Syntactic optionality in non-native grammars

The existence of optionality is well attested in mature grammars and particularly in transitional stages of development (of both child and adult grammars). A complete explanatory account of optionality, however, has not yet been reached. Such an account is needed for two main reasons. First, optionality poses a challenge for contemporary formal models of generative grammar which, unlike their predecessors (e.g., classic transformational grammar, Government-Binding), assume competition for well-formedness and rule out optional syntactic operations. Secondly, and more specifically relevant to this volume, optionality can be found not only at intermediate stages of second language (L2) acquisition, but also at advanced stages and even in the end-state grammars of nonnative speakers who have reached the stage of ultimate attainment: it can therefore become a permanent, or ‘stabilized’ feature in L2 acquisition (Robertson and Sorace, 1999; Sorace, 1999). Residual optionality in the end-state grammars may therefore be regarded as a type of divergence from the corresponding native grammar. Whether ‘stable’ optionality in mature L1 grammars and ‘stabilized’ optionality in end-state L2 grammars have the same etiology, and whether developmental optionality in adult L2 grammars is a phenomenon of a different nature from that of developmental

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