Psychologia, 2010, 53, 86–101

OVERGENERALIZATION OF CLITIC AND NON-CLITIC NEGATION:
A STUDY OF JAPANESE EFL STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF
NEGATIVE QUESTIONS
Michael PARRISH1) and Katsuo TAMAOKA2)
1)

Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan, 2)Nagoya University, Japan

Students of English as a foreign language (EFL) often have difficulty managing thecomplex nature of the formation of questions and negative sentences. The present
study used a timed sentence correctness task to investigate the effects of word orderand the presence or absence of clitic negation (i.e., don’t, isn’t, won’t) on theprocessing of English negative questions by native speakers of Japanese. Twoexperiments were conducted, for both Yes/No questions and wh-questions. Eachexperiment included two correct conditions for the placement of negation, (a) (Why)
Doesn’t Mary drive? and (b) (Why) Does Mary not drive?, as well as two incorrect
conditions, (c) (Why) Does not Mary drive? and (d) (Why) Does Mary drive not?.
There were no significant differences attributable to student level, or between thecorrect and incorrect conditions. However, within the correct and incorrect groups
there was a significant difference in the accuracy of responses. Students found it
easier to decide the correctness of questions in the form (Why) Doesn’t Mary drive?
and (Why) Does Mary drive not? quickly and accurately. However, they had
significantly more difficulty with questions of the form (Why) Does Mary not drive?
and (Why) Does not Mary drive? Results suggest that there is little influence from
L1 Japanese syntax because students judged questions using the structure (Why)Does Mary drive not? which places not after the verb and is similar to the pattern forJapanese negation, to be incorrect relatively easily. The fact that the forms (Why)Does not Mary drive ? and (Why) Does Mary not drive? were not accurately judged
as correct/incorrect indicates an overgeneralization of the equivalency of clitic
negation, and non-clitic negation.
Key words: overgeneralization, clitic and non-clitic negation, Japanese EFL students

For learners of English as a foreign language, especially Japanese learners, two of themost challenging facets of learning English grammar are the formation of interrogativeand negative forms. The process of forming a question, from the learner’s point of view,is quite complex—it can be indicated by merely using rising intonation, or may involve
restructuring the sentence by the insertion of the auxiliary verb do and inversion of thesubject and verb, also known as Subject Auxiliary Inversion, SAI (Yamaguchi, 2006).
Negation involves the addition of the negative element not as well as the insertion of theauxiliary verb do. When the two processes are combined, it becomes even more
complicated. Studies of native, English-speaking children indicate that even if a child has
mastered the separate processes of creating negative sentences and questions, he or she
may still have difficulty combining them to form accurate negative questions (e.g., Guasti
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Katsuo Tamaoka, Ph.D., Graduate Schoolof Languages and Cultures, Nagoya University Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagosha-shi, Aichi-ken, 464-8601,
Japan (e-mail: ktamaoka@lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp).
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87& Rizzi, 1996; Guasti, Thornton, & Wexler, 1995). This study examined the degree towhich these syntactic elements and operations are problematic for Japanese EFL students
by using a timed sentence correctness task to measure the accuracy and speed with which
student test subjects could determine whether the example negative questions weregrammatically correct or not.
Formation of Negative Questions in English
There are three patterns for negation depending on the type of verb. The simplest is
the verb be. Beginning with a base sentence, This is a pipe., the negative element not isadded after the verb: This is not a pipe. In the case of modal and auxiliary verbs (can,must have, will, be), the process of negation is also straightforward. The negative element
not is inserted following the conjugated form of the auxiliary verb: She is not talking. or
We must not smoke here. The auxiliary verb precedes both the negative element not andthe main verb to be negated. Negation involving thematic or action verbs (e.g. eat),requires the addition of an additional element, the placeholder auxiliary verb do/does, inaddition to the negative element, not, resulting in Jane does not eat apples. If the negative
element not is unstressed, then it often is shortened to n’t and combined with the auxiliary,
this is called clitic negation (e.g., Jane doesn’t eat apples. This isn’t a pipe. We mustn’t
smoke here.). Both forms—the contraction or the standard use of an auxiliary verb—are
equally correct, semantically and grammatically.
Similar to negation, the way SAI is used to form questions depends on the type ofverb. The most straightforward pattern is the verb be, the statement This is expensive
becomes a question by moving the verb to sentence-initial position before the subject, Is
this expensive?. In the case of complex verb forms in which there are two or more verbs
combined (e.g., perfect and progressive tenses or modal verbs), only the auxiliary verb or
modal verb moves to the sentence-initial position, the main verb does not move (I can help
you. becomes Can I help you?). In the case of a simplex verb, instead of moving the mainverb, the auxiliary placeholder verb do/does is added before the subject to form a question(They eat fish. becomes Do they eat fish?). While these ideas seem fairly simple, the useof both SAI and negation to form negative questions is a much more complicated process
than either one separately.
Influence from Syntactic Operation of Japanese to English
By comparison, in the Japanese language the processes of negation and question
formation are relatively straightforward. Negation is accomplished by changing the suffixof the verb and adding the negative particle -nai. For example, a Japanese sentence,
Watashi-no haha-wa kaimono-ni iku meaning ‘My mother goes shopping’ can turn to anegative by Watashi-no haha-wa kaimono-ni ika-nai ‘My mother does not go shopping’by simply adding -nai at the end of the sentence. Although the previous example
semantically requires the future tense, a question form is even more straightforward as in
Watashi-no haha-wa kaimono-ni iku-daro-ka ‘Will my mother go shopping?’ which isaccomplished by simply adding the question particle -ka at the end of sentence. Negative
questions involve merely adding the question particle to the negative form of the verb, it is88

