Collen Tinea Senc i On

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Language Learning ISSN 0023-8333

A Corpus-Based Analysis of the DiscourseFunctions of Ser/Estar+ Adjective in Three

Levels of Spanish as FL Learners

Joe Collentine

Northern Arizona University

Yuly Asencion-Delaney

Northern Arizona University

Research on the acquisition of Spanishs two copulas, serandestar, provides an un-

derstanding of the interaction among syntax, semantics, pragmatics, morphology, and

vocabulary during development (e.g., Geeslin, 2003a, 2003b; Gunterman, 1992; Ryan

& Lafford, 1992). Recent research suggests that linguistic features in the surround-

ing discourse influence learners copula choice. We present a corpus-based analysis

of the lexico-grammatical features co-occurring with copula + adjective usage among

foreign-language learners of Spanish at three levels of instruction. Findings revealedthe following: (a) both ser+ adjective andestar+adjective occur at all levels where

little linguistic complexity typically occurs; (b) ser+adjective appears in descriptive

and evaluative discourse; and (c)estar+adjective is present in narrations, descriptions,

and hypothetical discourse.

Keywords second language acquisition; Spanish interlanguage; learner corpus; corpus

linguistics; grammatical development;serandestar; copula choice

Introduction

Studying the acquisition of Spanish copulas, ser andestar, interests second

language acquisition (SLA) researchers because it requires studying syn-

tax, semantics, pragmatics, morphology, and vocabulary during development

We wish to thank Dr. Roy St. Laurent of the Northern Arizona University Statistical Consulting

Lab for his valuable assistance in the design of the statistical analyses of this project. Any errors

reside solely with us. Our thanks also go to Dr. Vincent and Dr. Ojeda for their financial support to

transcribe the texts written by the learners.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Joe Collentine, Northern Arizona

University Modern Languages Box 6004 Flagstaff AZ 86011 Internet: Joseph Collentine@


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Collentine and Asencion-Delaney Corpus-Based Analysis ofSer/Estar+Adjective

(Leonetti, 1994). Although this might seem particular to Spanish as a second

language (L2), the acquisition of these verbs shows how learners acquire one

of the two basic Indo-European sentence types (Halliday, 1970): predicative(e.g., Juan corre r apidamenteJohn runs quickly) and attributive sentences

(e.g., Juan es r apido John is quick), with the ser/estar (S/E) distinction

forming the central verbal element of the latter. Pragmatically speaking, the

S/E distinction requires knowing when the relationship between the subject

and adjective involves characterization (Mar a es capazMary is capable) or

identification (Mar a es la encargadaMary is the one in charge; Fernandez

Leborans, 1999). Semantically, S/E can differ aspectually, with estaroften con-

noting the perfective aspect (e.g., that an events time frame is short and limited

in duration) and ser connoting the imperfective (e.g., the event is habitual)

(Lujan, 1981). Morphologically, Spanish adjectives inflect for person and num-

ber, which is especially difficult for learners whose first language (L1) has few

inflections, like English. Finally, the number of adjectives that learners must as-

sociate with eitherserorestarpresents lexical challenges. Geeslin (2003a) and

Silva-Corvalan (1986, 1994) reminded us that even native speakers of Spanish

show much variation in S/E usage with adjectives as a function of pragmatic

considerations.

Traditionally (and in current learner textbooks), ser+adjective segmentsdescribe a subjects permanent, seemingly unchanging characteristics. How-

ever, estar+ adjective segments describe temporary, dynamic characteristics

of a subject. It is for this reason that an adjective like aburridoboring/bored

insoy aburrido, which usesser, produces the meaning I am boring, whereas

inestoy aburrido, which usesestar, yields roughly I am bored; with ser, the

boredom is constant, whereas withestar,the stateand its effect on others

should pass. Nonetheless, this traditional view has come under much empirical

scrutiny, with the works of Geeslin (2003a) and Silva-Corvalan (1986, 1994)showing that this explanation only scratches the surface of the pragmatic nu-

ances that native speakers consider when choosing their copula.

Studying the acquisition of S/E provides a means to address various SLA

questions (e.g., orders of acquisition, the role of study abroad), and researchers

have used various methodologies (e.g., error analysis of open-ended conver-

sations, raters judging the semantic intent of learner utterances). Recent S/E

research suggests that learner copula selection is sensitive to lexical and gram-

matical features (often referred to together as lexico-grammatical features) in

the surrounding discourse. Corpus-linguistics methods are particularly suited

to study the interaction between a construct and its lexical and grammatical con-


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analysis, we present a large-scale corpus-based analysis of learners use of

S/E+ adjective at different instructional levels.

Ser/EstarSLA Research to Date

Initial S/E research identified developmental stages in instructed contexts, fo-

cusing on accuracy and omission rates.Estaremerges in later stages, especially

inestar+adjective segments. VanPatten (1985, 1987) studied oral interviews,

grammaticality judgments, and informal class observations to propose five

stages: (a) copula absence, (b)seras the default copula, (c)estarwith progres-

sive, (d) estarwith locatives, and (e)estarwith adjectives of condition. Sim-

plification, communicative value, frequency in input, and L1 transfer influence

these stages (VanPatten, 1987). Researchers have studied whether VanPattens

stages generalize to study-abroad and Peace Corps experiences (Gunterman,

1992; Ryan & Lafford, 1992). Oral proficiency interviews in both Gunter-

mans study and Ryan and Laffords study confirmed most stages, withestar+

adjectives of condition appearing beforeestarwith locatives.

Although accuracy studies reveal that these two copulas develop in a pre-

dictable fashion, they do not explain the variability in S/E usage. Additionally,

these studies appeared when SLA research was highly concerned with the roleof input in acquisition, and explanations focused on issues such as the cop-

ulas individual frequency and communicative value/saliency (Ryan & Lafford,

1992; VanPatten, 1985, 1987) in the input. Ryan and Lafford (1992) attributed

the late emergence ofestar+adjective to access to naturalistic input. Nonethe-

less, we know almost nothing about the input (e.g., the types of discourse)

that learners process in naturalistic settings or over the course of a semester

in at-home or study-abroad settings (Collentine, 2008). SLA theory posits that

output (be it from instructional interventions or naturalistic experiences) playsas strong a role as input at latter stages of acquisition (Shehadeh, 2002; Swain,

1985), which is whenestar+adjective emerges. What type of communication,

then, do learners generate that coincides withestar+ adjective emergence?

Some evidence suggests that copula + adjective production improves as

learners grow in the complexity of the discourse types they generate. Copula +

adjective segments help beginning learners to relate simple messages, contain-

ing a subject and a verb without elaboration (e.g., accompanied by adverbs).

Gunterman (1992) noted that when communication became difficult, learners

resorted toser+ adjective segments. Because the questions typically elicited

descriptions explanations and definitions the [peace corps volunteers] were


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p. 1297). Descriptive discourse is structurally and semantically basic, depicting

a situations important nouns and their states (e.g., via adjectives); descriptions

lack dynamic details about events and changes of states. Estar+ adjectiveappears in Guntermans data, where learners went beyond descriptions to com-

municate narrative discourse, which entails both a situations states and its

events (often chronologically). Lafford (2004) attributed copula + adjective

gains after a single semester of study abroad to the pragmatic constraints in-

herent in real-world discourse . . . and perhaps to improved overall narrative and

discursive abilities, proficiency, and fluency (p. 216; emphasis added). Subse-

quent S/E research intimated that copula + adjective growth occurs as lexical

and grammatical choices become sensitive to what appears in the surrounding

discourse.

In the copula + adjective segment, natives demonstrate variation in cop-

ula selection because each copula affects different pragmatic and discursive

interpretations (Geeslin, 2002; Silva-Corvalan, 1986), and so the copula +

adjective context is ideal for studying how learners encode pragmatic and

discursive information. Geeslin (2002, 2003a, 2003b) focused on different

instructional levels while considering findings from sociolinguistic studies of

copula + adjective language change in bilingual and monolingual communities

(e.g., Silva-Corvalan, 1986) in which semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguisticvariables such as frame of reference (i.e., comparison with group normJuan

es alto John is tallor with the referentJuan est a alto Johns gotten

tall), susceptibility of change (i.e., inherentJuan es inteligente John is

intelligentvs. changingJuan est a viejoJohns gotten old), lexical class

of the adjective (e.g., age, nationality), and semantic transparency (El mango es

verde/El mango est a verdeThe mango is green/The mango is unripe vs. Juan

es casado/Juan est a casadoJohn is married/John is just married) explained

the overuse ofestar. Geeslin (2002) collected data from high school studentswith a guided interview, a picture-description task, and a contextualized ques-

tionnaire, concluding that learners acquire the restriction of susceptibility of

change earlier than the frame of reference restriction. Geeslin (2003a, 2003b)

later examined copula choice with advanced learners using contextualized

questionnaires, finding that semantic and pragmatic features interact to predict

estarusage. She found that whereas advanced learners seem to overgeneral-

ize pragmatic constraints such as frame of reference and experience with the

referent, native speakers favor lexical and semantic constraints (e.g., predicate

type) to decide when to use serorestar.

