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GRS LX 700
Language Acquisition
and
Linguistic Theory
Week 8.
Second Language Acquisition:
introduction
Scientific study of language
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What constitutes one’s knowledge of language?
How is that knowledge acquired?
Looking at adult native languages, we’ve found
that language is very complex (see LX 522, 523,
for example)
Looking at kids, we’ve found that kids seem to
learn this complicated system with surprisingly
little help from the environment.
L1 acquisition

We posited a genetic predisposition for
language, something which guides the kinds of
languages kids learn (Universal Grammar):
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Kids learn fast
Kids end up with systems that are more complicated
than the input data justifies (they can judge
ungrammatical sentences in the same way as other
native speakers).
Kids don’t fail to learn language despite differences in
environment, and without getting or making use of
negative evidence.
Kids seem to go through similar stages, across kids,
across languages.
But what about L2
acquisition?
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Adults seem to have a harder time learning
language than kids do learning their first
language (there may be a “critical period”).
Adult second language learners rarely reach a
native-speaker-like level of competence.
Adult second language learners already know a
language.
Adult second language learners are often given
negative evidence (“you don’t say it that way”)
when taught in a classroom.
L2A seems very
different from L1A.

Is L2A like learning to play chess? Like
learning calculus? Do we just learn the
rules of the language and apply them
(sometimes forgetting some of the rules,
never quite learning all of them, etc.)?

It’s very tempting to think that’s true.
Scientific study of language
What constitutes one’s knowledge of language?
 How is that knowledge acquired?


We can still study these questions in L2A
as well and try to determine the answers,
whether they are related to the answers
we got for L1A or not.

And perhaps surprisingly, they might be.
L2 competence

Learners of a second language have some kind
of (systematic) linguistic knowledge. They have
retained their L1 knowledge, and they have
knowledge of a sort which approximates
(perhaps poorly) the knowledge held by a native
speaker of the learner’s L2.

This knowledge is often referred to as an
interlanguage grammar—not L1, not L2, but
something different (…and to what extent this
knowledge might be related to or influenced by
L1 or L2 is yet to be determined).
A real-world example,
Japanese case-marker
omission

Adult knowledge is complicated, relies on the
Empty Category Principle, which says that an
empty category (including a dropped Case
marker) must be properly governed.
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The long and the short of this in Japanese is that
you can drop a Case marker in object position
but you cannot drop a Case marker in subject
position.
Kanno 1996
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John ga sono hon o yonda.
nom that book acc read
‘John read that book.’

John ga sono hon _ yonda.
nom that book Ø read
‘John read that book.’

* John _ sono hon o yonda.
Ø that book acc read
‘John read that book.’
Kanno 1996
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English speakers (learning Japanese) know the
ECP, because they know:
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Who did you say Ø t left?
*Who did you say that t left?
But this is a very different context of use from the
use in Case marker drop. The question is:
Do English speakers respect the ECP in their
interlanguage grammar (toward Japanese)?
A broader way to ask the question: Is the
interlanguage grammar constrained by UG?
Kanno 1996
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To discover the answer Kanno tested 26
college students in Japanese II on case
particle drop.
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Kanno looked at what the students would
have been exposed to by the textbook up
to the point where they took the test, to
see if they were taught when not to drop
the case markers.
What the Japanese II students
saw…
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41 cases of object case-marker drop, like:
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Enpitsu Ø kudasai ?
pencil
give
‘Can you give me a pencil?’
8 cases of subject case-marker drop, in the
exceptional case when it is allowed (with a final
emphatic particle—these don’t violate the ECP):
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John Ø sono hon o yonda yo.
John that book acc read part
‘John (indeed) read the book.’ (I think)
What the Japanese II students
saw…
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Certain verbs have nominative case on
their objects, and case can be dropped on
those objects too…
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John ga kankokugo (ga) dekimasu.
John nom Korean nom can-do
‘John can speak Korean.’
69 of 110 such verbs in the book had the
object case marker dropped.
What the Japanese II students
saw…
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Japanese allows arguments to be omitted
(somewhat like Italian pro drop), so there
were many cases with just one argument
(the object) with no case marker:
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Kami Ø irimasu ka?
paper need
Q
‘Do you need paper? / Is paper necessary?’
What the Japanese II students
saw…
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Worst of all, the topic marker can be
dropped, which looks a lot like a subject
marker being dropped.
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Tanaka-san (wa) itsu kaimasita ka?
top when bought Q
‘When did Tanaka buy it?’
‘As for Tanaka, when did he buy it?’
What the Japanese II students
saw…
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“ga [nom] might be deleted, but with a reduction
of the emphasis and focus conveyed by its
inclusion.” (No hint that sometimes—even
usually—it is not allowed)
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“If o [acc] is deleted, [the object] would simply
lose a bit of its emphasis and focus. On the
other hand, the addition of o would give added
emphasis and focus.”
The poor Japanese II
students…