PARRISH & TAMAOKA

also easy to produce by adding both -nai and -ka as in Watashi-no haha-wa kaimono-ni
ika-nai-daro-ka ‘Will my mother not go shopping?’ As such, Japanese sentences do not
require any movements for questions, but simply adding these elements after the verb.
It is expected that the acquisition of SAI in English poses a great difficulty forJapanese EFL students because this type of syntactic operation does not exist in Japanese,
their first language (L1) (Yamaguchi, 2006). If syntactic operations in Japanese directly
influence English, Japanese EFL students will view a sentence with the negation notfollowing the verb, as in He eats not meat, as acceptable. To measure the effect of L1 on
Japanese EFL students’ understanding of English, the condition ‘SAI with negation placed
after the main verb’ was included. However, the amount of influence is assumed to varywith overall English reading ability. In other words, the direct transfer of syntactic
operations from Japanese to English will be weakened as Japanese EFL students increase
their English ability. Therefore, using an English reading comprehension test, the present
study compared groups of Japanese EFL students with higher and lower levels of English
reading ability.
Acquisition of SAI and Negation
Language learners, regardless of native language, quickly pick up a notion ofnegation that is meaningful, if not grammatically correct. Stauble (1984) presents several
stages of the use of negation as a student becomes more proficient in English. In earlystages, the word no is often attached to the element to be negated: He is no tall and I no
have a car. Similarly, beginning learners often create questions by taking a declarative
statement and adding rising intonation: You like pizza?. Although technically correct, it
actually has a meaning that expresses surprise rather than neutral inquiry. In both cases,
the acquisition of the auxiliary verb, do, comes later. Moving the verb to the sentenceinitial position and/or adding do is learned quite early, and used accurately by native
English-speaking children (e.g., Guasti, 2002; Guasti & Rizzi, 1996; Radford, 1996). In
an intermediate stage, don’t and isn’t are learned as single units and often over-applied,
without respect to third-person subject agreement: She don’t like sushi. In negative
questions do and SAI movement can be problematic. Children often choose to combine
the rules, producing sentences such as Why don’t he don’t eat meat or What kind of bread
do you don’t like? The learning trajectories of Japanese EFL students follow a similar
path. The basics of negation, particularly clitic negation, and using SAI and do to form
questions, are taught early in the curriculum of compulsory English education in Japan.
But it is not necessarily mastered quickly; the ease with which learners manipulate do innegation and questions while applying SAI is an important indicator of overall proficiency(Stauble, 1984).
The present study began with Stauble (1984), Guasti (2002), and Radford (1996)
who described the difficulty that native-speaking English children experienced inacquiring the forms of negative questions. They noted that while SAI for positive Yes/No
and wh-questions (i.e. Who? What? Where?, etc.) is acquired at a relatively early stage, it
is often incorrectly applied in negative questions. A typical mistake is that the rules
learned for forming questions and negatives are applied simultaneously, resulting in a

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89

question such as What kind of bread do you don’t like? which uses the auxiliary verb do
twice in the same sentence. However, formation of a negative question should begin bycreating a negative sentence and then applying SAI to it (e.g., the negative statements Joe
does not cook and Joe doesn’t cook become the questions Does Joe not cook? and Doesn’t
Joe cook?).
Those examples suggest another possible source of confusion for learners (bothnative children and EFL students) may be in the use of clitic negation. In general thenegative element not is affiliated with the main verb (i.e. cook) rather than the auxiliaryverb do. On the other hand, SAI, by definition, affects only the auxiliary verb. So in thecase of regular negation, SAI shifts do/does to the beginning of the sentence, while notremains in the predicate (Does Joe not cook?). In the case of clitic negation, the entire
clitic phrase is subject to SAI (Doesn’t Joe cook?). The pattern for negative questions
seems consistent until we look at the case of SAI that includes the movement of thenegation-not to the head of the sentence (i.e., Does not Joe cook?) which is incorrect, eventhough the actual negative statements (does not and doesn’t) are equivalent, semanticallyand grammatically.
Other research in second language acquisition further indicates how problematic
negation can be for learners. In timed sentence correctness tasks, although overall
accuracy was high, students had more difficulty rejecting grammatically incorrect
negation, than recognizing grammatically correct sentences. Incorrect forms that
resembled those of the students’ native language (L1) were particularly difficult(Hawkins, 2001). These results indicate that there is some influence of L1 on theassessment of the correctness of negative sentences in L2. Japanese EFL students might
have the same difficulty indentifying incorrect forms of negative interrogatory sentencesin English.
The present study investigated the heretofore largely unexplored topic of the extent
of Japanese students’ knowledge of word order in negative questions, including thecorrect usage of clitic negation. The strengths and weaknesses of Japanese students in thisrespect were determined by conducting a timed sentence correctness task to measure theeffects of the placement of the elements signifying question (e.g., do at the beginning of
the sentence) and negation (e.g., not) in negative questions. The current study is focusedon the ability of students to determine only the correctness or incorrectness of word order.
Participants were not asked to evaluate the appropriateness of nuanced differences inmeanings as this was beyond the scope of the experiment1.
Factors Influencing Control of SAI and Negation
All the above factors serve to indicate that the formation of negative questions would
be problematic for learners of English, both native-speaking children and EFL students.
Student learning may be hampered due to overgeneralization about the differences
between the forms of negative declarative sentences and negative interrogatory sentences1

Swan (1995), Romero and Han (2001, 2002, and 2004), and Reese (2005) address these issues of theimplied meanings of negative questions.

