to have to’) was used in the rigid condition. Table 3 shows a sample set of stimuli: Order Sentence Cluster 3-‐2-‐1 Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag geschlafen haben muss *3-‐1-‐2 Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag geschlafen muss haben *1-‐2-‐3 Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag muss haben geschlafen Table 3. Example set of stimuli for the rigid condition. Altogether, the children were presented with 9 stimuli from this condition, consisting of three different semantic contents and three different cluster-‐orders (see Appendix A1 for a complete 16 overview of the stimuli). In the second condition, I tested IPP-‐constructions with an optional verb order: (14) IPP-‐constructions a. Ich weiß, dass Peter das Buch lesen hat müssen. (3-‐1-‐2) I know that Peter the book read.INF has must.INF b. Ich weiß, dass Peter das Buch hat müssen lesen. (1-‐3-‐2) I know that Peter the book has must.INF read.INF c. ?Ich weiß, dass Peter das Buch lesen müssen hat. (?3-‐2-‐1) I know that Peter the book read.INF must.INF has All: “I know that Peter must have read the book.” Besides the two grammatical orders as well as the marginal order, the children were also presented with the ungrammatical 1-‐2-‐3 order and a descending order not displaying the IPP effect. Table 4 shows a sample set of stimuli (see Appendix A2): Order Sentence Cluster 3-‐1-‐2 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen essen hat wollen 1-‐3-‐2 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen hat essen wollen ?3-‐2-‐1 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen essen wollen hat *1-‐2-‐3 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen hat wollen essen *3-‐2p-‐1 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen essen gewollt hat Table 4. Example set of stimuli for the IPP condition. Also here, each order was included three times, making a total of 15 IPP items. As the literature recommends that a child should not be confronted with the same semantic content more than three times, it would not have been desirable to test each order with each sentence on each child. Following Meyer and Weerman (2014) I therefore decided to design two comparable sets of items and split them over two versions. This made it possible to still test all sentences with all orders. In Version 1, the children were presented with 3x3 sentences from set A and 2x3 sentences from set B. In version two, 2x3 sentences from set A and 3x3 sentences from set B were included. 17 As fillers, I included sentences with verbal inflection errors in finite contexts, plus the same sentences with the correctly inflected form. On the one hand, these fillers should serve as distractors and bring more variety to the test. On the other hand, they should also deliver further prove for the fact that the test actually fulfils its purposes, as both L1 and early L2 speakers of German of the age group tested should have acquired solid knowledge of verbal inflection (e.g. Schwartz 2004) and therefore produce the grammatical form. Table 5 gives examples for two sets of filler items. Stimulus Type Sentence *2SG Papa glaubt, dass Mama gerade mit dem Handy telefonierst. 3SG Papa glaubt, dass Mama gerade mit dem Handy telefoniert. ‘Papa thinks that Mama is talking on her mobile phone’ *INF Mario sagt, dass er sich zum Geburtstag einen Roller wünschen. 3SG Mario sagt, dass er sich zum Geburtstag einen Roller wünscht. ‘Mario says that he is asking for a scooter for his birthday’ Table 5 Example sets for the filler items. 4.3 Piloting The experiment was piloted on 11 adults (M=25;4; sd=15;3; range: 20;4-‐64;8) and 2 children (both boys, 6;2 years and 7;8 years), who were are all native speakers of AG. Whereas the adult group was primarily included to check whether the SRT would be feasible at all, the children were tested in order to account for possible weak points in the design. If, for example, the adults with their higher working memory would exhibit major difficulties with the SRT, it would not at all be feasible for children. On overall, however, the adults performed quite well on the SRT. They repeated 72% of the stimuli correctly. Nonetheless, nearly one third of incorrect repetitions suggest that also the adults’ memory was challenged by the task. The nature of errors, however, provides support for Wurmbrand’s (2005) findings: Whereas ungrammatical conversions mainly occurred after ungrammatical stimuli, grammatical conversions were more likely to follow a grammatical stimulus. The participants later reported that they recognized the ungrammaticality of certain stimuli, but weren’t always able to retrieve the exact order from their memory. This shows that the orders labelled ‘ungrammatical’, indeed do not constitute part of their grammars. Grammatical conversions mainly occurred after grammatical or marginal IPP stimuli. These were mainly conversions to a different grammatical order attested among IPP constructions. I take 18 this as support for the grammaticality of these orders. The adults’ performance therefore led us to two important conclusions with respect to the SRT: First, it speaks in favour of the feasibility of the SRT, since the adults were clearly able to repeat most of the stimuli correctly. Second, it supports Wurmbrand’s (2005) judgment data, which were used as guidelines for the experimental design. In order to adapt the experiment according to our age group in mind, the experiment was piloted on two L1 speakers of AG. It had to be tested whether factors like sentence length and the duration of the task were appropriate. Furthermore, the pilot should help pointing out any problematic items. In contrast to the adults, the children repeated hardly any items correctly. Still, they were able to make sense of the stimuli, as shown by their deviant responses: These mainly involved descending bipartite constructions. Two sets of items, which both involved reflexive pronouns, led to confusion among both participants. I therefore decided to exchange these items with items that matched the rest of the stimuli in a better way. Both children were able to keep focused on the task throughout its whole duration. The only thing they found difficult about the task, so they reported, was memorizing the characters’ names. 4.4 Participants I tested 27 monolingual speakers of Austrian German, among which 18 males and 9 females. The mean age of the participants was 7;6 years, with a standard deviation of 13 months and a range between 6;9 and 8;7 years. 14 children completed Version 1 of the test; the other 13 children completed Version 2. Among the 27 L1 children, nearly two thirds (62.96%, n=17) attended the first grade of primary school. Only 10 children attended the second grade. The Child L2 group consisted of 26 speakers (15 males, 11 females). The mean age of the participants was 7;3 years with a standard deviation of 0;7. The range was between 6;7 and 8;8 years. The majority of the children (n=19) grew up speaking Turkish at home. 7 children spoke Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian as their first language. Given that Turkish is an S-‐O-‐V language, whereas Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are mutually intelligible S-‐V-‐O Slavic variants, I decided keep the groups apart in the analysis. I will refer to the latter as the BKS group.4 The two groups furthermore differed with respect to their amount of exposure: In contrast to the Turkish children, who mainly reported that Turkish was the language they spoke most, nearly all of the BKS children reported to speak German most frequently. All of the L2 children reported that they were first exposed to German in Kindergarten or pre-‐school. 15 of the Child L2 speakers completed Version 1 of the task. 4 BKS stands for the German initials of the three languages (Bosnisch, Kroatisch, Serbisch). In Austria, this abbreviation is commonly used in order to refer to the three Slavic variants. 19 The other 11 children were administered Version 2. 14 of the L2 children attended the first class of primary school. 12 children from the second classes were tested. 4.5 Recruiting and administering 56 children and 11 adult speakers of Austrian German participated in the experiment. The children were recruited at the primary school Volksschule 2 in Wörgl, Tyrol, where about half of the children are early L2 acquirers of German with Turkish as the most frequent L1. Aiming for an age group of about 7-‐years old children, 2 first and 2 second classes were asked to participate in the project. The children were all tested individually at a quiet spot in the school. There were two experimenters present in each session, which allowed for a division of labour: whereas one experimenter was responsible for administering the test, the other one filled in the score sheets. The sessions were moreover recorded on audio, so that unclear cases could be checked again. As far as the instructions are concerned, the children were told to try to repeat the sentences and not to be worried if they forgot. It was emphasized that it was not about failing or passing any test, but just about trying to repeat the sentences. As in the pilots, the names of the characters were somewhat problematic for the children, they were specifically told that they shouldn’t worry about mixing up the names. After each session, a sociolinguistic questionnaire was filled out, where the children had to answer questions about their linguistic background and their language habits. 