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Nyqvist, E.-L. (2018). Mastering complex Swedish NPs: A comparison of non-
immersion pupils and immersion L1 Finnish pupils.
Journal of the European Second
Language Association
,
2(1), 14–23, DOI: https://doi.org/10.22599/jesla.33
RESEARCH
Mastering complex Swedish NPs: A comparison of non-
immersion pupils and immersion L1 Finnish pupils
Eeva-Liisa Nyqvist
The aim of this article is to study the extent to which some of the most complex types of Swedish noun
phrases (NPs) have been mastered in a grammaticality judgement test in L2 Swedish of Finnish-speaking
16-year-old non-immersion pupils (n=44) compared with 15-year-old immersion pupils (n=86). The study
concentrates on
double deniteness
, NPs with both
possessive/genitive and adjective attributes
, and NPs
with the synonymous demonstrative pronouns
den här
and
denna
(“this”). In previous studies, these NPs
have been dicult for L2 learners irrespective of their L1, including immersion students. The studied NP
types represent two types of complexity:
formal complexity
and
complexity of the relationship between
form and meaning
.
The research questions concern the order in which the studied forms are mastered, the hierarchy of
diculty for the dierent types of complexity, and the dierences between non-immersion and immersion
students. Analyses at the individual level show that formally complex NPs are used accurately more often
than those with a complex relationship between form and meaning in both groups. This result is similar
to the one achieved in a previous study with the same test with 12- and 15-year-old immersion students
as informants. The dierences between non-immersion and immersion students are small and usually
statistically insignicant, i.e., the studied structures were dicult for the informants irrespective of the
learning context.
Keywords: Swedish as a Second Language; Immersion; Noun phrase; Deniteness; Feature-related diculty;
Context-related diculty
1 Introduction
Children acquiring Swedish as their first language (L1)
acquire definiteness and article use in noun phrases (NPs)
at an early stage and without difficulties (e.g., Bohnacker,
1997, 2003). Previous studies, however, have proved that
practically all L2 learners of Swedish have problems with
these grammatical structures, irrespective of their L1 (e.g.,
Axelsson, 1994). The problems are most obvious when the
learner’s L1 lacks definiteness morphology, but the formal
complexity of Swedish NPs makes them difficult even for
learners who are able to utilise their L1 in the choice of
definiteness (Eriksson & Wijk-Andersson, 1988; Axelsson,
1994). Hyltenstam’s research (1988, 1992) shows that
Swedish NPs are also difficult for high-level learners of L2
Swedish, such as immigrants who have lived in Sweden
for decades; their inaccuracies are rare but qualitatively
similar to those made by less advanced learners, such as
the omission of definiteness endings.
A multitude of studies in Sweden and Finland have
addressed the acquisition of NPs in L2 Swedish. However,
the most complex NP types, such as those with a noun
in the definite form preceded by an adjective attribute
(commonly called double deniteness in Swedish; see
Section 2 below) and those including a pronominal or
genitive attribute (henceforth PRG attributes; see Section
2 below), have not gained much attention since they tend
to be sporadic in the spontaneous data (Axelsson, 1994;
Nyqvist, 2013, 2018). A recent study with 12-year-old and
15-year-old Finnish-speaking immersion pupils (Nyqvist,
unpublished ms), however, showed that these complex
NPs were still problematic at the end of immersion (i.e., at
the age of 15), irrespective of the fact that the informants
had acquired their Swedish in early total immersion; they
started immersion day care at approximately 4–5 years of
age (see Bergroth, 2007: p. 18) and had had a considerable
share of their instruction in all school subjects in
Swedish during the nine-year-long comprehensive school
attendance. (For the actual percentages of instruction in
Swedish and Finnish in the different grades in immersion,
see Bergroth & Björklund, 2013: p. 109).
The aim of this study is to explore how Finnish-speaking
non-immersion pupils learning Swedish in a formal setting
perform on a grammaticality judgement test (henceforth
test) previously used for immersion students at the sixth-
and ninth-grade levels (Nyqvist, unpublished ms). The
analysis occurs at the individual level and concentrates
University of Turku/Turku Institute of Advanced Studies, FI
eesija@utu.
Nyqvist: Mastering complex Swedish NPs 15
on certain complex NP types that have otherwise not
previously gained attention. Immersion pupils usually
reach a higher level of competence in Swedish than most
non-immersion students (e.g., Nyqvist, 2018: p. 72, in
press; see also Bergroth, 2015: p. 108). Therefore, there is
reason to study whether this result is repeated in the case
of these specific NP types.
