What question did this study set out to answer?

To test the ghost construction hypothesis by evaluating whether obligatory first-language (L1) evidential categories persist as functional patterns in second-language (L2) English hedging.

August 19, 2026Cankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social SciencesOpen Access

Ghosts of L1 Evidentiality: Constructional Transfer in L2 English Hedging

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FBFatih Ünal Bozdağ

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Overview

Corpus analysis reveals that native language evidential structures transfer into second-language English hedging at the constructional level, suggesting subtle cross-linguistic persistence.

Key Points

To test the ghost construction hypothesis by evaluating whether obligatory first-language (L1) evidential categories persist as functional patterns in second-language (L2) English hedging.
Analyzed 1,011 English argumentative essays totaling 752,967 words from ICLE and LOCNESS written by Turkish, Bulgarian, Spanish, and native English writers.
Extracted hedging devices using a hybrid rule-based and LLM-assisted pipeline mapped onto Aikhenvald’s evidential typology.
Modeled categorical, constructional, and propositional variations using a hierarchical Bayesian framework with L1 and text as random effects, controlling for lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and exposure.
Evidential distributions were similar across all groups at the categorical layer, rendering eight directional L1-derived predictions null or reversed.
Turkish and Bulgarian writers allocated approximately 4% of reportative hedges to named attribution compared to approximately 22% for Spanish and native writers at the constructional layer.
An L2–native distancing gap persisted at the propositional layer after covariate adjustment for lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and L2 exposure.

Cite This Study

Fatih Ünal Bozdağ (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a85634f03308d306e2d670c https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.1902350

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August 19, 2026Cankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social SciencesOpen Access

Ghosts of L1 Evidentiality: Constructional Transfer in L2 English Hedging

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark

Authors

FBFatih Ünal Bozdağ

Discussion

Member takes

Overview

Corpus analysis reveals that native language evidential structures transfer into second-language English hedging at the constructional level, suggesting subtle cross-linguistic persistence.

Key Points

To test the ghost construction hypothesis by evaluating whether obligatory first-language (L1) evidential categories persist as functional patterns in second-language (L2) English hedging.
Analyzed 1,011 English argumentative essays totaling 752,967 words from ICLE and LOCNESS written by Turkish, Bulgarian, Spanish, and native English writers.
Extracted hedging devices using a hybrid rule-based and LLM-assisted pipeline mapped onto Aikhenvald’s evidential typology.
Modeled categorical, constructional, and propositional variations using a hierarchical Bayesian framework with L1 and text as random effects, controlling for lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and exposure.
Evidential distributions were similar across all groups at the categorical layer, rendering eight directional L1-derived predictions null or reversed.
Turkish and Bulgarian writers allocated approximately 4% of reportative hedges to named attribution compared to approximately 22% for Spanish and native writers at the constructional layer.
An L2–native distancing gap persisted at the propositional layer after covariate adjustment for lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and L2 exposure.

Cite This Study

Fatih Ünal Bozdağ (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a85634f03308d306e2d670c https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.1902350

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