L1 and L2 Word Order Acquisition

Many parameters proposed in the literature are construction specific to a greater or lesser degree. This has some unfortunate consequences. First, such parameters do not provide an explanation for the rapidity and success of first-language (L1) acquisition. Second, they make it hard to test hypotheses about the nature of second-language (L2) acquisition. In this article, a version of the OV/VO parameter is developed that is not construction specific. It relates various empirical domains, including basic word order, scrambling, Exceptional Case Marking, and the distribution of particles. If correct, this parameter reduces the number of learning tasks for the child. It also allows evaluation of the various hypotheses about the accessibility of parameters in L2 acquisition. Following Clahsen and Muysken (1986; 1989), we argue that, whereas L1 acquisition is a process of parameter setting, L2 acquisition crucially involves the: positing of construction-specific rules, a process guided by general learning stra...

[1]  F. Ponelis.  The Development of Afrikaans , 1993 .

[2]  Noam Chomsky,et al.  Lectures on Government and Binding , 1981 .

[3]  F. Weerman,et al.  CASE THEORY AND THE DIACHRONY OF COMPLEX PREDICATES IN DUTCH , 1992 .

[4]  Hilda Koopman,et al.  The syntax of verbs , 1984 .

[5]  Jacquelyn Schachter,et al.  Second Language Acquisition and Its Relationship to Universal Grammar , 1988 .

[6]  Chien Yu-Chin,et al.  Children's Knowledge of Locality Conditions in Binding as Evidence for the Modularity of Syntax and Pragmatics , 1990 .

[7]  H. de Hoop,et al.  Case configuration and noun phrase interpretation , 1996 .

[8]  E. Williams.  Argument Structure and Morphology , 1981 .

[9]  Robert Bley-Vroman,et al.  The logical problem of foreign language learning , 1989 .

[10]  Joy Hirsch,et al.  Distinct cortical areas associated with native and second languages , 1997, Nature.

[11]  E. Clark.  Awareness of Language: Some Evidence from what Children Say and Do , 1978 .

[12]  Lydia White,et al.  UG or not UG, that is the question: a reply to Clahsen and Muysken , 1987 .

[13]  Lisa deMena Travis,et al.  Parameters and effects of word order variation , 1984 .

[14]  Jacquelyn Schachter,et al.  Linguistic Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition: Testing a proposed universal , 1989 .

[15]  Bonnie D. Schwartz.  Testing Between UG-Based and Problem-Solving Models of L2A: Developmental Sequence Data , 1992 .

[16]  Noam Chomsky,et al.  The Minimalist Program , 1992 .

[17]  A. Kemenade.  Syntactic Case and Morphological Case in the History of English , 1987 .

[18]  J. Schaeffer,et al.  Direct object scrambling in Dutch and Italian child language , 1998 .

[19]  Johan Kerstens.  The Syntax of Number, Person and Gender: A Theory of Phi-Features , 1993 .

[20]  E. Selkirk.  On derived domains in sentence phonology , 1986, Phonology.

[21]  G. Haan.  Contact-induced changes in modern West Frisian , 1997 .

[22]  B. MacWhinney.  The CHILDES project: tools for analyzing talk , 1992 .

[23]  Jean-Yves Pollock.  Verb movement, universal grammar and the structure of IP , 1989 .

[24]  DIETER WUNDERLICH,et al.  Morphology feeds syntax: the case of particle verbs , 1994 .

[25]  María Luisa Rivero.  Exceptional Case Marking Effects in Rumanian Subjunctive Complements , 1991 .

[26]  S. Kouwenberg.  A grammar of Berbice Dutch Creole , 1994 .

[27]  Suzanne Flynn,et al.  A Parameter-Setting Model of L2 Acquisition: Experimental Studies in Anaphora , 1987 .

[28]  Lydia White,et al.  THE “PRO-DROP” PARAMETER IN ADULT SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION , 1985 .

[29]  Ad Neeleman,et al.  Scrambling and the PF Interface , 1997 .

[30]  Yukio Otsu,et al.  Universal grammar and syntactic development in children : toward a theory of syntactic development , 1981 .

[31]  W. Snyder.  The structure and acquisition of English dative constructions , 1997 .

[32]  Philip Holmes,et al.  Danish: A Comprehensive Grammar , 2010 .

[33]  Verb movement and expletive subjects in the Germanic languages . By Sten Vikner. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Pp. 294. , 1996 .

[34]  T. Hoekstra,et al.  GAPS AND PARASITIC GAPS , 1984 .

[35]  K. Wexler,et al.  Development of Principle B in Russian: Coindexation at LF and Coreference , 1992 .

[36]  A. Belletti.  Generalized verb movement : aspects of verb syntax , 1992 .