Housen and Simoens (2016: p. 164) summarise different
sets of factors affecting L2 difculty or cognitive complexity,
and two of them are relevant for this study. Feature-related
difculty, i.e., the intrinsic properties of the studied
structures (such as complexity of form or function) on the
one hand and their input properties (e.g., frequency and
saliency; see also Goldschneider & DeKeyser, 2005) on the
other hand can explain why certain structures are difficult
for all learners. Another central question in this study is
whether context-related difculty, i.e., the learning context
(which in this article is immersion vs. non-immersion)
affects the acquisition of the studied structures.
2 What makes deniteness dicult in L2
Swedish?
According to the usage-based approach, second language
acquisition can be viewed as a process of determining
linguistic constructions, or form-meaning mappings that
can be words as well as whole utterances. The constructions
undergo stages of more or less conscious analysis and
become gradually more complex and categorised as
varying grades of abstractness. The learners discover
regularities in these constructions and start varying them,
eventually discovering the abstract formulae behind
the concrete utterances (Ellis & Robinson, 2008; Bybee,
2008; Lieven & Tomasello, 2008). Thus, grammar is an
implicit, cognitive organisation of a learner’s concrete
language experience that continually develops as new
constructions are added to the inventory (Bybee, 2008: p.
216). This is especially evident in immersion settings that
do not contain formal learning at all in the early stages,
but is also relevant for the communicative language
teaching method used in non-immersion settings (Ellis
2008: p. 825), although the learners in immersion settings
naturally receive more input and have an opportunity to
participate in meaningful interactions to a greater extent
than those in non-immersion settings.
Long (1990) has stated, however, that certain aspects
of an L2 are unlearnable from the input only—certain
grammatical constructions are harder to acquire than
others. For instance, traits occurring frequently in the input
such as definite forms of nouns in Swedish are easy to learn,
as the repetition strengthens memory representations and
makes them more accessible. Extremely frequent sequences
can be acquired as unanalysed wholes and may thus help
the learner analyse similar, less frequent sequences (Bybee,
2008: p. 222). Another central factor affecting the grade
of difficulty is salience, or ease in recognising a certain
construction in the input. Definiteness markers in Swedish,
for example, are notorious for their low saliency, which
makes them difficult to acquire, although the endings and
articles per se are high frequency in the language (e.g., Ellis,
2016: pp. 348–349).
As the NPs relevant to this study are known to be low
frequency in the language and the definiteness marking
is insalient in the input (Goldschneider & DeKeyser, 2005:
pp. 47, 60), I now turn my focus to complexity as the most
important factor determining the difficulty of the studied
NP types. The term complexity assumes two different
meanings in the linguistic literature. In this article, it is
used as a synonym for difculty (DeKeyser, 2016: p. 353).
In other contexts, complexity can mean a desirable trait
in the production of an L2 learner: the use of subordinate
clauses, for example, increases the complexity of the L2,
which can be seen as a positive phenomenon, as the L2
thus resembles the language produced by native speakers
(Ellis & Barkhuizen, 2005: p. 139).
DeKeyser (2005: p. 8) summarises three viewpoints of
grammatical difficulty: meaning, form, and relationship
between form and meaning. Meaning is difficult for an
L2 learner when it is novel (i.e., foreign to the L1 of the
learner or other L2s they might have acquired), abstract,
or both. It is important to remember that morphological
definiteness is a relatively rare trait in the languages of
the world, as only a third of them have either indefinite
or definite articles, and less than 8% of them have both
an indefinite and a definite article (Haspelmath, 1998:
p. 274). Therefore, the Swedish language belongs to the
minority. Hence, problems that are typical of Finnish
learners of L2 Swedish might be typical of learners of L2
Swedish with many different L1s lacking articles.
Definiteness exists in Finnish as a semantic category
and is usually interpretable from the context, word order
or common knowledge (Hakulinen et al., 2004: pp. 1360–
1361). Since Finnish lacks morphological definiteness
(Karlsson, 2008: p. 7), Swedish definiteness morphology is,
especially at the beginning, a notorious source of difficulty
for Finnish learners of L2 Swedish (e.g., Axelsson, 1994;
Nyqvist, 2013). Definiteness morphology is also difficult
to interpret from the input and is resistant to grammar
instruction (DeKeyser, 2005: p. 5), and the difficulties
are present in every NP the learner produces since every
noun must be coded for definiteness. According to
DeKeyser (2005: pp. 6–7), the role of morphology should
be strengthened in instruction, for example, by directing
the attention of the L2 learners to the morphology when
analysing the input, as the learners could otherwise easily
ignore it. This happens especially when the L2 includes
grammatical categories that the L1 lacks (DeKeyser, 2005:
p. 7; see also Filipović & Hawkins, 2013: p. 168), which
is the case for Finnish learners of L2 Swedish as far as
definiteness morphology is concerned (see also Jarvis &
Odlin, 2000; Odlin, 2003).
