Exam question: L1-transfer?

[Kirsten Middeke]

Dear all,
Many of you are searching for a transfer-based explanation for the deviant plural forms in this week’s exam question. The point of the exercise was to show that there are perfectly plausible explanations for these mistakes within English. What matters is that the speakers are learners, it usually doesn’t matter what their L1 is (and we don’t expect you to know any of the languages mentioned, of course).
One person writes

It may have happened because in [Mandarin] plural form of sheep would be two morphemes so he translated that into English (sheep-s). Another reason could be that his form (sheeps) is based on the way pigs is formed in plural. Here it is correct to use the two morphemes pig-s.

The second explanation is a lot better than the first. In Mandarin (as far as I know, correct me!) there are no plural morphemes or clitics at all. But even if there were, the fact that English plurals are usually formed with the {s}-suffix is more decisive, because you are looking at different systems coexisting within English, one of which is vastly more frequent than the others.
Another person writes

The speaker in this sentence tried to apply German standard grammar in an English sentence by adding the bound morpheme {s} to the word goose.

That’s interesting, because there is no {s} in the German plural Gänse at all, but there is a different vowel. Why should this cause a person to produce a plural with a different suffix, but no vowel change? A more plausible explanation is that this speaker is applying the most productive English plural formation pattern to this word.

• This topic was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by Kirsten Middeke.
• This topic was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by Kirsten Middeke.
• This topic was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by Kirsten Middeke.

[Author]

Posts