Effects of input frequency and microvariation on knowledge of negative inversion in L2 English

Abstract The present study investigates whether L2 learners of English distinguish between (un)grammatical word orders after fronted negative adverbials to identify negative inversion. Previous research on transfer and resetting of verb second (V2) in L1 German–L2 English is extended to explore residual V2 in the form of negative inversion. An acceptability judgment task elicited sentence ratings from advanced German-speaking learners of English for fronted negative adverbials with local and sentential scope. In addition, corpus frequency data of these negative adverbials were related to the learners’ ratings in order to investigate the potential role of input effects. Results suggest that linguistic constraints on microvariation with respect to fronting negative adverbials are broadly in place for learners at this proficiency level, as the scope of fronted negation has an effect on acceptability of negative inversion. Continued significant differences in acceptability judgements of advanced learners compared to native speakers indicate, however, that learners have not completely converged on the target pattern of microvariation. This is related to frequency and reliability of input.