USE AND PLACEMENT OF OBJECT PRONOUNS IN GERMAN AS L2∗
Giulia Bianchi
University of Siena

1.

Introduction

In this article I will report on some data from two experiments aimed at investigating use
and placement of weak object pronouns in old information contexts in German subordinate
and main clauses by Adult Italian Native Speakers learning German as L2. The main interestof this research lies in the cross-linguistic differentiation between Italian and German as far as
their pronominal system is concerned. Since Cardinaletti and Starke’s tripartition of pronouns(1996, 1999), the two languages under study here have been shown to differ in the number ofpronominal classes they select. Whereas Italian displays three classes of pronouns (clitic,
weak and strong), German displays only the latter two (weak and strong). In a still ongoingdebate on the initial and developing grammars in Adult Second Language Acquisition (SLA),
this differentiation opens an interesting area of investigation. Furthermore, Italian andGerman show different properties as far as their word order is concerned. Whereas Italian is
an SVO language, German is an SOV one, which displays the SVO order only in mainclauses as a consequence of the V2 phenomenon (den Besten 1983). Neither the SOV order,
which characterizes German subordinate clauses introduced by an overt complementizer, nor
the V2 rule of the German main clauses is instantiated in Italian. Two phenomena which need
to be acquired by non native speakers of German and turn out to play a role in the acquisitionof use and placement of weak pronouns. Finally, Italian and German have been shown todisplay similarities w.r.t. the cartography of clause structure. The cartographic approach toclause structure adopted here contributes to a better understanding of the possible positions
targeted by pronominal objects in the Italian L2ers’ interlanguage grammars.
2.

Classes of Pronouns

Cardinaletti and Starke (1999) have provided evidence for the existence of three different
classes of pronouns (clitic, weak and strong), which are attributed a different categoricalstatus. More specifically, clitic pronouns are analyzed as heads (X°), weak pronouns as
deficient maximal projections (deficient XPs) and strong pronouns as non deficient maximal
projections (non deficient XPs). In fact, not all three classes of pronouns are always
instantiated in a language. In particular, Italian and German differ with respect to pronounclasses: German has only weak and strong pronouns, whereas Italian has all three pronominal*

I would like to thank Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi for their insightful comments on this study.
Many thanks are due to professor Mamoru Saito and professor Keiko Murasugi for having given me
the opportunity to participate into the Nanzan Workshop and to present this work.
Nanzan Linguistics: Special Issue 5, 1-11
© 2008 Giulia Bianchi

Nanzan Linguistics: Special Issue 5classes, with the class of weak pronouns restricted to the subject pronoun egli ‘he’ and thedative loro ‘to them’. In contrast to Italian, the class of weak pronouns in German is very
productive. The Italian L2ers acquiring the German pronominal system must then reduce thenumber of pronominal classes from three to two. Furthermore, they must be able todistinguish between weak and strong forms, which are homophonous in German, contrary to
Italian (see 2.1), they must be able to place pronouns of different classes properly (see 2.2)
and must be able to choose the proper pronoun class in old information contexts, a further
point where Italian and German differ (see 2.3).
2.1.

Morphological Ambiguity and Disambiguation

In Italian, pronouns belonging to different classes are morphologically distinguished, as
shown in (1a-b) in which a clitic pronoun (Lo) morphologically differs from a strong one(LUI). The same does not hold for German in which pronouns belonging to the two classes
are homophonous. Disambiguation between weak and strong pronouns in German is possible
through some diagnostic tests, first developed by Kayne (1975) for Romance languages.
Position of pronouns with respect to adverbs is one of the tests that allow us to distinguishbetween weak and strong pronominal forms. In particular, weak pronouns must precede an
adverb, whereas strong pronouns can follow it as shown in (2a-b):
(1)

a.

Lo
ho conosciuto ieri.
himCL have met
yesterday‘I met him yesterday.’b.

Ho conosciuto LUI
ieri.
have met
himSTRONG yesterday‘I met him yesterday.’

(2)

a.

Ich habe ihn
gestern kennengelernt.
I have himWEAK yesterday met‘I met him yesterday.’b.

Ich habe gestern IHN
kennengelernt.
I have yesterday himSTRONG met‘I met him yesterday.’

Pronouns of different classes target different positions in the clause as briefly shown in
the following paragraph.
2.2.

