Please cite as:
Lee, S.-K., Miyata, M. & Ortega, L. (2008). A usage-based approach to
overpassivization: The role of input and conceptualization biases. Paper
presented at the 26th Second Language Research Forum, Honolulu, HI,
October 17-19.
Copyright © Lee, Miyata, & Ortega, 2008
A usage-based approach to overpassivization:
The role of input and conceptualization biases
Sang-Ki Lee, Munehiko Miyata, & Lourdes Ortega
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
SLRF 2008
Sunday, October 19th
Overpassivization
(1) *The most memorable experience of my life was happened
15 years ago. (Arabic L1; Zobl, 1989)
(2) *Most of people are fallen in love and marry with somebody.
(Japanese L1; Zobl, 1989)
(3) *Rush hour traffic can be vanished because working at home
is a new version. (Chinese L1; Yip, 1995)
SLRF 2008
Overpassivization
Why happen but never *is happened?
“to happen”
unaccusative verb: S(patient)+V(active)
*Never occurs as transitive or in passive voice in the L1
SLRF 2008
Complications!
Your Amazon.com order has shipped (#103-5354879-2596262)
Greetings from Amazon.com.
We thought you'd like to know that we shipped your item, and that this
completes your order.
Why not “Your Amazon.com order has been shipped” ??
“to ship”
Used as transitive, active or passive
Used as unaccusative, S(patient)+V(active)
SLRF 2008
What L2 learners need to learn
 Intransitives can be of several types
Unergatives: [S(agent)+Verb(action)] run, play...
Unaccusatives (a.k.a. ergatives): S(patient)+Verb(active)
Alternating unaccusatives: Ship, change, close...
Non-alternating unaccusatives: happen, result...
(Unaccusativity Hypothesis by Perlmutter, 1978)
 L2 developmental route:
active  passive 
 overpassivization  unaccusativity
SLRF 2008
Studies of overpassivization are many:
Free production data: Zobl (1989), Oshita (2000),
Yip (1995)
Elicited data (e.g., GJTs): Balcom (1997), Ju (2000),
Hirawaka (2001), Kondo (2005), Sorace (1993,
1995; Sorace & Shomura, 2001), Montrul (1999,
2000, 2005), Zyzik (2006)
Both: Han (2000, 2006)
SLRF 2008
Explanations are diverse:
Formal syntactic explanations: Prototypical semantic
role+syntactic positions (Zobl, Yip, Oshita, Hirakawa,
Montrul...)
Cognitive linguistic explanations: Conceptualizable
agents (Ju, Kondo)
Usage-based explanations: (Zyzik)
SLRF 2008
Usage-based L2 learning
Two input
biases:
(Robinson
& Ellis, 2008)
Frequency
Associative and emergent: L2 knowledge emerges from
Alternation
memory of instances/exemplars experienced.
Input- and frequency-driven: What is learned reflects
regularities in the input.
One conceptual
bias:
Meaning-based and grounded: Knowledge is structured
Causation
by
by world meanings as experienced by
human body and
mind.
conceptualizable
agent
SLRF 2008
Input bias I – Frequency in the input
Low-frequency verbs (e.g., c. 20- per million)
High-frequency verbs (e.g., c. 100+ per million)
Learners will find unaccusativity more difficult
to judge in low-frequency verbs than in
high-frequency verbs
SLRF 2008
Input bias II – Types of alternation
Alternating unaccusatives (“ship”-like verbs)
Non-alternating unaccusatives (“happen”-like verbs)
never appear in the input in the passive form
Learners will find alternating verbs more
difficult to judge than non-alternating verbs
SLRF 2008
16 target verbs selected from Brown Corpus (Kucera & Francis, 1967)
& American National Corpus (ANC) 2nd release
(Reppen et al., 2005)
8 high-frequency verbs
4 alternating verbs (change, close, increase, turn)
4 non-alternating verbs (appear, happen, remain, result)
8 low-frequency verbs
4 alternating verbs (bounce, explode, scatter, shatter)
4 non-alternating verbs (glisten, glow, progress, vanish)
SLRF 2008
Conceptual bias – Causation & conceptualizable agent
(Ju, 2000):
A fighter jet shot at the ship.
External causation=agent
More difficult to accept an
External
causation
unaccusative,
more
tempting to overpassive
The ship sank slowly.
The rusty old ship started breaking up.
The ship sank slowly.
