{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/21076"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/21076","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Sentence processing in Spanish as a second language: A study of context, background knowledge and word order","abstract":"Sentence processing research has demonstrated a strong tendency for second language learners to assign the role of subject or agent to the first noun of an utterance even though grammatical morphemes and function words indicate that the second noun is the subject (Bates and MacWhinney, 1984: Gass, 1989: Glisan, 1985: Heilenman & McDonald, 1992). English speakers learning Spanish mistake preverbal object pronouns for subjects (Lee, 1987; VanPatten, 1984). Although a first-noun strategy is highly reliable in English, it is less reliable in languages such as Spanish where Object-Verb-Subject (OVS) constructions occur more frequently. Sentence processing research has found that lexical semantics, a type of word-level prior knowledge, can override the tendency of second language learners to assign. The present study investigates whether context and background knowledge, like lexical semantics, can override this first-noun strategy when cues are in conflict. For example, when the first noun of an utterance is inanimate and the second noun is animate, Italian speakers tend to prefer a lexical semantic (animacy) strategy over a word-order (first noun) strategy (Bates and MacWhinney, 1984). These speakers tend to identify the animate second noun as the subject or agent.","abstract_html":"Sentence processing research has demonstrated a strong tendency for second language learners to assign the role of subject or agent to the first noun of an utterance even though grammatical morphemes and function words indicate that the second noun is the subject (Bates and MacWhinney, 1984: Gass, 1989: Glisan, 1985: Heilenman & McDonald, 1992). English speakers learning Spanish mistake preverbal object pronouns for subjects (Lee, 1987; VanPatten, 1984). Although a first-noun strategy is highly reliable in English, it is less reliable in languages such as Spanish where Object-Verb-Subject (OVS) constructions occur more frequently. Sentence processing research has found that lexical semantics, a type of word-level prior knowledge, can override the tendency of second language learners to assign. The present study investigates whether context and background knowledge, like lexical semantics, can override this first-noun strategy when cues are in conflict. For example, when the first noun of an utterance is inanimate and the second noun is animate, Italian speakers tend to prefer a lexical semantic (animacy) strategy over a word-order (first noun) strategy (Bates and MacWhinney, 1984). These speakers tend to identify the animate second noun as the subject or agent.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Houston, Anthony Dean"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Spanish","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["VanPatten, Bill"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-05-07T12:57:37Z","date_published":"2011-05-07T12:57:37Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:17Z","subjects":["Education, Language and Literature","Education, Bilingual and Multicultural","Language, Linguistics","Education, Educational Psychology","Education, Higher"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Copyright 1996 Houston, Anthony Dean"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["9780591087055","AAI9702539","(UMI)AAI9702539"],"render_values":[{"text":"9780591087055","href":null,"code":true},{"text":"AAI9702539","href":null,"code":true},{"text":"(UMI)AAI9702539","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/21076","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["VanPatten, Bill"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Houston, Anthony Dean"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2011-05-07T12:57:37Z","10000-01-01","1996"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Spanish"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Education, Language and Literature","Education, Bilingual and Multicultural","Language, Linguistics","Education, Educational Psychology","Education, Higher"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 1996 Houston, Anthony Dean"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["9780591087055","AAI9702539","(UMI)AAI9702539","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/21076"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Sentence processing research has demonstrated a strong tendency for second language learners to assign the role of subject or agent to the first noun of an utterance even though grammatical morphemes and function words indicate that the second noun is the subject (Bates and MacWhinney, 1984: Gass, 1989: Glisan, 1985: Heilenman & McDonald, 1992). English speakers learning Spanish mistake preverbal object pronouns for subjects (Lee, 1987; VanPatten, 1984). Although a first-noun strategy is highly reliable in English, it is less reliable in languages such as Spanish where Object-Verb-Subject (OVS) constructions occur more frequently. Sentence processing research has found that lexical semantics, a type of word-level prior knowledge, can override the tendency of second language learners to assign. The present study investigates whether context and background knowledge, like lexical semantics, can override this first-noun strategy when cues are in conflict. For example, when the first noun of an utterance is inanimate and the second noun is animate, Italian speakers tend to prefer a lexical semantic (animacy) strategy over a word-order (first noun) strategy (Bates and MacWhinney, 1984). These speakers tend to identify the animate second noun as the subject or agent.","In the present study, fourth-semester university students of Spanish were asked to listen to simple declarative sentences and complete a sentence interpretation task. Target sentences were object-verb-subject (OVS) constructions in which word order was in conflict either with context or with background knowledge. The results of the present study support that background knowledge can override the tendency of second language learners to assign subject status to the first noun of an utterance. Context, as operationalized in the present study, did not appear to have an effect.","The present study provides direction for future research on the role of prior knowledge in the acquisition of second language surface features. Acquisition of forms depends not merely on comprehension, but also on form/meaning connections (Terrell, 1986). If prior knowledge serves to make input comprehensible, it should also serve to make input available for acquisition.","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:57:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9702539.pdf: 4694742 bytes, checksum: f73d9a97bddab6dd41de988a56f0860f (MD5) Previous issue date: 1996","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T14:48:19Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:21:52-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","U of I Only"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Sentence processing in Spanish as a second language: A study of context, background knowledge and word order"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["VanPatten, Bill"],"dc:creator":["Houston, Anthony Dean"],"dc:date":["2011-05-07T12:57:37Z","10000-01-01","1996"],"dc:description":["Sentence processing research has demonstrated a strong tendency for second language learners to assign the role of subject or agent to the first noun of an utterance even though grammatical morphemes and function words indicate that the second noun is the subject (Bates and MacWhinney, 1984: Gass, 1989: Glisan, 1985: Heilenman & McDonald, 1992). English speakers learning Spanish mistake preverbal object pronouns for subjects (Lee, 1987; VanPatten, 1984). Although a first-noun strategy is highly reliable in English, it is less reliable in languages such as Spanish where Object-Verb-Subject (OVS) constructions occur more frequently. Sentence processing research has found that lexical semantics, a type of word-level prior knowledge, can override the tendency of second language learners to assign. The present study investigates whether context and background knowledge, like lexical semantics, can override this first-noun strategy when cues are in conflict. For example, when the first noun of an utterance is inanimate and the second noun is animate, Italian speakers tend to prefer a lexical semantic (animacy) strategy over a word-order (first noun) strategy (Bates and MacWhinney, 1984). These speakers tend to identify the animate second noun as the subject or agent.","In the present study, fourth-semester university students of Spanish were asked to listen to simple declarative sentences and complete a sentence interpretation task. Target sentences were object-verb-subject (OVS) constructions in which word order was in conflict either with context or with background knowledge. The results of the present study support that background knowledge can override the tendency of second language learners to assign subject status to the first noun of an utterance. Context, as operationalized in the present study, did not appear to have an effect.","The present study provides direction for future research on the role of prior knowledge in the acquisition of second language surface features. Acquisition of forms depends not merely on comprehension, but also on form/meaning connections (Terrell, 1986). If prior knowledge serves to make input comprehensible, it should also serve to make input available for acquisition.","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:57:37Z (GMT). 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