5 Results In order to find possible preferences for certain cluster orders, I performed chi-‐square tests in SPSS for the two conditions. Since, as we will see, the L2 speakers only produced very low numbers of tripartite constructions, the statistical analysis was only possible for the L1 group. Due to a large variety of responses, however, also the analyses for the L1 group at times had to be based on simplified versions of the contingency tables (e.g. a comparison between correct and incorrect responses). In the following I will present the results from the SRT. While a more detailed interpretation of the results will be given in Section 6, this section shows that bipartite constructions are already very stable among both L1 and early L2 acquirers of AG. Tripartite clusters, on the other hand, were still very unstable. If they were produced, however, the children mainly stuck to grammatical orders. I am first going to present the results from the L1 speakers, before moving on to a more qualitative overview of the L2 speakers’ performance. 20 5.1 L1 children First, it should be stated that the L1 group performed as expected on the filler items, i.e. they mostly corrected the ungrammatical inflectional forms (see Appendix D5 for an overview). For the rigid condition, 243 (3x3x27) responses were collected from the L1 children. As a first step, I checked whether factors like age or gender had an effect on the results. Whereas gender was not found to be associated with the exact repetitions (χ2= 0.107; df=1; p=0.543), this was the case for age, where I found a difference between children attending the 1st class of primary school (henceforth 1.Klasse; n=17, M=8;2), as opposed to children attending the 2nd class (henceforth 2.Klasse; n=10, M=7;3; χ2=14.428; df=1; p<0.001). In the following, I will first give a general overview of the results, before zooming into the differences between the age groups. A low number of exact repetitions and grammatical 3-‐2-‐1 conversions, as well as a broad range of different responses indicates that the stimuli were still very difficult for the children. Figure 1 shows the responses per stimulus type for the L1 group. 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 3,70% 6,17% 8,64% 9,88% 11,11% 25,93% 4,94% 3,70% 6,17% 6,17% 1,23% 4,94% 6,17% 9,88% 17,28% 50% 24,69% 40% Other biparyte response Other triparyte response 11,11% P-‐FIN-‐FIN 2,47% 3,70% 4,94% P-‐INF-‐INF P-‐FIN-‐INF 30% 20% Other Error 48,15% 10% 20,99% 16,05% 0% 3-‐2-‐1 *3-‐1-‐2 27,16% 8,64% 6,17% 2-‐1 3-‐2-‐1 conversion Exact Repeyyon *1-‐2-‐3 1. Responses by stimulus type rigid condition (L1 children). Figure The blue part represents the exact repetitions for each stimulus. Whereas nearly half of the 3-‐2-‐1 stimuli were repeated correctly, the number of exact repetitions was much lower with the ungrammatical stimuli. A chi-‐square test shows that the stimulus type is significantly associated with the number of correct repetitions (χ2=156.087; df=2; p<0.001). Pairwise comparisons between the stimuli point out that the difference between the marginal 3-‐2-‐1 order and the grammatical orders is 21 significant, while *3-‐1-‐2 and *1-‐2-‐3 do not differ significantly in terms of exact repetitions. This shows that the children perform best on the stimuli, which they also encounter in their input. Table 6 illustrates the outcomes of the chi-‐square test. Comparison Chi-‐Square Significant More frequent 3-‐2-‐1 and *1-‐3-‐2 χ2=19,145; df=1;p< 0.001 YES 3-‐2-‐1 3-‐2-‐1 and *3-‐1-‐2 χ2=36,069; df=1 ; p<0.001 YES 3-‐2-‐1 *1-‐3-‐2 and *3-‐1-‐2 χ2=4,000; df=1; p=0,046 NO -‐ Table 6. Pairwise comparisons of exact repetitions for the rigid condition (L1 children). The red parts in Figure 1 show conversions to the grammatical 3-‐2-‐1 order. Whereas 21% of the *3-‐1-‐ 2 stimuli were converted to the 3-‐2-‐1 order, this number was lower with the *1-‐2-‐3 stimuli, which triggered 8.64% of grammatical tripartite conversions. 2-‐1 bipartite constructions, on the other hand, were frequently produced after all stimulus types (see the green parts in Figure 1). Here, both V-‐MOD and V-‐MOD combinations have been subsumed. The stimulus type was not significantly associated with the number of 2-‐1 responses, which suggests that these instances were not only an effect of the stimulus order (χ2=5.529; df=2; p=0.063). The purple, the turquoise and the orange part show instances where tripartite constructions were produced, but with ungrammatical finiteness features. These involved constructions that occurred in a participle-‐finite-‐infinite (PART-‐FIN-‐INF) order, or participle-‐infinite-‐infinite (P-‐INF-‐INF) orders, as well as a combination of a participle with two finite forms (PART-‐FIN-‐FIN). Examples are given below: (15) Example P-‐INF-‐INF error (participant P25L1; item R4) Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut gelacht haben müssen. Rosi thinks that Lukas extremely hard laugh.PART have.INF must.INF (16) Example P-‐FIN-‐INF error (participant P13L1; item R5) Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag geschlafen hat müssen Hans thinks that Fritz the whole day sleep.PART have must.INF (17) Example P-‐FIN-‐FIN error (participant P8L1; item R9) 22 Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa gespielt hat muss. Mama thinks that Tina on the couch play.PART have must.INF The latter mainly occurred after the 3-‐2-‐1 stimuli, though cell counts were too low to account for this statistically. I take this as a combination of the 2-‐1 order and memory effects, as the last verb in the stimulus is most likely to be remembered. In Meyer & Weerman’s (2014) SRT, similar errors were observed, which are also ascribed to be a reflex of the children’s memory. Such responses will therefore not be addressed any further. The errors of type (15) and (16), on the other hand, will receive special attention in the discussion section. The light-‐blue part in Figure 1 shows instances of ungrammatical tripartite constructions. These involve errors that occurred with only very low frequencies each, which is why they are subsumed under ‘other tripartite responses’. Table 7 provides examples. Participant Stimulus Cluster Response P8L1 ...*muss haben geschlafen ...gehaben muss schlafen P6L1 ...*muss haben geschlafen ...schlafen gehaben müssen P9L1 ...geschlafen haben muss ...geschlafen hat musste Table 7. Examples for 'other tripartite responses'. Similar things were observed with only two verbs only: The children produced a broad range of ungrammatical bipartite responses, which couldn’t be categorised according to any notable pattern: Participant Stimulus Cluster Response P19L1 ...*geschlafen muss haben ...geschlafen haben P7L1 ...gelacht muss haben ...gelachen muss P24L1 *...muss haben geschlafen ...schlafen gewesen Table 8. Examples for 'other bipartite responses'. The light-‐green upper part, labelled ‘other errors’, represents instances where the semantics or the sentence structure was changed in a way, which made a classification in terms of clusters impossible. These involved cases of cluster interruption, embedded clauses with V2, as well as occasional missing responses: 23 Participant Stimulus Cluster Response P9L1 ...*muss haben gelacht ...dass Lukas musst ganz lachen. P19L1 ...*muss haben gespielt ..., Lena muss auf dem Sofa gespielt haben. R9L1 ...*geschlafen muss haben ...dass Fritz muss den ganzen Tag schlafen. Table 9. Examples 'other errors'. This overview so far shows that on overall, tripartite constructions were still difficult for the children. A low number of exact repetitions and grammatical tripartite conversions suggest that tripartite clusters do not constitute solid part of their grammars yet. 2-‐1 orders, on the other hand, were found to be frequently produced with all stimulus types. As has been mentioned in the first part of this section, a chi-‐square test has shown that 1. Klasse children and 2. Klasse children perform differently on the stimuli. These differences are presented in Figure 2. Responses where the difference between the groups was not significant, or where the cell-‐counts were too low for statistical analyses, are shaded grey (see Appendix G7 for the complete figure). 100% Rest 90% E+V2 80% 70% 60% 50% 10,34% 7,84% 1V 9,80% 13,79% 21,57% other 2VC 7,84% 27,59% 65,52% 30% 39,22% 13,73% 20,69% 20,69% 0% 1. Klasse 2. Klasse 3-‐2-‐1 1. Klasse 2. Klasse *3-‐1-‐2 I-‐I-‐I P-‐I-‐I 35,29% 9,80% 10% other 3VC 31,03% 35,29% 40% 20% C+V2 3,45% 5,88% 5,88% 6,90% 1. Klasse 2. Klasse *1-‐2-‐3 P-‐F-‐F P-‐F-‐I 2-‐1 3-‐2-‐1 conversion exact repeyyon Figure 2. Responses by stimulus type (1. Klasse vs. 2. Klasse). Figure 2 mainly shows that the older group produced more grammatical tripartite responses than the younger children. With respect to the exact repetitions, this was found to be significant only for the 3-‐2-‐1 stimuli (χ2=14.343; df=1; p<0.001), i.e. the older children produced more exact repetitions with 24 this stimulus type. The older children also produced more 3-‐2-‐1 conversions than the younger ones (χ2=5.003; df=1; p=0.025). 