The Effects of the Semantic and Morphosyntactic Constraints in the Developing Interlanguage of Modality in Japanese

The present study explores the effects of semantic and morphosyntactic constraints in the developing IL of modality in Japanese with regard to Levelt's production model. Modality is concerned with the meaning associated with mood. Hence, modality is a bipartite system consisting of a notion and the grammatical forms and constituents by which it is encoded. The adult learners conceptualize the notion of modality during the acquisition of L1 beginning from the time of birth for which they become equipped with a schema of modality. In the acquisition (i.e., grammatimlization in FA) of L2, the modal system of target language is mapped on the existing modal schema being impeded by semantic and morphosyntactic constraints. Accordingly, this study investigated the effects of these potential constraints in the developing IL of modality with regard to Levelt's production model. According to Levelt's model, there are abstract lexical structures i.e. lemma underlying the lexeme, which carry the information necessary for projecting the IL structure on the surface, activated by the speaker's intention in speaking. This process is referred to at two levels: conceptual level and functional level. The modalisers (i.e. modal forms) get lexical access to the CP frame at the conceptual level, which is determined by the verbal (or adjectival) affix in the predicate-argument structure. In order to achieve the aim of the study, we have analyzed the spontaneous speech of three L2 learners and found that the process of grammaticalization (i.e. acquisition) of modality is impeded by semantic and morphosyntactic constraints. The semantic constraints impede the integration of modalisers for which a minimal system of modality consisting of a few modalisers has been found in the IL. In addition, the morphosyntactic constraints impede the operationalization of grammatical rules which yield the effects: a) avoidance of predicative verbs, b) variant forms of predicative verb, and c) parataxis means in the learners' system of modality.