Formal difficulty has often been seen as the most
typical form of complexity, i.e., the number of choices
a learner is obliged to make when picking the accurate
morphemes/allomorphs in an utterance. This problem
is especially obvious when the target language has a rich
inflectional system (DeKeyser, 2005: p. 6). The inflection
of nouns in Swedish is less complex than in many other
languages, but the structure of Swedish NPs is still rather
complex (Philipsson, 2004: p. 125): the nouns are either
non-neuter or neuter and the plural ending has seven
Nyqvist: Mastering complex Swedish NPs16
different allomorphs (Teleman et al., 1999a: pp. 58, 63).
Moreover, both articles and definiteness endings inflect
for grammatical gender, and the definiteness endings also
inflect for number (Teleman et al., 1999a: pp. 96–102).
A typical trait of Swedish nouns is that the indefinite
singular nouns have an indefinite article similar to, e.g.,
English or German (e.g., en katt, “a cat”), but the definite
form has an ending that is sometimes called the denite
end article (in plurals, it is added to the plural ending, see
example 2 below; Teleman et al., 1999a: pp. 101–102).
Hence the definiteness of the Swedish NPs can be called
“asymmetric and obscure” (Philipsson, 2004: p. 126, my
translation).
If a noun in the definite form is preceded by an adjective
attribute, the NP also includes a separate definite front
article that inflects for grammatical gender and number
(Teleman et al., 1999a: p. 302). As shown in (1) below, the
adjective attribute also has a definite ending (Teleman et
al., 1999a: p. 96):
1. den stor-a katt-en
art.sg.nn.def big-def cat-sg.nn.def
‘the big cat’
The plurals are especially complex, as the nouns include
both the plural ending and the definiteness ending:
2. de stor-a katt-er-na
art.pl.def big-def cat-pl.nn.def
‘the big cats’
This NP type is commonly called double deniteness,
but it actually uses three morphemes to convey one
definite meaning and thus includes a lot of redundancy.
One meaning is expressed with several grammatical
morphemes that are not all semantically necessary
(DeKeyser, 2005: p. 8), which an L2 learner is obliged
to take into account. If the redundant element is also
novel or abstract, the learning task becomes even more
difficult (DeKeyser, 2005: p. 6). As Lahtinen (1993: p. 181)
puts it, double definiteness offers an L2 learner many
opportunities to make the wrong choice. The definite
front article can be optional in certain NPs with double
definiteness if the adjective attribute has a superlative
form or is replaced by an ordinal number, such as in
minsta barnet or sista tåget (“the youngest/smallest
child”, “the last train”, Teleman et al., 1999b: p. 77). The
definiteness ending can be omitted in determinative use,
i.e., if the NP is followed by a relative clause, e.g., den
intressanta bok som vi läste… (“the interesting book that
we read…” Teleman et al., 1999a). These traits make double
definiteness even more confusing for the L2 learner, but
they will not be treated more thoroughly, as the actual test
does not deal with these aspects of definiteness marking.
DeKeyser (2005: p. 8) defines redundancy as a type of
difficulty concerning the relationship between form and
meaning, but it could also be a purely formal phenomenon:
double definiteness includes a lot of redundancy at a
formal level, as the definiteness is marked three times
in an NP, but it occurs only in the definite meaning, and
the relationship between form and meaning is a simple
one. Furthermore, redundancy is present in Swedish
NPs where definiteness is lexically expressed: the PRG
attributes determine the form of the noun. For example,
the phrase below includes two morphemes (three, if
the optional adjective attribute is included) expressing
definite meaning: the definite pronoun den här (“this”),
the definite form of the noun and the possible adjective
attribute (Teleman et al., 1999a: pp. 220, 318):
3. den här (glad-a) hund-en
dem.sg.nn (happy-def) dog-sg.nn.def
‘this (happy) dog’
The third type, i.e., the difficulty in the relationship
between form and meaning, is independent from the first
two types. Both form and meaning can be simple per se,
but if the relationship between them is complex, learning
problems occur. The possessive attributes in Swedish are
formally simple words with concrete meanings that also
have equivalents in Finnish. NPs with possessive attributes
are formed following a simple rule that does not include
exceptions. Possessive attributes are always constructed
using a noun in the indefinite form, although they always
have a definite meaning (Teleman et al., 1999b: p. 25),
and hence the correlation between form and meaning is
low, i.e., problematic (DeKeyser, 2005: p. 7). This does not
occur solely in NPs with possessive and genitive attributes
but also with some definite pronominal attributes,
notably denna (“this”) and samma (“same”), which are
also constructed using an indefinite noun (Teleman et
al., 1999a: pp. 307, 439). If these NPs also include an
adjective attribute, it adds to the complexity of the NP,
as the adjective also has a definite form (Teleman et al.,
1999a: p. 220):
4. Min/Johns (glad-a) hund
1poss.nn.sg/John-gen (happy-def) dog-sg.nn.indef
‘my/John’s (happy) dog’
5. denna (glad-a) hund
1dem.nn.sg (happy-def) dog-sg.nn.indef
‘this (happy) dog’
Another type of complex relationship is a situation where
different forms have the same meaning (DeKeyser, 2005:
p. 8). This is the case with the demonstrative pronouns
denna and den här (both meaning “this”; see examples 3
and 5 above). These pronouns, moreover, are constructed
using different noun forms; denna uses the indefinite
form (Teleman et al., 1999a: pp. 220, 307) and den här uses
the definite one (Teleman et al., 1999a: p. 318). NPs with
denna are formally simple because they do not include
redundancy: the definiteness is expressed by only one
grammatical element, the PRG attribute. The relationship
between form and meaning, on the other hand, is rather
problematic: the definite meaning is expressed using a
noun in the indefinite form. However, in den här glada
hunden (see above), form and meaning go hand in hand,
so these NPs may appear less complex as far as the
Nyqvist: Mastering complex Swedish NPs 17
relationship between form and meaning is concerned.