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and the syntax of their own language. The form of the test items were chosen in order toinvestigate these factors. Because the syntax of regular (do not, cannot) and clitic
negation (don’t, can’t) in negative declarative sentences and negative interrogative
sentences are different, it may be difficult for learners to acquire this distinction.
Accordingly, this study included test items with two correct forms: ‘SAI including clitic
negation-n’t.’ (Don’t you like sushi?) and ‘SAI with negation-not in the predicate’ (Do you
not like sushi?) and an incorrect form ‘SAI including negation-not’ (Do not you likesushi?). The fourth test item was chosen because it is assumed that the syntax of Japanese
L1, which uses the word order of ‘verb plus-nai’ for negation, might influence what wasseen as correct negation in English. As a result, test items of the form ‘SAI with negationnot after the verb’ (Do you like not sushi?) were created. In all cases, the influence ofEnglish reading ability is also presumed to affect error rates, with higher levels making
fewer mistakes. To assess the effect, if any, of increased length and complexity on
assessment of correctness, two experiments were conducted using different types ofquestions. The first used simple Yes/No negative questions (Will Jane not be available?)and the second used negative wh-questions (When will Jane not be available?).

EXPERIMENT 1
The first experiment hypothesized that the placement of the negative element would
affect the speed and accuracy of students’ responses. In the pair of conditions with correct‘Yes’ responses, it was assumed that questions of the form, SAI including clitic negationn’t would exhibit relatively lower error rates and faster reaction times than those of theform SAI with negation not in the predicate. In the case of the pair of conditions withcorrect ‘No’ responses, the form SAI including negation-not was expected to have short
response times but high error rates due to the perceived equivalence of clitic and non-clitic
negation in questions. Due to its similarity to syntactic operations in Japanese, it was
expected that the second correct ‘No’ condition, negative questions of the type SAI withnegation-not after the verb, would also exhibit short response times, but high error rates.
Finally, it was assumed that students with higher levels of reading ability would exhibit
both higher accuracy and faster reaction times than students of lower reading ability for all
conditions and types of questions.
METHOD
Participants
Forty-five undergraduate students (33 females and 12 males) at Hiroshima Shudo University in Japan,
all native speakers of Japanese, participated in the experiments. Ages ranged from 23 years and 2 months to
18 years and 9 months. The average age was 20 years and 3 months with a standard deviation of 1 year and 0
months on the respective day of testing. Participants were volunteers and each received a small fee ascompensation for their participation. The type of data to be collected and its use for this study were explained
to the students before the tests. Following the tests, students were offered the option of withdrawing their
responses from the data. Names and other identifying information were kept anonymous.

OVERGENERALIZATION OF CLITIC NEGATION

91

To assess the influence of students’ English abilities, 45 students were given a multiple-choice cloze
reading exercise based on a placement test developed by Poel and Weatherly (1997) prior to the experiments.
The placement test had been previously tested for reliability in assigning college students to the appropriate
level of English courses. Although the test was administered without a time limit, all the students completed
the test within 10 minutes. Out of the maximum of 15 points, the test scores for all participants had a mean of
10.43 with a standard deviation of 2.56. The students were divided into two groups, those with a score ofeleven or higher, and those with a score of 10 and lower; the higher reading level (22 students) had a mean of
12.45 with standard deviation of 1.14, while the lower reading level (23 students) had a mean of 8.48 with thestandard deviation of 2.02. A t-test showed that mean scores of the two groups were statistically different[t(43) = 8.077, p < .001].
Stimulus Items
Question sentences for correct ‘Yes’ responses were created on the basis of 40 baseline sentences like
Stig speaks Norwegian. Each sentence was altered to make two types of correct negative questions, aquestion including clitic negation n’t, such as Doesn’t Stig speak Norwegian? and a question in which thenegation not remains in the predicate such as Does Stig not speak Norwegian? A total of 80 such questions
were prepared for the experiment.
A similar procedure was used to create syntactically incorrect sentences for correct ‘No’ responses forthe timed sentence correctness task. The correct ‘No’ responses were based on a set of 40 baseline sentences,like She drinks ginger ale. The baseline was transformed into two types of incorrect negative questions, aquestion in which the negation not is moved to the head of the sentence, such as Does not she drink ginger
ale? and a question in which the negation not is placed after the main verb, such as Does she drink not ginger
ale? A total of 80 incorrect negative questions were prepared.
Since in the creation of both sets of stimulus questions, a pair of questions was created from identicalbaseline sentences and are therefore equal in terms of words used, the differences in syntactic structure
between the two types of correct questions can be compared in terms of reaction times and error rates. The
pairs of negative questions can also be compared in the same way.
It was expected that reading times would become shorter when participants saw sentences containing
the same words. In order to prevent this problem of repeatedly encountering the same words in very similarsentences, a counterbalanced design was used to assign participants to different words. Two lists of sentenceswere given to two groups of participants. Each list consisted of 40 correct negative questions for correct‘Yes’ responses and 40 incorrect negative questions for correct ‘No’ responses. In addition, 20 control
sentences (not in the form of questions) were added to each of the two stimulus lists. The same control
sentences were used for both stimulus lists. Consequently, a total of 100 sentences in each list consisted of 40
correct (20 SAI + n’t movement type and 20 SAI + not in IP type), 40 incorrect (20 SAI + not movement typequestions and 20 SAI + not after verb type questions), and 20 control sentences.
Procedure
The computer program that controlled the presentation was Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 + Microsoft
DirectX8. Stimuli with both ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ correct responses were presented to participants in random orderin the center of a computer screen 600 milliseconds after the appearance of a series of crosses ‘+++++’
indicating an eye fixation point. Participants were given the following instructions: “A sentence in English
will appear briefly on the screen. Please decide whether or not the question is grammatically correct. If it iscorrect, press the key marked ‘Yes’; if it is not correct, press the key marked ‘No’. Please respond as quickly
and accurately as possible. The participants’ responses were registered by the computer. Twenty practice
trials were given to the participants prior to the commencement of actual testing.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
To limit the effect of anticipation and late responses, extremes among correctness
decision times (less than 400 milliseconds and longer than 12,000 milliseconds) wererecorded as missing values. There were 46 such cases, comprising 1.28 percent out of a

