THE ACQUISITION OF THE IP SYSTEM IN CHILD L2 ENGLISH

This study examines the acquisition of the inflectional system by a Turkish child learner of English. Results from longitudinal data collected over 18 months are reported, presenting counterevidence for recent hypotheses on early L2 acquisition according to which missing functional items reflect missing functional categories (e.g., Vainikka & Young-Scholten, 1994, 1996a, 1996b). Despite robust evidence for the early production of copula be, auxiliary be, and overt subjects, the child L2 data analyzed in this paper do not show any evidence for tense and agreement morphology in the early stages of L2 development. In other words, although some functional elements related to IP are missing, the learner is able to perform other morphological and syntactic operations involving the functional projection IP. These findings lead us to question whether the lack of functional elements entails the lack of functional categories.

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The acquisition of tense—aspect in child second language English

Second language Research ◽

10.1177/0267658307080330 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 23 (4) ◽

pp. 383-417 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Belma Haznedar

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Longitudinal Data ◽

Past Tense ◽

L2 Acquisition ◽

Aspect Hypothesis ◽

Turkish Child ◽

Early Use ◽

Early Production

The aim of this article is two-fold: to test the Aspect Hypothesis, according to which the early use of tense—aspect morphology patterns by semantic/aspectual features of verbs, and Tense is initially defective (e.g. Antinucci and Miller, 1976; Bloom et al., 1980; Andersen and Shirai, 1994; 1996; Robison, 1995; Shirai and Andersen, 1995; Bardovi-Harlig, 1998; Shirai, 1998); and to test Gavruseva's aspectual features account, according to which inherent aspectual properties of the verbs such as telicity and punctuality determine which verbs will be non-finite and which verbs will not (Gavruseva, 2002; 2003; 2004) in child L2 acquisition. Based on longitudinal data from a Turkish child second language (L2) learner of English, we present counter evidence for both hypotheses. First, it is shown that despite the fact that the early production of past tense morphology occurs exclusively with punctual predicates, data from copula be, auxiliary do and pronominal subjects do not show any evidence for defective tense. Second, contrary to what is predicted in Gavruseva's hypothesis, the rate of uninflected punctual verbs is much higher than that of uninflected non-punctual verbs in the child L2 grammar.

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The Production of Yes/No Questions, Wh-Questions, and Embedded Clauses as Functional Categories at the Initial Stage of Child L2 Acquisition

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ◽

10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.1p.39 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 39

Author(s):

Mohsen Mobaraki ◽

Amin Saed

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Second Language Acquisition ◽

Functional Categories ◽

Longitudinal Case Study ◽

L2 Acquisition ◽

Structure Building ◽

Early Stages ◽

Wh Questions ◽

Embedded Clauses ◽

Interlanguage Development

This is a longitudinal case study of two Farsi-speaking children learning English: ‘Bernard’ and ‘Melissa’, who were 7;4 and 8;4 at the start of data collection. The research deals with the presence or absence of functional categories (CP),in our case Yes/no questions, Wh-questions, and embedded clauses as well as their production rate in early stages of interlanguage development of the child second language (L2) acquisition of syntax. Some studies in the field of child second language acquisition regarding the production of functional categories (CP) are discussed. Examining data collected from the children’s spontaneous speech, the researcher’s diaries and translation and other tasks over a period of 20 months, the competing claims of the two most prominent hypotheses about early L2 grammars are tested: Vainikka& Young-Scholten’s (1996) Minimal Trees/Structure Building hypothesis and Schwartz & Sprouse’s (1996). Full Transfer/Full Access hypothesis. The conclusion is reached that Yes/no questions, Wh-questions, and embedded clauses as three functional categories are absent in early stages of interlanguage development of the child L2acquisition.Keywords: Functional categories, Child L2 acquisition, Minimal Trees/Structure Building hypothesis, Full transfer/fullaccess hypothesis, Yes/no questions and Wh-questions, Embedded clauses

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The generative study of second language acquisition. S. Flynn, G. Martohardjono, and W. O'Neil (Eds.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1998. Pp. 366.

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716402220081 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 155-159

Author(s):

Naomi Bolotin

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Second Language Acquisition ◽

Language Acquisition ◽

Longitudinal Data ◽

First Language ◽

Functional Categories ◽

L2 Acquisition ◽

Lexical Categories ◽

Recent Advances ◽

Vp Structure

This volume contains all 14 papers and three commentaries from the Recent Advances in the Generative Study of Second Language Acquisition Conference that was held in 1993 at MIT. Eleven of the papers address the acquisition of syntax. Of these, four focus on functional categories in second language (L2) acquisition. Vainikka and Young-Scholten propose that, although lexical categories or content phrases (NP, VP, AP, PP) transfer from the first language to the second, along with the headedness of those categories, functional categories or grammatical phrases (DP, IP, CP) do not. Using longitudinal data from Korean, Turkish, Italian, and Spanish learners of German, they suggest that learners begin by adopting a VP structure for the sentences in the L2 and then subsequently expand this into an underspecified finite phrase (FP), then an agreement phrase (AgrP), and finally a complementizer phrase (CP).