However, they are structurally more complex, as definite
meaning is expressed using both the demonstrative
pronoun and the definiteness ending of the noun.
Frequency (an aspect of feature-related difculty in the
taxonomy by Housen & Simoens, 2016: p. 164) plays an
important role in the relationship between form and
meaning. If the relationship is straightforward, the structure
does not need to be particularly frequent to be rapidly
acquired, but if the relationship is complex, not even high
frequency can facilitate the learning. If the relationship
is something between complex and straightforward, the
frequency might play a decisive role (DeKeyser, 2005: pp.
10–11). In previous studies with spontaneous data (e.g.,
Nyqvist, 2013, 2018, in press), the possessive attributes
have been frequent, the genitive attributes somewhat
less frequent and the definite attributes infrequent.
Hence, it is also probable that the frequencies play a part
in the accuracy in this study; e.g., possessive and genitive
attributes are easier than the less frequent attributes,
which was actually the case in Nyqvist (unpublished ms).
3 Previous research
In the following the most relevant previous research
on complex Swedish NPs is summarised. Research on
the acquisition of definiteness in L2 Swedish has been
manifold (for an overview, see Nyqvist, 2013 [in Swedish];
Nyqvist, 2016 [in English]; 2018 [in English]), but most
studies are based on spontaneous data and are thus highly
likely to yield different results than tests. Moreover, these
studies have not focused on complex NPs. Hence, in the
following I will concentrate on studies with informants
that most resemble the ones in this study.
At present, Nyqvist (2013) is the one of the most
extensive longitudinal studies on the acquisition of
definiteness and article use by Finnish-speaking non-
immersion L2 learners of Swedish (spontaneous written
and oral material from pupils in comprehensive school,
grades 7–9), but it included only sporadic NPs with double
definiteness with low accuracy scores (29% in singular
and 0% in plural). Even the NPs with PRG attributes were
too sparse for a proper analysis.
Double definiteness and most types of NPs with PRG
attributes were also sparse in spontaneous written data
by 12- and 15-year-old immersion pupils (Nyqvist, 2018,
in press). Furthermore, the accuracy scores were lower in
the ninth grade (60% in singulars, 45% in plurals) than in
the sixth grade (71% in singulars, 54% in plurals), which
might depend on the inherent difficulty of the studied
structures, but also on the fact that immersion students
receive less instruction in Swedish in grades 7–9 than in
grade 6. In PRG attributes, accuracy scores were at the
same level in possessive and genitive attributes (over 90%
in both grades and both types of PRG attributes), as well
as in the definite attributes constructed using definite
nouns (accuracy score of over 80% in both grades); NPs
with both a PRG and an adjective attribute were too low
frequency to be analysed. Conversely, definite attributes
constructed using nouns in the definite form were
mastered significantly better in both grades than the ones
constructed using nouns in the indefinite form. However,
even these NP types were too low frequency to be analysed
at the individual level. As the data in Nyqvist (2013, 2018,
in press) was insufficient and differed fundamentally from
the data used in the present study, one can only state
that the informants seem to have problems with double
definiteness, and it is therefore necessary to study them
further with another kind of data.