Internal causation
SLRF 2008
Research questions
RQ1: Will frequencies of unaccusative verbs (high versus
low) affect L2 learners’ judgments of unaccusativity?
RQ2: Will type of alternation (non-alternating versus
alternating) affect L2 learners’ judgments of
unaccusativity?
RQ3: Will causation type (internal versus external) affect L2
learners’ judgments of unaccusativity?
RQ4: Will the three factors interact?
SLRF 2008
Participants
- 63 adult learners of English with diverse L1 & major backgrounds
- 10 English native speakers (baseline)
Only the participants who had sufficient knowledge about
English passivization
- 56 learners (24 males & 32 females)
 Self-reported TOEFL score: M = 564.7 (SD = 57.2, min = 490,
max = 667)
- 10 native speakers (6 males & 4 females)
SLRF 2008
Scaled Grammaticality Judgment Task
(Bard, Robertson, & Sorace, 1996)
low-frequency
Example
& non-alternating verb
The magician did a trick with a coin.
The coin was vanished instantly.
LEAST ACCEPTABLE
1
2
external causation
MOST ACCEPTABLE
3
4
5
6
SLRF 2008
Full design of scaled grammaticality
judgment task
8 high-frequency verbs
4 alternating verbs
4 non-alternating verbs
Each word generated two test
items, one involving an external
causation event and the other an
internal causation event.
8 low-frequency verbs
4 alternating verbs
Therefore, k = 52
4 non-alternating verbs
10 transitive predicates (distracters)
SLRF 2008
Screening
The reliability of the scaled GJT
instrument was reasonable (Cronbach’s alpha:
0.84) ...
The NS baseline data showed expected
responses...
So, we proceeded to analyze the NNS
results
SLRF 2008
Results
Descriptive statistics for NNSs data
Input
frequency
Types of
unaccusatives
Non-alternating
High
Alternating
Alternating
Non-alternating
Low
Low
Alternating
Alternating
Causation
types
Mean
cf. NS
data
SD
cf. NS
data
n
Internal
4.23
5.90
1.06
0.24
56
External
External
4.09
5.65
0.97
0.34
56
Internal
3.81
5.81
1.01
0.30
56
External
External
4.10
5.57
0.97
0.33
56
Internal
3.90
5.80
1.13
0.27
56
External
External
3.89
5.70
1.16
0.36
56
Internal
3.67
5.87
1.01
0.27
56
External
External
3.83
5.75
0.95
0.31
56
Note. 1=most incorrect response; 6=most correct response
SLRF 2008
Results (cont’d)
Analysis
- A 2 x 2 x 2 analysis of variance
- Three within-subjects factors:
1) input frequency (high vs. low)
2) alternation type (non-alternating vs. alternating)
3) causation type (internal vs. external)
- DV: scaled GJT scores
SLRF 2008
Results (cont’d)
Summary of three-way ANOVA
Factors
Main
effects
Sum of
Squares
df
Mean
Square
IF
6.15
1
6.15
Error
35.61
55
0.65
U
3.48
1
3.48
Error
38.94
55
0.71
C
0.68
1
0.68
Error
23.80
55
0.33
F
Sig.
eta2
9.50 0.01*
0.15
4.92 0.03*
0.08
1.56
0.03
0.21
Note. IF = High/low frequency; U: Non-alternating/alternating; C = Internal/external
SLRF 2008
Discussion
RQ1: Main effect of input frequency
(p = 0.01, eta2 = 0.15)
High-frequency verbs > Low-frequency verbs
 It is likely that L2 learners had been exposed to the target
verbs in the high-frequency group more often, so that they
had built a more solid knowledge of the usage of those
words.
Usage-based approaches
SLRF 2008
Discussion (cont’d)
RQ2: Main effect of alternation type
(p = 0.03, eta2 = 0.08)
Non-alternating verbs
>
appear only as
unaccusatives in
active form in actual
input
Alternating verbs
appear in active/
unaccusative/passive
in actual input
 Accurate performance of L2 learners is influenced by their
experience with the language input.
Usage-based approaches
SLRF 2008
Discussion (cont’d)
RQ3: Non-significant main effect of causation type
(p = 0.21, eta2 = 0.03)
SLRF 2008
Discussion (cont’d)
RQ4: Alternation type X Causation type
(p = 0.03, eta2 = 0.08)
Interactions?
Yes, between alternation & causation:
 Having an internal causation (no agent)
made the judging of non-alternating
verbs easier.