Recently Geeslin (2003b) and Geeslin and Guijarro-Fuentes (2006) sug-


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In the case of copula choice, advanced learners apply pragmatic

constraints, even in contexts in which native speakers do not. In contrast,

native speakers choose not to apply pragmatic constraints in favor oflexical and semantic constraints. (Geeslin, 2003a, p. 751)

In copula selection, L2 Spanish learners may even be more sensitive to con-

textual factors than native speakers, who appear to depend on local factors

within the attributive copula + adjective segment (i.e., lexical and semantic

constraints related to the interaction of the copula and the adjective alone);

learners are sensitive to a wider context, apparently attending to speaker in-

tent and implicatures (as pragmatic considerations would imply) as well as

to lexico-grammatical features in the surrounding discourse. Geeslin (2003a,p. 748) noted that words/phrases that imply change near a copula +adjective

segment apparently cause advanced learners to select estarthe copula asso-

ciated with changing stateseven when the relationship between the adjective

and the copula necessitates the use ofserthe copula associated with perma-

nent states. Thus, to better understand the factors surrounding learners S/E

usage, we might well ask the following:

What are the contextual features that co-occur with each copula+ adjective

segment at different levels of instruction? What types of discourse (e.g., narratives, descriptions) are usually associ-

ated with each segment?

Corpus Techniques and the Study of Context

Geeslins (2002, 2003a, 2003b) research shows by way of rater judgments

that the pragmatic intent of copula + adjective segments influences whether

learners use ser orestar. It is also reasonable to suspect that discourse typeinfluences copula selection in important ways. Recall that Gunterman (1992)

argued thatser+ adjective andestar+ adjective segments are distributed within

different discourse types. Additionally, Lafford (2004) related learners copula

selection gains to the expansion of the types of discourse they can produce.

Myles and Mitchell (2004) argued that SLA researchers should take note that

corpus research examining large collections of digitized documents has had a

considerable role in furthering the field of discourse analysis. Accordingly, the

present study employs a variety of corpus-based techniques to understand the

contextual features that co-occur withser+ adjective andestar+ adjective use

in addition to the discursive functions that learners at different levels assign to


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the following section we not only briefly delimit what corpus-based research

can reveal about SLA, but we also describe important corpus assumptions

and techniques. Because our analysis compares learner data to corpus-basednative-speaker models, we also describe relevant perspectives that recent corpus

research has uncovered about the nature of Spanish discourse.

Not only does a corpus-based approach lend itself to questions of L2 dis-

course development, but the techniques also permit empirical comparisons

between learner behaviors and native-speaker models. For instance, using an

English learner corpus and two British native-speaker corpora, Siyanova and

Schmitt (2007) found that, in informal speech, learners are less likely to use

two-word verb constructs (e.g.,run into,put off) than are native English speak-

ers. One advantage of comparing learner performance to native-speaker models

is that the SLA researcher can make empirically defensible and testable assump-

tions about the end state of the acquisition process, an approach we adopt in

the present study.

Myles (2005) and Myles and Mitchell (2004) lamented that SLA research

has not been quick to embrace new technologies for collecting and analyzing

data, especially as it relates to corpus linguistics. They argued that corpus lin-

guistics complements the current research by examining large amounts of data

with relative ease, thus increasing the generalizability of findings (Rutherford& Thomas, 2001). Still, some notable corpus-based SLA research has con-

tributed to our understanding of the context on language development (Belz,

2004; Collentine, 2004; Granger, Hung, & Petch-Tyson, 2002; Klein & Purdue,

1997). Some corpus research exists onserandestar.

Corpus-Based S/E Findings

Corpus-based S/E research provides some evidence that learners copula choice

is sensitive to contextual factors and that there is reason to suspect that Spanishcopula+ adjective segments are distributed to different discourse types. Cheng,

Lu, and Giannakouros (2008) examined a corpus of Mandarin Chinese L1

learners of Spanish. They show how advanced learners copula choice varies

according to the pragmatic intent of the surrounding discourse they themselves

produce. They reported that exploratory writing evoked greaterestar+ad-

jective usage and that estar+ adjective is compatible with the semantic and

pragmatic goals of narratives or descriptions. Collentine (2008), in an invited

commentary article on Cheng et al. (2008), conducted a study on whether cop-

ula+adjective segments might serve discernable discourse functions in native

Spanish discourse His analysis uncovered a significant interaction between


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of discourse, whereas estar+ adjective was most frequent in dramas, which

entail much evaluative language and monologues containing descriptions, and

narratives. These two studies suggest that copula +adjective use by learnersand native speakers is not influenced by local features alone (which range from

within the copula+ adjective phrase structure to the lexico-grammatical char-

acteristics of the discourse) but also by communicative goals such as the type

of discourse being produced.

Techniques, Tools, and Utility of Corpus Based-Research

Corpus linguistics ranges in complexity. Minimally, it utilizes searchable digi-

tized texts sampled in a representative fashion, depending on the studys focus.

Textual information is critical for statistical procedures (just as it is for indi-

vidual learners), and so files are tagged with header information, such as topic,

source type, biographical information about the author, and purpose (argu-

mentative essay, narrative). Concordance applications and scripting languages

allow researchers to search for specific segments and tabulate their frequencies

by text. When investigators need to search for morphosyntactic information

(e.g., all adjectives, all verbs whose infinitive is eitherserorestar), they often

use a part-of-speech tagger: a series of software modules that annotates ev-

ery word with information about its major word classes (e.g., adjective, noun,verb, determiner, preposition), basic morphological information (e.g., plural,

preterit), as well as its lemma (i.e., its unmarked, dictionary root, such as a

verbs infinitive or a nouns masculine, singular form).

Part-of-speech tagging requires a dictionary with lexical and grammatical

information about the possible words in a language (some words have more

than one entry because languages have many synonyms). For the present project

we compiled our own dictionary and we utilized a training set (which assists

tagging ambiguous forms) from samples from theCorpus del espa nol(Biber,Davies, Jones, & Tracey-Ventura, 2006) as well as software routines from the

Natural Language Tool Kit (NLTK; http://www.nltk.org/). After the corpus is

tagged in this way, the investigator must verify the accuracy of the tagging

and fix errors (individual and/or systematic) through further programming.

An increasingly popular technology to create search patterns (regardless of

the tagging software) utilizes regular expressions, a sophisticated wild-card-

and variable-based text-search system (e.g., \w{3,}symbolizes words of three

letters or more; \w+ing symbolizes words of any length ending ining).

Having a tagged corpus along with the flexibility of regular expressions

provided us with a powerful means of studying a number of lexical and/or


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(?:ser|estar)` (?:obvio|evidente) \j \w+que \ \w+is one way to search for

every verb whose lemma is eitherserorestarfollowed by the adjectives obvio

orevidentefollowed by the conjunctionque.It is important to make mention of two common corpus-statistical tech-

niques. The process ofnorming is a numerical transformation of counts to

account for the fact that individual texts vary in length and that longer texts

can have a greater influence on the numerical distribution of any phenomenon.

Investigators often norm frequency counts to an arbitrary number, such as per

1,000 or per 10,000 words: The count of some phenomenon in a text is di-

vided by the texts total word count, the quotient of which is multiplied by

1,000 (a higher norming multiplier like 100,000 affords greater precision). The

technique known as normalizinginvolves converting the count of some phe-

nomenon to itsz-score value vis-a-vis its count in each document in the corpus

(i.e., the difference of the phenomenons frequency and its mean occurrence

in the corpus divided by its standard deviation). Normalizing is convenient

for measuring the relative presence of two or more linguistic features within

any given text, as one can easily sum two or more z-scores to calculate how

concentrated those features are in any texts or group of documents while taking

into account the fact that some linguistic phenomena are naturally scarce in a

document (e.g., the subjunctive), whereas others are naturally common (e.g.,articles) (cf. Biber & Conrad, 2001). For instance, the frequency of adverbs of

time and copula+ adjective segments are likely to vary in different ways across

the texts of a corpus (e.g., adverbs of time may be generally more frequent).

