Chapter 4. The acquisition of object drop in L2 Spanish by German speakers
-
Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes
Abstract
This study investigates the use of null objects in adult L1 German-L2 Spanish speakers. Spanish null objects are licensed under two conditions: (i) semantically, null objects must be [-definite, -specific] (Franco, 1993; Sánchez, 2004), and (ii) syntactically, null objects cannot be generated within an island or Phase Impenetrability in recent minimalist conceptions (Chomsky, 2001), as they involve A’-movement (triggered by [+ Top] feature). Object topic drop in German, on the other hand, does not exhibit the same semantic restrictions as Spanish (Müller & Hulk, 2001). Using a production task, the predictions of two competing models of L2 acquisition are tested. While the Interpretability Hypothesis (e.g., Hawkins & Hattori, 2006; Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007) claims that interpretable features can be fully acquired by adult L2ers, uninterpretable features not instantiated in the L1 are no longer available to adult learners, the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2009) proposes that L2 speakers transfer features that share the same morpholexical expressions in the L1 and L2, and when they do not, learners must (re)assemble them into new configurations. Unlike the IH, FRH does not predict special difficulties with uninterpretable features. The results from the native speaker group show that they respect the semantic constraints in great measure, but show some variability with the syntactic restrictions by producing (unpredicted) null objects under some of the islands tested. Moreover, the results from the L2ers show sensitivity to the semantic constraint, although it is not as categorical as in the native group. Similarly, L2ers show sensitivity to the syntactic constraints in that they generally prefer explicit objects when these are generated inside islands, but it varies by island (not in the same way as in the NS group) and by speaker (group). In light of our results, we conclude that the results are more in line with the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis. Ultimately, these results show that adult L2ers are able to make distinctions which would not be expected if second language acquisition were fundamentally different from L1 acquisition and UG were inoperative in this population.
Abstract
This study investigates the use of null objects in adult L1 German-L2 Spanish speakers. Spanish null objects are licensed under two conditions: (i) semantically, null objects must be [-definite, -specific] (Franco, 1993; Sánchez, 2004), and (ii) syntactically, null objects cannot be generated within an island or Phase Impenetrability in recent minimalist conceptions (Chomsky, 2001), as they involve A’-movement (triggered by [+ Top] feature). Object topic drop in German, on the other hand, does not exhibit the same semantic restrictions as Spanish (Müller & Hulk, 2001). Using a production task, the predictions of two competing models of L2 acquisition are tested. While the Interpretability Hypothesis (e.g., Hawkins & Hattori, 2006; Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007) claims that interpretable features can be fully acquired by adult L2ers, uninterpretable features not instantiated in the L1 are no longer available to adult learners, the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2009) proposes that L2 speakers transfer features that share the same morpholexical expressions in the L1 and L2, and when they do not, learners must (re)assemble them into new configurations. Unlike the IH, FRH does not predict special difficulties with uninterpretable features. The results from the native speaker group show that they respect the semantic constraints in great measure, but show some variability with the syntactic restrictions by producing (unpredicted) null objects under some of the islands tested. Moreover, the results from the L2ers show sensitivity to the semantic constraint, although it is not as categorical as in the native group. Similarly, L2ers show sensitivity to the syntactic constraints in that they generally prefer explicit objects when these are generated inside islands, but it varies by island (not in the same way as in the NS group) and by speaker (group). In light of our results, we conclude that the results are more in line with the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis. Ultimately, these results show that adult L2ers are able to make distinctions which would not be expected if second language acquisition were fundamentally different from L1 acquisition and UG were inoperative in this population.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
-
Section 1. The acquisition of pronouns
- Chapter 1. Anaphora resolution in L2 European Portuguese 12
- Chapter 2. Aspects of morphosyntax of Majorcan Catalan-Spanish bilingual variety 34
-
Section 2. The acquisition of or empty categories
- Chapter 3. The acquisition of generic null subjects under the Borer-Chomsky conjecture 58
- Chapter 4. The acquisition of object drop in L2 Spanish by German speakers 86
- Chapter 5. Parameter setting in multilingual children with special reference to acceleration in French 114
-
Section 3. The development of locality
- Chapter 6. Relative clauses and intervention effects 146
- Chapter 7. On the production of subject and object relative clauses by child speakers of heritage Romanian in France 168
-
Section 4. The development of quantifiers
- Chapter 8. “Nobody” isn’t in time 198
- Chapter 9. Quantifier comprehension in Brazilian Portuguese and the extra-object visual effect 212
-
Section 5. Language impairment
- Chapter 10. On the production and omission of dative and accusative clitics in Italian children with learning difficulties 232
- Chapter 11. The narrative abilities of Spanish monolinguals and Spanish–Catalan bilinguals with Prader–Willi syndrome 253
- Chapter 12. Code-switching and code-mixing in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with and without Developmental Language Disorder 283
- Index 307
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
-
Section 1. The acquisition of pronouns
- Chapter 1. Anaphora resolution in L2 European Portuguese 12
- Chapter 2. Aspects of morphosyntax of Majorcan Catalan-Spanish bilingual variety 34
-
Section 2. The acquisition of or empty categories
- Chapter 3. The acquisition of generic null subjects under the Borer-Chomsky conjecture 58
- Chapter 4. The acquisition of object drop in L2 Spanish by German speakers 86
- Chapter 5. Parameter setting in multilingual children with special reference to acceleration in French 114
-
Section 3. The development of locality
- Chapter 6. Relative clauses and intervention effects 146
- Chapter 7. On the production of subject and object relative clauses by child speakers of heritage Romanian in France 168
-
Section 4. The development of quantifiers
- Chapter 8. “Nobody” isn’t in time 198
- Chapter 9. Quantifier comprehension in Brazilian Portuguese and the extra-object visual effect 212
-
Section 5. Language impairment
- Chapter 10. On the production and omission of dative and accusative clitics in Italian children with learning difficulties 232
- Chapter 11. The narrative abilities of Spanish monolinguals and Spanish–Catalan bilinguals with Prader–Willi syndrome 253
- Chapter 12. Code-switching and code-mixing in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with and without Developmental Language Disorder 283
- Index 307
