Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-6kn8j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-27T15:39:38.344Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ON THE (UN)-AMBIGUITY OF ADJECTIVAL MODIFICATION IN SPANISH DETERMINER PHRASES

Informing Debates on the Mental Representations of L2 Syntax

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2010

Jason Rothman ,
Tiffany Judy ,
Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes  and
Acrisio Pires
Jason Rothman*
Affiliation:
University of Iowa
Tiffany Judy
Affiliation:
University of Iowa
Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes
Affiliation:
University of Plymouth
Acrisio Pires
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
*
*Address correspondence to: Jason Rothman, 111 Phillips Hall, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242; e-mail: jason-rothman@uiowa.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study contributes to a central debate within contemporary generative second language (L2) theorizing: the extent to which adult learners are (un)able to acquire new functional features that result in a L2 grammar that is mentally structured like the native target (see White, 2003). The adult acquisition of L2 nominal phi-features is explored, with focus on the syntactic and semantic reflexes in the related domain of adjective placement in two experimental groups: English-speaking intermediate (n = 21) and advanced (n = 24) learners of Spanish, as compared to a native-speaker control group (n = 15). Results show that, on some of the tasks, the intermediate L2 learners appear to have acquired the syntactic properties of the Spanish determiner phrase but, on other tasks, to show some delay with the semantic reflexes of prenominal and postnominal adjectives. Crucially, however, our data demonstrate full convergence by all advanced learners and thus provide evidence in contra the predictions of representational deficit accounts (e.g., Hawkins & Chan, 1997; Hawkins & Franceschina, 2004; Hawkins & Hattori, 2006).