By summing the two segmentsz-score per document, we can find which texts

have the highest concentration of the two.

Corpus-Based Native-Speaker Models of Discourse

According to Myles and Mitchell (2004), we now have the ability to definestructurally and statistically different discourse types. Thus, the present study

not only compares learners copula selection behaviors between different levels

of instruction, but it also attempts to identify the types of discourse learners

produce when using S/E +adjective, based on a native-speaker model. Corpus

linguistics has shown through factor analyses how lexico-grammatical struc-

tures bundle together to produce different types of discourse (Biber & Conrad,

2001). Biber et al. (2006) provided the first comprehensive analysis of Spanish,

analyzing a 20 million-word Spanish corpus with written and oral data from a

variety of registers. There are four types of discourse that Biber et al. (2006)

identified that learners might well produce in written texts the features with


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Table 1 Discourse dimensions and features targeted in the learner-native speaker com-

parison (cf. Biber et al., 2006)

Discourse type Lexico-grammatical features

Informationally rich Singular and plural nouns

Postnominal descriptive adjectives

Prenominal descriptive adjectives

Definite articles

Prepositions

Derived nouns

Type-token ratio

Long wordsa

Sepassives (i.e., ergativese use)

Hypothetical Subjunctive use

Conditional use

Future use

Verbs of obligation and causation (e.g., dejar,permitir,

hacer+ infinitive)

Infinitives not preceded by a verb or article

Verbs followed by an infinitive

Progressive aspect (imperfect use or present participle) Dependentque clauses

Narrative Clitic usage

Imperfect tense/aspect

Preterit tense/aspect

Possessives

Third-person pronouns

Reflexivese and changes of states

Infinitives not preceded by a verb or article

Verbs followed by an infinitive

Descriptive Postnominal descriptive adjectives

Derived nouns

Absence of all narrative variables

aDefined as those that have an average number of characters in the dataset, plus that

calculations standard deviation, plus one characterthus, six or more characters.

Informationally richdiscourse is one that conveys large amounts of infor-

mation densely. Derived nouns, adjectives, multisyllabic words, and passives

convey information in a decidedly encyclopedic fashion Another important


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& Conrad, 2001), perhaps because Spanish has a neatly defined mood system

(with readily discernable inflections)is hypothetical discourse, which com-

municates possibilities and counterfactual information. It is characterized byfeatures such as verbs in the subjunctive and the conditional. The other two

discourse types identified by Biber et al. (2006) are well known to most (viz.,

narrativesanddescriptions).

Research Questions

The present study adds to our understanding of the acquisition of how contextual

variables interact with learners use of attributive sentences. Although the field

has a good idea of the communicative factors that motivate copula choice, we

do not know how each copula+ adjective segment works with other lexical and

grammatical structures to communicate coherent discourse. To address this gap

in the literature and to understand the discursive function that ser+adjective

andestar+ adjective segments serve over time, we provide a corpus-based

analysis of the lexico-grammatical features that predict the use of these two

segments with foreign-language (i.e., at-home) learners in the first, second, and

third years of the university level. More specifically, we address the following

research questions:

1. What are the lexico-grammatical features that co-occur withser+ adjective

usage? What are the discursive functions that these co-occurring features

serve?

2. What are the lexico-grammatical features that co-occur withestar+ad-

jective usage? What are the discursive functions that these co-occurring

features serve?

To address these questions, we present the results of a series of regressionanalyses predicting the occurrence of each copula + adjective segment from

a variety of lexico-grammatical features (see the Corpus Description section).

We predict that ser+ adjective and estar+ adjective segments will have

distinct lexico-grammatical associations that change over time. Specifically,

we posit thatser+adjective segments appear in simple discourses (e.g., highly

descriptive and listlike discourse) and estar+ adjective segments become

increasingly associated with discursive complexity. However, we posit that the

association ofestar+adjective with a particular discourse type will be more

difficult to identify because previous research suggests that even advanced

learners are more sensitive to contextual (i e pragmatic) constraints than are


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Method

Corpus Description

This study used a 432,511-word learner corpus of written Spanish, comprisingedited and nonedited compositions collected from English-speaking Spanish

learners at three levels of instruction: first year (230,270 words), second year

(109,224 words), and third year (93,017 words). The compositions were not

specific tasks designed to collect the data for this study but rather writing

samples used for assessment purposes. Students wrote letters, narratives, de-

scriptions, summaries, and argumentative essays both in and out of class as well

as on exams. Topics related to the textbook themes (e.g., family, childhood)

and the cultural readings assigned in class. Each text was tagged for numerouslexical and grammatical features (see above).

To determine what lexico-grammatical features co-occur with ser+adjec-

tive andestar+adjective usage, we considered a total of 75 potentialpredictor

variables, each operationalized in the form of a regular expression. In corpus

studies, variables refer to the linguistic features in the texts being analyzed. This

studys predictor variables included various lexical features, such as adjectives

other than the ones in the copula + adjective frame (e.g., derived adjectives,

adjective in postnominal position), nouns (e.g., derived nouns, feminine nouns,

masculine nouns), adverbs (e.g., adverbs of place, adverbs of time), and verb

classes (e.g., verb in imperfect aspect, verb in past participle), as well as mor-

phosyntactic features such as dependent clauses, noun phrase configurations

(e.g., article plus noun), pronoun usage (e.g., cliticthird person), as well as

a variety of verb phrases (e.g., verbs of communication, verbs of knowledge).

The set of variables considered involved all parts of speech, common mor-

phosyntactic constructs studied by learners, as well as additional constructs

studied in Biber et al. (2006).

Data Analyses

Learner Models Analysis

To identify the types of lexico-grammatical features that learners use with

ser+ adjective andestar+ adjective segments and to identify which vari-

ables distinguish among the three levels of learners, we constructed regression

models of lexical-grammatical regressors predicting copula +adjective usage:

a ser+ adjective learner model and a estar+ adjective learner model. We

constructed regression models for each copula + adjective segmentrather

than, for instance, a single regression model for which the choice between the

two is the dependent variablebecause the previous research suggests that the


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motivating estar+ adjective usage (cf. Guntermann, 1992). The process in-

volves screening a set of potential predictor variables for standard assumptions

of linear regression, submitting the reduced set to a best-subsets analysisrather than a stepwise procedureto identify the so-called best subset, and,

finally, comparing the predictor variables ability to distinguish among the three

levels of learners in terms of copula+ adjective usage.

We employed a standard data-screening process, identifying which of the

potential predictor variables had honest correlations with the criterion variables,

thus discarding the following: (a) variables that had no correlation with a crite-

rion variable (by examining correlation coefficients and scatter plots between

a potential predictor variable and the criterion); (b) variables that represented

inflated correlations (i.e., where two features correlated highly with each other

and constituted too high an overlap in semantic or structural properties, so as

to avoid colinearity problems in the final model selection phase);1 and (c) vari-

ables that constituted deflated correlations, eliminating predictor variables that

had a highly reduced range of responses to the criterion variable (e.g., those

variables whose frequency was very small, such as n = 2, regardless of the

level of the participant or the genre). This screening of the data yielded a list

of 58 potential linguistic variables (37 forser+adjective and 21 forestar+

adjective) that could be meaningful for the regression analyses to be performed.Table 2 shows the preliminary list of variables.

