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- Title
Ci-tasemega eesti keele õppijate ja emakeelekõnelejate kirjaliku keelekasutuse võrdlus verbialguliste tetragrammide näitel.
- Authors
ALLKIVI, KAIS
- Abstract
This paper comparatively describes verb-initial morphosyntactic patterns in the written language use of Cl level learners of Estonian, i.e. proficient L2 users, and educated native speakers. For this purpose, verb-initial fourgrams were investigated. A further aim of the study is to help provide research-based linguistic content to define language acquisition levels. The research material consists of LI and L2 argumentative writings: - essays written by L2 learners of Estonian, which have been evaluated to represent the proficient user level Cl, were taken from the interlanguage corpus of the Tallinn University (75,320 tokens, 8364 fourgrams); LI reference corpus was compiled from opinion articles published in the two leading newspapers in Estonia during December 1-31 in 2014 and written by highly educated non-linguists, considered the benchmark for both LI and L2 learners (107,590 tokens, 11,437 fourgrams). Cluster analysis was applied to bring forth identical linear subsequences of morphological and syntactic tags based on frequency. These sequences were grouped into more general patterns of language use. Fourgrams where the word classes of the components coincide (e.g. VPSS, representing verb-pronoun-substantive- substantive) constitute bundles, referred to as clusters. The highest level in the hierarchy has been presented on the basis of the word class of the first and last component of fourgrams. These groups of fourgrams (e.g. V-S, representing verb-substantive) are referred to as morphological classes. Thus, clusters are distinguished by the variation of the middle components of fourgrams. The analysis revealed mostly statistically relevant differences in the frequencies of classes and clusters of fourgrams. E.g. the adjective-final class V-A is more common in LI use, while the pronoun-final class V-P is more common in L2 use. Furthermore, the preferred clusters mostly do not overlap, e.g. the preferred cluster in the class V-A is VSSA (verb-substantive-substantive-adjective) in LI and VVDA (verb-verb-adverb-adjective) in L2. The morphological, syntactic and lexical comparison of the preferred clusters of LI and L2 within the same class (e.g. VSSS favoured by LI users and VPSS favoured by L2 users in the class V-S) brought out several interesting tendencies: 1) negative verb forms are used more frequently in L2 than in LI; 2) analytic tense forms (Present and Past Progressive) are less common to L2 language use; 3) there is a tendency of the subject to precede the verb more commonly in L2 than in LI, therefore, subjects are rarer in L2 verb-initial structures; 4) the object, however, follows the verb more commonly in L2 than in LI; 5) in L2 there is a wider use of predicatives that occur together with the existential verb to be; 7) lesser use of infinitive verb forms in L2 shows in the compared clusters; 8) the use of modal verbs is relatively similar in the two groups; 9) a greater lexical diversity shows in LI, especially in substantives, as well as in adjectives and verbs, whereas there is no difference in the lexical diversity of adverbs, conjunctions and pronouns.
- Publication
Lähivõrdlusi / Lähivertailuja, 2016, Issue 26, p54
- ISSN
1736-9290
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.5128/LV26.02