Volume 40, Issue 2

Optimality theory has adequately proved its fertility in different areas of linguistic studies, so also in the formation of phonological theory. The aim of the present study is to examine the pronunciation problems derived from the systematic comparison between the syllable structures of German and Persian within an optimality-theoretic framework. Here, the essential characteristics of the syllable structure of German and Persian are investigated in relation to the three sub-domains of the syllable, i. e. onset, nucleus and coda. The results of the study show that native speakers of Persian use two strategies, namely epenthesis and segmentation, so that the syllable structure of German is integrated into the Persian system. Despite differences between the syllable structures of the two systems, which are shaped by their different prosodic structures, it is observed in some cases that Persian speakers learning German produce the standard features of pronunciation of the words tested in this experiment without any modification of syllable structure. Optimality theory as a constraint-based approach is a potentially powerful theoretical tool to provide an explanation for Persian speakers’ tendency to apply one of these strategies due to the differences between Persian and German regarding the ranking of the constraints.

The present work deals with production difficulties associated with German word order rules and examines how word order and subject-verb agreement relate to one another in the interlanguage development of learners of German as a second language, paying particular attention to the perspective of the learner regarding their language production. It will be argued that the production difficulties with subject-verb inversion (INVERSION) and verb-final placement in subordinate clauses (V-FINAL) as well as the tendency in learners to produce SVO structures instead of INVERSION and V-FINAL, are consequences caused by a specific way of processing used by the leaner in trying to realize the subject-verb agreement that is typical of German. Over the course of the interlanguage development, the processing of word order, in turn, influences the processing of subject-verb agreement so that learners rarely produce subject-verb agreement errors in structures having SVO word order, while on the other hand, they occur frequently in structures that deviate from SVO word order. It is assumed that factors such as the acquisition context (natural/instructed), transfer from previously acquired languages and age-related, cognitive maturity play an important role in the acquisition of subject-verb agreement.