We used best-subsets analyses to derive the two regression models forser+

adjective andestar+ adjective. Social scientists frequently employ stepwise

procedures for building regression models. Although these procedures for vari-

able selection work adequately for reducing a small set of potential predictor

variables to a small, more meaningful set (e.g., a subset that does not have a

high degree of overlap), statisticians do not favor stepwise analyses when the

initial pool of predictor variables is extremely large (Miller, 2002), such as thepresent case. Following Rencher (2002), we employed instead a best-subsets

analysis for building the two models for predictingser+adjective andestar+

adjective. The principal advantage that a best-subsets approach has over sta-

tistical/stepwise regression (with a large number of predictor variables) is that

best-subsets approaches attempt to reduce the number of predictor variables

by comparing various combinations of variables, whereas the stepwise pro-

cedure attempts the reduction process by considering each and every potential

predictor variable individually. The best-subsets approach has been shown to

produce less spurious results than stepwise procedures when reducing a large

set of potential predictor variables With large pools of potential predictor vari-


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Table 2 Linguistic variables used in the study after initial data screening

Variable class Ser+ adjective Estar+ adjective

Noun noun - derived noun - masculine

noun - feminine noun - singular

Adjective adjective - derived adjective - singular

adjective - feminine adjective - type 1

adjective - masculine adjective - type 2

adjective - plural

adjective - postnominalUna

casa grandea large house

adjective - prenominalUnabella mansionA beautiful

mansion

adjective - singular

adjective - type 1Descriptive

adjective with four inflections:

masculine, feminine, singular,

and plural.Blanco/a(s) white

adjective - type 2Descriptive

adjective with two inflections:singular and plural.Interesante(s),

liberal(es) interesting, liberal

Pronoun clitic - third person clitic - preverbal

pronoun - subject

quesubordinator

pronoun - third

person

quesubordinator

Other noun phrase

elements

article noun segmentEl libro

The book

article noun segment

possessive adjective

definite article

possessive adjective

Verbs SE plus third-singular verb

verb - Gustar-like

SE plus 3rd-singular

verb

verb - third person verb - Gustar-like

verb - communicationDecir

say/tell, anunciarannounce,

explicarexplain, etc.

verb - imperfect verb - infinitive

verb - third person

verb - knowledge

verb - past participle

verb - presentparticiple


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Table 2 Continued

Variable class Ser+ adjective Estar+ adjective

verb - infinitive 2; not preceded

by verb or article

verb - knowledgeSaber

know,recordarrecall,

entenderunderstand, etc.

verb - observationVersee,

escucharlisten, etc.

verb - past participle

verb - past subjunctive

verb - periphrastic future

verb - present participle

verb - preterit

verb - suasiveQuererwant,

mandarorder

verb aspect - progressive

verb -

suasiveQuerer

want,mandar

order, etc.

verb -

probabilityCreer

believe,negar

deny,dudar

doubt, etc.

Adverbs or

adverbial clauses

adverb - place

adverb - time

adverbial clauses - contingency adverbial clauses - time

adverb - time

adverbial clauses -

contingency adverbial clauses -

time

Total 37 21

Note.All adjectives in this list did not follow one of the two copulas.

may never consider combinations of predictor variables that are equally good atpredicting the occurrence of the response variable (i.e., the dependent variable)

in question.2 Because this analysis is computationally intensive and not avail-

able in many commercial software packages for the social sciences, we used

the statistical package R and its best-subsets regression package to perform the

analysis (see Dalgaard, 2008).3

We employed what is termed a subgroup regression analysis to determine

which of the variables in the two models predictingser+adjective andestar+

adjective usage distinguished among the three levels (Hardy, 1993). The pro-

cess employs indicator variables (sometimes called dummy variables) to add

categorical predictor variables (into the model described earlier) called differ-


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predictor variable (i.e., the unique contribution of each level in our study to

each coefficient calculated for the predictor variables), producing k 1 differ-

ence (predictor) variable models, where k represents the number of groups.4

Because this group-level coefficient effect process is derived from two regres-

sion models, we adjusted the alpha for significant coefficient differences via a

Bonferroni adjustment to 0.025 (i.e., 1 (1 .05)1/2).

Native-Speaker Model Comparison

To objectively identify the types of discourse that the lexico-grammatical struc-

tures (dis)associated with each copula+ adjective segment represent (derived

from the best-subsets analysis), we compare the two copula+adjective learner

models with the native-speaker discourse model described in Table 1. Our

analysis measured the extent to which the learners discourse possessed indi-

cators ofinformational richness, hypothetical discourse, narrative discourse,

anddescriptive discourse.

As described earlier, we calculated the normed frequency of the occurrence

of each of these variables in the learner corpus to a scale of 10,000 per text.

Subsequently, we calculated the extent to which documents representing high

concentrations of each copula+ adjective model correlated with high concen-

trations of each of the four native-speaker discourse types in three steps: (1) Foreach document we calculatedz-score totals for both theser+adjective and the

estar+adjective models; (2) for each document we calculated a z-score total

for each of the four discourse types in Table 2; (3) we regressed the four dis-

course typez-score totals against each of the copula modelz-score totals along

with subregession analyses to assess differences between the three levels. A

z-score value for any document on a given variablebe it a criterion variable as

in step 1 or a regressor as in step 2represents the extent to which that variable

is represented in that document vis-a-vis all other documents. Summing a setofz-scores produces a value representing to what extent any document had a

concentration of that set of variables (see Biber et al., 2006, as well as Biber and

Conrad, 2001, for in-depth discussions of this technique). Thus, summing the

z-scores for each document for variables representing, say, narrative discourse

indicated how narrative each document is. Likewise,z-score totals for the set of

regressors representing theser+adjective model and for the set representing

the estar+ adjective model for each document yields values indicating how

much each document more or less represented each model. (Of course, all

z-scores here must be weighted according to their+/ sign in the model.) The

regression and subregression analyses answer the following question: When


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are they more or less encyclopedic, hypothetical, narrative, or descriptive in

nature? Again, because we employ two regression analyses, we adjusted the al-

pha for significant coefficient differences via a Bonferroni adjustment to 0.025(i.e., 1 (1 .05)1/2).

Finally, to identify documents for the qualitative analysis of the discursive

nature of copula+ adjective usage, we chose to concentrate on those documents

for each learner level that most represented each regression model derived from

the best-subsets analysis. This simply entailed identifying those documents that

had highz-score totals for theser+ adjective models and those with highz-sores

for theestar+ adjective model, as described earlier in step 2.

Results

Learner Usage: Ser+ Adjective

The best-subsets analysis identified 21 regressors predictingser+ adjective us-

age across the three levels, with 16 constituting significant regressors (p .05).

This model included twice as many predictor variables as the estar+adjective

model did. Additionally, the amount of variation that the ser+adjective model

accounted for was 41% in the use of the criterion variable, whereas the estar+

adjective model only accounted for 5% of its criterion variable (see below).Theser+ adjective model accounted significantly forser+adjective usage,

F(21, 1576)= 54.9;p = .000.

Furthermore, the subgroup regression analysis revealed that 5 of these

21 regressors significantly distinguished among the three levels of learners:

pronoun - subject, adverbs of place, verb - gustar-like, verb - observation,

and verb - past subjunctive (see Table 3). In the following we discuss these

21 regressors by grouping them into six lexico-grammatical regressor cate-

gories: adjectives, nouns, pronouns, adverbial constructions, grammatical verbvariables, and lexical verb variables. Within the relevant lexico-grammatical

regressor categories, we discuss the five variables distinguishing among the

levels.

Seven of the regressors represented various features of descriptive adjec-

tives, although none distinguished among the three levels of learners. Table 3

indicates that each variable contributed significantly to the model. For the most

part, adjectives predictedser+copula usage, with five associating positively

(i.e., their coefficient sign was positive) and two were disassociated with the

construction (i.e., the coefficient sign was negative). The positive, adjectival

regressors reveal that perhaps not surprisingly a variety of adjectives represent-


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Table 3 Best-subsets regression model forser+ adjective

Coefficient Estimate sign Estimate Std. error ttest p

(Constant) 81.371 9.011 9.030 .000

adjective - feminine + .050 .020 2.470 .010

adjective - masculine + .040 .020 2.180 .030

adjective - plural + .100 .020 5.420 .000

adjective - postnominal .170 .020 10.010 .000

adjective - prenominal .200 .020 9.370 .000

adjective - singular + .150 .020 9.680 .000

adjective - type 2 + .070 .030 2.580 .010

noun - derived + .020 .010 2.030 .040

noun - feminine + .020 .010 2.640 .010

pronoun - subjecta + .050 .010 5.800 .000

adverbs of placea .060 .040 1.560 .120

adverbial clauses - cause + .040 .030 1.500 .130

verb - third person + .060 .010 12.380 .000

verb - infinitive + .040 .010 3.730 .000

verb - periphrastic future .070 .050 1.570 .120

verb - past participlea .040 .020 1.530 .130

verb - past subjunctive .110 .060 1.860 .060

verb - Gustar-likea .040 .020 2.460 .010

verb - communication .070 .030 2.300 .020

verb - knowledge .090 .040 2.340 .020

verb - observationa .080 .040 1.980 .050

aVariable distinguishing between the levels of instruction.

that at all levels in contexts/discourses where ser+ adjective segments ap-

pear, learners use adjectives in general in a variety of inflections. Interestingly,however, the positive correlation with type-2 adjectives (i.e., adjectives with

only two inflections: singular and plural) tempers this conclusion because they

are also significantly associated with the criterion. Finally, although various

morphological properties of adjectives associate with ser+adjective, this con-

struction is not associated with more complex uses of adjectives becauseser+

adjective is disassociated with adjectives that appear in either prenominal (e.g.,

bella casabeautiful house) or postnominal position (e.g.,casa grandelarge

house).