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Feature-marking in the L2 development of deverbal compounds

Journal of Linguistics ◽

10.1017/s0022226797006518 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 327-353 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

DONNA LARDIERE ◽

BONNIE D. SCHWARTZ

Keyword(s):

Word Formation ◽

Spanish Speakers ◽

Native Spanish Speakers ◽

Functional Categories ◽

L2 Acquisition ◽

Complex Word ◽

Phonological Form ◽

L1 Influence ◽

L2 Development ◽

Development Proceeds

This study focuses on the development of complex word formation in L2 acquisition. We examine experimentally elicited data on English deverbal synthetic compounding (such as toe-painter) by native Spanish speakers and conclude that: (a) development proceeds in stages which clearly reflect UG-constrained L1 influence; (b) nontargetlike productions (e.g. painter-toes) show attempts to spell out the grammatical features associated with functional categories in deverbal compounding; though nontargetlike, they are nonetheless consistent with the compound's required feature-marking; (c) such attempts implicate the early existence in the Interlanguage of those functional heads and their projections in the (lexical) syntax; i.e., the absence of the correct phonological form cannot be taken to imply lack of knowledge of morphosyntactic features and their corresponding phrase structure.

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Case morphology and word order in second language Turkish: Evidence from Greek learners

Second language Research ◽

10.1177/0267658310376348 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 173-204 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Despina Papadopoulou ◽

Spyridoula Varlokosta ◽

Vassilios Spyropoulos ◽

Hasan Kaili ◽

Sophia Prokou ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Word Order ◽

Second Language Learners ◽

First Language ◽

Matching Task ◽

L2 Acquisition ◽

Case Morphology ◽

L2 Development ◽

Order Constraints ◽

On Line

The optional use of morphology attested in second language learners has been attributed either to a representational deficit or to a ‘surface’ problem with respect to the realization of inflectional affixes. In this article we contribute to this issue by providing empirical data from the early interlanguage of Greek learners of Turkish. Three experiments have been conducted, a cloze task, a sentence picture matching task and an on-line grammaticality judgement task, in order to investigate case morphology and its interaction with word order constraints. The findings of all three experiments point towards a variable use of case morphology, which is also observed in previous studies of Turkish as a second language (L2). Moreover, they show clearly that the learners face difficulties with non-canonical word orders as well as with the interaction of word order constraints and Case. On the other hand, the learners performed well on verbal inflections. On the basis of these findings, we argue that the developmental patterns in the early stages of L2 acquisition cannot be attributed to a global lack of functional categories but rather to more localized difficulties, which seem to be related to (a) whether the features in the L2 are grammaticalized in the first language and (b) the way these features are encoded in the morphosyntax of the first language. Moreover, we claim that processing factors and the specific properties of the morphological paradigms affect L2 development.

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SECOND LANGUAGE SYNTAX: A GENERATIVE INTRODUCTION. Roger Hawkins. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. Pp. xviii + 386. $41.95 paper.

Studies in Second Language Acquisition ◽

10.1017/s0272263102243065 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 24 (3) ◽

pp. 493-494

Author(s):

Silvina Montrul

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Universal Grammar ◽

L2 Acquisition ◽

Specific System ◽

Modulated Structure ◽

Present Evidence ◽

Introductory Textbook ◽

Syntactic Knowledge ◽

Structure Building ◽

L2 Development

This book is intended as an introduction both to the principles and parameters framework (Chomsky, 1981) and to the second language (L2) acquisition of syntactic representations. Hawkins's basic aim is to present evidence for the view that L2 learners progressively build subconscious mental grammars (i.e., a syntactic system) guided by Universal Grammar—an innate, language-specific system. However, this volume is not just an introductory textbook presenting and summarizing the work of other researchers in this particular field. Indeed, the book has another major aim: Within the context of the most current debates on the L2 acquisition of syntactic knowledge, Hawkins introduces his own theory of L2 development, which he terms Modulated Structure Building.

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Second language acquisition: Theoretical and experimental issues in contemporary research

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x00043521 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 19 (4) ◽

pp. 677-714 ◽

Cited By ~ 163

Author(s):

Samuel David Epstein ◽

Suzanne Flynn ◽

Gita Martohardjono

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Second Language Acquisition ◽

Universal Grammar ◽

Functional Categories ◽

L2 Acquisition ◽

Psycholinguistic Research ◽

Explanatory Theory ◽

Parameter Values ◽

Theoretical Issues

AbstractTo what extent, if any, does Universal Grammar (UG) constrain second language (L2) acquisition? This is not only an empirical question, but one which is currently investigable. In this context, L2 acquisition is emerging as an important new domain of psycholinguistic research. Three logical possibilities have been articulated regarding the role of UG in L2 acquisition: The first is the “no access” hypothesis that claims that no aspect of UG is available to the L2 learner. The second is the “partial access” hypothesis that claims that only LI instantiated principles and LI instantiated parameter-values of UG are available to the learner. The third, called the “full access” hypothesis, asserts that UG in its entirety constrains L2 acquisition.In this paper we argue that there is no compelling evidence to support either of the first two hypotheses. Moreover, we provide evidence concerning functional categories in L2 acquisition consistent with the claim that UG is fully available to the L2 learner (see also Flynn 1987; Li 1993; Martohardjono 1992; Schwartz & Sprouse 1991; Thomas 1991; White 1989). In addition, we will attempt to clarify some of currently unclear theoretical issues that arise with respect to positing UG as an explanatory theory of L2 acquisition. We will also investigate in some detail certain crucial methodological questions involved in experimentally testing the role of UG in L2 acquisition and finally, we will present a set of experimental results of our own supporting the “Full Access” hypothesis.

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