¿ Challenges in learning the form and meaning of the suffixes -mente and -miento/-mento by Spanish L2 learners: a corpus-based study

Abstract

This corpus-based study addresses the most frequent difficulties that Spanish L2 learners show in the acquisition of meaning and of the frequent suffixes -mente and -miento/-mento. In the Corpus de Aprendices de Español (CAES), derived words with these suffixes were searched. Meaning-based and formal errors were coded to show whether learners were using whole word memorization or whether they were decomposing words. Meaning-based errors were limited and related to specific words. Syntactic errors were also scarce. Orthographic and morphological errors were the most frequent. According to Jiang’s (2000) model, learners seem to make connections between the L2 word form and the L1 meaning. After this phase, learners start decomposing the word, which is reflected in their orthographic and morphological errors. These errors point out that the suffix is stored in the L2 lexicon. Based on the examples analyzed, some prototypical words are recommended for awareness raising activities so that Spanish L2 learners recognize suffix’ characteristics and their learning challenges.