An analysis of the two nominal regressors indicates that a certain degree

of morphological nominal complexity occurs where ser + adjective segments


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variable. The association with feminine nouns shows an association with the cri-

terion variable of gender-inflectional processes, whereas the association with

derived nouns (which represent nouns packaging semantic information in adense fashion, as these derived forms have a base/root morpheme and an addi-

tional derivational morpheme; e.g., constitu-cion,sereni-dad,procesa-miento).

It is important to note, however, that this is the only indication ofser+ adjective

association with semantically dense forms. As with the adjectival regressors,

neither of these two nominal regressors distinguished among the three levels,

suggesting that the association ofser+adjective with a certain degree of mor-

phological complexity occurs from the beginning to more advanced levels of

instruction.

Subject pronouns for the most part also appeared where there was a pre-

ponderance ofser+adjective segments, although the subregression analysis

revealed that this regressor significantly distinguished among the three levels

of learners. The subregression analysis revealed that for the first-year learners

subject pronouns were positively associated with ser+adjective (beta=0.06;

std error=0.001), that for the second-year learners there was no association at

all (beta= 0.001; std error= 0.017), and that for the third-year learners there

was a disassociation with the criterion variable (beta = 0.06; std error=

0.043); the analysis also revealed that the significant difference came from thefirst-year learners rather than the other two (t=3.00;p = .003), meaning that

the association ofser+adjective with subject pronoun use was primarily due

to the first-year-learner data.

The best-subsets analysis identified two adverbial constructions as impor-

tant contributing predictors of overall ser+adjective usage: adverbs of place

and adverbial clauses of cause. Although neither of the two contributed sig-

nificantly on an individual basis, adverbs of place significantly distinguished

among the three levels of learners in terms of predicting whenser+ adjectivewould occur. The subregression analysis indicated that for the first-year learn-

ers, adverbs of place were disassociated with ser+adjective (beta = 0.12;

std error= 0.05), whereas these adverbs were (positively) associated with the

criterion at the second (beta = 0.07; std error= 0.06) and third years (beta =

0.06; std error= 0.09), with the significant difference being attributed to the

difference between the first-year and second-year individual contributions to

the model (t= 2.45;p = .015).

There were six grammatical features of verbs that predictedser+adjective

usage at the three levels. For the most part, verbal variables were disassociated

with ser + adjective Similar to the adverbial regressors three were important


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20/38


indicates that only 5% of the variance in the Spanish learners use ofestar+

adjective could be explained by this regression model. This indicates that the

association ofestar+ adjective with other lexical-grammatical features is weakwithin the interlanguage for all levels of learners. The model did account for

a significant amount of the overall variation in estar+ adjective usage, [F(10,

1590)= 8.42;p < .0001].

As observed in Table 4, most of these 10 variables distinguished signifi-

cantly among the three levels, with the subgroup regression analysis revealing

that four regressors significantly distinguished among the three levels of learn-

ers: type-2 adjectives (i.e., adjectives with singular and plural inflection), article

noun segments, preverbal clitics, and possessive adjectives. It is interesting to

note that this group of variables is entirely different from the group of signif-

icant regressors for the ser+adjective copula. At any rate, these differences

are considered below in the interpretation of the variables, where we discuss

all 10 variables by grouping them into three lexico-grammatical regressor cat-

egories: nominal (noun and adjectival), verbal, and syntactic variables.

In contrast toser+adjective segments,estar+adjective is associated with

decidedly basic grammatical properties. For example, noun phrases in discourse

where estar+adjective occurs usually comprises nouns preceded by articles

or possessive determiners (e.g., mi mama my mother, la universidad theuniversity) and adjectives that have only two inflections (e.g.,inteligentein-

telligent) or adjectives in their singular form (altatall [feminine]). Three of

the four level-distinguishing regressors identified in the subregression analysis

Table 4 Best subset regression model forestar+ adjective


(Constant) 4.460 3.518 1.267 .205

adjective - singular + .010 .003 2.459 .014

adjective - type 2a + .020 .009 2.616 .009

noun - singular .000 .002 1.716 .086

article noun segmenta + .010 .002 3.544 .000

possessive adjectivea + .010 .003 3.669 .000

verb - Gustar-like .020 .008 2.419 .016

verb - present participle + .030 .011 2.364 .018

verb - probability + .020 .011 1.871 .062

clitics - preverbala + .020 .005 3.617 .000

adverbial clauses - cause + .020 .009 2.326 .020


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were nominal in nature. Type-2 adjectives were found to distinguish signifi-

cantly between first- and third-year learners (t= 2.73; p = .006), indicating

that the trend to associate inflectionally simple adjectives with estar+adjec-tive appears to become stronger as learners progress in their acquisition of

Spanish. This predictor variable was disassociated with the criterion variable

(beta= 0.01, std error=0.009) for the first-year students and was positively

associated with estar+ adjective for the second (beta = 0.01, std error=

0.021) and third year (beta = 0.13, std error=0.046). The article noun seg-

ment significantly distinguished only between first- and second-year learners

(t=3.30; p =.001). This regressor was weakly associated with the criterion

variable for first-year (beta=0.002; std error=0.003) and third-year students

(beta = 0.003; std error= 0.011) and only slightly more associated with es-

tar+ adjective for second-year students (beta = 0.018; std error= 0.005).

Finally, possessive adjectives significantly distinguished between second-year

and third-year learners (t= 2.78; p = .005). This regressor was found to be

weakly associated with the criterion level for the first year (beta =0.008; std

error=0.003) and the third year (beta = 0.003; std error=0.011) and only

slightly more associated with estar+ adjective for the second-year writing

(beta= 0.041; std error= 0.010).

Among verbal regressors, the significant predictor variables also showedno evidence that complexity is associated with the criterion. Although Gustar-

like verbs are usually associated with complex syntax, in the learners writing

this variable is negatively associated with the occurrence ofestar+ adjective.

The other grammatical verb formpresent participleis expected to co-occur

with estar+ adjective because it is mostly associated with estar to form

the progressive aspect. Indeed, its beta coefficient was the highest of those

regressors included in the best-subsets analysis (0.030).

Two syntactic features were positively associated with estar+ adjective.Preverbal clitics positively associated withestar+ adjectives at all levels, per-

haps the only indication of complexity associated with this phrase structure.

The other syntactic regressor, causal adverbial clauseswhich usually started

with the conjunctionporquealso predicted criterion usage. Preverbal clitics

was the only syntactic regressor variable that distinguished significantly be-

tween learners use ofestar+ adjective at different levels. This variable was

weakly associated with the criterion for first-year learners (beta = 0.006; std

error=0.007), which increases modestly yet significantly (t=2.31;p=.021)

into the second and third years, with the association being greater for second-

(beta = 0 033; std error = 0 011) and third-year (beta = 0 056; std error =


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Native-Speaker Model Comparison

As explained earlier (see the Corpus Description section), our analysis also

included a measurement (via regression analysis) of the extent to which thelearners texts with high concentrations of each copula +adjective model re-

lated with high concentrations of each of four types of native-speaker discourse

types: informational richness, hypothetical discourse, narrative discourse, and

descriptive discourse. The native-speaker model comparison indicated that

three native-speaker discourse types combined significantly and individually to

predict where the ser+ adjective learner model occurred: hypothetical, narra-

tive, and descriptive (see Table 5). As observed in Table 6, three also combined

to predict where the estar+ adjective learner model held: information rich,

hypothetical, and narrative.