2-‐1 bipartite conversions, on the other hand, were found to be more frequent among the younger group (χ2=13.978; df=1; p<0.001). Though the younger children performed worse in terms of tripartite responses, they produced significantly more P-‐FIN-‐INF finiteness errors (χ2=5.693; df=1; p=0.017). No differences were found with respect to the other response types. I will now continue with the results from the IPP condition, where 405 (5x3x27) responses have been collected from the L1 children. Recall that in this condition, two of the five stimulus types are grammatical (1-‐3-‐2 and 3-‐1-‐2); the 3-‐2-‐1 order is considered a marginal order in AG. Per stimulus order, it was first checked whether gender, version or age had an effect on the responses. This was done in terms of exact repetitions. Whereas gender and version were not found to be associated with the number of exact repetitions (for gender: χ2=0.260; df=1; p=0.61; for version: χ2=2.989; df=1; p=0.084), differences were again found between the 1. Klasse and the 2. Klasse children (χ2=5.15; df=1; p=0.023). Again, I will first discuss the overall results and then zoom into the different age groups. Figure 3 provides an overview of the response types per stimulus type. Figure 3. Responses by stimulus type IPP condition (L1 children) 25 Also in this condition, the children produced a broad range of different responses. A chi-‐square test has shown that there was an association between the stimulus type and exact repetitions (χ2=31,737; df=4; p<0,001). The following table shows the outcomes for a pairwise comparison of the stimuli: Comparison Chi Square Significant More frequent 1-‐3-‐2 and 3-‐1-‐2 Χ2=0,294; df=1; p=0,588 NO -‐ 1-‐3-‐2 and ?3-‐2-‐1 Χ2=4,836; df=1; p=0,028 YES ?3-‐2-‐1 3-‐1-‐2 and ?3-‐2-‐1 Χ2=2,778; df=1; p=0,096 NO -‐ 1-‐3-‐2 and *1-‐2-‐3 Χ2=7,994; df=1; p=0,005 YES 1-‐3-‐2 1-‐3-‐2 and *3-‐2part-‐1 Χ2=4,318; df=1; p=0,038 YES 1-‐3-‐2 3-‐1-‐2 and *1-‐2-‐3 Χ2= 11,053; df=1; p=0,001 YES 3-‐1-‐2 3-‐1-‐2 and *3-‐part-‐1 Χ2=6,742; df=1; p=0,009 YES 3-‐1-‐2 ?3-‐2-‐1 and *1-‐3-‐2 Χ2=23,241; df=1; p<0.001 YES ?3-‐2-‐1 ?3-‐2-‐1 and *3-‐2part-‐1 Χ2=17,274; df=1; p<0.001 YES ?3-‐2-‐1 *1-‐2-‐3 and *3-‐part-‐1 Χ2=0,661; df=1; p=0,416 NO -‐ Table 10. Pairwise comparisons of exact repetitions for the IPP condition (L1 children). In terms of exact repetitions, both the grammatical stimuli and the marginal stimulus differed from the ungrammatical orders, i.e. the formers were repeated significantly more often. Whereas within the ungrammatical stimuli did not differ from each other, this was the case for the grammatical 1-‐3-‐2 and the marginal ?3-‐2-‐1 stimulus, in favour of the latter. Pairwise comparisons between ?3-‐2-‐1 and 3-‐1-‐2, as well as 1-‐3-‐2 and 3-‐1-‐2, however, were not found to be significant. This shows that like in the rigid condition, children mainly produce what they encounter in their input. Within the grammatical/marginal orders, they do not show a clear preference for any order. With respect to the grammatical tripartite conversions, each stimulus order triggered the use of grammatical and/or marginal constructions. The red part shows 1-‐3-‐2 conversions, which were a relatively frequent tripartite response with the *1-‐2-‐3 stimuli. 3-‐1-‐2 conversions are illustrated by the green part; the purple part represents conversions to the marginal ?3-‐2-‐1 order. Compared to the other response types, the grammatical tripartite conversions were very infrequent, which demonstrates that also IPP-‐constructions are not entirely in place (yet). Like in the rigid condition, I found a considerable amount of 2-‐1 responses. What follows is a brief overview of the mainly ungrammatical responses. The orange part shows instances where the children produced a past-‐tense form on the modal verb: 26 (18) Past-‐tense form on modal verb (participant P12L1; item I7V1) Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern malen wollte hat. Aunt Helga says that Jonas with the fingers paint.INF want.PST has. This type of error was significantly associated with the stimulus type, as it mainly occurred after *3-‐ 2p-‐1 stimuli (χ2=18.630; df=4; p<0.001). As for the responses categorized under ‘other bipartite response’, ‘other tripartite response’ and ‘other’, similar errors were found as in the rigid condition. There were many different errors with low frequencies each, so that a separate categorisation was not feasible. I refer to tables 7-‐9 for examples. It is worth noting, however, that errors of the P-‐INF-‐INF or P-‐FIN-‐INF type did not occur in the IPP condition. Comparing the responses from the 1.Klasse children to those from the 2.Klasse reveals the following: 100% 90% 20,00% 9,80% 80% 70% 21,57% 16,67% 23,33% 30,00% 16,67% 5,88% 30,00% 31,37% 3,92% 13,33% 10,00% 6,67% 3,33% 37,25% 50% 35,29% 25,49% 3,33% 3,33% 10,00% 13,33% 5,88% 6,67% 40% 6,67% 39,22% 30,00% 60% 30% 20% 10% 0% 1,96% 13,33% 11,76% 23,33% 7,84% 5,88% 3,92% 9,80% 10,00% 36,67% 39,22% 40,00% 1,96% 7,84% 1,96% 3,33% 23,53% 23,33% 21,57% 16,67% 7,84% 11,76% 10,00% 1,96% 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. 2. Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse 1-‐3-‐2 3-‐1-‐2 ?3-‐2-‐1 *1-‐2-‐3 other other biparyte other triparyte 2-‐1 3-‐2-‐1 conversion 3-‐1-‐2 conversion 1-‐3-‐2 conversion Exact Repeyyon *3-‐2p-‐1 Figure 4. Responses by stimulus type IPP condition (L1 children). Figure 4 shows the differences between the 1. Klasse and the 2. Klasse children (see Appendix G5 for the entire figure). In terms of correct repetitions, only the *1-‐2-‐3 order was repeated correctly significantly more often by the 1. Klasse children (χ2=3,886; df=1; p=0.049). Also with respect to the 1-‐3-‐2 conversions, the older children showed more of those instances (χ2=4.523; df=1; p=0.033). 27 Though no significant association was found between age group and 3-‐1-‐2 conversions, ascending conversions, i.e. 1-‐3-‐2 and 3-‐1-‐2 conversions taken together, were produced significantly more often by the older children (χ2=4.731; df=1; p=0.03). No difference was found for 3-‐2-‐1 conversions. Like in the rigid condition, the younger children resorted more often to 2-‐1 constructions (χ2=11.610; df=1; p=0.001), while the older children produced more ‘other tripartite’ responses (χ2=18.557; df=1; p<0.001). 5.2 Results L2 group Recall that the early L2 speakers were included in order to investigate earlier stages in the acquisition of verb clusters. The results from the L1 speakers, however, have shown that tripartite clusters are still quite challenging for the monolingual children. It is therefore not surprising that our early L2 speakers exhibited even bigger difficulties with the stimuli. Nevertheless, the L2 children frequently resorted to bipartite clusters, which shows that they are already solid among all groups. Since low cell counts among the tripartite responses did not allow for a thorough chi-‐square analysis, I will discuss the results from the L2 group mainly in terms of descriptives. For the rigid condition, I collected 171 (19x3x3) responses from the Turkish group and 63 (7x3x3) responses from the BKS group. Figure 5 gives an overview of the responses per stimulus type. 100% 9,52% 90% 80% 38,60% 70% 60% 5,26% 23,81% 23,81% 59,65% 19,30% 42,86% 40% 14,29% other biparyte response 5,26% 1,75% 38,10% 8,77% Turkish 3-‐2-‐1 BKS other triparyte response 52,38% 2-‐1 33,33% 23,81% other 9,52% 43,86% 10% 14,29% 1,75% 47,37% 20% 0% 33,33% 4,76% 50% 30% 19,05% 9,52% 14,29% 1,75% Turkish BKS Exact Repeyyon Turkish *3-‐1-‐2 BKS *1-‐2-‐3 Table 11. R esponses by stimulus type rigid condition (L2 children). 28 Even though the number of exact repetitions is very low for both groups, the BKS group performs significantly better than the Turkish group (χ2=7,111; df=1; p=0.008). Both groups perform best with the grammatical 3-‐2-‐1 order, followed by the *3-‐1-‐2 order and finally the *1-‐2-‐3 order, which did not trigger any exact repetitions at all. This is the same pattern that has also been observed with the L1-‐ group, though they produced a much higher number of exact repetitions. The green part shows that each stimulus triggered a considerable amount of 2-‐1 responses in both groups. None of the children converted to the grammatical 3-‐2-‐1 order. If tripartite responses were produced, they involved some kind of ungrammaticality, as illustrated by the purple part in Figure 5. Table 11 provides some examples: Participant Stimulus order Stimulus Cluster Response P21L2B *1-‐2-‐3 ...*muss haben geschlafen ...*schlafen muss haben P15L2B *3-‐1-‐2 ...*geschlafen muss haben ...*schlafen gemusst haben P5L2T *1-‐2-‐3 ...*muss haben gespielt ...