Transfer and access to universal grammar in adult second language acquisition

properties related to rich agreement inflection, the lexicon of native speakers of languages like Italian and Spanish contains separate entries for the members of the agreement paradigm (see section 3.1). The assumption that these languages thus exhibit a [+ strong] Agr parameter value, captures the fact that Spanish and Italian have null subjects, inverted subjects and word orders that suggest V-to-Agr raising. Combining the [+ strong] Agr value of Spanish and Italian with the Full Transfer assumption that such properties transfer, I hypothesise that the L2 initial state lexicon of native Italian and Spanish L2ers contains individual entries for each of the members of the agreement paradigm, although the agreement morphology itself does not transfer. In other words, each of these L2 initial state lexical entries contains all the (morphological, semantic and syntactic) information of its L1 counterpart, apart from the phonological form itself, which does not transfer. The phonological representation of each individual agreement affix is ‘o’ in the L2 initial state lexicon. An illustration of this hypothetical L2 initial state lexicon of a native Italian L2 learner is given in (13). I suggest that the inflectional paradigm of the present tense indicative as it is listed in the L1 final state lexicon of a native Italian speaker could be represented as (13a), while the inflectional paradigm of the present tense in the L2 initial state lexicon of the same native adult Italian L2 learner would look more like (13b). (13) a. Inflectional paradigm for the present tense indicative in the L1 final state lexicon of an adult native Italian speaker 1st person 2nd person 3rd person Singular -o -i o Plural -mo -te -no b. Inflectional paradigm for the present tense indicative in the L2 initial state lexicon of an adult native Italian speaker (who has just begun learning a second language X) 1st person 2nd person 3rd person singular o o o plural o o o