The information-rich discourse regressor indicates the extent to which doc-

uments reflecting a copula + adjective model is accompanied by semanti-

cally dense discourse. Considering the sign of the coefficientsspecifically,

whereas the encyclopedic regressor in the ser+adjective model was signifi-

cantly negativeser+adjective usage is not semantically dense. Interestingly,

Table 5 Native-speaker discourse-type predictions of documents matching ser +adjective model


(Constant) + 0.001 0.131 9.007 .995

information rich 0.079 0.045 1.776 .076

hypothetical 0.303 0.039 7.766 .000

narrative + 0.376 0.124 3.030 .002

descriptive + 0.350 0.114 3.060 .002

Note. F(4, 1596)= 24.38;p = .000; multipleR2: 0.06; adjustedR2: 0.06.

Table 6 Native-speaker discourse-type predictions of documents matching estar+

adjective model


(Constant) + 81.371 9.011 9.030 .000

information rich + 0.129 0.026 4.954 .000

hypothetical + 0.059 0.023 2.574 .010

narrative + 0.550 0.072 7.592 .000

descriptive + 0.135 0.067 2.025 .043


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documents reflecting the estar+ adjective model appear to be semantically

dense. Furthermore, because the subregression analysis showed no interlevel

coefficient difference, we must surmise that this association is constant for allthree levels of instruction.

The hypothetical regressor implies how much copula + adjective usage

occurs when learners conjecture and present possible scenarios. Given their

signs and significance levels, ser+ adjective discourse appears to represent

the antithesis of hypothetical discourse andestar+ adjective usage contains

hypothetical elements. The disassociation with ser+adjective discourse may

be partially explained by the observation made earlier that epistemic verbs

(representing stance) are entirely disassociated with ser+ adjective usage

as well as the models exclusion of verbal entities like the subjunctive and

periphrastic future. The subregression analysis indicates that ser+ adjective

is wholly unhypothetical at the first year and that at the second and third years

this disassociation raises to the level of no association. The hypothetical

regressor was disassociated with the first-year learner data (beta = 0.638; std

error=0.071), which was significantly below those of the second-year (beta=

0.167; std error=0.098; t=7.652;p =.000) and third-year learnerser+

adjective usage (beta= 0.024; std error= 0.052;t=3.280;p = .001).

Theestar+ adjective association with hypothetical discourse is supportedin the above analysis because this model was associated with verbs of proba-

bility. Additionally, the learnerestar+adjective regression analysis included

causal adverbial clauses in theestar+adjective model, and cause-effect rela-

tionships are an important tool for hypothesizing. This hypothetical regressor

was not associated with the first-year coefficients (beta = 0.638; std error=

0.071), which were significantly below the second-year (beta = 0.055; std er-

ror= 0.040;t=4.042;p = .000) and third-year (beta = 0.029; std error=

0.001;t=3.280;p = .001) coefficients.The narrative regressors generally indicate where learners used a cop-

ula + adjective model accompanied by story-telling elements, although not

necessarily whole narrations. Both copula +adjective segments appear to be

significantly associated with the presence of narrative features. The subregres-

sion analysis indicates that both the second- and third-year learners generate

more narrative features where ser+adjective occurs than first-year learners:

Although the coefficients for the second-year (beta =1.031; std error=0.192)

and third-year (beta = 1.015; std error= 0.379) data were not significantly

different (t=0.030; stdp=.976), the difference between the second- and first-

year coefficients (beta = 0 133; std error = 0 177) was significant (t = 3 450;


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estar+ adjective segments with narrative features remains constant through

the three levels, as there were no significant interlevel coefficient differences.

This is consistent with the learner regression analysis, which showed thatpresent participles, which denote durative aspectan important element of

storieswere associated withestar+ adjective.

Both copula + adjective learner models were associated with descriptive

features, although the ser+adjective association was significant. This might

seem surprising given the operationalization of Spanish descriptive discourse

offered by Biber et al. (2006), which is almost entirely devoid of narrative

features. The implication here is that both copula+adjective segments operate

inbothnarrative and descriptive contexts beyond the first year of instruction.

We see a significant transition toward greater association ofser+ adjective

segments with descriptive features from first (beta = 0.154; std error=

0.168), to second (beta=0.989; std error=0.165), to third year (beta=1.417;

std error=0.350), with the second-year coefficients being greater than the first

(t=4.880;p =.000) as well as the third-year coefficients being greater than

the first (t=3.271;p =.001). Finally, It is important to note that strength of

association ofestar+ adjective segments with narrative features (beta= 0.550;

std error= 0.072) is almost four times as much as with descriptive features

(beta= 0.135; std error= 0.067).

Qualitative Analysis

We contextualize the following qualitative analysis in consideration of the

learner models presented above and of their association with the preceding

native-speaker discourse models. Ser+ adjective discourse serves first-year

learners in highly descriptive discourse. The first-year documents reveal that

ser+adjective segments are employed to relate descriptions containing multi-

ple chained adjectives wheresertends to be the most frequently inflected verb.The following are segments from midterm-exam letters students in a first-year

course wrote to a Mexican friend to describe their girlfriend/boyfriend and

his/her family.

(1)yo estoy bien porque yo tengo novia. se llama jessica. ella [es] bonita,

inteligente y elegante. ella tiene veinte a nos. ella es de oregon. y [es] moreno,

bajo y muy bonita. ella lleva camiseta verde y jeans azules. sus ropas es mucho

dolares. ella gusta bailar y cantar para mi. ella gusta tens . . . la madre de

jessica [es] bonita, inteligente y bajo. se llama velerie. nosotros jugamos tenis

mucho. ella [es] bueno. nosotros aprendamos la universidad. ella lleva camisa

verde y los jeans azul en la universidad (I am well because I have a girlfriend


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old. She is from Oregon and she is a brunette, short and very beautiful. She

wears a green t-shirt and blue jeans. Her clothes cost a lot of dollars. She likes to

dance and sing for me. She likes tennis. Jessicas mother is beautiful, intelligentand short. Her name is Valerie. We play tennis a lot. She is good. We learn it at

the University. She wears a green shirt and blue jeans at the university . . .)

(2) yo soy bien porque yo soy amo con novia, selena. ella [es] bonita y

simpatica. ella [es] soltera y practicar. ella es alta y la ropa es mocha colores.

mi muchacha lleva rojo gora, blanco jacqueta, azul jeans, y negro sandalias.

ella es mi amora. selena (stays) con madre en casa grande. la familia [es] baja.

la madre [es] rica y lista y soltera . . . (I am well because I am in love with

my girlfriend, Selena. She is beautiful and nice. She is single and practical.

She is tall and she wears clothes in a lot of colors. My girl wears a red cap,

white jacket, blue jeans, and black sandals. She is my love. Selena stays with

her mother in Casa Grande. Her family is small. Her mother is rich, smart and

single . . .)

In both of these samples we see simple discourse, grammar, and lexicon,

with few verbs except for the copula and an overuse of subject pronouns.

Additionally, although there are numerous adjectives in both segments, it is

apparent that noun + adjective segments are scarce. These first-year samples

are nonnarrative and possess almost no conjecturing.Among second-year learners,ser+ adjective segments appear in list fashion

in discourse with few conjunctions expressing interpropositional relationships

(e.g., ser+adjective + quecopula +adjective + that). Such loosely con-

nected discourse not only describes people, places and concepts, but it also

describes evaluations and reactions to events and states. As the learner model

suggests, there is a marked absence of epistemic verbs to demonstrate the

stance (verbs of knowledge, pienso que I think that; verbs of perception,

vemos que we see that; verbs of communication, se dice que it is saidthat). Instead, copula +adjective segments present (seemingly) indisputable

assertions. Structurally speaking, we see subject pronouns omitted to mark

continuity; still, there are various referents and allusions to the things they do

frequently. This probably accounts for why ser+ adjective segments are asso-

ciated with a mix of descriptive and narrative features. Finally, the derivational

sophisticationand thus semantic densityof the nouns employed is slightly

greater at this level in nouns, although these are mostly cognates. The following

is an argumentative essay a second-year student wrote using short stories as the

topic.