[37]  H. Clahsen.  Constraints on Parameter Setting: A Grammatical Analysis of Some Acquisition Stages in German Child Language , 1990 .

[38]  T. Roeper,et al.  Re: the abstract clitic hypothesis , 1992 .

[39]  Suzanne Flynn,et al.  A parameter-setting model of L2 acquisition , 1986 .

[40]  Helen Dehoop,et al.  Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation , 1996 .

[41]  Beatrice Santorini,et al.  Towards resolving Webelhuth’s paradox: evidence from German and Korean , 1994 .

[42]  Fred Weerman,et al.  Deriving Functional Projections , 1993 .

[43]  Sharon Hilles,et al.  Interlanguage and the pro-drop parameter , 1986 .

[44]  L. Bloom.  Language Development: Form and Function in Emerging Grammars , 1970 .

[45]  K. Hale,et al.  Linguistic Inquiry 27:1–68 (Winter 1996) THE STRUCTURAL DETERMINATION OF CASE AND AGREEMENT , 2022 .

[46]  Guido Vanden Wyngaerd,et al.  Object shift as an A-movement rule , 1989 .

[47]  Akemi Ueyama.  Against the A/A’-movement dichotomy , 1994 .

[48]  O.N.C.J. Koeneman.  Flexible syntax and proposition marking , 1995 .

[49]  Josef Bayer,et al.  Against scrambling as an instance of Move-alpha , 1994 .

[50]  Chris Collins,et al.  Vp-Internal structure and object shift in icelandic , 1996 .

[51]  Germen J. de Haan.  The Third Construction in Frisian , 1993 .

[52]  Neil Smith,et al.  Learning the impossible: The acquisition of possible and impossible languages by a polyglot savant , 1993 .

[53]  Peter Svenonius,et al.  Dependent nexus : subordinate predication structures in English and the Scandinavian languages , 1994 .

[54]  A. Evers.  The transformational cycle in Dutch and German , 1975 .

[55]  J. S. Johnson,et al.  Critical period effects in second language learning: The influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language , 1989, Cognitive Psychology.

[56]  Lynn Eubank,et al.  Point counterpoint : universal grammar in the second language , 1991 .

[57]  Mark C. Baker,et al.  Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing , 1988 .

[58]  Kyle B. Johnson.  Object positions , 1991 .

[59]  A. Kemenade.  Verb movement and expletive subjects in the Germanic languages By Sten Vikner (review) , 1995 .

[60]  Philip Holmes,et al.  Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar , 1994 .

[61]  Pieter Muysken,et al.  The UG paradox in L2 acquisition , 1989 .

[62]  Harald Clahsen,et al.  The availability of universal grammar to adult and child learners - a study of the acquisition of German word order , 1986 .

[63]  Shlomo Vinker,et al.  Verb Movement and Expletive Subjects in the Germanic Languages , 1995 .

[64]  Bernhard Wolfgang Rohrbacher,et al.  THE GERMANIC VO LANGUAGES AND THE FULL PARADIGM : A THEORY OF V-TO-I RAISING , 1994 .

[65]  Jaklin Kornfilt,et al.  Naked Partitive Phrases in Turkish , 1996 .

[66]  W. Zonneveld,et al.  Phonological Acquisition and Dutch Word Prosody , 1996 .

[67]  Andrew Radford,et al.  Syntactic Theory and the Acquisition of English Syntax: The Nature of Early Child Grammars of English , 1990 .

[68]  Mara Frascarelli,et al.  Recensione di: "Studies on Scrambling - Movement and Non-Movement Approaches to Free Word Order Phenomena", Corver, N. and H. van Riemsdijk (eds.), Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin/New York, 1994. SILTA, , 1998 .

[69]  Lydia White,et al.  Universal Grammar and second language acquisition , 1989 .

[70]  R. Larson.  On the double object construction , 1988 .

[71]  Fred Weerman,et al.  The balance between syntax and morphology: Dutch particles and resultatives , 1993 .

[72]  Jacquelyn Schachter,et al.  On the issue of completeness in second language acquisition , 1990 .

[73]  Jürgen M. Meisel,et al.  Bilingual first language acquisition : French and German grammatical development , 1994 .

[74]  Harald Clahsen,et al.  The Comparative Study of First and Second Language Development , 1990, Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

[75]  Jürgen Weissenborn,et al.  Picking up Particles , 1995 .

[76]  Giuliana Giusti,et al.  Floating Quantifiers, scrambling and configurationality , 1990 .

[77]  Fred Weerman.  Parameters and Acquisition , 1996 .

[78]  M. Verrips,et al.  An exploration into the application of dynamic systems modelling to language acquisition. , 1995 .