Information

Type
Research Articles
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 47 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, B. (2001). Adjective position and interpretation in L2 French. In Camps, J. & Wiltshire, C. R. (Eds.), Romance syntax, semantics and L2 acquisition (pp. 27–42). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. (2007a). Learnability and parametric change in the nominal system of L2 French. Language Acquisition, 14, 165–214.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. (2007b). Pedagogical rules and their relationship to frequency in the input: Observational and empirical data from L2 French. Applied Linguistics, 28, 286–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, B. (2008). Forms of evidence and grammatical development in the acquisition of adjective position in L2 French. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30, 1–29.Google Scholar
Beck, M. L. (1998). L2 acquisition and obligatory head movement: English speaking learners of German and the local impairment hypothesis. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 20, 311–348.Google Scholar
Bernstein, J. (1993). Topics in the syntax of nominal structure across Romance. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Graduate Center, City University of New York.Google Scholar
Bernstein, J. (2001). The DP hypothesis: Identifying clausal properties in the nominal domain. In Baltin, M. & Collins, C. (Eds.), The handbook of contemporary syntactic theory (pp. 536–561). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bley-Vroman, R. (1990). The logical problem of foreign language learning. Linguistic Analysis, 20, 3–49.Google Scholar
Bley-Vroman, R. (2009). The evolving context of the fundamental difference hypothesis. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 31, 175–198.Google Scholar
Bruhn de Garavito, J., & White, L. (2002). The L2 acquisition of Spanish DPs: The status of grammatical features. In Pérez-Leroux, A. T. & Liceras, J. (Eds.), The acquisition of Spanish morphosyntax: The L1/L2 connection (pp. 151–176). Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Cabrelli, J., Iverson, M., Judy, T., & Rothman, J. (2008). What the start of L3 tells us about the end of L2: N-drop in L2 and L3 Portuguese. In Chan, H., Kapia, E., & Jacob, H. (Eds.), A supplement to the proceedings of the 32nd Boston University Conference on Language Development: Retrieved February 28, 2008, from http://128.197.86.186/posters/32.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (2001). Derivation by phase. In Kenstowicz, M. (Ed.), Ken Hale: A life in language (pp. 1–52). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (2007). Of minds and language. Biolinguistics, 1, 9–27.Google Scholar
Cinque, G. (1994). On the evidence for partial N movement in the Romance DP. In Cinque, G., Koster, J., Pollock, J.-Y., Rizzi, L., & Zanuttini, R. (Eds.), Paths towards Universal Grammar (pp. 85–110). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
DeKeyser, R. (2000). The robustness of critical period effects in second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 499–534.Google Scholar
Demonte, V. (2008). Meaning-form correlations and adjective position in Spanish. In Kennedy, C. & McNally, L. (Eds.), The semantics of adjectives and adverbs (pp. 71–100). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, S., Flynn, S., & Martohardjono, G. (1996). Second language acquisition: Theoretical and experimental issues in contemporary research. Brain and Behavioral Sciences, 19, 677–714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernández, M. (1999). Patterns in gender agreement in the speech of second language learners. In Gutiérrez-Rexach, J. & Martínex-Gil, F. (Eds.), Advances in Hispanic linguistics (pp. 3–15). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Franceschina, F. (2001). Morphological or syntactic deficit in near-native speakers? An assessment of some current proposals. Second Language Research, 17, 213–247.Google Scholar
Franceschina, F. (2005). Fossilized second language grammars: The acquisition of grammatical gender. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Gess, R., & Herschensohn, J. (2001). Shifting the DP parameter: A study of anglophone French L2ers. In Camps, J. & Wiltshire, C. R. (Eds.), Romance syntax, semantics and L2 acquisition (pp. 105–125). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Granfeldt, J. (2000). The acquisition of the determiner phrase in bilingual and second language French. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3, 263–280.Google Scholar
Harris, J. (1991). The exponence of gender in Spanish. Linguistic Inquiry, 22, 27–67.Google Scholar
Hawkins, R. (1998, September). Explaining the difficulty of gender attribution for speakers of English. Paper presented at the European Second Language Association Conference (EUROSLA), Paris.Google Scholar
Hawkins, R., & Chan, C. (1997). The partial accessibility of Universal Grammar in second language acquisition: The failed functional features hypothesis. Second Language Research, 13, 187–226.Google Scholar
Hawkins, R., & Franceschina, F. (2004). Explaining the acquisition and non-acquisition of determiner-noun concord in French and Spanish. In Prévost, P. & Paradis, J. (Eds.), The acquisition of French in different contexts: Focus on functional categories (pp. 175–205). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Hawkins, R., & Hattori, H. (2006). Interpretation of English multiple wh-questions by Japanese speakers: A missing uninterpretable feature account. Second Language Research, 22, 269–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, R., & Liszka, S. (2003). Locating the source of defective past tense marking in advanced L2 English speakers. In van Hout, R., Hulk, A., Kuiken, F., & Towell, R. (Eds.), The lexicon-syntax interface in second language acquisition (pp. 21–44). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1990). Semantic structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Judy, T., Guijarro-Fuentes, P., & Rothman, J. (2008). Adult accessibility to L2 representational features: Evidence from the Spanish DP. In Bowles, M., Foote, R., Perpiñán, S., & Bhatt, R. (Eds.), Selected Proceedings of Second Language Research Forum 2007 (pp. 1–21). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Lardiere, D. (2007). Ultimate attainment in second language acquisition: A case study. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Lardiere, D. (2009). Some thoughts on the contrastive analysis of features in second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 25, 173–227.Google Scholar
Long, M. H. (2005). Problems with supposed counter-evidence to the critical period hypothesis. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 43, 287–317.Google Scholar
Paradis, M. (2004). A neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism. Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parodi, T., Schwartz, B. D., & Clahsen, H. (1997). On the L2 acquisition of the morphosyntax of German nominals. Essex Research Reports in Linguistics, 15, 1–43.Google Scholar
Picallo, M. C. (1991). Nominals and nominalization in Catalan. Probus, 3, 279–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Platzack, C. (1996). The initial hypothesis of syntax: A minimalist perspective on language acquisition and attrition. In Clahsen, H. (Ed.), Generative perspectives on language acquisition (pp. 369–414). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Prévost, P., & White, L. (2000). Missing surface inflection or impairment in second language acquisition? Second Language Research, 16, 103–133.Google Scholar
Rothman, J. (2008). Why not all counter-evidence to the critical period hypothesis is equal or problematic: Implications for SLA. Language and Linguistics Compass, 2, 1063–1088.Google Scholar
Schwartz, B. D. (1998). The second language instinct. Lingua, 106, 133–160.Google Scholar
Schwartz, B. D., & Sprouse, R. A. (1996). L2 cognitive states and the full transfer/full access model. Second Language Research, 12, 40–72.Google Scholar
Schwartz, B. D., & Sprouse, R. A. (2000). When syntactic theories evolve. In Archibald, J. (Ed.), Second language acquisition and linguistic theory (pp. 156–186). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Slabakova, R. (2006). Is there a critical period for semantics? Second Language Research, 22, 302–338.Google Scholar
Slabakova, R. (2008). Meaning in the second language. Berlin: Mouton DeGruyter.Google Scholar
Thomas, M. (2002). Development of the concept of the poverty of the stimulus. The Linguistic Review, 19, 51–71.Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I. M., & Dimitrakopoulou, M. (2007). The interpretability hypothesis: Evidence from wh-interrogatives in second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 23, 215–242.Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I. M., & Roussou, A. (1991). Parameter-resetting in L2? UCL Working Papers in Linguistics, 3, 149–170.Google Scholar
Ullman, M. (2001). The neural basis of lexicon and grammar in first and second language: The declarative/procedural model. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4, 105–122.Google Scholar
White, L. (2003). Second language acquisition and Universal Grammar. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, L. (in press). Grammatical Theory: Interfaces and L2 knowledge. In Ritchie, W. & Bhatia, T. K. (Eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition.Google Scholar
White, L., Valenzuela, E., Kozlowska-MacGregor, M., & Leung, Y. I. (2004). Gender agreement in nonnative Spanish: Evidence against failed features. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25, 105–133.Google Scholar
Zagona, K. (2002). The syntax of Spanish. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar