If, then, and whenPuzzles in the patterns of acquisition of Japanese conditionals

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If, then, and whenPuzzles in the patterns of
acquisition of Japanese conditionals

• Wesley M. Jacobsen
• Harvard University

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Japanese conditionals hurdles for L1 English
speakers

• A. Japanese conditionals subsume both if and
  when meaning

(1) Jon ni atTARA yoroshiku
tsutaete-kure. Jon DAT meet-COND hello
convey-IMP If you see John, say hi OR When
you see John , say hi.
(2) a. Fuyu ni naru TO samuku
naru. Winter DAT become COND cold-become When
winter comes, it gets cold. b. Shiken ni
ochiru TO sotsugyoo-dekinai. Exam DAT fail COND
graduate-can-NEG If you fail the exam, you
cant graduate.
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Japanese conditionals hurdles for L1 English
speakers

• B. Japanese has 4 distinct conditional patterns

Four ways to say If you press this button, ...
(3) a. Kono botan o osu TO denki
ga tsuku. this button ACC press COND
lights NOM go-on If you press this button, the
lights will go on. b. Kono botan o
oshiTARA denki ga tsuku. c. Kono botan o oseBA
denki ga tsuku. d. Kono botan o osu
NARA .
Conditionals are commonly considered to be among
the most difficult of grammatical patterns in
Japanese for L1 speakers of English to acquire
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Japanese conditionals hurdles for L1 English
speakers

• C. Morphological considerations

S1 TO S2 V1 (predicate of S1) is in
citation form (osu to) S1 TARA S2 V1
is formed on past form TA (oshita ra) S1 BA
S2 V1 occurs in a unique conjugational form
(oseba) S1 NARA S2 V1 is tensed, past
or non-past (osu nara, oshita nara)
--gt Morphologically, BA form may be considered
most difficult form to acquire
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L1 acquisition of conditionals in JPN
--gt L1 acquisition of conditional forms (esp. TO,
TARA) reported to be as early as before age 2,
compared to age 3 for acquisition of English if
(Akatsuka/Clancy 1993)
--gt possibly related to frequent appearance of
conditionals in expressions of prohibition,
suggestion
(4) TabeTARA dame yo eat-COND no-good You
mustnt eat (that) (5) Taroo-chan mo
yattemiTARA doo? Taro (you) also
try-doing-COND how-about? How about if you
try doing it too, Taro? (6) Sonna koto suru
TO Kaachan okoru yo that-kind thing do
COND Mommy get-upset If you do that,
Mommy will get upset
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Parameters of meaning in L2 acquisition of
conditionals
A. Sentence-final modality
--gt With TO and BA conditionals, S2 must be a
statement (no requests, or expressions of
first-person intentionality)

• Jon ni atTARA yoroshiku tsutaete kure.
• au TO
• aeBA
• Jon DAT meet-COND hi convey-IMP
• If/when you see John, say hi to him.

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Parameters of meaning in L2 acquisition of
conditionals
A. Sentence-final modality
--gt With TO and BA conditionals, S2 must be a
statement (no requests, or expressions of
first-person intentionality)
--gt except BA is unconstrainted when V1 is
stative (6) Hima ga areBA asobi ni kite
kure time NOM have-COND visit PURP
come-IMP If you have time, come for a visit.

• OR in certain cases of first-person
  intentionality in S2
• (7) Shigoto ga hayaku owareBA nomi ni
  ikoo-to-omou.
• work NOM early finish-COND drink PURP go-VOL
• If work gets over early, I think Ill go
  drinking.

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Parameters of meaning in L2 acquisition of
conditionals
A. Sentence-final modality
--gt With TO and BA conditionals, S2 must be a
statement (no requests, or expressions of
first-person intentionality)
On grammaticality recognition tests, even
advanced L2 speakers of Japanese exhibit a poor
ability to discriminate acceptable from
unacceptable S2 modality in these constructions
(English, Chinese, and Korean speakers did
equally poorly) (Inaba 1991, Solvang 2006)
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Parameters of meaning in L2 acquisition of
conditionals
B. Temporal sequence between S1 and S2
--gt TO, TARA, and (to a lesser extent) BA
conditionals require that the event of S2 be
temporally ordered after S1
(8) Soto e deTARA kasa o motte-ikinasai.
deru TO dereBA Outside LOC
go-COND umbrella ACC take-IMP If you go out,
take an umbrella.
Compare (9) Soto e deru NARA kasa o
motte-ikinasai.
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Parameters of meaning in L2 acquisition of
conditionals
B. Temporal sequence between S1 and S2
(8) Soto e deTARA kasa o
motte-ikinasai. deru TO
??dereBA Outside LOC go-COND
umbrella ACC take-IMP If you go out, take an
umbrella.
English native advanced L2 learners of Japanese
exhibit poor ability to recognize unacceptability
of sentence types such as the above (Chinese,
Korean speakers do better) (Solvang 2006)
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Parameters of meaning in L2 acquisition of
conditionals
C. Hypothetical (if) vs. non-hypothetical
(when) meaning
TARA and TO can be used in certain past contexts
where both S1 and S2 are actual events

• Soto ni deTARA ame ga futteita.
• deru TO
• outside LOC go-COND rain NOM fall-PROG-PAST
• When I went outside, it was raining.

• This is not possible with BA or NARA, which
  require hypothetical contexts
• (10) Soto ni dereBA ame ga futteita.
• deru NARA

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Parameters of meaning in L2 acquisition of
conditionals
C. Hypothetical (if) vs. non-hypothetical
(when) meaning

• Soto ni deTARA ame ga futteita.
• deru TO
• outside LOC go-COND rain NOM fall-PROG-PAST
• When I went outside, it was raining.

--gt This usage is highly constrained the event
in S2 cannot be under the control of the subject
of S1 (with TARA) or the speaker (with TO).
--gt TARA in actual contexts therefore often acts
as a switch reference marker (Iwasaki, 1992).
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Factual use of TARA and TO
--gt NOT a peripheral phenomenon in Japanese.
--gt Frequently used in the telling of stories and
anecdotes, either as clause markers or in the
form of conjunctions such as soshiTARA to mark
the following clause as a surprising or
unexpected development.
--gt Kato (2003) reports that this use of TARA is
the second most frequent clause linker (next to
the TE form) in token counts of personal oral
narratives.
--gtVery commonly used in story books for young
children
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Factual use of TARA and TO
Are these really conditionals?
--two dimensions of conditional meaning a.
Hypothetical meaning. b. Contingent occurrence
in time.
--gt (b) is central to TARA and TO in all
contexts (a) merely accrues as an additional
meaning in certain contexts
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Factual use of TARA and TO
Factual use of TARA and TO can be seen to be
modeled on a cognitive event of discovery
(surprise) that provides the empirical foundation
for the ability to predict future events
(Jacobsen 1999).
(11) Botan o osu TO denki ga
tsuita. button ACC press-COND lights NOM
go-on-PAST When I pressed the button,
(lo and behold) the lights went on. --gt a
one-time event of discovery
(12) Botan o osu TO denki ga
tsuku. button ACC press-COND lights NOM
go-on If you press the button, the lights will
go on. --gt based on knowledge of repeated
sequential occurrence
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Production of conditionals L1 vs. L2
TARA and TO are felt to be more colloquial by
native speakers than BA and NARA
BA conditionals unique informational
structure --gt S1 provides answer to what
should one do in order for S2 to occur?

• (13) Kono kusuri o nomeBA kaze wa
  naoru.
• this medicine ACC take-COND cold TOP get-better
• If you take this medicine your cold will get
  better.
• (14) Kotae wa sensei ni kikeBA
  wakaru.
• answer TOP teacher DAT ask-COND find-out
• If you ask the teacher, youll find out the
  answer.

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Production of conditionals L1 vs. L2
NARA conditionals treat S1, S2 as information,
not events. --gt If (as you say/it is the case
that) S1, then (I answer, say, suggest, etc.)
that S2

• Sonna-ni atama ga ii NARA kono mondai o
  toite-goran
• so head NOM good COND this problem ACC
  solve-try
• If youre so smart, then try solving this
  problem.
• (16) Taroo ga kuru NARA boku wa kaeru.
• Taroo NOM come COND I TOP leave
• If Taroo is coming, then Im leaving.

• Compare
• Taroo ga kiTARA boku wa kaeru.
• If Taroo comes, then Ill leave. (Kuno
  1973)

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Production of conditionals L1 vs. L2
Unlike TO and TARA, BA and NARA are consistently
hypothetical they are NOT used in actual
contexts.
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Production of conditionals L1 vs. L2
Ono/Jones (2008) report from a corpus of
spontaneous L1 adult speech (similar findings in
Kato 2003, Russell 2005)
--gt overall breakdown by type TARA TO
BA NARA 48 25.4 24.3 2.3
--gt 52.5 of conditional tokens occur in
semi-fixed patterns 47.5 in rule-based
expressions
--gt of the rule-based cases, 58 are
non-hypothetical
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Production of conditionals L1 vs. L2
Russell (2005) reports in longitudinal corpus
study of L2 speech of adults living in Japan (L1
English)
--gt over 12 years from initial language study,
frequency of occurrence of conditional tokens
shifted as follows TARAgtTOgtBAgtNARA --gt
BAgtTOgtTARAgtNARA
--gt percentage of accurate use (at early stage in
study) NARA gt BA gt TO gt TARA
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Production of conditionals L1 vs. L2
Insofar as these data are representative, the
conditional forms used most frequently (and
acquired most early) by L1 speakers are the ones
that exhibit the highest rate of inaccurate use
and are lost most rapidly by L2 speakers of
English background.
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What about heritage speakers?
Presence of conditional forms in idiomatic/
semi-fixed patterns (Ono/Jones 2008)
A. Lexical forms TatoeBA for example, Moshika
shiTARA maybe
B. Conjunctions SoshiTARA (Upon that
happening), then
C. Modal patterns V-nakereBA naranai
must V
D. Suggestions V-TARA? (How about) if you
do V?
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What about heritage speakers?
Some hypotheses/impressions
Heritage speakers of Japanese --gt exhibit
roughly the same relative frequency distribution
of conditional forms in their speech as natives
(TARAgtTOgtBAgtNARA) --gt BUT these exhibit a higher
concentration of fixed than rule-based
patterns
--gt exhibit the same types of difficulty as L2
learners (if to a lesser extent) in
discriminating between acceptable versus
unacceptable conditional sentences in terms of S2
modality and temporal sequence between S1 and S2
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Some final thoughts on teaching conditionals
--gt The utility of templates exhibiting
prototypical usages
S1 TARA S2, S1 TO S2 in past contexts Upon S1
happening/doing S1, (I observed that) S2.
S1 NARA S2 If you say/if it is the case that
S1, then my response, suggestion, etc., is S2.
S1 BA S2 The way to bring about S2 is If you
S1, then S2.
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Some final thoughts on teaching conditionals
--gt The utility of templates exhibiting
prototypical usages
--gt Achieving balance between lexical and
rule-based forms involving conditionals (esp.
conjunction-like forms such as soshiTARA When I
did that, then (to my surprise)
--gt More exposure to spontaneous native speech in
order to develop a sensitivity to following
narrative development, especially in the form of
conditional-based cues.
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• Thank you for your kind attention!