SLRF 2008
Conclusion
• Facilitative effects of biases in the input: highfrequency and non-alternating exemplars were
judged more accurately.
• Conceptual bias may work only in interaction
with input bias: when non-alternating verbs
appeared in internal causation events, they
were easier to accept as unaccusatives.
SLRF 2008
Conclusion (cont’d)
• Some support for the claim that things are
learned first with high-frequency items (as in
lexis-specific learning) and then the learning
extends to low-frequency items and to more
abstract constructions (as in construction-based
generalization of patterns).
• Usage-based approaches to SLA offer
promising explanatory power in the study of the
processing and subsequent development of
linguistic knowledge of the L2.
SLRF 2008
Input DOES Matter in Second
Language Learning!
Mahalo!
sangki@hawaii.edu
miyatam@hawaii.edu
lortega@hawaii.edu
References cited:
Balcom, P. (1997). Why is this happened? Passive morphology and unaccusativity. Second Language Research,
13, 1-9.
Bard, E. G., Robertson, D., & Sorace, A. (1996). Magnitude estimation of linguistic acceptability. Language, 72, 3268.
Han, Z. (2000). Persistence of the implicit influence of NL: The case of the pseudo-passive. Applied Linguistics, 21,
78-105.
Han, Z.-H. (2006). Fossilization: Can grammaticality judgment be a reliable source of evidence? In Z.-H. Han & T.
Odlin (Eds.), Studies of fossilization in second language acquisition (pp. 56-82). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual
Matters.
Hirakawa, M. (1995). L2 acquisition of English unaccusative constructions. Proceedings of BUCLD 19 [Boston
University Conference on Language Development], 19, 291-302.
Hirakawa, M. (1999). L2 acquisition of Japanese unaccusative verbs by speakers of English and Chinese. In K.
Kanno (Ed.), The acquisition of Japanese as a second language (pp. 89–113). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hirakawa, M. (2001). L2 acquisition of Japanese unaccusative verbs. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 23,
221-245.
Ju, M. K. (2000). Overpassivization errors by second language learners: The effect of conceptualizable agents in
discourse. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 85-111.
References cited:
Kondo, T. (2005). Overpassivization in second language acquisition. International Review of Applied Linguistics,
43, 129-161.
Kucera, H., & Francis, W. N. (1967). Computational analysis of present-day American English. Providence, RI:
Brown University Press.
Montrul, S. (1999). Causative errors with unaccusative verbs in L2 Spanish. Second Language Research, 15, 191219.
Montrul, S. (2000). Transitivity alternations in L2 acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 229-273.
Montrul, S. (2005). On knowledge and development of unaccusativity in Spanish L2 acquisition. Linguistics, 43,
1153-1190.
Oshita, H. (2000). What is happened may not be what appears to be happening: A corpus study of 'passive'
unaccusatives in L2 English. Second Language Research, 16, 293-324.
Oshita, H. (2002). Uneasiness with the easiest: On the subject-verb order in L2 English. Second Language (Journal
of the Japan Second Language Association), 1, 45-61.
Perlmutter, D. (1978). Impersonal passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis. Berkeley Linguistics Society No. 4.
University of California at Berkeley.
Sorace, A. (1993). Incomplete vs. Divergent representations of unaccusativity in near-native grammars of Italian.
Second Language Research, 9, 22-48.
References cited:
Sorace, A. (1995). Acquiring rules and argument structures in a second language: The unaccusative/unergative
distinction. In L. Eubank, L. Selinker & M. S. Smith (Eds.), The current state of interlanguage: Studies in honor of
William E. Rutherford (pp. 153-175). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Sorace, A., & Shomura, Y. (2001). Lexical constraints on the acquisition of split intransitivity: Evidence from L2
Japanese. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 23, 247-278.
Reppen, R., Ide, N., & Suderman, K. (2005). American National Corpus (ANC) Second Release. Linguistic Data
Consortium: Philadelphia.
Robinson, P., & Ellis, N. C. (Eds.). (2008). Handbook of cognitive linguistics and second language acquisition. New
York: Routledge.
Yip, V. (1995). Interlanguage and learnability: From Chinese to English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Zobl, H. (1989). Canonical structures and ergativity. In S. M. Gass & J. Schachter (Eds.), Linguistic perspectives on
second language acquisition (pp. 203-221). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Zyzik, E. (2006). Transitivity alternations and sequence learning: Insights from L2 Spanish production data.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28, 449–485.