There’s pretty much no way they could
have reached the right generalization
based on what they were provided.
Nom can be dropped from object position
 Top can be dropped from subject position
 Nom subject can be dropped with a particle
 Explicit instruction was only about emphasis.
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But did they anyway?
The experiment
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To test this, the sentences used wh-words.
Wh-words in general do not allow topic
marking, so if the particle is dropped from
a subject wh-word, it could not have been
a topic drop.
subject wa wh-phrase Ø verb Q?
 *subject Ø wh-phrase acc verb Q?
 pro wh-phrase Ø verb Q?
 *wh-phrase Ø pro verb Q?
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(missing controls)
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There are a couple of things that this experiment
lacks…
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Naturalness of a dropped case marker is tested,
but never the naturalness of an overt case or
topic marker on a wh-phrase.
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Wh-phrases are used because they do not
permit topic marking—but do the students know
this?
Kanno’s results
students
native speakers
NP wa NP Ø
2.40
2.60
NP Ø NP o
1.76
pro NP Ø
2.58
NP Ø pro
1.64
(0.64)
1.36
(1.24)
2.86
(0.98)
1.31
(1.55)
Kanno’s results
3
2.5
2
NP wa NP —
NP — NP o
pro NP —
NP — pro
1.5
1
0.5
0
Students
NSs
UG in L2A
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The conclusion is that L2 learners of Japanese
have nevertheless (statistically significantly)
gotten the rule about dropping subject case
markers, despite the lack of evidence from the
textbook, the instructor, or even English.

It appears that UG is still constraining language
in some way even in adult second language
acquisition.
All I really needed to know I
learned in UG

“The linkage of concept and sound can be acquired on
minimal evidence, so variation [among languages] here is
not surprising. However, the possible sounds are narrowly
constrained, and the concepts may be virtually fixed. It is
hard to imagine otherwise, given the rate of lexical
acquisition, which is about a word an our from ages two to
eight, with lexical items typically acquired on a single
exposure, in highly ambiguous circumstances, but
understood in delicate and extraordinary complexity that
goes vastly beyond what is recorded in the most
comprehensive dictionary, which, like the most
comprehensive traditional grammar, merely gives hints
that suffice for people who basically know the answers,
largely innately.” Chomsky (2000, New Horizons in the
Study of Language and Mind), p. 120.
Influence of UG in some form
is probably inevitable…
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Like in L1A, the input is almost certainly
degenerate, and the negative evidence there
might be isn’t enough to make the subtle
complexities of language learnable, and for
negative evidence (in the form of correction) to
be of any use, L2 learners have to make errors,
yet for these subtle complexities, the learners
don’t seem to make the crucial errors that would
be required to learn them.
Kanno’s experiment (among others) shows that
L2 learners seem to “go beyond the evidence.”
How is UG “used” in L2A?
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What is UG really?
Probably the simplest view of it is that
UG constrains the kinds of
languages we can learn. For the
moment, assume we’re talking about
L1A.
UG says: You can’t learn a language
that lacks the ECP. You can’t learn a
language that doesn’t respect
constraints on movement out of an
How is UG “used” in L2A?

UG shaped your L1, we take that to be
essentially beyond dispute in some form… but
when you learn L2, you still know L1.

So, perhaps: UG constrains how you learn L2
(directly, like it constrained your L1)
Or, perhaps: Your L1 constrains how you learn
L2 (indirectly, UG constrains L1, L1 constrains
L2)
Or, perhaps: Nothing language-related
constrains how you learn L2—it’s like learning
chess.
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How is UG “used” in L2A?
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A somewhat standard terminology has
developed for these concepts…
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Full Access—UG constrains L2A.
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(Partial Access—UG constrains L2A partly.)
Indirect Access—L1 constrains L2A.
No Access—UG is not involved in L2A.
An independent question—
what role does L1 play in L2A?
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Full Transfer—the properties
(parameters) of L1 are taken as the
“starting point” in L2A.
Partial Transfer—some of the
parameters of L1 are taken as the
“starting point” in L2A, while some
others start in an independent setting.
No Transfer—the parameter settings of
L1 do not affect L2A.
Access hypotheses

The model these hypotheses work with is
essentially that UG provides a blueprint or
a template for languages, which is used to
create a concrete instantiation of a
language.
•Principles
L1A
•Parm 1: — (A, B)
•Parm 2: — (A, B, C)
•…
UG
•Active Principles
•Parm 1: A
•Parm 2: B
•…
L1
Access hypotheses