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Table 1.

Reaction Times and Accuracy Rates for Question Sentences with Negation in Experiment 1

Response Type

Sentence Type

Correct ‘Yes’ SAI+n’t movement

Higher in Reading Comprehension

Lower in Reading Comprehension

Reaction Time(ms)

Reaction Time
(ms)

M

SD

Accuracy Rate
(%)
M

SD

M

SD

Accuracy Rate
(%)
M

SD

4,705

1,210

82.27% 20.22%

4,687

1,342

81.96% 14.98%

SAI+not in predicate 5,832

1,964

35.00% 32.07%

5,499

1,638

51.74% 31.28%

Correct ‘No’ SAI+not movement 6,023

1,670

23.64% 22.63%

6,038

1,635

28.26% 22.03%

Responses

1,281

87.05% 13.33%

5,628

1,104

72.61% 21.31%

Responses

SAI+not after verb

4,855

total of 3,600 responses. The means and standard deviations of correct ‘Yes’ reaction
times and error rates for sentence correctness decisions are presented in Table 1. Before
analysis, reaction times outside of 2.5 standard deviations at both the high and low ranges
were replaced by boundaries of 2.5 standard deviations from the individual means ofparticipants in each category. This data editing process of reaction times has been usedcommonly in experimental psychology (e.g., Coltheart & Rastle, 1994; Peereman &Content, 1995; Xu, Pollatsek, & Potter, 1999). There were 14 responses modified in thisway. The statistical tests which follow analyze both subject (F1) and item (F2) variability.
Only stimulus items of correct responses were used in the analyses of reaction times. As
for correct ‘Yes’ responses, a series of 2 (students with higher and lower English reading
comprehension) × 2 (SAI + n’t movement and SAI + not in predicate) two-way analyses ofvariance (ANOVAs) with the last variable repeated were conducted on reaction times(milliseconds) and accuracy rates (percents), using participant (F1) and item (F2)variabilities. Due to having no correct responses for correct ‘Yes’ items, six participants
were excluded (i.e., recorded as a missing value) from the analysis of reaction times, but
included in accuracy data. In addition, since one sentence received no correct response,
this sentence was removed (i.e., recorded as a missing value) in item analysis for reaction
times. The ANOVA indicated that for correct ‘Yes’ responses, SAI + n’t movement(M = 4,696 ms) resulted in shorter reaction times than SAI + not in predicate (M = 5,653ms) [F1(1, 37) = 9.272, p < .01; F2(1, 77) = 15.037, p < .001]. The difference of 957
milliseconds in reaction times between question sentences of SAI + n’t movement andSAI + not in predicate was significantly large. However, the main effect of student’s levelof reading comprehension was not significant [F1(1, 37) = 0.206, p =. 653, n.s.; F2(1,77) = 2.350, p = .129, n.s.]. The interaction of these two variables was not significant[F1(1, 37) = 0.245, p = .624, n.s.; F2(1, 77) = 3.082, p = .083, n.s.].
The same analysis was also conducted on accuracy data of correct ‘Yes’ responses.
As seen in Table 1, overall there was a great difference of 38.55 percent between SAI + n’t
movement (M = 82.11%) and SAI + not in IP (M = 43.56%). This difference wassignificant [F1(1, 43) = 36.631, p < .001; F2(1, 78) = 270.395, p < .001]. The main effectof student’s level of reading comprehension was not significant in subject analysis [F1(1,OVERGENERALIZATION OF CLITIC NEGATION

