Is the semantics/syntax interface vulnerable in l2 acquisition?
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Claudia Borgonovo
Abstract
We examine the L2 acquisition by English native speakers of the interpretation of DPs as signaled by mood in Spanish relative clauses. The choice of mood here depends on the specificity of the DP head, not on grammaticality. Modal contexts license non-specific interpretations of DPs and L2 learners only receive instruction on an extremely reduced subset of these. A truth-value judgment task and a sentence combination felicity task were administered to L2 learners and controls. Results show that advanced learners, but not intermediate ones, perform at near native levels, which provides evidence that interface phenomena, deemed difficult to acquire given their inherent complexity and the lack of direct evidence in the input, can in fact be acquired even in cases such as these, in which transfer is not at stake.
Abstract
We examine the L2 acquisition by English native speakers of the interpretation of DPs as signaled by mood in Spanish relative clauses. The choice of mood here depends on the specificity of the DP head, not on grammaticality. Modal contexts license non-specific interpretations of DPs and L2 learners only receive instruction on an extremely reduced subset of these. A truth-value judgment task and a sentence combination felicity task were administered to L2 learners and controls. Results show that advanced learners, but not intermediate ones, perform at near native levels, which provides evidence that interface phenomena, deemed difficult to acquire given their inherent complexity and the lack of direct evidence in the input, can in fact be acquired even in cases such as these, in which transfer is not at stake.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- The acquisition of syntax in Romance languages ix
- The production of SE and SELF anaphors in Spanish and Dutch children 3
- On the acquisition of ambiguous Valency-Marking Morphemes 23
- Definite and bare noun contrasts in child Catalan 51
- Null arguments in monolingual children 69
- Prenominal elements in French-Germanic bilingual first language acquisition 95
- A cross-sectional study on the use of “be” in early Italian 117
- Patterns of copula omission in Italian child language 135
- Looking for the universal core of the RI stage 159
- The acquisition of experiencers in Spanish L1 and the external argument requirement hypothesis 183
- Early operators and late topic-drop/pro-drop 203
- The acquisition of A- and A’-bound pronouns in Brazilian Portuguese 227
- Acquiring long-distance wh-questions in L1 Spanish 251
- Evidence from L1 acquisition for the syntax of wh -scope marking in French * 289
- Acquisition of focus marking in European Portuguese 319
- Subject pronouns in bilinguals 331
- Is the semantics/syntax interface vulnerable in l2 acquisition? 353
- The development of the syntax-information structure interface 371
- Beyond the syntax of the Null Subject Parameter 401
- Index 419
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- The acquisition of syntax in Romance languages ix
- The production of SE and SELF anaphors in Spanish and Dutch children 3
- On the acquisition of ambiguous Valency-Marking Morphemes 23
- Definite and bare noun contrasts in child Catalan 51
- Null arguments in monolingual children 69
- Prenominal elements in French-Germanic bilingual first language acquisition 95
- A cross-sectional study on the use of “be” in early Italian 117
- Patterns of copula omission in Italian child language 135
- Looking for the universal core of the RI stage 159
- The acquisition of experiencers in Spanish L1 and the external argument requirement hypothesis 183
- Early operators and late topic-drop/pro-drop 203
- The acquisition of A- and A’-bound pronouns in Brazilian Portuguese 227
- Acquiring long-distance wh-questions in L1 Spanish 251
- Evidence from L1 acquisition for the syntax of wh -scope marking in French * 289
- Acquisition of focus marking in European Portuguese 319
- Subject pronouns in bilinguals 331
- Is the semantics/syntax interface vulnerable in l2 acquisition? 353
- The development of the syntax-information structure interface 371
- Beyond the syntax of the Null Subject Parameter 401
- Index 419