Position of Pronouns

With finite verbal forms, clitic pronouns of the Romance type must surface pre-verbally(pre-auxiliarily) as shown in (1a) above. They can follow the verb only when this latter is non-2-

Use and Placement of Pronouns in German as L2 (G. Bianchi)

finite (e.g. infinitival) as shown in (3) below. On the contrary, German weak pronouns must
follow the finite verb as shown in (2a) above, they cannot surface in the initial position of theclause, since that position can only be filled by strong pronominal forms, as exemplified by(4) below and cannot occupy the second position of the clause (i.e. between the subject andthe main verb) (see example (5)), as a consequence of the V2 phenomenon which requires
that: a) the second position of the clause is occupied by the finite verb and b) one (and onlyone) overt maximal projection moves to the first position. Since weak pronouns are analyzed
as maximal projections, they would count in the computation of the Verb Second. V3structures are only allowed with certain particular constructions in German such as Hanging
Topic (HT) and Left Dislocation (LD) as shown in (6a-b) respectively:(3)

Incontrar lo
domanisarebbe un errore.
To meet himCL tomorrow would be a mistake

(4)

Ihn
Him*WEAK/√STRONG

habe ich gestern kennengelernt.
have I yesterday met(5) *Ich i hn habe gestern kennengelernt.
I
him have yesterday met(6)a.

Peter, ich werde ihn sehen.
Peter, Iwill
him seeb.

Den Peter, den habe ich gesehen.
the Peter, him have I seenIn the following paragraph the condition that regulates choice of pronouns will be taken into
account.
16-pt
2.3. Choice of Pronoun
According to an Economy of Representations principle -Minimize Structure- a smaller
structure is obligatorily chosen, if possible (Cardinaletti and Starke 1999). Given a properquestion test, Italian and German will make use of pronouns of different classes to refer to anentity already prominent in discourse. In particular, Italian will make use of a clitic pronoun
to express topicality, whereas German will make use of a weak pronoun for the same purpose.
Consequently, a strong pronoun is ungrammatical in those contexts in which a more deficientpronominal form is possible. The contrast is shown in (7) and (8) for Italian and German
respectively:(7)a.

Quando hai
conosciuto il ragazzo?
When have (you) met
the boy‘When did you meet the boy?’-3-

Nanzan Linguistics: Special Issue 5b. √Loho
conosciuto ieri.
HimCL have met
yesterday

(8)

c.

* LUI
ho
conosciuto ieri.
HimSTRONG have met
yesterdaya.

Wann hast du den Mann kennengelernt?
When have you the man met‘When did you meet the man?’b. √ Ich habe ihn
gestern kennengelernt.
I have himWEAK yesterday metc.

3.

* Ich habe gestern ihn
kennengelernt.
I have yesterday HIMSTRONG met

Cartographic Approach to Clause Structure

Since Rizzi (1997), a more fine-grained architecture of clause structure has been
proposed for the German prefield and middlefield (Frey 2004, Grewendorf 2005). In
particular, Grewendorf argues in favour of different topic and focus positions in the German
middlefield in order to account for the phenomenon of scrambling. Following the proposal
made by Belletti (2004) for the left periphery of the vP in Italian, Grewendorf has shown
evidence for the existence in German of a lower topic-focus field that covers the portion of
the clause between the Case position of the subject and the Case position of the object.
According to Grewendorf’s analysis the lower topic focus-field is targeted by new
information focus and recursive topics. One example is provided in (9):(9)

Uli Hoeness hat freiwillig [Topic diesen Schal] DEM PRÄSIDENTEN VON 1860
Uli Hoeness has voluntarily
this scarfACC the presidentDATof1860[Topic im Olympiastadion]überreicht.
in the Olympicstadion handed overPlacement of the pronominal object in the L2ers’ interlanguage grammar seems to target
positions dedicated to low topics which are instantiated both in Italian and in German.
4.

The Experiments

In order to test use and placement of weak object pronouns in German two experiments
were set up. An elicited production task (EPT henceforth), which aimed at testing use andplacement of weak pronouns with respect to adverbs in German subordinate clauses, and anoral grammaticality judgment task (OGJT henceforth), which aimed at investigating
acceptance of weak object pronouns in different ungrammatical positions in a matrix clause.

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4.1.

The EPT

Participants were required to listen to a statement (10) made by a girl (Lydia) and toanswer the question (11). Both the statement and the question were auditorily and visually (inwritten form on the PC screen) presented. In order to answer the question, participants were
instructed to use the complementizer …dass introducing declarative subordinate clauses inGerman, which appeared on the PC screen immediately after the question had been asked (12).
They were also instructed to pronominalize the object whenever they felt it natural. The
expected answer and the non target one are provided in (12a) and (12b) respectively.
Participants were given 8000 ms to answer the question. 24 items were used. 34 fillers werealso inserted.
(10) IchI

lese jeden Abend das Buch.
read every evening the book

‘I read the book every evening.’(11) Was hat Lydia über das Buch gesagt?
What has Lydia about the book said
‘As for the book, what has Lydia said?’(12) a.

...dass sie es jeden Abend liest...that she it every evening reads‘that she reads it every evening’b. * ...dass sie jeden Abend es liest...that she every evening it reads
20 Italian Native Speakers between 19 and 26 years of age participated into the experiment.
Their level of proficiency was assessed on the basis of the Common European Framework ofReference for Language: Learning, Teaching and Assessment (CEFR). According to CEFR
they were divided into Intermediate (15 speakers) and Advanced (5 speakers). 14 German
Native Speakers served as a control group.
4.2.