*muss hat gespielt Table 12. Examples ‘other tripartite responses’. Besides these ungrammatical tripartite conversions, also ungrammatical bipartite responses were produced by the L2 children (see the light-‐blue part in Figure 5). Most of these errors can be ascribed to the BKS group. Table 12 gives examples for the ungrammatical bipartite responses: Participant Stimulus order Stimulus Cluster Response P15L2B *3-‐1-‐2 ...gespielt muss haben ...spielt haben P2L2T *1-‐2-‐3 ...muss haben gelacht ...lachen müssen P14L2T 3-‐2-‐1 ...gelacht haben muss ...lacht müssen Table 13. Examples ‘other bipartite responses’. I have shown that the BKS children do not only produce more exact repetitions than the Turkish group, but also more ungrammatical tri-‐ and bipartite constructions. ‘Other’ errors, however, were mainly produced by the L1 Turkish children (see the orange part in Figure 5). These errors involve instances, which could not be classified in terms of any cluster scheme. Table 13 gives an overview about the different types of errors with the target response Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa gespielt haben muss (‘Mama thinks that Tina must have played on the couch’). 29 Participant Response Error type P10L2T *Mama glaubt, Sofa spielen soll. Missing C + missing subject P17L2T *Mama sagt, Tina sofa spielt. Missing C; verb final P15L2B *Mama sagt, dass Tina spielt in dem Sofa. Complementizer + V2 P13L2T Mama glaubt, die Tina spielt auf dem Sofa Embedded clause + V2 Table 14. Examples ‘other responses’. Such instances suggest that not only the tripartite constructions were problematic for the Turkish group, but rather that the structure of subordinate clauses themselves was not being mastered yet.5 Taking a look at the IPP condition shows that also IPP constructions were still challenging for the children. I collected 285 (19x5x3) responses from the Turkish group and 105 (7x5x3) responses from the BKS group, which resulted in 390 responses altogether. Figure 6 gives an overview of the responses per stimulus type 100% 4,76% 19,05% 90% 80% 42,11% 50% 40% 35,09% 23,81% 8,77% 4,76% 15,79% 4,76% 14,29% 14,04% 19,05% 12,28% 30% 20% 35,09% 38,10% 38,60% 9,52% 4,76% Turkish one verb 47,62% 3,51% 9,52% 7,02% 5,26% 14,29% 3,51% 40,35% 38,60% 28,57% BKS 1-‐3-‐2 Turkish BKS 3,51% Turkish 3-‐1-‐2 9,52% BKS 3,51% 9,52% Turkish ?3-‐2-‐1 BKS *1-‐2-‐3 Turkish ascending biparyte repsonse descending biparyte response 9,52% 29,82% 28,57% 10% 0% 31,58% 42,86% 42,86% 28,57% 10,53% 8,77% Other 29,82% 45,61% 9,52% 70% 60% 28,07% 28,57% 14,29% 9,52% 19,05% BKS 2-‐1 Triparyte (ungrammaycal) Exact Repeyyon *3-‐2p-‐1 Figure 6. Responses by stimulus type rigid condition (L1 children). Like in the rigid condition, the BKS speakers produced a higher number of exact repetitions. The proportions of exact repetitions per stimulus are again similar in both groups. Whereas the 3-‐2-‐1 order triggered the highest amount of exact repetitions, the *1-‐2-‐3 stimulus did not lead to one exact repetition. The ungrammatical 3-‐2p-‐1 stimulus, however, triggered even more exact repetitions than the grammatical 3-‐1-‐2 and 1-‐3-‐2 stimuli. 5 Note that the Turkish children also exhibited major problems with the filler items (see Appendix H3). 30 In terms of incorrect responses, the L2 children showed a considerable amount of 2-‐1 constructions, while neither the marginal ?3-‐2-‐1 order, nor the grammatical 1-‐3-‐2 and 3-‐1-‐2 orders were produced. With respect to the ungrammatical responses, I observed the same pattern as in the rigid condition: Ungrammatical bi-‐ and tripartite conversions were mainly produced by the BKS children; ‘Other’ errors were more frequent among the Turkish group. The results from the L2 group suggest that tripartite clusters are indeed acquired late, but that bipartite clusters are in place much earlier. I have shown that tri-‐ and bipartite clusters can mainly be ascribed to the BKS children, whereas the Turkish children still exhibited difficulties with the structure of subordinate clauses. I take this to be the result of differences in terms of exposure. 6 Analysis and Discussion Based on Meyer & Weerman’s (2014) study on the acquisition of Dutch verb clusters, the present paper addresses the question of how these impenetrable sequences of verbs are acquired in German. While Meyer & Weerman’s (2014) results suggest that in Dutch, ascending cluster orders lead to the application of a general verb raising rule, I pointed out that the situation may be different for acquirers of German. First, because German shows a much more rigid descending system and therefore provides the child with less evidence for such a rule. Second, because (partly) ascending orders are restricted to tripartite clusters, which Meyer & Weerman (2014) found to be acquired much later than bipartite clusters. I therefore raised the question of whether also in German, ascending cluster orders serve as a trigger for such a general rule, or whether the abovementioned differences lead to several construction-‐specific rules. As I have briefly discussed in Section 3, gaining more insight into this issue also contributes to the more theoretical discussion about verb clusters, since it yields implications for Evers’ (1975) verb raising analysis. Recall that I have sketched three possible scenarios, which are summarized in Table 14 below: Scenario Description Prediction 1 Order differences in tripartite clusters lead to the application of a verb raising rule among both tri-‐ and bipartite constructions. Only tripartite clusters are acquired via a general rule. Bipartite clusters are acquired independently. Ascending orders will be overgeneralized to all cluster types. 2 3 Theoretical implication Evers’ (1975) analysis is confirmed. Ascending orders will be overgeneralized only to tripartite constructions. Verb raising can only explain the formation of tripartite clusters. Bipartite clusters do not result from vacuous movement. All types of verb clusters are acquired Ascending orders will There is no such thing in a construction-‐specific way. not be overgeneralised as vacuous movement 31 to other cluster types. among descending cluster types. Table 15. Possible scenarios in the acquisition of verb clusters In the following, I will discuss in how far my results relate to these scenarios. I will show that the quantitative results provide clear evidence against the third scenario, but that they are less informative with respect to the other scenarios. In order to gain more insight into this matter I took an individual look at the children’s tripartite responses, which suggests that the acquisition of (partly) ascending IPP constructions may leave their traces among rigid tripartite clusters. Rather than taking this as clear support for Scenario 2, however, I will consider this as a tendency, which should be further explored in the future. Let’s start by discussion the quantitative results: The first notable finding is that both the L1 and early L2 acquirers of German still struggle with tripartite clusters. A low number of tripartite conversions, as well as a broad range of different response types indicates that neither of the groups show target-‐like knowledge of tripartite clusters yet. Among the L2 group there was not a single instance of a grammatical tripartite conversion and also the number of exact repetitions was extremely low. If tripartite conversions were produced, however, they mainly occurred after the descending stimuli, regardless of their grammaticality. In the IPP condition, for example, the *3-‐2p-‐1 order triggered more exact repetitions than the grammatical 1-‐3-‐2 or 3-‐1-‐2 orders. Also among the ungrammatical tripartite conversions, ascending orders were very scarce. Though, or maybe just because these numbers were too small for statistical analysis, this suggests that (ascending) tripartite clusters still do not constitute part of the children’s grammar yet. The monolingual children performed better both in terms of exact repetitions and tripartite conversions, but the experimental stimuli were still very challenging for them, too. Recall that I have opted for an age group of around 7 years, as Meyer & Weerman’s (2014) SRT showed that tripartite clusters are still unstable among Dutch Kindergardners (M=4;9; range=4;0-‐6;2). My results, however, suggest that also the 7 year olds are still far from having a full grasp of tripartite clusters. Comparing the monolingual 1.Klasse and 2.Klasse children indicates that only at the age of about 8 years, children start to analyse the ascending input. Nevertheless, the overall results reveal an interesting pattern. Section 5.1 has shown that if tripartite constructions were produced, they mainly involved orders which are grammatical in AG: In the rigid condition, the L1 children produced significantly more exact repetitions after the 3-‐2-‐1 stimulus than after the *3-‐1-‐2 and *1-‐2-‐3 stimuli. Though 50% of exact repetitions following the 3-‐2-‐ 1 stimuli suggest that the knowledge of this construction is still very unstable, they show that the descending stimuli cause fewer troubles than the ungrammatical ones. This in turn indicates that the 32 children must at least possess some kind of knowledge of what is grammatical and what is not. Even though the number of tripartite conversions was much lower than the number of exact repetitions, they followed a similar pattern, as the 3-‐2-‐1 order was produced most frequently. Instances of ascending conversions did occur, but with much lower frequencies. Also in the IPP condition, the children performed clearly different on the ungrammatical and the grammatical stimuli: Though tripartite responses were even less frequent in this condition, exact repetitions and tripartite