In Nyqvist (unpublished ms), an analysis was carried out
of the results of Finnish-speaking immersion pupils in the
sixth and ninth grades (n = 77 and n = 86, respectively)
who completed the same grammaticality judgement test
as the informants of the current study. The analyses at both
the group and individual levels showed that the formally
complex NPs had higher accuracy scores than those with a
complex relationship between form and meaning in both
grades. The frequency of the NP type played a central part;
the frequent NPs were mastered at a higher level than the
less frequent ones. There were still some informants in both
grades who did not reach the 75% level of accuracy in any
of the studied NPs, which showed how difficult the studied
NP types were. From within this context, the current paper
considers the following research questions and hypotheses:
1. RQ1: In what order are the studied structures mas-
tered in the L2 Swedish of the non-immersion group?
How can this be explained?
• H1: The orders are similar to the ones discovered in
the analysis of immersion students: double definite-
ness in the singular is mastered before the plural, and
the more frequent PRG attributes are mastered be-
fore the less frequent ones (Nyqvist, unpublished ms).
2. RQ2: What kind of complexity is most difficult for the
non-immersion group?
• H2: As the differences between more and less ad-
vanced L2 learners are quantitative rather than
qualitative (Hyltenstam, 1988, 1992), it is likely that
even in this study, double definiteness, i.e., formal
complexity, is acquired earlier than most NPs with
PRG attributes, where the complexity occurs in
the relationship between form and meaning (as in
Nyqvist, unpublished ms).
3. RQ3: What kinds of differences are there between the
non-immersion and the immersion students?
• H3: 75% use is more common in immersion than
in non-immersion instruction, as previous compara-
tive studies (Nyqvist, 2018, in press) have shown
that immersion students have higher accuracy than
non-immersion students. However, it is important
to note that these previous studies have focused on
spontaneous material.
4 Methodology
4.1 Participants
The informants were 16-year-old non-immersion pupils in
an upper secondary school in Southwest Finland (n = 44).
They had received instruction in around 450 lessons in
Swedish in a comprehensive school since the age of 11,
commonly called syllabus A2 Swedish (see FNBE, 2014:
p. 42; Government Decree 422/2012), so they have been
Nyqvist: Mastering complex Swedish NPs18
learning Swedish at school for six years. According to the
National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (FNBE, 2004),
the pupils have to reach CEFR level A2 in writing and
speaking to be able to reach a score of “good” at the end of
comprehensive school (FNBE, 2004: p. 122). This is likely
to be their level also after the first year in upper secondary
school, as “good” on the test in Swedish in the Matriculation
Examination (i.e., the national final exam of the upper
secondary school in Finland) corresponds approximately
to a level no higher than a “low B1” (Juurakko-Paavola
& Takala, 2013: p. 28). During the first year in the upper
secondary school, they had taken three of six obligatory
courses1 in Swedish (FNBE, 2015: p. 89–90, 234).
The informants were compared to 15-year-old Finnish
immersion pupils (n = 86) from all regions providing
immersion in Finland (Ostrobothnia, Southwest Finland,
and Uusimaa region) who began to learn Swedish at day
care and have received 50% of all their instruction in
the comprehensive school system in Swedish (Bergroth
& Björklund, 2013: p. 109). The starting age varies in
different communes (for an overview, see Bergroth, 2007:
p. 18), but all immersion students in this study have
learned Swedish for more than nine years. The standards
set for competence in the immersion language vary in
different communes, but they are essentially higher than
in the non-immersion instruction context: pupils have
to reach B-level on the CEFR scale in order to reach the
level of “good” at the end of immersion (i.e., in the ninth
grade).2 All informants had started learning English at the
age of nine, the non-immersion pupils as their L2 and the
immersion students as their L3 (FNBE, 2014: p. 42).
As SLA in immersion settings occurs mainly via
communication (e.g., Baker, 2011), one can assume that
the non-immersion students have received more formal
instruction than the immersion students, although the
role of explicit grammar instruction has also decreased
in non-immersion settings in Finland (Jaakkola, 2000:
p. 151). According to Axelsson (1994: p. 99), double
definiteness is a structure that L2 learners may never
master completely in formal instruction. This implies that
these NPs would be easier for immersion students who
have acquired Swedish via communication and have been
exposed to fundamentally more input. The test used in this
study, on the other hand, might favour informants who
have received formal instruction. Hence, it is interesting
to compare these two informant groups.
This study is part of a larger project in which the
grammatical competence (in Swedish) of immersion
students in the sixth and ninth grades is compared to that
of first-year students in upper secondary schools. Data in
the project consist of both spontaneous writing (narratives
of 150–200 words) and diverse grammar tests eliciting low
frequency structures. Immersion students are compared
to students one year older because writing longer texts is
not part of traditional Swedish instruction in the Finnish
comprehensive school, whereas it is a regular activity in
the upper secondary school.