The OGJTThe experimental subjects were presented with two pictures each accompanied by asentence. In the first picture the main character either performed an action or introduced some
objects or people. In the second picture she always performed an action on the object alreadyintroduced in the first one, as exemplified by Figure 1. Each picture was accompanied by asentence in which the main character auditorily introduced the object on which the action wasthen performed or described what was happening. At the end of the second sentence, the same
pictures appeared on the PC screen. At this point participants were required to either repeat
the second sentence if they judged it target consistent or to reformulate it in the way they felt

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Nanzan Linguistics: Special Issue 5

most natural if they judged it non target or inappropriate in the given context. Participants
were given 10000 ms time to complete the task. 48 items and 24 fillers were used. Only someof the tested structures will be taken into account in the present article, as shown by Table 1.
Figure 1.

20 Italian Native Speakers, between 19 and 35 years of age, on three levels of proficiency of
the Target Language (4 Beginners, 9 Intermediate and 7 Advanced) took part into theexperiment. 7 German Native Speakers served as a control group.
4.2.1.

The Items

The items proposed in the OGJT and taken into account in the present article areprovided in Table 1:
Table 1. Structures investigated in the OGJT
Context sentence
Das ist mein Mann
This is my man-S
Sentence to be corrected *Ich ihn heiratete im Jahr
2000
Type 1
I him married in the year 2000
S probj V
Adv
Context sentence
Mein Sohn sitzt auf dem Sofa
-P
My son sits on the sofa
Sentence to be corrected *Ich ihn habe um fünfzehn Uhr darauf gesetzt
I him have at fifteen
there sat
S probj Aux Adv
Adv PstPrt
Context sentenceDas sind ein Mädchen und ein Junge
This are a girland a boyType 2
Sentence to be corrected *Ich das Mädchen umarmte um eiundzwanzig Uhr
I the girlugged
at twenty one
S DPlexobj
VAdv
The labels Type1-S and Type1-P refer to V3 structures in which a pronominal DP precedes
the finite verb and the finite auxiliary respectively. The label Type2 refers to V3 structures in-6-

Use and Placement of Pronouns in German as L2 (G. Bianchi)

which a lexical DP precedes the finite verb.
5.

Findings

5.1.

The EPT

5.1.1.

Pronoun Placement

Pre- and post-adverbial placement of pronouns nearly approaches chance level. The
L2ers do not seem to differentiate between weak and strong pronominal forms as shown in
Table 2:
Table 2. Weak object pronoun placement in German subordinate clauses
C S probj Adv V*C S Adv probj V
L2ers
53%
47%
(139/263)(124/263)
Controls
99%
1%(300/301)(1/301)
However, if we consider the two groups of speakers, we observe a preference for the
post-adverbial position of the pronoun in the Intermediate group (Table 3):
Table 3. Weak object pronoun placement. Intermediate and advanced L2ers
C S probj Ad V
*C S Adv probj VIntermediate42%58%(70/168)(98/168)
Advanced
73%
27%(69/95)(26/95)This may be interpreted as an indication of stages of acquisition. Speakers with a lower
level of proficiency of the TL preferably use positions dedicated to non-deficient maximal
projections (strong/demonstrative pronouns and lexical DPs) for pronominal objects, similarly
to findings on the acquisition of pronominal clitics in Romance languages (Towell and
Hawkins 1994, Herschensohn 2004). Furthermore, it may be speculated here that the ItalianL2ers place the pronominal object in one of the topic positions of the low area of the clause
which is instantiated both in Italian (as proposed by Belletti 2004) and in German(Grewendorf 2005).
5.1.2.

Use of Pronominal and Lexical DPs

Even if use of pronominal DPs is the preferred option1 to express topicality in German,

1

Higher use of pronouns rather than lexical DPs may be due to the experimental design itself, giventhat the L2ers were explicitly instructed to use a pronominal object. This seemed to be a necessary-7-Nanzan Linguistics: Special Issue 5

the Italian L2ers still use lexical DPs for the same purpose at a quite high rate, at least incomparison to the controls (Table 4), which is in line with findings on the acquisition ofclitics in Italian as L2 (Leonini 2006, Leonini and Belletti 2004):
Table 4. Comparing use of pronominal and lexical DPs
C S
probj Adv V /C S DPlexobj Adv V /*C S Adv probj V
C S Adv DPlexobj V
L2ers
72%
28%
(263/363)(100/363)
Controls
92%8%(301/328)(27/328)
In particular, use of lexical DPs is higher in the group of the Intermediate. Postadverbial
placement of the pronominal object correlates with higher use of lexical DPs, which leads tothe claim that the Italian L2ers with a lower level of proficiency of the Target Language opt
for a non-deficient maximal projection in the answer (i.e lexical DP/strong pronoun), insteadof a deficient one (i.e. weak pronoun) (Table 5). Use of lexical DPs instead of pronominal
objects is interpreted as an avoidance strategy (similarly to Leonini and Belletti 2004).
Table 5. Comparing use of pronominal and lexical DPs
C S probj Adv V *C S Adv
Intermediate
Advanced

probj V C S DPlexobj Adv V /C S Adv
DPlexobj V
38%
34%(98/256)(88/256)24%
11%(26/107)(12/107)27%(70/256)65%(69/107)