conversions show that children mainly produce what is available in their input: Both the grammatical orders, as well as the marginal stimulus triggered significantly more exact repetitions than the ungrammatical stimuli. Despite the fact that the stimuli were originally designed to trigger a tripartite response, they also provided insight into the acquisition of bipartite clusters: The results have shown that descending bipartite clusters were produced all across the board: Both L1 and L2 speakers showed a solid knowledge of this construction. While this confirms that tripartite clusters are acquired much later than bipartite constructions, a very low number of ascending bipartite orders furthermore suggests that bipartite clusters are not affected by order differences among tripartite constructions. So far, the results indicate the following: First, they show that tripartite clusters are indeed acquired extremely late. Whereas the L2 children showed hardly any instances of tripartite constructions, the L1 children were found to be in more advanced stages, but still had problems with the tripartite stimuli. Second, we have seen that in terms of tripartite responses, the L1 children mainly followed the options available for the respective constructions. Third, both groups massively resorted to descending bipartite constructions. With respect to the three postulated scenarios, these findings clearly contradict Scenario 1, since ascending orders hardly occurred among the bipartite responses. This leaves us with Scenario 2 and 3. At first sight, the results may seem to support Scenario 3, i.e. a construction-‐specific acquisition of all cluster types: If tripartite responses were produced, they most often followed the grammatical or marginal orders. Since the number of tripartite responses was rather low, however, the question raises of whether a more individual look would paint a different picture. Whereas some children may not have analysed ascending orders yet, others may have reached more advanced stages already. Such individual differences, however, are not taken into account in an overall chi-‐square analysis. Following Meyer & Weerman (2014), this would entail that only children who have analysed ascending orders, could show preferences or overgeneralisations of such orders. In order to shed more light on this issue, I took a look at the children’s individual responses, which will be discussed in the following. First, the question had to be answered on how to decide whether a child ‘knows’ ascending orders. I made this distinction based on ascending conversions in the IPP condition: Once a child 33 converted to 1-‐3-‐2 or 3-‐1-‐2, s/he was considered a ‘raiser’. Children who only produced instances of (3)-‐2-‐1 constructions were considered ‘non-‐raisers’. Note that the notion of ‘raising’ here applies to surface permutations only. Figure 7 gives an overview about how many children converted to which order(s) in the IPP condition: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 9 6 Only ?3-‐2-‐1 or 2-‐1 Only 1-‐3-‐2 4 Only 3-‐1-‐2 3 3-‐1-‐2+3-‐2-‐1 2 3-‐1-‐2 + 1-‐3-‐2 3 all Figure 7. Number of children producing d ifferent conversions. Figure 7 shows that 9 out of the 27 participants only converted to ?3-‐2-‐1 or 2-‐1 orders, i.e. they showed no sign of obvious verb raising whatsoever. Whereas 6 participants only converted to the 1-‐ 3-‐2 order, 4 participants only produced 3-‐1-‐2 conversions. 2 participants converted to both 3-‐1-‐2 and 1-‐3-‐2. Altogether, only 6 participants converted to both ascending and descending orders. Based on this figure, I distinguished between 18 raisers and 9 non-‐raisers. It should be noted that I considered someone a raiser when there was one conversion to a 3-‐1-‐2 or a 1-‐3-‐2 order only. Though this decision is largely arbitrary and definitely questionable, a comparison between the two groups will show that the two groups exhibit different overall patterns. A noteworthy observation about Figure 7 is that among the 18 raisers, only 6 children also converted to the 3-‐2-‐1 order. The raisers moreover repeated less correct repetitions of ?3-‐2-‐1 than the non-‐raisers (χ2=8.001; df=1; p=0.005). This suggests that once children acquire ascending orders, they are less inclined to produce descending orders with the respective construction, which, in turn, supports the idea of (3)-‐2-‐1 as a vulnerable cluster order. My main question, however, was whether children would overgeneralize this order also to rigid cluster types. A comparison between the raisers and the non-‐raisers suggests that the acquisition of both cluster types may indeed be interwoven. Figure 8 shows the different results for the rigid condition (see Appendix G3 for the entire figure). 34 100% Rest 90% 1,23% 3,70% 6,17% 80% 70% 6,17% 60% 14,29% 4,94% 4,94% 2,47% 6,17% E+V2 4,76% 1V 1,23% 2,47% 4,94% 17,28% 27,16% 50% C+V2 other 2VC other 3VC 66,67% 40% 42,86% 30% 20,99% 48,15% 20% 33,33% 10% 14,29% 16,05% Non Raiser Raiser 0% Raiser 61,90% 3-‐2-‐1 I-‐I-‐I P-‐I-‐I P-‐F-‐F P-‐F-‐I 11,11% 9,52% 6,17% 4,76% Non Raiser Raiser Non Raiser *3-‐1-‐2 *1-‐2-‐3 2-‐1 3-‐2-‐1 conversion exact repeyyon Figure 8. Responses by stimulus type rigid condition (raisers vs. non-‐raisers). The blue parts show that the raisers produced more exact repetitions than the non-‐raisers. Whereas the ungrammatical ascending stimuli were only repeated correctly by the raisers, this difference was also significant for the 3-‐2-‐1 stimuli (χ2=12.953; df=1; p<0.001). In terms of 3-‐2-‐1 conversions, however, no significant differences was found between the two groups (χ2=2.216; df=1; p=0.137). Strikingly, however, the finiteness errors were found to be produced by the raisers only. Examples are repeated below: (19) Example P-‐FIN-‐INF error (participant P13L1; item R5) *Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag geschlafen hat müssen Hans thinks that Fritz the whole day sleep. PART has must.INF (20) Example P-‐INF-‐INF error (participant P25L1; item R4) *Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut gelacht haben müssen. Rosi thinks that Lukas extremely loud laugh. PART have.INF must.INF (19) and (20) both involve V-‐AUX-‐MOD combinations, which, with respect to their finiteness features seem like a mix between a rigid cluster and IPP constructions. To make (19) a real IPP construction, for example, the verb would have to appear in an infinitival form and not in a participle: Instead of 35 e.g. geschlafen hat müssen (sleep.PART has must.INF), schlafen hat müssen (sleep.INF has must.inf) would be grammatical. To make it a grammatical rigid cluster, the auxiliary would have to appear in the finite form, whereas the modal should appear in a finite form (e.g. geschlafen haben muss – sleep.PART have.INF must). The same holds for (20), with the difference that only the modal seems to be affected by an influence from IPP constructions. I suggest that the errors exemplified in (19) and (20) point to an interference of the two cluster types: Whereas the V-‐AUX-‐MOD combinations are produced based on the target verb order in rigid clusters, the finiteness features of IPP constructions seem to interfere. As only the raisers produce these errors, I take this as a hint for overgeneralisations of IPP constructions, which would entail that the acquisition of tripartite clusters is inherently linked to the acquisition of (partly) ascending orders. Combining these findings with the quantitative results suggests that order differences in tripartite clusters affect at most other tripartite constructions, which would be in line with Scenario 2. Since this is based on a rather arbitrary distinction, I will refrain from making any strong claims here, but rather consider this a tendency, which calls for future research. What the results have definitely shown, however, is that the acquisition of bipartite clusters does not hinge on the acquisition of ascending tripartite orders. With respect to more formal approaches to verb clusters, this implies that Evers’ (1975) verb raising analysis cannot (entirely) hold: At least the properties of bipartite clusters must be explained in a different way. 7 Conclusion In this paper I aimed to provide insight into the acquisition of German verb clusters. As research on Dutch L1 acquisition (Meyer & Weerman 2014), as well as Dutch-‐Frisian bilingualism (De Haan et al., 2014) suggests that ascending clusters play a crucial role in the acquisition of verb clusters, I wanted to contribute to this discussion by investigating the acquisition of a language, which shows a much more rigid descending system. By conducting an SRT with L1 and early L2 speakers of AG, I wanted to test whether the acquisition of order differences among German tripartite clusters would lead to the application of a verb raising rule among other cluster types, or whether different constructions would be acquired independently. The results have shown that both L1 and early L2 speakers of AG still have very unstable knowledge of tripartite constructions. I suggested that L1 children only start to analyse ascending cluster orders at the age of about 8 years. As the early L2 acquirers produced hardly any instances of tripartite constructions, this should set in at even later