Once L1 has been instantiated, the
template might become unavailable. In this
case, the only available information about
what languages are like is what’s
instantiated in L1.
•Principles
•Parm 1: — (A, B)
•Parm 2: — (A, B, C)
•…
UG
•Active Principles
•Parm 1: A
•Parm 2: B
•…
L1
Access hypotheses
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Indirect access supposes that the principles and
parameters of L1 (but not the information in UG). are
available in forming an instantiation of L2.
No access supposes that L2A does not even have
direct access to L1; presumably everything L2-related
is translated through L1, the mapping is learned in
another way.
•Principles
•Parm 1: — (A, B)
•Parm 2: — (A, B, C)
•…
UG
•Active Principles
•Parm 1: A
•Parm 2: B
•…
L1
Access hypotheses

The full access hypothesis
supposes that the
template is still available
to instantiate L2 the same
way L1 was instantiated.
•Active Principles
•Parm 1: B
•Parm 2: A
•…
L2A
•Principles
L1A
•Parm 1: — (A, B)
•Parm 2: — (A, B, C)
•…
UG
•Active Principles
•Parm 1: A
•Parm 2: B
•…
L2
L1
Access hypotheses

A partial access hypothesis
supposes that certain parts of
the template are no longer
available (fixed in the L1
settings) but other parts can
still be used to instantiate L2.
•Active Principles
•Parm 1: A
•Parm 2: C
•…
L2A
•Principles
L1A
•Parm 1: — (A, B)
•Parm 2: — (A, B, C)
•…
UG
•Active Principles
•Parm 1: A
•Parm 2: B
•…
L2
L1
Distinguishing between
access hypotheses
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The no access hypothesis takes L2A to be a general
learning process, not constrained by properties of UG.
As such, we do not expect the IL of second language
learners to conform to the specifications of UG. We
expect that the IL would be free to exhibit properties
unlike any natural language (L1).
So we look for “wildness” in the IL grammar of second
language learners—for indications of grammar which
would not qualify as an L1.
Distinguishing between
access hypotheses

The full access hypothesis, on the other hand,
predicts that IL grammars of second language
learners, while not the grammar of the target
language, will still conform to the restrictions UG
places on natural languages. It will operate
under the same principles, and it will have
parameters which are set to a setting which is
possible in natural language.
Distinguishing between
access hypotheses

The indirect access hypothesis predicts
that second language learners will have an
IL which is essentially L1-plus. They are
predicted not to be able to have principles
or parameter settings which differ from the
L1, but all of the parameter settings and
principles operative in L1 should also be
operative in the IL.
Distinguishing between
access hypotheses

The partial access hypothesis is the least well-defined. It
places itself somewhere between full access and no
access.

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We might see that a second language learner’s IL shows evidence
of parameter settings different from the L1 (or not, depending on
which parts of UG we are hypothesizing L2A access to).
We might see evidence of principles not used in L1 but provided
for in UG.
The partial access hypothesis is basically the fallback
position, the compromise we need to make if the facts
don’t fit into one of the other hypotheses.
In favor of no access…

The well-known “critical period” effects seem to point
toward a view like no access; adult L2A is much less
uniform, typically not fully successful, and appears to
involve much more conscious effort.

Proponents argue that their observations about
differences in the course and end result of L2A (vs. L1A)
indicate that principles of UG are not being obeyed (for
example, learners positing rules that appeal to linear
order, rather than structure, contra Structure
Dependency).
In favor of no access…
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Meisel (1997) looked at L1A and L2A of negation in
German, French, and Basque.
In L1A in the three languages, negation appears to go
through similar stages.
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First, it is placed externally (generally initially, sometimes finally),
unlike in the adult language
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No(t) I go home
I go home no(t).
Then, it appears sentence-internally, in an appropriate position with
respect to the tensed verb for the target language (differs by
language).
L1A: Once children show evidence of knowing how to use
finite verbs, they seem to have no particular trouble with the
syntax of negation in the target language.
In favor of no access…

For L2A, the consensus opinion from previous studies
seems to be that second language learners, regardless
of target and first languages seem to go through pretty
much invariant stages with respect to negation.
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First, preverbal or initial negation.
Then, more target-like internal negation.
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Sounds like the L1A sequences; this made people eager
to try to apply the same explanations.

However, almost all of these studies used English as the
target language, and in fact some studies seemed to
have “missed” the first stage.
In favor of no access…
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Closer investigation reveals that not all second language
learners go through an “initial negation” stage, even if the
L1 has preverbal negation.
And, unlike in L1A, where there is an initial negation stage,
it does not seem to disappear at the same time as the
control of finite verbs.
Whereas “initial negation” in L1A is usually sentence-initial
(before the subject), “initial negation” in L2A is often
preverbal (but after the subject).
Meisel suggests that initial negation is actually a
characteristic of a certain kind of learner, a reflection of a
strategy that (some) people use in L2A.
In favor of no access…

Rather than observing structure-dependent
negation placement based on [±finite], the
results tend to suggest strategies based on
linear order (i.e. put negation after the verb).

Meisel concludes that any UG involvement in
L2A is much less clear given these differences
between L1A and L2A.
Concerning this argument

Notice that this is primarily an argument about
sequence of acquisition. Roughly, the idea is:
Because the sequence of L1A and L2A do not
match, and assuming L1A is driven by UG, L2A
can’t be also driven by UG.

In short, this seems to be an argument about
whether the (L1) LAD is involved in L2A. It
doesn’t really fully reach the question of whether
UG constrains L2A.
Concerning this argument

Whether or not we take this to show no
access to UG, we need to keep in mind
that:
the “invariant sequence” (at least in the
acquisition of negation) in L2A is on shakier
ground than previous research seemed to
suggest.
 the contingencies between finiteness and
verb position with respect to negation
(suggesting that they “go together” in L1
grammars) don’t seem to hold of L2A.

In favor of full access…

First, note that pretty much any empirical
argument purportedly for full access to UG in
L2A cannot actually meet its goal. At best, it will
show that in the area studied there is evidence
for access to UG (i.e. partial access).

However, full access is a stronger position, so
we want to take that as the null hypothesis if we
see evidence for some access, adopting a
partial access view only if we see that there is
also evidence for no access in other areas.
In favor of full access…

Threads of argumentation:

Second language learners obey certain
universal principles which (appear to) work
differently in the TL than in the learners’ L1.

Second language learners’ IL knowledge
show evidence of a parameter setting different
from their L1, indicating that the parametric
options are still available
In favor of full access…
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A simple example discussed by Flynn (1996) is
L2A between Japanese and English.
Japanese and English differ in their setting of the
“head parameter”, which indicates whether the
object comes before the verb (Japanese, SOV,
head-final) or after the verb (English, SVO, headinitial).
L2 J-->E learners appear to very quickly set this IL
parameter correctly, suggesting that they know
that both head-initial and head-final are possible
settings for this parameter, although their L1
parameter is committed to head-final.
In favor of full access…

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Flynn on Subjacency…
In Japanese, wh-words are not “moved” to the
beginning of a wh-question; Japanese is a “whin-situ” language. Its wh-words appear in the
same position that the trace “appears” in
English.
Subjacency is concerned only with displacement
of wh-words. It is a principle which says that a
wh-word cannot be displaced out of certain
kinds of islands (conjunctions, embedded
questions, complex noun phrases, …).
In favor of full access…

Thus, Subjacency does not seem to rule out any
wh-questions in Japanese. It is possible to ask
questions like:
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‘You met the man that gave what to Mary?’
Cf. *Whati did you meet the man that gave ti to Mary?
Flynn takes this to mean that Subjacency is
essentially “inactive” in Japanese. It does not
play a role in wh-question formation in
Japanese.
In favor of full access…

Supposing that Subjacency is not active in
Japanese, Flynn considers L2A of English by
Japanese speakers.

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Would these second language learners nevertheless
obey Subjacency in English?
Do they still have access to this principle provided by
UG even though it is not used in their L1?
Flynn’s experiments seem to indicate that
Japanese speakers learning L2 English do obey
Subjacency, and concludes that they must
therefore still have access to UG during L2A.

But cf. Johnson & Newport later on…
In favor of indirect access?

The difference between indirect access and no
access is very subtle, if it is even a real
distinction.

No access claims that UG is not involved at all, that
second language learning is basically general
problem-solving.

Indirect access claims that UG is not involved directly,
only the “parts of it” which have been selected in L1.
In favor of indirect access?

Surely the idea behind the no access hypothesis
is that when using an L2, you essentially come
up with a sentence in your L1 and then “convert”
it using the rules you learned about the L2 (or
vice versa for perception).

So, both hypotheses really say that you know
what you know about L1 and there is no further
contribution of UG. There is no possibility to
choose a different parameter setting for L2.
Partial access?

As mentioned previously, partial access is really
just a fallback position if there seems to be some
evidence for access in one area of “UG” but
conflicting evidence for no access in another
area.