(3) este cuento es un ejemplo que muchos padres estan usando la tele-


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si es realidad o no. los ninos no reciben la atencion que necesitan para crecer.

tambien pienso que los j ovenes necesitan atenci on y amor en los primeros

anos m as que de cuando [son] maduros porque cuando son jovenes ellos nosaben que [es] malo o que [es] bueno. tambien, la television [es] mala para

los padres. para los adultos la puede ser un escape tan ellos no tienen hacer

trabajo, o cosas diferentes que necesitan hacer durante el d a. pero, tambien

pienso que hay diferentes programas que [son] buenas. hay programas que

ensena como cocinar, leer (para los ni nos), y que dice que esta haciendo en el

mundo hoy. no todos de los programas de televisi on [son] mala. pero yo pienso

que [es] malo usar la mas de necesario. (. . . this story is an example that many

parents are using the television as babysitters. I think this is a problem because

young people dont know whether it is real life or not. Children do not receive

attention enough to grow up. I also think that young people need attention and

love in their first years of life more than when they are mature because when

they are young they dont know what is good or what is bad. Also, television

is bad for parents. For adults it can be an escape because they dont have to do

their work or the different things they need to do during the day. But, I also

think that there are different programs that are good. There are programs that

teach you how to cook, to read (for children) and that tell you what is being

done in the world today. Not all the TV programs are bad, but I think it is badto use it more than necessary.)

With the third-year learners,ser+ adjective is less frequent, reflected by a

lower overall averagez-score ofser+adjective. It is now mixed among other

verbs in the third person and adjectives modifying nouns. The discourse is de-

scriptive and evaluative in nature, with references to relevant events, producing

a mix of descriptive and narrative elements. The following texts are expository

essays students wrote in a third-year course about different occupations.

(4) al principio de su vida, el bebe atleta es una hija diferente de sushermanas. el grito del bebe [es] mas fuerte, el apetito m as famelico y el

cuerpo pequeno mas musculoso que los otros bebes . . . de repente, en la escuela

primaria, es la estrella de su partido de futbol y la parte necesaria entre su

equipo de b asquetbol. al fin, no se puede negar todos los hechos, ella es

atleta. [es] seguro que hay cualidades particulares para las atletas; factores

que definen las mujeres que aman los deportes . . . mientras que la atleta est a

entrenandose, se come un diet etico rico con una variedad de las frutas y las

verduras. sin las vitaminas y minerales de estas comidas, el cuerpo no funciona

mejor. . .se come mucho pescado y tofu, [es] justo porque los dos son comidas

saludables sin mucha grasa en el concepto de la diversion el cuerpo de la


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cigarrillas. todas las actividades giran de la salud y se mantienen la buena

salud. [es] necesario que las atletas pasen sus noches jugando los juegos

activas como escondite y jugar al corre que te pillo. (At the beginning of herlife, the baby athlete is a different daughter from her sisters. Her crying is

stronger, her appetite is more ravenous. And her small frame more muscular

than the one of the other babies . . . Suddenly, in grade school, she is the star in

her football game and the main player in her basketball team. At the end, you

cannot deny all the facts, she is an athlete. It is sure that there are particular

qualities to athletes, factors that define women that love sports . . . While the

athlete is training, she has a rich diet with a variety of fruit or vegetables. Without

the vitamins and minerals in this food, her body couldnt work better. . . a lot

of fish and tofu is eaten. It is so because both are healthy foods without much

fat. On the entertainment side, the body of the athlete is her temple. Thats why

she doesnt spend her Fridays drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. All her

activities go around her health in order to keep her healthy. It is necessary that

athletes spend their nights playing active games such as hide and seek or run

and catch.)

(5) los musicos es distingue por no estar religioso. muchos de ellos no

creen que haya un dios. actualmente, [es] ir onico, porque los musicos viven

como no creen en Dios, pero tan pronto como ganen un premio, lo agrade-cen . . . la diet etica no [es] similar entre m usicos. unos musicos se distinguen

por su diet etica de alcohol y drogas. ellos tambi en fumar cigarrillos, o otras

sustancias, y asistir a fiestas todas las noches, entonces casi nunca duermen.

unos musicos est an muy saludable, y est an vegetarianos estrictos . . . musicos

a veces tienen su propia familia. tienen esposos y a veces hijos. tener una

familia es muy difcil cuando los musicos siempre est an viajando.(Musicians

are known for not being religious. A lot of them dont believe there is a God.

Actually, it is ironic because musicians live as they dont believe in God, butas soon as they are awarded a prize, they thank God. . . The diet is not similar

among musicians. Some musicians distinguish themselves for having a diet

with alcohol and drugs. They also smoke cigarettes or other substances, and

they attend parties every night. So they almost never sleep. Some musicians are

very healthy and they are strict vegetarians. Musicians sometimes have their

own families. They have spouses and sometimes kids. Having a family is very

difficult when the musicians are always traveling.)

For the most part, however, important information is packaged into nominal

lexemes (adjectives and nouns) with a derivational morpheme (e.g., salud-able

healthy muscul-oso muscular cuali-dad quality) Still cognates prevail


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subject pronouns are scarce perhaps due to topic continuity. As with the first-

year learners, we see expression of stance via epistemic verbs, and statements

are given as unqualified facts.Regarding the estar+adjective segments, their principal discourse func-

tions appear to be narrative and descriptions within narrations. In the first year,

estar+ adjective mostly appears with a fixed expression such as estoy feliz

I am happy or is used in descriptive contexts where serwas required with

adjectives such asbonitapretty andgrandelarge. The following examples

come from in-class letters that learners wrote to a friend. The examples relate

life events as well as describe familiar people and places.

(6)querida maria, hola! [estoy] muy feliz porque yo tengo un novio nueva.

su nombre es Pete. Pete tiene veinte anos. mi novio es de indiana. Pete es

moreno y alto. mi novio es muy inteligente y optimista. (Dear Mary, Hello! I am

happy because I have a new boyfriend. His name is Pete. Pete is twenty years

old. My boyfriend is from Indiana. Pete has dark hair and is tall. My boyfriend

is very intelligent and optimist.)

(7) hola aubrey! fue a costa rica para un semana. fue a un hotel en la

playa dominical de costa rica. la playa dominical [estuvo] mas bonita! viaj o

con mis padres y mi hermano. fue en un avi on y lo [estuvo] m as grande. dorm

en un hotel en la playa. el mar [estuv o] muy largo y yo pesqu e mucho. megustaron las comidas mucho!(Hello Aubrey! I went to Costa Rica for a week.

I went to a hotel in the Dominical beach in Costa Rica. The Dominical beach

was very beautiful. I traveled with my parents and my brother. I went by plane

and it was very big. I slept in a hotel by the beach. The ocean was very big and

I fished a lot. I liked the meals very much!)

Learners couple their assessments of peoples states with causes embed-

ded in porque because adverbial clauses. The semantically dense nature is

attributable to the use of various cognates that are long words, which describeplaces, disciplines, actions, or events.

In second-year writing, estar+adjective is used in narrative and descrip-

tive discourse that is detached from the writer. Writing is elicited from tasks

in which students must summarize events and describe characters in readings

or audiovisual material. The description of events favors the use of the present

participle. The summarizing task also allows students to speculate about charac-

ters motives or actions by using verbs of probability such ascreerto believe

and causal adverbial clauses that begin with theporquebecause causal con-

junction. These are the types of behaviors that account for the hypothetical

nature identified for estar + adjective


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(8) la madre regresa de la cocina, ella piensa que el muchacho [est a]

dormido. sin embargo, el muchacho [est a] despierto todava y est a mirando la

television. la pantalla [esta] oscura, as la madre le pregunta a su hijo que elhace. el hijo responde que el est a esperando la muchacha en el televisor. esto

es muy triste, porque obviamente la madre no es una madre muy bien . . . el hijo

cree que la muchacha en el televisor es su amiga. el piensa esto porque cree

que la muchacha est a hablando ael. . . (The mother returns to the kitchen, she

thinks that the boy is asleep. However, the boy is still awake and he is watching

the television. The screen is dark so she asks him what he is doing. The son

responds that he is waiting for the girl in the television. This is very sad because

it is obvious that the mother is not a good mother. . . The son believes that the

girl in the television is his friend. He thinks so because he thinks the girl is

speaking to him . . .)