ages for this group. Bipartite constructions, on the other hand, were found to be produced frequently all across the board. Both groups showed solid knowledge of the descending 2-‐1 order, which not only confirms that tripartite clusters come in 36 much later than bipartite constructions, but also suggests that the acquisition of (partly) ascending tripartite clusters does not influence the acquisition of bipartite clusters. When it comes to the acquisition of tripartite clusters, however, the results were not as straightforward: The overall analysis has shown that both exact repetitions and tripartite conversions mainly followed the grammatical order(s) in the respective constructions. The results neither pointed to a preference for (partly) ascending orders in the IPP condition, nor did they deliver clear evidence for the overgeneralisation of such orders to the rigid condition. Though this at first sight suggests that also for the acquisition of tripartite clusters, order differences do not play an important role, I argued that this also required a more individual analysis. As tripartite responses were still very scarce on overall, I suggested that there may be individual differences, which are not taken into account in an overall chi-‐square test. A closer look at the children’s performance showed that children who exhibited knowledge of (partly) ascending orders in the IPP condition were less inclined to also produce descending orders in this condition. Furthermore, instances of ascending tripartite orders are only produced by these children. I take these findings as an indication for the application of a general rule in the acquisition of tripartite clusters, which, nevertheless, definitely deserves further research. To sum up, I have shown that in German, at most the acquisition tripartite clusters may be explained by a verb raising rule. The acquisition of bipartite clusters was not found to hinge on the acquisition of order differences in larger cluster types. For Evers’ (1975) theoretical analysis presented in Section 2.1, this entails that if anything, only the formation of tripartite clusters can be explained by a process of verb raising. Special properties of bipartite clusters, on the other hand, must be explained in a different way. Though the present paper does not offer an alternative explanation, I hope to have provided a starting point for future research, which may paint a more fine-‐grained picture of the acquisition of German tripartite clusters. References Arfs, M. (2007). Rood of groen? De interne woordvolgorde in tweeledige werkwoordelijke eindgroepen met een voltooid deelwoord en een hulpwerkwoord in bijzinnen in het hedendaags Nederlands. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Bader, M., & T. Schmid (2009). ‘Verb clusters in colloquial German’. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics, 12, 175-‐228. Barbiers, S. (2005). ‘Word order variation in three-‐verb clusters and the division of labour between generative linguistics and sociolinguistics.’ In: L. Cornips & K. Corrigan (eds.), Syntax and variation: Reconciling the biological and the social, 233-‐264. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 37 Barbiers, S. (2008). 'Werkwoordclusters en de grammatica van de rechterperiferie'. Nederlandse Taalkunde, 13(2), 160-‐187. Barbiers, S., J. van der Auwera, H. J. Bennis, E. Boef, G. De Vogelaer & M. H. van der Ham (2008). Syntactische Atlas van de Nederlandse Dialecten Deel II / Syntactic Atlas of the Dutch Dialects Volume II. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Chomsky, N. (1964). Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. Mouton: Den Haag. Coupé, G. (2005). Syntactic extension. The historical development of Dutch verb clusters . Utrecht: LOT. Coussé, E. (2008). Motivaties voor volgordevariatie. Een diachrone studie van werkwoordsvolgorde in het Nederlands. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Ghent University. Coussé, E., M. Arfs & G. De Sutter (2008). ‘Variabele werkwoordsvolgorde in de Nederlandse werkwoordelijke eindgroep. Een taalgebruiksgebaseerd perspectief op de synchronie en diachronie van de zgn. rode en groene woordvolgorde.’ In: G. Rawoens (ed.), Taal aan den lijve. Het gebruik van corpora in taalkundig onderzoek en taalonderwijs, 29-‐47. Gent: Academia Press. De Haan, D. F., Meyer, C., & F. Weerman (2014, December 10-‐12). Acquiring verb clusters in a bilingual setting: the case of Frisian and Dutch. Leeuwarden, Fryslân. De Sutter, G. (2005). Rood, groen, corpus! Een taalgebruiksgebaseerde analyse van woordvolgordevariatie in tweeledige werkwoordelijke eindgroepen. Proefschrift Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Leuven: Departement Linguïstiek. De Sutter, G., D. Speelman & D. Geeraerts (2005). ‘Regionale en stilistische effecten op de woordvolgorde in werkwoordelijke eindgroepen.’ Nederlandse Taalkunde 10, 97-‐128. Eisenbeiss, S. (2010). ‘Production Methods’. In: Blom, E. and Unsworth, S. (eds.) Experimental Methods in Language Acquisition Research, 11-‐34. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Evers, A. (1975). The Transformational Cycle in Dutch and German. PhD dissertation, Utrecht University. Haegeman, L. & H. van Riemsdijk (1986). ‘Verb projection raising, scope, and the typology of rules affecting verbs.’ Linguistic Inquiry, 17, 417-‐466. Koster, J. (1975). Dutch as an SOV language. Linguistic Analysis, 1, 111-‐136. 38 Meisel, J. M. (2009). Second Language Acquisition in Early Childhood. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft , 28, 5-‐34. Meyer, C. M. (2012). Easy as 1-‐2-‐(3)? The acquisition of verb cluster orders in Dutch. rMA Linguistics Thesis, University of Amsterdam. Meyer, C. M. & Weerman, F. (submitted). Cracking the cluster: The acquisition of verb raising in Dutch. Montgomery, Marcia M., Allen A. Montgomery, and M. Irene Stephens (1978). ‘Sentence repetition in preschoolers: Effects of length, complexity, and word familiarity.’ Journal of psycholinguistic research, 7, 435-‐452. Schmid, T. (2005). Infinitival Syntax: Infinitivus pro participio as a repair strategy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Schwartz, B. D. (2004). On child L2 development of syntax and morphology. Lingue e Linguaggio 3, 97-‐132. Stroop, J. (2009). ‘Twee-‐ en meerledige werkwoordsgroepen in gesproken Nederlands.’ In: E. Beijk, L. Colman, M. Göbel, F. Heyvaert, T. Schoonheimd, R. Tempelaarsen & V. Waszink (eds.), Fons Verborum. Feestbundel Fons Moerdijk, 459-‐469, Leiden. Trudgill, P. (2001). Contact and simplification: Historical baggage and directionality in linguistic change. Linguistic Typology, 5, 371-‐374. Van Haeringen, Coenraad B. (1956). Nederlands tussen Duits en Engels. Servire: Den Haag. Weerman, F. (2012). ‘Een halve eeuw hoofdbrekens over de eindgroep.’ Review of the book Rood of groen? De interne woordvolgorde in tweeledige werkwoordelijke eindgroepen met een voltooid deelwoord en een hulpwerkwoord in bijzinnen in het hedendaags Nederlands. Internationale Neerlandistiek , 50 , 143-‐145. Weerman, F. (2006). ‘It’s the economy, stupid! Een vergelijkende blik op men en man.’ In M. Hünig, U. Vogel, T. van der Wouden, & A. Verhagen, Nederlands tussen Duits en Engels, 19-‐47. Leiden: SNL. Wurmbrand, S. (2004). West Germanic verb clusters: The empirical domain. In K. É. Kiss, & Katalin (Ed.), Verb Clusters. A study of Hungarian, German and Dutch, 43-‐85. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 39 Wurmbrand, S. (2005). ‘Verb clusters, verb raising, and restructuring.’ In: M. Everaert & H. van Riemsdijk (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Syntax , Volume V, Article 75, 227-‐341. Oxford: Blackwell. Zuckerman, S. (2001). The Acquisition of "Optional" Movement. PhD dissertation, University of Groningen. Groningen: Grodil. Zwart, J-‐W. (1996). ‘Verb Clusters in Continental West Germanic Dialects.’ In: J.R. Black & V. Motapanyane (eds.), Microparametric Syntax and Dialect Variation, 229-‐258. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Zwart, J-‐W. (2011). The Syntax of Dutch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 40 Appendix A: Overview items Table A1. Experimental items Condition Order Sentence Cluster Trial Jakob glaubt, dass Leo gerne Verstecken spielt. -‐ Trial Hans glaubt, dass Lena den Hund gestreichelt haben muss Trial Moritz sagt, dass Felix ein sehr guter Schwimmer ist. -‐ rigid 3-‐2-‐1 Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa gespielt haben muss rigid *1-‐2-‐3 Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa muss haben gespielt rigid *3-‐1-‐2 Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa gespielt muss haben rigid 3-‐2-‐1 Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut gelacht haben muss rigid *1-‐2-‐3 Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut muss haben gelacht rigid *3-‐1-‐2 Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut gelacht muss haben rigid 3-‐2-‐1 Hans denkt, dass Fritz tief und fest geschlafen haben muss rigid *1-‐2-‐3 Hans denkt, dass Fritz tief und fest muss haben geschlafen rigid *3-‐1-‐2 Hans denkt, dass Fritz tief und fest geschlafen muss haben IPP ?3-‐2-‐1 Timo sagt, dass er das ganze Buch lesen müssen hat IPP *1-‐2-‐3 Timo sagt, dass er das ganze Buch hat müssen lesen IPP 3-‐1-‐2 Timo sagt, dass er das ganze Buch lesen hat müssen IPP 1-‐3-‐2 Timo sagt, dass er das ganze Buch hat lesen müssen IPP *3-‐2p-‐1 Timo sagt, dass er das ganze Buch lesen gemusst hat IPP ?3-‐2-‐1 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen essen wollen hat IPP *1-‐2-‐3 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen hat wollen essen IPP 3-‐1-‐2 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen essen hat wollen IPP 1-‐3-‐2 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen hat essen wollen IPP *3-‐2p-‐1 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen essen gewollt hat IPP 3-‐?3-‐2-‐1-‐1 Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern malen wollen hat IPP *1-‐2-‐3 Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern hat wollen malen IPP 3-‐1-‐2 Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern malen hat wollen IPP 1-‐3-‐2 Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern hat malen wollen IPP *3-‐2p-‐1 Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern malen gewollt hat IPP 3-‐?3-‐2-‐1-‐1 Mario findet, dass er lange auf den Bus warten müssen hat IPP *1-‐2-‐3 Mario findet, dass er lange auf den Bus hat müssen warten IPP 3-‐1-‐2 Mario findet, dass er lange auf den Bus warten hat müssen IPP 1-‐3-‐2 Mario findet, dass er lange auf den Bus hat warten müssen IPP *3-‐2p-‐1 Mario findet, dass er lange auf den Bus warten gemusst hat IPP ?3-‐2-‐1 Mama sagt, dass sie heute sehr viel waschen müssen hat 41 IPP *1-‐2-‐3 Mama sagt, dass sie heute sehr viel hat müssen waschen IPP 3-‐1-‐2 Mama sagt, dass sie heute sehr viel waschen hat müssen IPP 1-‐3-‐2 Mama sagt, dass sie heute sehr viel hat waschen müssen IPP *3-‐2p-‐1 Mama sagt, dass sie heute sehr viel waschen gemusst hat IPP ?3-‐2-‐1 Papa erzählt, dass Tanja mit dem Bären spielen wollen hat IPP *1-‐2-‐3 Papa erzählt, dass Tanja mit dem Bären hat wollen spielen IPP 3-‐1-‐2 Papa erzählt, dass Tanja mit dem Bären spielen hat wollen IPP 1-‐3-‐2 Papa erzählt, dass Tanja mit dem Bären hat spielen wollen IPP *3-‐2p-‐1 Papa erzählt, dass Tanja mit dem Bären spielen gewollt hat Table A2. Filler items Grammar Sentence Error X Papa denkt, dass Mama gerade mit dem Handy telefonierst. 2SG √ Papa denkt, dass Mama gerade mit dem Handy telefoniert. -‐ x Laura sagt, dass Paula dem Bären eine Blume schenkst 2SG √ Laura sagt, dass Paula dem Bären eine Blume schenkt -‐ √ Mario sagt, dass er sich zum Geburtstag einen Roller wünscht. -‐ x Mario sagt, dass er sich zum Geburtstag einen Roller wünschen. INF √ Klaus hat Angst, dass er heute wieder sehr schlecht schläft. -‐ x Klaus hat Angst, dass er heute wieder sehr schlecht schlafen. INF √ Hans sagt dass Peter in seinem neuen grünen Auto fährt. -‐ x Hans sagt dass Peter in seinem neuen grünen Auto fahren. INF √ Anna hofft, dass sich Niko über den Geburtstagskuchen freut. -‐ x Anna hofft, dass sich Niko über den Geburtstagskuchen freust. 2SG 42 Appendix B: Test Versions Table B1. Version 1 Construction Order Sentence Cluster Nr. Trial -‐ Jakob glaubt, dass Leo gerne Verstecken spielt. -‐ T1 Trial 3-‐2-‐1 Hans glaubt, dass Lena den Hund T2 Trial -‐ Moritz sagt, dass Felix ein sehr guter Schwimmer ist. gestreichelt haben muss -‐ IPP 3-‐1-‐2 Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern malen hat wollen I1V1 Filler F1 rigid 1-‐2-‐3 Anna hofft, dass sich Niko über den Geburtstagskuchen freut. Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa R1 rigid 3-‐1-‐2 Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag IPP 3-‐2-‐1 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen muss haben gespielt geschlafen muss haben essen wollen hat Filler F2 IPP 1-‐2-‐3 Papa denkt, dass Mama gerade mit dem Handy telefoniert. Papa erzählt, dass Tanja mit dem Bären IPP 3-‐2P-‐1 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen essen gewollt hat I4V1 Filler F3 IPP 3-‐2-‐1 Hans sagt dass Peter in seinem neuen grünen Auto fährt. Timo sagt, dass er das ganze Buch lesen müssen hat I5V1 Filler Laura sagt, dass Paula dem Bären eine Blume schenkst F4 IPP 1-‐3-‐2 Mama sagt, dass sie heute sehr viel I6V1 IPP 3-‐2-‐1 Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern hat waschen müssen malen wollen hat Filler F5 rigid 3-‐1-‐2 Mario sagt, dass er sich zum Geburtstag einen Roller wünschen. Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa R3 IPP 3-‐1-‐2 Timo sagt, dass er das ganze Buch gespielt muss haben lesen hat müssen Filler F6 rigid 1-‐2-‐3 Papa denkt, dass Mama gerade mit dem Handy telefonierst. Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut R4 Filler IPP 1-‐2-‐3 Klaus hat Angst, dass er heute wieder sehr schlecht schläft. Mario findet, dass er lange auf den Bus muss haben gelacht I9V1 IPP 3-‐1-‐2 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen hat müssen warten essen hat wollen Filler Laura sagt, dass Paula dem Bären eine Blume schenkt F8 rigid 1-‐2-‐3 Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag R5 rigid 3-‐1-‐2 Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut Filler Filler F10 IPP 1-‐3-‐2 Anna hofft, dass sich Niko über den Geburtstagskuchen freust. Mario sagt, dass er sich zum Geburtstag einen Roller wünscht. Papa erzählt, dass Tanja mit dem Bären muss haben geschlafen gelacht muss haben T3 R2 I2V1 hat wollen spielen I3V1 I7V1 I8V1 F7 I10V1 R6 F9 hat spielen wollen I11V1 43 IPP 1-‐2-‐3 Mama sagt, dass sie heute sehr viel rigid 3-‐2-‐1 Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut IPP 3-‐2P-‐1 Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern rigid 3-‐2-‐1 IPP 3-‐2P-‐1 Timo sagt, dass er das ganze Buch rigid 3-‐2-‐1 Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa Filler IPP 1-‐3-‐2 Hans sagt dass Peter in seinem neuen grünen Auto fahren. Mario findet, dass er lange auf den Bus Filler Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag Klaus hat Angst, dass er heute wieder sehr schlecht schlafen. hat müssen I12V1 waschen gelacht haben R7 muss malen gewollt hat I13V1 geschlafen haben R8 muss lesen gemusst hat I14V1 gespielt haben muss R9 hat warten müssen I15V1 Cluster Nr. F11 F12 Table B2. Version 2 Construction Order Sentence IPP 3-‐1-‐2 Filler warten müssen Anna hofft, dass sich Niko über den Geburtstagskuchen freut. rigid 1-‐2-‐3 Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa rigid 3-‐1-‐2 Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag IPP 3-‐2-‐1 Papa denkt, dass Tanja mit dem Bären Filler IPP 1-‐2-‐3 Papa denkt, dass Mama gerade mit dem Handy telefoniert. Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen hat wollen essen IPP PART Papa erzählt, dass Tanja mit dem Bären Filler IPP 3-‐2-‐1 Filler spielen gewollt I4V2 hat Hans sagt dass Peter in seinem neuen grünen Auto F3 fährt. Mama sagt, dass sie heute sehr viel waschen müssen I5V2 hat Laura sagt, dass Paula dem Bären eine Blume schenkst F4 IPP 1-‐3-‐2 Timo sagt, dass er das ganze Buch IPP 3-‐2-‐1 Mario findet, dass er lange auf den Bus Filler warten hat Mario sagt, dass er sich zum Geburtstag einen Roller wünschen. rigid 3-‐1-‐2 Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa IPP 3-‐1-‐2 Filler rigid 1-‐2-‐3 Filler Mario findet, dass er lange auf den Bus hat I1V2 F1 muss haben R1 gespielt geschlafen muss R2 haben spielen wollen hat I2V2 hat lesen müssen gespielt haben Mama sagt, dass sie heute sehr viel waschen müssen Papa denkt, dass Mama gerade mit dem Handy telefonierst. Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut muss gelacht Klaus hat Angst, dass er heute wieder sehr schlecht F2 I3V2 I6V2 müssen I7V2 F5 muss R3 hat I8V2 F6 haben R4 F7 44 schläft. IPP 1-‐2-‐3 Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern hat wollen malen IPP 3-‐1-‐2 Papa erzählt, dass Tanja mit dem Bären spielen hat wollen I10V2 I9V2 Filler Laura sagt, dass Paula dem Bären eine Blume schenkt rigid 1-‐2-‐3 Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag rigid 3-‐1-‐2 Filler muss haben R5 geschlafen Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut gelacht muss R6 haben Anna hofft, dass sich Niko über den Geburtstagskuchen freust. F9 Filler Mario sagt, dass er sich zum Geburtstag einen Roller wünscht. F10 IPP 1-‐3-‐2 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen hat essen wollen I11V2 IPP 1-‐2-‐3 Timo sagt, dass er das ganze Buch hat müssen lesen I12V2 rigid 3-‐2-‐1 Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut IPP PART rigid 3-‐2-‐1 IPP PART rigid 3-‐2-‐1 Filler IPP Filler F8 R7 1-‐3-‐2 gelacht haben muss Mario findet, dass er lange auf den Bus warten gemusst hat Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag geschlafen haben muss Mama sagt, dass sie heute sehr viel waschen gemusst hat Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa gespielt haben muss Hans sagt dass Peter in seinem neuen grünen Auto fahren. Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern hat malen wollen Klaus hat Angst, dass er heute wieder sehr schlecht schlafen. F12 I13V2 R8 I14V2 R9 F11 I15V2 45 Appendix C: Example score sheet SCORE SHEET Date: Participant: Date of Birth: Male/Female Born in Austria? What language(s) do you speak? How old when first exposed to German? L1 mother: L1 father: L(s) spoken at home -‐ with mother: -‐ father: -‐ brothers/sisters: L(s) spoken with friends: L(s) spoken most: Version I Sentence Cluster Response Remarks Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern Anna hofft, dass sich Niko über den Geburtstagskuchen freut. Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen Papa denkt, dass Mama gerade mit dem Handy telefoniert. Papa erzählt, dass Tanja mit dem Bären Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen Hans sagt, dass Peter in seinem neuen grünen Auto fährt. Timo sagt, dass er das ganze Buch Laura sagt, dass Paula dem Bären eine Blume schenkst Mama sagt, dass sie heute sehr viel Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern Mario sagt, dass er sich zum Geburtstag einen Roller wünschen. Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa Timo sagt, dass er das ganze Buch Papa denkt, dass Mama gerade mit dem Handy telefonierst. Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut Klaus hat Angst, dass er heute wieder sehr schlecht schläft. Mario findet, dass er lange auf den Bus malen hat wollen muss haben gespielt geschlafen muss haben essen wollen hat hat wollen spielen essen gewollt hat lesen müssen hat hat waschen müssen malen wollen hat gespielt muss haben lesen hat müssen muss haben gelacht hat müssen warten 46 Sarah denkt, dass Tom den ganzen Kuchen Laura sagt, dass Paula dem Bären eine Blume schenkt Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut Anna hofft, dass sich Niko über den Geburtstagskuchen freust. Mario sagt, dass er sich zum Geburtstag einen Roller wünscht. Papa erzählt, dass Tanja mit dem Bären Mama sagt, dass sie heute sehr viel Rosi denkt, dass Lukas furchtbar laut Tante Helga sagt, dass Jonas mit den Fingern Hans denkt, dass Fritz den ganzen Tag Timo sagt, dass er das ganze Buch Mama glaubt, dass Tina auf dem Sofa Hans sagt dass Peter in seinem neuen grünen Auto fahren. Mario findet, dass er lange auf den Bus Klaus hat Angst, dass er heute wieder sehr schlecht schlafen. essen hat wollen muss haben geschlafen gelacht muss haben hat spielen wollen hat müssen waschen gelacht haben muss malen gewollt hat geschlafen haben muss lesen gemusst hat gespielt haben muss hat warten müssen 47 Appendix D: contingency tables L1 group Table D1. Rigid stimuli – overall frequencies Response exact repetition 3-‐2-‐1 conversion 2-‐1 Part-‐Fin-‐Inf Part-‐Fin-‐Fin Part-‐Inf-‐Inf other tripartite response other bipartite response other Total Stimulus Order 3-‐2-‐1 *3-‐1-‐2 *1-‐2-‐3 39 13 5 0 17 9 14 22 27 5 5 4 5 2 2 3 4 1 7 5 8 5 9 9 3 4 16 81 81 81 Total 57 30 63 14 9 8 16 23 23 243 Table D2. Rigid stimuli – 1. Klasse & 2. Klasse Stimulus Type 3-‐2-‐1 *3-‐1-‐2 *1-‐2-‐3 Total Response 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. 2. Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse exact repetition 20 19 7 6 3 2 30 27 3-‐2-‐1 conversion 0 0 5 8 3 6 8 14 2-‐1 11 3 18 4 18 9 47 16 Part-‐Fin-‐Inf 4 1 5 0 4 0 13 1 Part-‐Fin-‐Fin 2 3 1 1 1 1 4 5 Part-‐Inf-‐Inf 2 1 1 3 0 1 3 5 Inf-‐Inf-‐Inf 1 0 2 2 1 0 4 2 other tripartite 6 0 3 1 4 3 13 4 response other bipartite 3 2 8 1 5 4 16 7 response other 2 1 1 4 12 4 15 9 Total 51 30 51 30 51 30 153 90 48 Table D3. IPP stimuli – overall frequencies Response Exact Repetition ascending conversion (1-‐3-‐2/1-‐3-‐2) 3-‐1-‐2 3-‐2-‐1 2-‐1 modal pst. other bipartite response other tripartite response Other Total 1-‐3-‐2 19 0 7 5 20 1 16 4 9 81 StimulusOrder 3-‐1-‐2 ?3-‐2-‐1 *1-‐2-‐3 22 32 6 4 2 11 0 4 7 7 0 2 22 19 24 1 3 3 8 5 13 8 9 4 9 7 11 81 81 81 Total 88 18 24 21 113 19 44 34 44 405 *3-‐2p-‐1 9 1 6 7 28 11 4 9 6 81 Table D4. IPP constructions – 1. Klasse & 2. Klasse Stimulus Order 1-‐3-‐2 3-‐1-‐2 ?3-‐2-‐1 *3-‐2p-‐1 Total Response 1. Klasse 2. Klasse 1. Klasse 2. Klasse 1. Klasse 2. Klasse 1. Klasse 2. Klasse 1. Klasse 2. Klasse 1. Klasse 2. Klasse Exact Repetition 1-‐3-‐2 conversion 3-‐1-‐2 conversion 3-‐2-‐1 conversion 2-‐1 12 7 11 11 20 12 1 5 6 3 50 38 0 0 2 2 0 2 4 7 1 0 7 11 3 4 0 0 3 1 4 3 5 1 15 9 1 4 6 1 0 0 1 1 4 3 12 9 18 2 13 9 16 3 20 4 19 9 86 27 other bipartite other tripartite other 10 6 8 0 1 4 8 5 2 2 29 17 0 5 3 6 5 7 2 5 11 9 21 32 7 2 8 1 6 1 11 0 3 3 35 7 Total 51 30 51 30 51 30 51 30 51 30 255 150 Table D5. Fillers Response *1-‐2-‐3 Stimulus *2PSG 3PSG Total *INF Correct Incorrect 152 10 7 74 27 54 186 138 Total 162 81 81 324 49 Table D6. rigid tripartite clusters – raisers vs. non-‐raisers Response exact repetition 3-‐2-‐1 conversion 2-‐1 P-‐F-‐I P-‐F-‐F P-‐I-‐I I-‐I-‐I other 3VC other 2VC 1V C+V2 E+V2 Rest Total Stimulus Order 3-‐2-‐1 *3-‐1-‐2 *1-‐2-‐3 Total Non Non Non Non Raiser Raiser Raiser Raiser Raiser Raiser Raiser Raiser 26 4 9 0 3 0 38 4 0 0 11 3 6 1 17 4 9 3 3 2 1 4 4 1 0 0 1 12 0 4 0 0 4 1 1 0 0 1 15 3 1 3 3 1 6 1 1 0 0 18 0 1 0 0 0 4 1 0 0 0 18 3 1 1 0 5 6 4 2 2 3 17 0 0 0 0 0 3 4 1 1 0 42 9 5 6 4 10 16 6 3 2 4 47 0 5 0 0 4 8 6 1 1 1 54 27 54 27 54 27 162 81 50 Appendix E: Contingency tables Turkish group Table E1. Rigid tripartite clusters Response Stimulus Order *3-‐1-‐2 *1-‐2-‐3 3-‐2-‐1 Total Exact Repetition grammatical tripartite conversion 2-‐1 other tripartite response other bipartite response other 5 0 27 0 3 22 1 0 25 1 11 19 0 0 19 1 3 34 6 0 71 2 17 75 Total 57 57 57 171 Table E2. IPP constructions Response Stimulus Order 1-‐3-‐2 3-‐1-‐2 ?3-‐2-‐1 *1-‐2-‐3 *3-‐2p-‐1 Total Exact Repetition Grammatical tripartite conversion Tripartite response (ungrammatical) 2-‐1 descending bipartite response ascending bipartite response one verb Other 1 0 20 7 0 5 24 1 1 22 8 0 9 16 2 1 23 5 0 6 20 0 0 17 2 3 18 17 1 2 22 4 0 2 26 5 4 104 26 3 40 103 Total 57 57 57 57 57 285 Table E3. Fillers Response Stimulus *2PSG 3PSG Exact Repetition (other) grammatical response Other Total Total *INF 72 0 42 3 35 19 15 30 12 90 65 73 114 57 57 228 51 Appendix F: Contingency tables BKS group Table F1. Rigid tripartite clusters Response Stimulus Order *3-‐1-‐2 *1-‐2-‐3 3-‐2-‐1 Exact Repetition grammatical tripartite conversion 2-‐1 other tripartite response other bipartite response other Total Table F2. IPP constructions Response Total 5 0 9 1 4 2 3 0 8 3 5 2 0 0 11 2 3 5 8 0 28 6 12 9 21 21 21 63 Stimulus Order 1-‐3-‐2 3-‐1-‐2 ?3-‐2-‐1 *1-‐2-‐3 Exact Repetition Grammatical tripartite conversion Tripartite response (ungrammatical) 2-‐1 descending bipartite response ascending bipartite response one verb Other Table F3. Response Total 0 0 1 9 5 0 2 4 0 0 2 8 3 1 1 6 2 0 2 9 4 0 3 1 0 0 0 6 3 2 6 4 2 0 6 10 1 0 0 2 4 0 11 42 16 3 12 17 21 21 21 21 21 105 Stimulus *2PSG 3PSG *3-‐2p-‐1 Total Total *INF Exact repetition Grammatical form Other 41 0 1 1 20 0 4 17 0 46 37 1 Total 42 21 21 84 52 Appendix G: Overview figures L1 Figure G1. tripartite clusters – overall results 100% Other Error 90% Other biparyte response 80% 70% Other triparyte response 60% P-‐FIN-‐FIN 50% P-‐INF-‐INF 40% P-‐FIN-‐INF 30% 2-‐1 20% 3-‐2-‐1 conversion 10% Exact Repeyyon 0% 3-‐2-‐1 *3-‐1-‐2 *1-‐2-‐3 Figure G2. Rigid tripartite clusters – comparison 1. Klasse/2. Klasse 100% Rest 90% E+V2 80% C+V2 70% 1V 60% other 2VC 50% other 3VC 40% I-‐I-‐I 30% P-‐I-‐I 20% P-‐F-‐F 10% P-‐F-‐I 2-‐1 0% 1. Klasse 2. Klasse 3-‐2-‐1 1. Klasse 2. Klasse *3-‐1-‐2 1. Klasse 2. Klasse *1-‐2-‐3 3-‐2-‐1 conversion exact repeyyon 53 Figure G3. Rigid tripartite clusters – raisers vs. non-‐raisers 100% Rest 90% E+V2 80% C+V2 70% 1V 60% other 2VC 50% other 3VC 40% I-‐I-‐I 30% P-‐I-‐I 20% P-‐F-‐F 10% P-‐F-‐I 2-‐1 0% Raiser Non Raiser 3-‐2-‐1 Raiser Non Raiser *3-‐1-‐2 Raiser Non Raiser *1-‐2-‐3 3-‐2-‐1 conversion exact repeyyon Figure G4. IPP constructions – overall results 54 Figure G5. IPP condition: comparison 1.Klasse/2.Klasse 100% 90% 80% other 70% other triparyte 60% other biparyte 50% 2-‐1 40% 3-‐2-‐1 conversion 30% 3-‐1-‐2 conversion 20% 1-‐3-‐2 conversion 10% Exact Repeyyon 0% 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. 2. Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse Klasse 1-‐3-‐2 3-‐1-‐2 ?3-‐2-‐1 *1-‐2-‐3 *3-‐2p-‐1 Figure G6. Fillers 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% Incorrect 50% Correct 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 3PSG (grammaycal) 2PSG (ungrammaycal) INF (ungrammaycal) 55 Appendix H: Overview figures L2 Figure H1. Rigid tripartite clusters 100% 90% 80% 70% other 60% other biparyte response 50% 40% other triparyte response 30% 2-‐1 20% 10% Exact Repeyyon 0% Turkish BKS Turkish 3-‐2-‐1 BKS *3-‐1-‐2 Turkish BKS *1-‐2-‐3 Figure H2. IPP constructions 100% Other 90% 80% one verb 70% 60% ascending biparyte repsonse 50% 40% 30% descending biparyte response 20% 2-‐1 10% 0% Turkish BKS Turkish BKS Turkish BKS Turkish BKS Turkish BKS 1-‐3-‐2 3-‐1-‐2 ?3-‐2-‐1 *1-‐2-‐3 *3-‐2p-‐1 Triparyte (ungrammaycal) Exact Repeyyon 56 Figure H3. Fillers 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% Other 50% Grammaycal form 40% Exact repeyyon 30% 20% 10% 0% Turkish BKS 3PSG Turkish *2PSG BKS Turkish BKS *INF Apendix I: Figures Adults Figure I1. Rigid tripartite clusters 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% Incorrect Repeyyon 50% Exact Repeyyon 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 3-‐2-‐1 *3-‐1-‐2 *1-‐2-‐3 57 Figure I2. IPP constructions 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% Incorrect Repeyyon 50% Exact Repeyyon 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 1-‐3-‐2 3-‐1-‐2 ?3-‐2-‐1 *1-‐2-‐3 *3-‐2p-‐1 58
© Copyright 2026 Paperzz