In a sense, this might mean this hypothesis is
more likely to be right, but there is no way to
argue for partial access distinct from arguments
for full or no access in subdomains of grammar.
Getting at the “IL grammar”


What do the L2 learners know?
*Productions: We don’t have a great deal of
success learning about the structure of linguistic
knowledge in the native speaker domain by
looking just at productions. Things aren’t
different for L2 learners.


No information on what is ungrammatical—at best,
information on what is dispreferred/avoided.
Performance errors happen, but that doesn’t indicate
a lack of competence.
Grammaticality judgments

One way of testing people’s (whole)
competence is to ask them to rate sentences
in their second language.

Who did you say that bought John dinner?
1-bad
2-a little weird
3-natural

I wonder what will John wear tomorrow.
1-bad
2-a little weird
3-natural
GJ tasks aren’t perfect,
though…

As in any experiment, you may have biases…

Some people are hesitant to take an extreme
position, may never rate a sentence 1 or 3.

Some people may rate the sentences based on how
much sense it makes, rather than on the syntactic
structure. And it’s hard to correct for that, because if
you ask someone what’s wrong with

What did you laugh after John bought for Sue?
(or how to correct it), even native speakers won’t be
able to say.
GJ tasks

But we have the same trouble with kids too…
We can try to employ the same kinds of tricks
with adults…





acting out a sentence
identifying which picture best depicts the subject
matter of the sentence
judging whether a sentence is true or false of a
scene.
answering an ambiguous question to see wh-word
scope.
…
Locating the
source of the errors

Suppose that an adult L2 learner of E. rates



What did you laugh after John bought for Sue?
as natural. Does that mean they don’t know
Subjacency?
Well, not necessarily. They may also now
understand how to make complex clauses,
adverbial clauses, etc.
Like with kids and quantifiers Principle B, one
can only really say that people know or don’t
know a principle of UG once they have the
appropriate structures to apply them to.
“How involved is UG in L2A?”

Very (UG constrains IL) vs. not (L1 constrains
IL)

To figure out which is right, we need to look at
UG constraints or parameters which are not
used in the learner’s L1. If there is something
that holds in all languages, say, the q-criterion,
showing that L2 learners respect the q-criterion
doesn’t tell us whether that is because UG
required it or because their L1 does.
Two things to look at

Parameter settings which vary between
L1 and L2…
English: Bounding nodes for Subjacency
are DP and IP.
 Italian/French: Bounding nodes for
Subjacency are DP and CP.


Universal principles which are
inapplicable in L1 but apply in L2…

The ECP as used to control case marker
drop in Japanese
“Universal principles
inapplicable in L1?”

As our theories of syntax develop, finding
such things becomes harder and harder,
since the goal of theoretical syntax is in
general to say “All languages are really the
same except for some very surface-y
phenomena.”
wh-movement




Circa 1981, English moved its wh-words,
Japanese didn’t, so Subjacency wasn’t relevant
for Japanese.
However, since then, the proposals have
changed—all languages move their wh-words to
SpecCP, just some do it after SS.
Evidence has appeared which shows that under
the right conditions, Japanese does respect
Subjacency.
Thus: Looking at whether Japanese speakers
learning English respect Subjacency or not still
hasn’t necessarily gotten away from L1.
Kanno again



Even Kanno’s experiment, neat as it is, doesn’t really
escape L1 under this kind of view—if we were right
about how the ECP is formulated.
The ECP controls that-trace phenomena in English
(arguably), but it is actually a constraint against
ungoverned empty categories.
If E. speakers know the ECP, they know this.

If the ECP controls case drop in Japanese because
these are empty categories, then if English speakers
know the ECP, then they’ll know not to drop subject
case markers.
In general


The L2A literature tends to take a fairly old,
conservative view of UG. It tends to assume that
UG provides options from which languages
choose, and that something that a language
doesn’t choose might become unavailable as a
choice later.
That is, the underlying assumption seems to be
that English speakers don’t know the ECP,
really. What they know is to behave according to
the way the ECP would require for embedded
subject questions. ?
Parameters
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The bottom line is: it’s going to be hard to make
a convincing case that you’ve got a principle of
UG which is not known (utilized) by an L1
speaker. Perhaps, if you are lucky, you might
find something plausible now, but advances in
syntactic theory will do everything they can to
undermine your position.
However, languages do differ in the values of the
parameters (e.g., Subjacency).
Parameters
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We can also look at aspects of parameter setting
in L2A.
Part transfer (what settings get adopted as part
of the initial state of the the second language
learner’s interlanguage grammar?), part
accessibility/involvement of UG (can second
language learners “reset” these parameters? If
so, the lists of options provided by UG are still
available—that is, UG is available/involved).
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