The second language acquisition of inflectional morphology in Turkish

Abstract

This study investigates the acquisition of nominal and verbal morphology in second language (L2) Turkish. Five Case markers (i.e. Accusative, Locative, Ablative, Genitive and Dative) in the nominal domain and five Tense/Aspect/Modality (TAM) markers (i.e., -(I)yor, -A/Ir, -(y)AcAK, -DI and -mIş) in the verbal domain are examined. Based on the written data from 46 English-speaking learners of Turkish, (in)correct uses of the morphemes are analyzed. Three research questions are explored: i) do learners who have the time/opportunity to monitor their written output still demonstrate difficulty with accessing target morphemes; (if so) ii) are nominal and verbal markers subject to differential variability? iii) is there an accuracy order within Case and TAM markers? The results have revealed high accuracy rates in both nominal and verbal domains. Nevertheless, Case morphology has been found to be used less variably than TAM markers. Furthermore, a difficulty hierarchy can be implicated as the Accusative marker and Aspectual –mIş morpheme appeared to be the two most erroneously supplied suffixes. The errors mostly involve omissions in the use of Case suffixes; and substitutions in the use of TAM markers, which implies morphological problems even in the written modality. Nevertheless, systematic and accurate use in the data suggests that the L2 morphological system (richness and regularity) facilitates the extent of native-like ultimate attainment of morphemes. An accuracy hierarchy found amongst the nominal and verbal morphology implies the selective nature of variability and calls for further research examining its potential linguistic causes.