Once the L2ers feel confident with use of pronouns to express topicality in German, they
reduce use of lexical DPs for this purpose and use weak pronouns instead of non deficientmaximal projections, as can be observed by the performance of the advanced (Table 5).
5.2.
5.2.1.

The OGJT
Repetition of Ungrammatical Structures

Acceptance of the preverbal pronominal object is found in the performance of the L2ers(contra Zobl 1980), as shown by Table 6:condition, since in a pilot test, the 5 participants taking part into the experiment and with a similarlevel of proficiency of the TL had not used pronominal object at all in answering the questions.

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Table 6. Data on ungrammatical Type1-S structures* Ich ihn heiratete im Jahr
2000.
I him married in the year 2000

Repeated
Properly changed
OthersL2ers
21%(25/120)68%(81/120)12%(14/120)

Controls
0%(0/42)
100%(42/42)0%(0/42)The Italian L2ers seem to reproduce structures of their L1 in which a clitic pronoun
precedes the verb. However, a comparison with repetition of ungrammatical Type 2 structures(*S DPlexobj V Adv) reveals that the L2ers do not treat the German pronominal object as aclitic, but rather as a maximal projection. Indeed, acceptance of the pronominal object preverbally parallels acceptance of a lexical one in the same position (Table 7).
Table 7. Comparing repetition of V3 structures*S probj V Adv*S DPlexobj V Adv
Repeated
21%
20%(25/120)(24/120)
Acceptance of the pronominal DP in preverbal position is the result of the non
acquisition of the V2 phenomenon. Indeed, repetition of V3 structures decreases consistently
with the level of mastery of the Target Language. Once V2 has been acquired, repetition of
V3 structures decreases, independently of the type of element occupying the second positionof the clause (i.e. pronominal/ lexical DP) (see Table 8):
Table 8. Comparing repetition of V3 structures. The three groups of speakers
L2ers*S probj V Adv*S DPlexobj V Adv
Beginners
46%
54%(11/24)(13/24)
Intermediate24%
19%(13/54)(10/54)
Advanced2%2%(1/42)(1/42)
5.2.2.

On Object Omission

Some instances of object omission have been found in repetition/production of Type1-S
and Type1-P structures. In particular, omission of the object occurs at a higher rate in thegroup of the intermediate speakers as shown in Table 9:-9-Nanzan Linguistics: Special Issue 5

Table 9. Object omission in the three groups of speakers
L2ers
Object omission
Beginners
4%(4/96)
Intermediate14%(30 /216)
Advanced
1%(2 /168)
Interestingly, omission of the object is higher in the group of the intermediate L2ers who
misplace objects at a lower rate in comparison to the beginners (compare Table 8 and Table 9).
This seems to parallel the stages of acquisition found for the acquisition of Romance
languages (Towell and Hawkins 1994, Herschensohn 2004), in which the stage of omission of
the object follows that of object misplacement/in situ pronouns.
6.

Concluding Remarks

 In both experiments placement of pronominal objects in old information contexts
parallels placement of lexical DPs, namely object pronouns are treated as non deficientmaximal projections.
 Use of non deficient maximal projections (pronouns in ‘strong’ positions and lexicalDPs) in old information contexts is attributed to the Categorial Uniformity Principle(Rizzi 1998), according to which L2ers assume a unique canonical structural realization
for a given semantic type’, similarly to Granfeldt and Schlyter (2004), namely the L2ers
assume the fewest possible different elements, thus treating pronouns as maximal
projections.
 Use of lexical DPs qualifies as an avoidance strategy (Leonini and Belletti 2004).
 In the OGJT, omission of the object occurs at a higher rate in the group of theintermediate L2ers.
 Higher misplacement of the pronominal object in the group of the beginners and higher
omission rate of the argument object in the group of the intermediate has been interpreted
as an indication of stages of acquisition similarly to findings on the acquisition ofcliticization in Romance languages.
 Developmental effects are found in the data in accordance with level of proficiency of theTarget Language.
 UG guides the acquisition of a second language: pronoun placement targets positions
available in the Target Language.

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Use and Placement of Pronouns in German as L2 (G. Bianchi)

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