BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1996) 19, 677-758
Printed in the United States of America
Second language acquisition:
Theoretical and experimental issues
in contemporary research
Samuel David Epstein
Linguistics Department, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
Electronic mail: epstein@fas.harvard.edu
Suzanne Flynn
Foreign Languages and Literatures, Linguistics and Philosophy,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
Electronic mail: sflynn@MIT.edu
Gita Martohardjono
Department of Linguistics, Queens College/CUNY, Flushing, NY 11367
Abstract: To what extent, if any, does Universal Grammar (UG) constrain second language (L2) acquisition? This is not only an empirical
question, but one which is currently investigable. In this context, L2 acquisition is emerging as an important new domain of
psycholinguistic research. Three logical possibilities have been articulated regarding the role of UG in L2 acquisition: The first is the "no
access" hypothesis that claims that no aspect of UG is available to the L2 learner. The second is the "partial access" hypothesis that claims
that only LI instantiated principles and LI instantiated parameter-values of UG are available to the learner. The third, called the "full
access" hypothesis, asserts that UG in its entirety constrains L2 acquisition.
In this paper we argue that there is no compelling evidence to support either of the first two hypotheses. Moreover, we provide evidence
concerning functional categories in L2 acquisition consistent with the claim that UG is fully available to the L2 learner (see also Flynn
1987; Li 1993; Martohardjono 1992; Schwartz & Sprouse 1991; Thomas 1991; White 1989). In addition, we will attempt to clarify some of
currently unclear theoretical issues that arise with respect to positing UG as an explanatory theory of L2 acquisition. We will also
investigate in some detail certain crucial methodological questions involved in experimentally testing the role of UG in L2 acquisition and
finally, we will present a set of experimental results of our own supporting the "Full Access" hypothesis.
Keywords: competence vs. performance; critical periods; functional categories; innateness; language acquisition; morphology; parameter setting; problem solving; psycholinguistics; second language learning; stages; universal grammar
Introduction
There is an emerging awareness among linguistic theorists
and psycholinguists that the study of adult second language
(L2) acquisition is rapidly developing into one of the most
dynamic and promising areas of inquiry in cognitive science. Traditionally, these language scientists have paid little
attention to the issues surrounding L2 acquisition; yet
mastering an L2 (or L3, L4, . . . , Ln) constitutes both a
major and a commonplace achievement for most of the
world's population. Until recently, however, this process
was not well understood. In large part this was because
traditional approaches to the study of L2 learning were
inextricably linked to language pedagogy alone (see review
in Newmeyer 1983; Newmeyer & Weinberger 1988). However, recent theoretical and empirical advances have convinced a growing number of scholars that careful investigation of the L2 acquisition process is likely to be a very
fruitful endeavor in understanding the cognitive processes
specific to language learning or the biological endowment
for language, namely, Universal Grammar (UG).
A central, implicit argument of this target article is that
© 1996 Cambridge University Press
0140-525X/96 $9.00+ .10
understanding how L2 acquisition occurs will provide a
unique and fundamentally important perspective on the
mental processes involved in language learning and use. In
particular, it provides an important context for investigating
the interaction of general cognitive and specifically linguistic processes. This perspective is different from and
complementary to that provided by the study of first language (LI) acquisition in children..L2 learners, specifically
adult learners, bring capacities to bear on the languagelearning process that are both similar to and different from
the capacities of children. The differences can be attributed
to the fact that limitations due to general developmental
deficits are typically irrelevant in adult language acquisition. Therefore, the study of L2 acquisition provides a
unique context in which to examine language development
independent of maturational issues. It also permits an
examination of the interaction of various cognitive capacities that are not fully developed in children. