Agreement Morphology in Arabic as a Second Language by Mansouri - Article Example

Introduction The choice for Arabic cross-linguistic validation is gives a provision for unique context of typological testing for theoretical claims that have already been developed. These claims are based on the research that has already been carried out on Indo-European languages such as English and German. However, one of the problems faced by cross-linguistic testing of theoretical claims in the acquisition of Arabic as a second language is the specific typological peculiarities of the target language and its methodological implications for establishing comparable structures at different stages of development. The contribution of processability theory in this context, therefore, is that its processing procedures hierarchy reflects the universal of feature unification in different patterns of grammatical information, exchange and thus this hierarchy is testable in any language. According to Mansouri (2005), the concept of grammatical information exchange is crucial in generating predictions across typologically different languages. Aims of the article One aim of this article is to establish and analyse the developmental stages for agreement morphology in the acquisition of Arabic as a second language (ASL) from a Processability Theory perspective (Mansouri 2005). Another aim is to define and describe linguistically a number of agreement patterns in the target language on the basis of the processes involved in affixation, class type of the head NP, word order variation and directionality of encoding. These typological features associated with agreement marking in Arabic need to be described in terms of patterns of grammatical information exchange in order to define their processing requirements and, consequently their predicted developmental order. The article will also examine the issue of intra-stage sequence and the potential for this to be examined on the basis of a combination of language-specific typological features and their differing processing load. It is also aimed at describing the aspects of Arabic morphology and syntax in an LFG framework, and uses the information to develop a proposed acquisition hierarchy. According to Mansouri, the pragmatic testing of the two stages is based on data collected from English-speaking learners of Arabic in a classroom context. This article also aims at clarifying the multiplicity of structures within individual acquisition and their role in analyzing the learner language especially in instances of Arabic phrasal and inter-phrasal multiple agreement morphology where there is the existence of multiple structures. Another aim of this article is to look at the different typological phenomena within one stage, establish if the structures that belong stage are all processable in the same way, and if so, if such an analysis can form the basis for an intra-stage learning sequence. Methods of this study In this study, the Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) approach to agreement marking in Arabic language was used. This method involves the use of feature unification to capture agreement relations and speech recognition. LFG has an identifying factor which involves the interaction of three structures namely the c-structure, f-structure and lexical entities controlled by a set of well defined conditions. Agreement marking in Arabic is also another method used which ensures that the appropriate constraints on the main sub-components of the system of agreement are accounted for. This method consists of phrasal and inter-phrasal agreement. Phrasal agreement refers to information exchange between a source head and its target modifier whereby key morpho-syntactic features are unified in agreement. This exchange in Arabic involves basic features such as person, gender, and number which are unified by feature specification within their respective lexical entries. The use of inter-phrasal AGR marking in this article involved the use of subject-verb agreement structures within which the exchange of information takes place across syntactic constituents represented by an NP or a VP. The analysis of full inter-phrasal agreement in Arabic involves the morphological marking of the features number, person, and subject (Mansouri, 2005). Data collection This one year-long study was performed by Mansouri on two students in a formal Arabic class environment based on the stratified sample of the data of individual learner. Quantitative data collection used provided information that was useful in understanding the processes behind observed results and assesses changes in student’s perceptions of acquiring Arabic as their second language. The two learners had no prior knowledge of Arabic language because they both had an English speaking background. Obtaining data was done through a series of interviews that was conducted as the two took their lessons followed by data collection. This was done after the students had completed their first formal introductory course of in Arabic language. The data for this study was collected from learners of Arabic as a second language in a classroom setting through oral means thus ensuring that the main feature of time constrained production is maintained. Findings of the study From the data collected, it is clear that there is an overall pattern of developmental hierarchy. They provide a systematic theory-driven account for the developmental features of structures within Stage 3 (phrasal agreement morphology) and Stage 4 (inter-phrasal agreement morphology) based on data produced by English-speaking learners of Arabic in a classroom context. Data obtained from this study suggests that phrasal agreement in Arabic second language acquisition occurs later than inter-phrasal morphology (Mansouri, 2005). A common feature that was noticed across the two learners was the case of developmental gaps in phrasal agreement in relation to possessive structures and gender polarity with NP that involves cardinals. Neither of the learners produced either of these structures at Time 1 (T1) of data collection, though they produced the basic form of subject verb agreement. One of the learners was able to produce VSO structures as early as Time 1. To sum it all up, the structures appeared in both learners as predicted in the implicational order in processability theory. Both learners were able to acquire phrasal structures before inter-phrasal structures. Critical comments An empirical test that can be done for an acquisition hierarchy of agreement marking is provided by this study in acquiring Arabic as a second language according to the processability theory. Lack of a clear, formal account of the selected target language structures that is required for the empirical testing of the predictions mentioned in the processability theory is one of the issues that need to be clarified before a clear interpretation of these findings is achieved. Another issue is related to the misunderstanding and, therefore, (mis)application of the criterion of emergence which adds an element of methodological confusion to the conceptual basis of the study in question. The findings from this study give weight to the predicted developmental hierarchy and, therefore provide strong evidence of its implicational nature. One outstanding observation made from this study is related to the order or sequencing of structures found in a certain stage and whether it requires extra tools of explanation. It has also been observed that formal analyses of agreement phenomena in Arabic language have had a tendency of focusing on the grammatical marking and typological properties of syntactic structures. Reference Mansouri, F. (2005). Agreement morphology in Arabic as a second language: typological features and their processing implications. In F. Mansouri, Cross-linguistic aspects of processability theory (pp. 117-153). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. Read More