9343) = 3.830, p = .057, n.s.], but there was a significant difference in item analysis [F2(1,78) = 17.943, p < .001]. The interaction of these two variables was not significant insubject analysis [F1(1, 43) = 1.774, p = .190, n.s.], but significant in item analysis [F2(1,78) = 16.840, p < .001]. Thus, taking the consistent results in both participant and item
analyses, the results indicated in general that SAI + n’t movement and SAI + not in
predicate showed a great difference, regardless of student level of reading comprehension.
Regarding the data for correct ‘No’ responses, a series of 2 (students with higher andlower reading comprehension) × 2 (SAI + not movement and SAI + not after verb) twoway ANOVAs with the last variable repeated were conducted on reaction times andaccuracy rates, using participant (F1) and item (F2) variabilities. Due to having no correct
responses for correct ‘No’ items, three participants were excluded from the analysis ofreaction times, but included in accuracy data. Since one sentence received no correct
response, this sentence was removed from item analysis for times. The ANOVA indicatedthat for correct ‘No’ responses, SAI+not movement resulted in longer reaction times(M = 6,031 ms) than SAI + not after verb (M = 5,260 ms) [F1(1, 40) = 10.643, p < .01;
F2(1, 77) = 7.711, p < .01]. However, the main effect of student’s level of reading
comprehension was not significant [F1(1, 40) = 1.112, p = .298, n.s.; F2(1, 77) = 1.043,
p = .310, n.s.]. The interaction of these two variables was not significant [F1(1, 40) =2.457, p = .125, n.s.; F2(1, 77) = 3.247, p = .075, n.s.].
The same analysis was also conducted on accuracy data of correct ‘No’ responses.
As seen in Table 1, overall there was a great difference of 53.67 percent between a
SAI + not movement order (M = 26.00%) and a SAI + not after verb order (M = 79.67%).
This difference was significant [F1(1, 43) = 134.848, p < .001; F2(1, 78) = 614.381,
p < .001]. The main effect of student’s level of reading comprehension was not significant
in both participant [F1(1, 43) = 1.622, p = .210, n.s.] and item [F2(1, 78) = 3.896, p = .052,
n.s.] analyses. The interaction of these two variables was significant in both participant[F1(1, 43) = 4.219, p < .05] and item [F2(1, 78) = 13.118, p < .001] analyses.
Since the interaction was significant, post-hoc sample-matched t-tests for accuracy
rates in the two conditions of correct ‘No’ responses were conducted separately for studentsof higher and lower levels of English reading comprehension. Regarding accuracy rates
among students with higher English reading comprehension (two participants were treatedas missing values for subject analysis while there were no missing values for item analysis),
there was a significant difference between the SAI + not movement order and the SAI + notafter verb order in accuracy rates of both participant [t1(21) = –10.253, p < .001] and item
[t2(39) = –19.929, p < .001] analyses. Similarly, among students of lower English reading
comprehension (one participant was treated as a missing value) there was a significant
difference between the SAI + not movement order and the SAI + not after verb order inaccuracy rates in both participant [t1(22) = –6.444, p < .001] and item [t2(39) = –15.087,
p < .001] analyses. Since all the t-tests in both participant and item analyses showedsignificant differences, these post-hoc investigations did not reveal a clear tendency for thesignificant interaction. However, judging from the means of accuracy rates in Table 1,
students in the high reading comprehension group seem to have higher accuracy rates inaccurately rejecting incorrect sentences of the SAI + not after verb order.

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PARRISH & TAMAOKADISCUSSION
One of the interesting results of Experiment 1 was the disparity in accuracy rates andreaction times within the two conditions of correct ‘Yes’ responses, as well as within thetwo conditions of correct ‘No’ responses. This symmetrical result indicates that thestructure of the question—rather than its innate correctness or incorrectness—caused
delays and errors in the timed sentence correctness task. In both groups one question form
was markedly easier to assess correctly than the other. In the case of correct ‘Yes’
responses, it was relatively easy for students to identify the correctness of questions of theform SAI + n’t quickly (i.e. shorter reaction times) and accurately (higher percent correct).
In contrast, it was difficult for students to accurately classify questions of the form SAI +not in the predicate as correct. Surprisingly, in the correct ‘Yes’ responses, higher orlower reading levels did not seem to affect the accuracy rates.
Among the correct ‘No’ responses, despite the expectation of an effect from its
similarity to Japanese syntactic structure questions of the form SAI + not after verb werequickly and accurately assessed as incorrect consistently by both groups, with the students
with the higher reading level showing a slightly higher accuracy rate. On the other hand,assessment of questions with the form SAI + not movement required more time and wereless accurate, indicating that these types of questions are extremely difficult to accurately
reject as incorrect sentences. This trend was found in both groups of students.

EXPERIMENT 2
The results of the first experiment suggested that Japanese EFL students find theform of negative Yes/No questions very difficult. In particular, it was difficult todetermine the correct movement of negation not in negative questions. The following
experiment sought to extend the findings to wh-questions. The addition of whinterogatory words clearly signals that the sentence is a question, which may aid
processing. However it also adds another syntactical element to be managed in theprocess of SAI and negation, and may make correctness assessments more difficult. A
common error among Japanese EFL learners in relation to wh-questions is incorrect word
order in questions where what refers to the direct object (for example What do you likesports? instead of the correct form What sports do you like?). It is possible that suchdifficulties extend to negative questions as well.
Experiment 2 assumed that the placement of the negative element would affect the
speed and accuracy of students’ responses. Following the results of Experiment 1, it was
expected that in the group of correct ‘Yes’ responses accuracy rates would be relatively
high and response times relatively short for negative questions of the type Wh- + SAI
including clitic negation-n’t. Conversely, questions of the form Wh- + SAI including
negation-not in the predicate were expected to have high error rates and long response
times. In the case of correct ‘No’ responses, error rates for the condition, Wh- + SAI withnegation-not after the verb in spite of its similarity to Japanese was assumed to exhibit

OVERGENERALIZATION OF CLITIC NEGATION

95

relatively lower error rates and faster reaction times than questions of the form SAI
including negation-not which are also expected to have high error rates and long response
times. Finally, it was assumed that students with higher levels of reading ability would be
able to respond more quickly and accurately than those of lower reading ability.

METHOD
Participants
The participants were the same as in Experiment 1.
Stimulus items
Question sentences for correct ‘Yes’ responses were created in a similar way to those in Experiment 1.
However, Experiment 2 used 40 baseline wh-questions such as, Where can we use the phone?. Each question
was altered to make two types of negative wh-questions, a question including clitic negation n’t such as,
Where can’t we use the phone? and a question with the negation not in the predicate such as, Where can we
not use the phone?. A total of 80 such questions were prepared for the experiment.
A similar procedure was used to create syntactically incorrect sentences for correct ‘No’ responses forthe timed sentence correctness task. The correct ‘No’ responses were based on a set of 40 baseline sentences,like When does she study?. The baseline was transformed into two types of incorrect negative questions, aquestion in which the negation not is moved to the head of the sentence such as, When does not she study?
and a question in which the negation not is placed after the main verb such as, When does she study not?. A
total of 80 incorrect negative questions were prepared.
Since in the creation of both sets of stimulus questions, a pair of questions was created from identicalbaseline sentences and are therefore equal in terms of words used, the differences in syntactic structure
between the two types of correct questions can be compared in terms of reaction times and error rates. The
pairs of negative questions can also be compared in the same way.
As in Experiment 1, a counterbalanced design was used to assign participants to different words andthus prevent the problem of repeatedly encountering the same words in similar sentences. Two lists ofsentences were given to two groups of participants. Each list consisted of 40 correct negative questions forcorrect ‘Yes’ responses and 40 incorrect negative questions for correct ‘No’ responses. In addition, 20
control sentences (not in the form of questions) were added to each of the two stimulus lists. The same
control sentences were used for the two stimulus lists. Consequently, a total of 100 sentences in each list
consisted of 40 correct wh-questions (20 Wh- + SAI + n’t movement and 20 Wh-SAI + not in predicate type),
40 incorrect wh-questions (20 Wh + SAI + not movement questions and 20 Wh + SAI + not after verb type),and 20 control sentences.
Procedure
The same as Experiment 1.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
To limit the effect of anticipation and late responses, extremes among correctness
decision times (less than 400 milliseconds and longer than 12,000 milliseconds) wererecorded as missing values. There were 39 such cases, making up 1.08 percent out of a
total 3,600 responses. The means and standard deviations of correct ‘Yes’ reaction times
and error rates for sentence correctness decisions are presented in Table 2. Before
performing the analysis, reaction times outside of 2.5 standard deviations at both the highand low ranges were replaced by boundaries indicated by 2.5 standard deviations from the

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Table 2. Reaction Times and Accuracy Rates for Wh-question Sentences with Negation in Experiment 2
Higher in Reading Comprehension Lower in Reading Comprehension
Response Type

Sentence Type

Reaction Time
(ms)
M

Correct ‘Yes’ Wh+SAI+n’t movement

SD

Accuracy Rate
(%)
M

SD

Reaction Time
(ms)
M

SD

Accuracy Rate
(%)
M

SD

4,427

1,087 76.36% 18.33% 4,820

1,121 71.30% 17.53%

Wh+SAI+not in predicate 4,794

1,042 48.41% 24.76% 4,867

1,156 53.70% 24.08%

Correct ‘No’ Wh+SAI+not movement 5,791

1,795 32.05% 19.80% 5,572

1,318 33.91% 19.83%

Responses

1,053 83.18% 17.96% 4,946

1,074 73.91% 21.95%

Responses

Wh+SAI+not after verb

4,351

individual means of participants in each category. There were 14 responses modified inthis way. The statistical tests which follow analyze both subject (F1) and item (F2)variability. Only stimulus items of correct responses were used in the analyses of reaction
times.
In the case of correct ‘Yes’ responses, a series of 2 (students with higher and lower
English reading comprehension) × 2 (Wh + SAI + n’t movement and Wh + SAI + not in
predicate) two-way ANOVAs with the last variable repeated were conducted on reaction
times and accuracy rates, using participant (F1) and item (F2) variabilities. The ANOVA
indicated that for correct ‘Yes’ responses, there was no significant main effect in the two
types of negative wh-questions in the subject analysis [F1(1, 43) = 3.095, p = .086, n.s.],
but results were significant in the item analysis [F2(1, 78) = 4.133, p < .05]. There was no
significant main effect of student English comprehension ability [F1(1, 43) = 0.573,
p = .453, n.s.; F2(1, 78) = 1.347, p = .249, n.s.]. The interaction of these two variables was
not significant [F1(1, 43) = 1.864, p = .179, n.s.; F2(1, 78) = 3.752, p = .056, n.s.].
The same analysis was also conducted on accuracy data of correct ‘Yes’ responses.
There was a significant main effect on the two types of wh-questions [F1(1, 43) = 22.443,
p < .001; F2(1, 78) = 66.355, p < .001]. The main effect of student’s level of reading
comprehension was not significant in subject analysis [F1(1, 43) = 0.001, p = .979, n.s.]
and in item analysis [F2(1, 78) = 0.29, p = .866, n.s.]. The interaction of these twovariables was not significant in subject analysis [F1(1, 43) = 1.157, p = .288, n.s.], but wasin item analysis [F2(1, 78) = 4.267, p < .05]. Thus, taking the consistent results in bothparticipant and item analyses, the results indicated in general that SAI with clitic negationn’t and SAI with negation not remaining in the predicate showed a large difference,
regardless of student level of reading comprehension.
For the case of correct ‘No’ responses, a series of 2 (students with higher and lower
reading comprehension) × 2 (Wh + SAI + not movement and Wh + SAI + not after verb)
two-way ANOVAs with the last variable repeated were conducted on reaction times andaccuracy rates, using participant (F1) and item (F2) variabilities. Due to having no correct
responses for correct ‘No’ items, one participant was excluded from the analysis ofreaction times, but included in accuracy data. In addition, three sentences received noOVERGENERALIZATION OF CLITIC NEGATION