(9) la personalidad del protagonista, juan, era t mido y tranquilo. le gustaba

[estar] solo con sus pensamientos. el sonaba antes de acostarse de, todas

las peripecias de un viaje a francia, pero no pudo costearlo. no creo que

juan [estuviera] satisfecho con su vida y su trabajo porque sonaba con ir a

francia.el quera experimentar nuevas cosas. su vida era muy rutinario y quera

cambiarla. el no [estaba] satisfecho con su trabajo porque no pudo costear el

viaje . . . el narrador nos sugiri o que juan escribiera las cartas porque la letratuvo los mismos rasgos esenciales. creo que el narrador nos dijo eso porqueel

esanonimo y nos quiere hacer creer que juan [estuviera] loco y se muriera. (The

personality of the main character, Juan, is shy and quiet. He liked to be alone

with his thoughts. He used to dream before going to bed about his adventures

in a trip to France, but he couldnt afford it. I dont think that Juan was satisfied

about his life and his work because he dreamed about going to France. He

wanted to experience new things. His life was a routine and wanted to change it.

He was not satisfied about his work because he could not afford his trip . . . .Thenarrator suggested to us that Juan wrote the letters because his handwriting had

the same main features. I think the narrator told us so because he is anonymous

and he didnt want us to believe that Juan was crazy and he died.)

Third-year students combine different discourse patterns, using estar+

adjective in argumentative texts where they describe two opposing sides of

an issue, as in (10). The writer is comparing the culture or life of American

and Hispanic cultures, which gives the text a hypothetical reading. They use

estar+adjective to produce personal narratives such as what happened on a

birthday. It is noteworthy that preverbal clitic forms are not only used with some

Gustar-like constructions but also with verbs in middle voice (e g infiltrarse


30/38


to be infiltrated) and passive constructions (e.g. ensenarseto be taught),

making the discourse more encyclopedic-sounding.

(10) . . . . el sueno americano se infiltra desde juventud, es evidente por tele-visi on, escuela, la cultura y ejemplos del gobierno y pol ticos. esta influencia

es subconsciente pero fuerte y se ense na el americano que launica cosa que se

necesita hacer es trabaja fielmente y comprar las cosas correctas y eventual-

mente se recibir a la vida perfecta. /. . . ademas el americano siempre [est a]

preocupado, consumiendo y trabajando pero viva muy poco.(The American

dream is instilled from youth, it is evident in television, school, the culture

and the examples from the government and the politicians. This influence is

subconscious but strong and it is taught to the American that the only thing that

he needs to do is to work loyally and to buy the right things and eventually he

will receive a perfect life. / Moreover, the American is always busy, consuming

and working but he lives very little.)

(11) mi familia recordaron mi cumplea nos! pero, en este momento mis

padres [estaban] enojados conmigo. yo no quer a pelear, entonces, termino el

papel y nos sentamos a comer. mis hermanas mi desean un buen cumpleanos

y me dieron un regalo bell simo. mi padre me hablaba de un film que le haba

gustado. yo pide a mi madre si a ella le a gustado y ella me respondio, no, en

un tono agresivo. mientras la entera cena ella solo me dijo, no, y, si, y fue muymolestosa. no me habl o durante mi fiesta de cumplea nos! [estaba] muy triste

este noche y la pr oxima d a.(My family remembered my birthday! But, at that

moment my parents were angry with me. I didnt want to argue so I finished

my paper and we sat to eat. My sisters wished me a good birthday and gave me

a very beautiful present. My father was talking to me about a film he had liked.

I asked my mother if she had liked it and she answered no, in an aggressive

tone. During the whole dinner she told me no and yes and I was very angry.

She didnt talk to me during my birthday party! I was very sad that night andthe next day.)

Discussion and Conclusions

Studying the acquisition of the Spanish copula provides insights into the in-

teraction among syntax, semantics, pragmatics, morphology, and vocabulary

during development in one of the most basic of syntactic structuresnamely,

attributive sentences (Leonetti, 1994). Spanish requires learners to choose be-

tween two copulas in attributive sentences in accordance with a variety of

contextual considerations and in consideration of a variety of levels of rep-


31/38


and (b) the function of attributive sentences in terms of orders of acquisi-

tion in different learning contexts (Gunterman, 1992; Ryan & Lafford, 1992;

VanPatten, 1985, 1987) and (c) the contextual and semantic factors that predictlearner usage of this construct as compared to native speakers (Geeslin, 2003a,

2005), the present study is the first to provide a corpus-based analysis of the

lexico-grammatical features that co-occurred with the Spanish copula (i.e., ser

andestar)+adjective usage and so the different discursive functions that the

ser+ adjective and the estar+ adjective segments play at three learner levels

and in comparison to native-speaker models. The study delves into important

learner issuesfor example, the discourse types learners associate with copula

usage (Gunterman, 1992), the strong influence of contextual cues on copula

choice (Geeslin, 2003a, 2003b)identified in the S/E research but not fully

developed to date. The results overall revealed the following: (a) Both ser+

adjectiveandestar+ adjective were associated with simple discourse at all

levels; (b)ser+ adjective appears in descriptive and evaluative discourse where

much linguistic complexity reliably occurs; (c) estar+ adjectiveis present in

narrations, descriptions, and hypothetical discourse where, nonetheless, little

linguistic complexity typically occurs.

Specifically, findings showed that the model predicting ser+ adjective

usage identified more variables (n = 21) and accounted for more variation(41%) than the estar+ adjective model, which only identified 10 predictors

and 5% of the variation. It seems that at beginning levels of instruction, learners

findser+ adjective more communicatively productive and thus more easily

associated with a large array of features within their interlanguage, although

these features are basic grammatical and lexical items. Ser+adjective is one

of the first copula segments taught and recycled during various semesters,

whereas estar+ adjective is primarily used at beginning levels in routines

and formulaics like estar+ bien, mal, ocupado, enfermo. In this sense, theinput provided by teacher, materials, and other students in the class through

task completion emphasizes the use ofser+adjective overestar+adjective

constructions and, therefore, encourages more ser+ adjective usage. These

findings are in line with early SLA studies onser/estaracquisition, which found

that ser+ adjective was acquired well before estar+ adjective (Gunterman,

1992; Ryan & Lafford, 1992; VanPatten, 1987) presumably because of the

higher frequency and saliency ofser+ adjective in instructional and naturalistic

input.

It was also found that many of the lexico-grammatical predictor variables in

both models were characteristics of simple discourse and they did not differen-


32/38


All levels seem to use copula+adjective as a discourse tool such as to commu-

nicate evaluatives likees importante, l astimaits important, its a shame, and

so forth. However, when the discourse becomes more syntactically and gram-matically complex,ser+adjective segments are absent andestar+ adjective

segments become more prevalent. On the one hand, these observations contrast

with native speakers, who useser+adjective for evaluative purposes in a wide

variety of discourses, simple or complex; on the other hand, they are consistent

with natives propensity to use estar+ adjective in more complex discourse

(Collentine, 2008).

Theser+adjective model was mostly associated with adjective and gram-

matical/lexical verb variables. Various morphological properties of adjectives

(e.g., feminine, plural) associated with ser+ adjective, whereas more com-

plex adjectival syntactic processes (e.g., prenominal or postnominal adjectives)

emerged as disassociated. Most of the verbal variables reflecting complex syn-

tax (e.g., periphrastic future, past subjunctive, Gustar-like verbs) were disas-

sociated with the copula construction and started to emerge as associated with

ser+ adjective at advanced levels of instruction. Other features such as null sub-

jects also indicated some grammatical sophistication at advanced levels where

ser+ adjective became less frequently used. As for the discursive functions

served by the co-occurrence of the variables in the predictive model forser+adjective, the disassociation of verbs of observation and communication with

the construction indicated a discourse that was nonepistemic/nonhypothetical

in nature. Comparisons with native speakers discourse showed that learners

usedser+ adjective in discourse that is highly descriptive in nature and accom-

panied by story-telling elements, especially at advanced levels of instruction.

These findings corroborate those of Gunterman (1992), who examined learners

in study-abroad contexts where ser+ adjective was indicative of descriptive

discourse. Spanish learners, regardless their level, associate an evaluative stancewithser+ adjective.

Theestar+ adjective regression analysis revealed a weak association with

other lexical-grammatical features. This indicates that throughout the early to

middle stages of acquisition, this phrase structure is weakly integrated into the

interlanguage in terms of being a productive, necessary tool for the types of

communication in which learners engage. In other words, the use ofestar+

adjective segments is not obviatedor evoked, cognitively speakingwhen

learners use their standard repertoire of lexico-grammatical tools. All told, the

story is complicated forestar+ adjectives, which ultimately might account

for its late acquisition On the one hand it appears where there is little as-


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language, both in verbal and nominal constructs.). The few variables associated

with estar+ adjective suggest

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