The project as a whole emphasises the grammatical
competence of immersion students, that has not
previously gained much attention in Finland (e.g.,
Bergroth & Björklund, 2013), and the non-immersion
group acts as a control group. The aim of this study,
however, is to compare the results of the non-immersion
students to the results of the ninth-graders in immersion
schools, which were previously presented in Nyqvist
(unpublished ms). This means that the roles in the data
have been changed: the group usually acting as a control
group has temporarily become the principal informant
group. Hence, the population of non-immersion students
is smaller than that of the control group, although the
situation in most studies is the opposite.
4.2 Test
As the studied structures tend to be low frequency in
spontaneous data (Axelsson, 1994; Nyqvist, 2018, in press,
2013), the study used a grammaticality judgement test,
i.e., elicited data, to make sure the studied NPs occurred
often enough. An advantage of using such a test for data
collection is that it becomes possible for the informant
to concentrate maximally on the formal aspects of the
language, but the results are not directly comparable to the
results of the spontaneous data. Various types of data usage
may dramatically affect the output of the informants (see
Tarone, 1988: p. 12–13). In the current test, for example,
the informants did not need to formulate the NPs, but only
needed to choose between two given alternatives. Hence,
they did not need to consider grammatical gender or
accurate plural endings of the nouns. All nouns in the test
were also high frequency. The test could not be made too
long, therefore it covers only a small assortment of different
PRG attributes. The informants were expected to choose
the right form of the noun, as the problems concerning
the choice of the noun form is common for both NPs with
double definiteness and for those with a PRG attribute.
The test consists of 28 NPs, and 12 of them concern
double definiteness in the singular (non-neuter and neuter
nouns) and the plural (non-neuter nouns). The remaining
16 NPs include 4 different types of PRG attributes in
total: 4 NPs with possessive attributes and 4 with genitive
attributes (these NPs also include adjective attributes).
These manifest a complex relationship between the form
and the meaning (definite meaning, but constructed using
an indefinite noun), but are frequent in the language use.
On the other hand, the test includes 4 NPs with
the demonstrative pronoun denna and 4 with the
demonstrative pronoun den här. Both pronouns mean
“this”, but denna has a complex relationship between form
and meaning similar to that of NPs with either possessive
or genitive attributes, whereas den här occurs only in
formally complex NPs. As far as style is concerned, denna
can also be classified as a literary pronoun, whereas den
här occurs in both spoken and written language. Hence,
denna is also less frequent in the input.
4.3 Analysis: Implicational scaling
The method of analysis used in this study is implicational
scaling, which is a way to analyse the data at the individual
level. Implicational scaling shows whether the mastery of
something (e.g., double definiteness in the plural) implies
the mastery of something else (e.g., double definiteness in
Nyqvist: Mastering complex Swedish NPs 19
the singular). If this is the case, it can be concluded that
the singular has been mastered before the plural and an
acquisition order can be established. The mastery of the
studied NP types has been operationalised as accurate use
at the 75% criterion (henceforth 75% use). If an informant
chooses the right form in 75% (i.e., three of four) of
instances of a specific NP type, they are assumed to have
mastered it.
5 Results
The results from the analysis are presented in this section.
In the scales below, the studied NP types are horizontally
ordered from the easiest to the most difficult, with the NP
with the most informants using it at the 75% criterion
standing farthest to the left. The learners are vertically
ordered according to how many constructions they
complete. Due to the large number of informants, the
rows in the tables represent groups of informants. The
column “in total” shows how many informants there are
in the actual group.
Accurate use at the 75% criterion is marked in Tables 1
and 2 with plusses (+) and accuracy below 75% is marked
with minuses (−). The exclamation marks (!) stand for
deviations from the ideal implicational scales. The three
informants in Group 3 (Table 1), for example, fulfil the
criterion in plurals but not in neuter singulars, although
the 75% use of neuter singulars is more common in the
data than that of plurals (34 informants vs. 26). Due to the
deviations, the statistical validity of the scales has been
established by calculating the coefcient for reproducibility
and the coefcient of scalability (Crep and Cscal in the tables
below, the limiting values being 0.9 and 0.6, respectively;
Hatch & Lazaraton, 1991: pp. 210, 212). Note that the
tables below include only the results from the non-
immersion group. For the tables from the immersion
group, see the appendix.
5.1 Double deniteness
Focusing first on double definiteness, the scale was valid,
thus an acquisition order can be established: non-neuter
singulars > neuter singulars > plurals as shown in Table 1.
This is not surprising. Double definiteness is even more
complex in the plural than in the singular because the
noun has two endings, and this tendency can be seen
even in the few occurrences of double definiteness
in spontaneous data (Nyqvist, 2018, in press). Hence,
hypothesis 1 holds that the acquisition order was identical
to that of the immersion pupils. The difference between
the 75% use of non-neuter and neuter nouns can be
explained by the fact that the non-neuter nouns are more
frequent in the language (Teleman et al., 1999a: p. 59).
The difference between non-neuter and neuter nouns was
insignificant (p = 0.08), but the plural was 75% accurately
used by significantly fewer informants than non-neuter
singular forms in the non-immersion group (p = 0.001;
p = 0.000 in the immersion group).
Accurate use at the 75% criterion of the different forms
is a little more common in the non-immersion group
than in the control group with immersion students: 52%
of the informants use all forms with 75% accuracy (44%
in the immersion group), and 75% of the informants
use singulars with 75% accuracy (76% in the immersion
group). Hence hypothesis 3 is falsified in the case of
double definiteness. Up to 91% of the informants use
non-neuter singulars, 77% use neuter singulars, and 59%
use plurals with 75% accuracy when the corresponding
percentages in the immersion group are 88%, 83%, and
55%. All differences between the two informant groups
are insignificant, however. Three informants in the non-
immersion group (two in the immersion group) did not
use any of the studied forms 75% accurately at the end of
immersion.
5.2 PRG attributes
Moving on to PRG attributes, the scale was valid, and an
acquisition order identical to the one in the immersion
group was den här > genitive attribute with an adjective >
possessive attribute with an adjective > denna, as shown
in Table 2. Hence, hypothesis 1 also holds here. The
formally complex but “logical” den här was mastered first,
and then came genitive and possessive attributes that
have a complex relationship between form and meaning,
but that are rather common in the input, which means
that even hypothesis 2 holds true: formal complexity was
less problematic than the complexity in the relationship
between form and meaning.
Accurate use at the 75% criterion for most of these
attributes was very common: den här was used with 75%
Table 1: Accurate use at the 75% criterion of double definiteness in the non-immersion group.
Group non-
neuter sg
neuter sg pl in total % deviations
1 + + + 23 52% 0
2+ + −10 23% 0
3+− +! 3 7% 3
4+− − 4 9% 0
5− +! − 1 2% 1
6− − − 3 7% 0
40 34 26 44 100% 4
Crep 0.97, Cscal 0.92.
Nyqvist: Mastering complex Swedish NPs20
accuracy by 81% of the informants, genitive attributes by
77%, and the possessive ones by 73% of the informants
in the non-immersion group. With the exception of the
possessive attributes, the percentages were higher in the
immersion group (85%, 80%, and 70%, respectively), but
the differences were statistically insignificant. Hence,
hypothesis 3 holds true to some extent for the PRG
attributes. A common trait in both groups is that denna is
used with 75% accuracy by a minority of informants (25%
in the non-immersion group and 37% in the immersion
group). It is significantly more difficult than the other
studied PRG attributes (p = 0.000 in all cases in both
informant groups), as it is both low frequency and has a
complex relationship between form and meaning.
Only three informants accurately used all studied
attributes 75% of the time (20 in the immersion group). In
other words, the number of informants using all studied
PRG attributes with 75% accuracy is significantly higher
in the immersion group than in the non-immersion group
(p = 0.015). The majority (45%) of non-immersion students
(37% of immersion students), however, accurately used
the three easiest ones 75% of the time, but the difference
between these groups is not statistically significant.
When accuracy at the 75% criterion of double
definiteness and that of the studied PRG attributes
were compared, one could see that accurate use at the
75% criterion was most common in NPs with double
definiteness in the singular and in those with the
demonstrative pronoun den här. An accuracy of 75% was
likewise common in NPs with both genitive/possessive
and adjective attributes, whereas accurate use at the 75%
criterion of double definiteness in the plural and denna was
considerably less common. Denna was used significantly
less often at 75% accuracy than all other studied NP types
(p = 0.000 in all cases, except double definiteness in the
plural, where p = 0.005), whereas double definiteness in
the plural was used with 75% accuracy significantly less
often than double definiteness in the singular and den
här (p = 0.000 in both). It is also important to remember
that NPs with possessive and genitive attributes also
include adjective attributes, augmenting their (formal)
complexity: the higher frequencies might explain why
possessive and genitive attributes are still mastered to a
greater extent than denna. The same phenomena were
repeated in the immersion group.
In other words, the NP types used most often with 75%
accuracy by informants are the ones where the complexity
is purely formal. Frequency, on the other hand, also
played a part because genitive and possessive attributes
were accurately used 75% of the time more often than
denna, although the relationship between form and
meaning was similarly complex in both. The low level
of 75% use in double definiteness in the plural possibly
depended on the especially high level of complexity (i.e.,
the noun has two endings) and the low frequency of the
NP type in the input.