97

correct rejections. These three sentences were excluded from item analysis. The ANOVA
indicated that for correct ‘No’ responses, a Wh + SAI + not movement order resulted inlonger reaction times (M = 5,677 ms) than Wh + SAI + not after verb order (M = 4,662ms) [F1(1, 42) = 19.528, p < .001; F2(1, 75) = 34.258, p < .001]. However, the main effectof student’s level of reading comprehension was not significant [F1(1, 42) = 0.328,
p = .570, n.s.; F2(1, 75) = 1.705, p = .196, n.s.]. The interaction of these two variables was
not significant [F1(1, 42) = 3.027, p = .089, n.s.; F2(1, 75) = 3.309, p = .073, n.s.].
The same analysis was also conducted on the accuracy data of correct ‘No’
responses. As seen in Table 2, overall there was a great difference of 45.44 percent
between a Wh + SAI + not movement order (M = 33.00%) and a Wh + SAI + not after verb
order (M = 78.44%). This difference was significant [F1(1, 43) = 107.676, p < .001; F2(1,78) = 422.284, p < .001]. The main effect of student’s level of reading comprehension
was not significant in both participant [F1(1, 43) = 0.848, p = .362, n.s.] and item [F2(1,78) = 1.475, p = .228, n.s.] analyses. The interaction of these two variables was
significant in both participant [F1(1, 43) = 1.608, p = .212, n.s.] and item [F2(1,78) = 7.037, p < .01] analyses. Again, as with the results of Experiment 1, wh-question
sentences with the Wh + SAI + not movement order are extremely difficult to accurately
reject as incorrect sentences in both groups of students, those with higher and lower
English reading comprehension.

DISCUSSION
The pattern of errors and longer reaction times in Experiment 2 was similar to thatfound in Experiment 1. With the correctness of wh-questions of the form Wh + SAI + not
movement and the incorrectness of Wh + SAI + not in predicate the most difficult to assess
accurately. By contrast, the incorrectness of questions of the form Wh + SAI + not after
verb and the correctness of the form Wh + SAI + n’t movement were relatively easier toassess accurately. As in Experiment 1, the level of English ability was not a significant
factor either in determining the accuracy. Also there was little evidence of the influence of
L1 Japanese because questions of the form Wh + SAI + not after verb (similar to Japanesesyntax) were correctly assessed as incorrect relatively easily. Judging from the similarityof results between the two experiments, there is no evidence of either a positive or
negative effect of the addition of the wh- element on students’ ability to discern the(in)correctness of negative questions.

GENERAL DISCUSSION
The results of the present study indicate a tendency for Japanese EFL students tomake similar errors regarding the correctness of negative questions in spite of differinglevels of ability. Part of this can be explained by primacy and frequency of learning
effects. The negative declarative sentence, and its clitic form in particular, is taught from

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the first year of compulsory English education in Japan, so it is one of the first things theylearn. Also, since negative questions are relatively infrequent, it is logical to assume thatstudents have had much more experience with the more common and frequent negative
declarative sentences. Students simply may not have had frequent exposure to both formsof the correct negative interrogative sentences making it difficult to internalize thedifferences between declarative and interrogative negation.
When negative questions are taught in typical Japanese high-school-level textbooks,
they are usually presented in a conversational context, either as tag questions or
confirmation (usually indicating surprise or contradiction of an assumption previously
held by the speaker), such as You are Mr. Jones, aren’t you? and Don’t you have anumbrella? In these cases the clitic form is much more commonly used. So, while the nonclitic form Do you not have an umbrella? is equally correct, it is rarely, if ever,encountered in EFL textbooks. It also has a limited use in natural English conversation.
We could focus on the fact that they learned clitic negation relatively well, rather thantheir difficulites in recognizing an uncommon and unfamiliar form. Because students
have had limited exposure to both the incorrect form Do not you have an umbrella? andthe correct (but less common) form Do you not have an umbrella?, the students simply
chose the form that ‘sounds’ right according to the frequency with which learners havepreviously seen the words together in other contexts, such as negative declarative
sentences.
Another possible factor is the basic form of negation, (for example, do not, is not, or
cannot), where the negation not joins with the auxiliary verb to make the clitic negation n’t(i.e. don’t, isn’t, or can’t), may lead students to think that the negative element is moreclosely affiliated with the auxiliary rather than the main verb. So, where there is
movement of the auxiliary but the negation not remains with the main verb it is seen as
unfamiliar and therefore incorrect. This misinterpretation of the relationship of thenegative element and the auxiliary leads to an overgeneralization in judging thecorrectness of negative questions causing students to correctly identify the familiar case,where there is SAI with clitic negation. This overgeneralization also manifests itself in thestudents’ preference for the incorrect but ‘familiar’ form in which there is SAI with thenegation not. Conversely, it also leads students to reject the correct form in which there is
SAI for the auxiliary, but the negation not remains in position in front of the main verb.
Native English-speaking children were found to make errors in negation (e.g.,
Guasti, et al, 1995), but the types of errors are different than those examined in this paper.
Native-speaking children avoided SAI in negative questions, while Japanese students
overgeneralized the verb movement parameter. Indeed, the fact that many Japanese
students mistakenly judged that sentences of the form SAI + not movement were correct(76% in Exp. 1 and 66% in Exp. 2), and a correspondingly high number of students
judged, accurately, that sentences of the form SAI + n’t movement were correct (82% in
Exp. 1 and 75% in Exp. 2) could also indicate the degree of familiarity with thecollocation of ‘do’ and ‘not’ and ‘auxiliary/modal verb’ and ‘not’. Given the time
constraints of the exercise, the learners probably did not perform a complex grammaticalanalysis. The fact that both groups (higher and lower) showed similar tendencies inOVERGENERALIZATION OF CLITIC NEGATION

99

choosing ‘auxiliary + not’ pairings, also argues in favor of the role of the familiarity andfrequency of the form.
Because the structure of the incorrect sentences in the form SAI + not after verb issimilar to L1 (Japanese), it was assumed to cause some interference. In fact, the results
showed that overall accuracy was high on this type of item. It is unlikely that students had
ever encountered sentences in this form in their previous classes, so perhaps this type ofquestion was easy to accurately reject as incorrect due to its unfamiliarity, and the innate“non-Englishness” of the form. There was, however, a marked difference between theaccuracy rates of the higher and lower groups (15% difference in Exp. 1 and 10%
difference in Exp. 2). The corresponding reaction times were also different with thehigher group reacting significantly faster (1,773 ms difference in Exp 1 and 595 ms
difference in Exp. 2). This may indicate that classifying this form as incorrect required
more sophisticated grammatical analysis than selecting the more familiar forms of do not/don’t. The lower students had more trouble judging the form as incorrect, due to lessexperience and familiarity with the form. This affirms previous studies which indicatethat L1 Japanese EFL students do not exhibit significant interference from L1 in the caseof negation. In fact, Japanese EFL students tend to follow a path of acquisition ofnegation similar to other EFL students, such as L1 Spanish students (Stauble, 1984). It is
assumed that students of English—even beginning level—would correctly identify anegative English sentence or question with the negation not after the main verb, as in Does
Joe cook not?, as incorrect. This might be a contrastive influence of L1, rather thanerroneously applying L1 syntax to L2, students automatically reject as incorrect forms thatare similar to L1 when they come across them in L2.
From a practical pedagogic standpoint, the results indicate two main points, first theneed to clearly explain that while the auxiliary verb do in conjunction with the negation
not is essential for negation, the negative element not is more closely affiliated with themain verb, both grammatically and semantically. In addition, when teaching andexplaining the use of clitic negation, it must be explained that the contraction don’t merelyreflects a spoken convention. While the declarative clitic negation is taught rather early,
and heard more frequently, it is more likely to be retained due to primacy and frequency
effects. However negative questions, especially the non-clitic form, are much lesscommonly used, so the forms are encountered and used with much less frequency. Deeper
understanding of students’ ability to use negative questions could be gained from testing
their production of the form in guided conversations, to test active rather than passive
understanding. Further study could analyze the frequency of these negative forms andreview this exception in an appropriate situational context to facilitate the retention of theform and its use by EFL students.
On the other hand, L1 Japanese does not seem to have any influence over the
judgment of the correctness of negative sentences. While negation naturally follows theverb in Japanese, the items with such a construction were overwhelming properly
identified as incorrect. So, this element of negation seems to be clearly differentiated but
improves with students of higher reading level. As a result of both primacy and frequency
effects, the basic conventions of negation in declarative sentences are well internalized in

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most college-level students, including the subjects of this study, and probably require little
attention after initial presentation.

CONCLUSION
This study examined the ability of Japanese EFL students to assess the correctness ofnegative questions using a timed sentence correctness task. The first experiment showedthat Japanese EFL students could quickly and accurately assess the correctness of negative
Yes/No questions of the form SAI + n’t movement (e.g. Don’t you play the piano?) and theincorrectness of questions of the form SAI + not after the verb (e.g. Do you play not the
piano?). It also showed that the same subjects had more difficulty assessing thecorrectness of questions in the form SAI + not in the predicate (e.g. Do you not play the
piano?) and the incorrectness of questions of the form SAI + not movement (e.g. Do not
you play the piano?). The second experiment used wh-questions and found similar results.
The difference of errors and reaction times between students with high and low levels of
reading ability were not significantly different, except in the case of questions of the form
SAI + not after the verb, where students with higher levels of reading ability performed thetimed sentence correctness task more quickly and accurately.
The results of the experiments in this study revealed that the influence of L1
Japanese word order for negation, where the negative particle –nai follows the verb, isrelatively weak in Japanese EFL students.
Instead, there seems to be an
overgeneralization of the concept of clitic negation (don’t, won’t, can’t) which influences
students assessment of the correct placement of the negative element not in negative
questions. This may result from primacy and frequency effects which allow students to be
more familiar with the declarative form of negation than negative questions due to the factthat negation in declarative sentences is taught quite early in the typical curriculum ofJapanese secondary-school English education, however negation in questions is much lesscommon. Because the contracted (clitic) forms such as don’t or can’t are taught as being
equivalent to their non-clitic forms in declarative sentences, students overgeneralize andincorrectly assume that this also applies to interrogative questions.

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(Manuscript received November 13, 2009; Revision accepted March 8, 2010)