6 Discussion and conclusion
The aim of this study was to explore the extent to which
certain complex NP types of Swedish are mastered by
16-year-old non-immersion learners of L2 Swedish (n = 44)
when compared to the results of 15-year-old immersion
students (n = 86) in a grammaticality judgement test
concentrating on certain NP types that are either formally
complex or those in which the complexity lies in the
relationship between the form and the meaning.
Previous statistical comparisons of grammatical
competence (with spontaneous data) between immersion
and non-immersion students have shown that immersion
students usually master definiteness in Swedish NPs at a
significantly higher level of accuracy. The findings of this
study are, to some extent, along the same lines: immersion
Table 2: Accurate use at the 75% criterion of the studied PRG attributes in the non-immersion group.
Group den här gen+adj poss+adj denna in total % deviations
1 + + + + 3 7% 0
2+ + + −20 45% 0
3+ + − +! 2 4.5% 2
4+ + − − 410 % 0
5+− +! +! 2 4.5% 4
6+− − +! 1 2% 1
7+− +! − 2 4.5% 2
8+− − − 2 4.5% 0
9− +! +! +! 2 4.5% 0
10 − +! +! − 1 2% 2
11 − − +! − 2 4.5% 2
12 − +! − − 2 4.5% 2
13 − − − +! 1 2% 0
36 34 32 11 44 100% 15
Crep 0.91, Cscal 0.84.
Nyqvist: Mastering complex Swedish NPs 21
students do master all the NPs with PRG attributes to a
larger extent, but the non-immersion students, on the
other hand, perform better in double definiteness. Most
of these differences, however, lack statistical significance.
The only exception is the percentage of informants
fulfilling the 75% criterion in all studied types of PRG
attributes, which is significantly higher in immersion
than in non-immersion. Hence, the learning context (i.e.,
non-immersion vs. immersion) appears to play a relatively
small part in the current data.
The studied NP types are mastered in an identical order
in both groups, and this can be explained by the feature-
related factors of difficulty, notably their complexity.
Double definiteness in the singular and NPs with den här,
i.e., two types of formally complex NPs, were mastered
first. NPs with genitive and possessive attributes, where
the complexity lies in a complex relationship between
form and meaning, were also mastered by the majority of
informants in both groups, seemingly due to their high
frequency in the language. Double definiteness in the
plural and NPs with the definite attribute denna were, by
contrast, mastered by significantly fewer informants: both
are low frequency in the language, and the most difficult
of the studied NPs has a complex relationship between
form and meaning. The same order was manifested in
spontaneous data.
Hence one can assume that formal complexity might
be a smaller problem for the informants (in both non-
immersion and immersion settings) than the complexity
of the relationship between form and meaning – a
phenomenon often mentioned by Swedish teachers
during this project. According to them, the learners of
L2 Swedish often comment on the “lack of logic” they
perceive in many Swedish PRG attributes. Frequency, on
the other hand, plays an important part: high frequency
NPs are mastered by most informants, although the
relationship between form and meaning is complex. With
the exception of denna, informants in both groups master
the studied NPs in the test at an essentially higher level
than in spontaneous data.
It should be noted, however, that the current study has its
limitations, such as the population of the non-immersion
students is rather small and all of the informants are from
the same upper secondary school. Also, the test as an
elicitation method concentrates on the studied structures
but it does not reveal anything of the informants’ practical
knowledge of the language, although it is the main
aim of the language instruction. Furthermore, the test
concentrates on only a few PRG attributes: it is possible
that, for example, the rather frequent PRG attribute
samma (“same”) might lead to different results than denna
which was used in the test.
To conclude, it would be beneficial to study these NPs
in spontaneous data in the future by eliciting sufficiently
obligatory occurrences for these structures in both
immersion and non-immersion students and with bigger
informant populations. This way, it would be possible
to unravel whether the current findings, suggesting a
difficulty hierarchy for different types of complexity, can
be generalised to larger populations.
Notes
1 38 lessons excluding homework (FNBE, 2015: p. 234).
2 There are no upper secondary schools providing
immersion in Finland (Bergroth, 2015: pp. 44, 51).
Additional File
The additional file for this article can be found as follows:
• Appendix. Implication scales for the immersion
students (Nyqvist, unpublished ms). DOI: https://doi.
org/10.22599/jesla.33.s1
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the teachers and the students of the
studied schools and the parents of the students for their
collaboration.
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How to cite this article: Nyqvist, E.-L. (2018). Mastering complex Swedish NPs: A comparison of non-immersion pupils and
immersion L1 Finnish pupils.
Journal of the European Second Language Association
, 2(1), 14–23, DOI: https://doi.
org/10.22599/jesla.33
Submitted: 19 December 2017 Accepted: 10 July 2018 Published: 31 August 2018
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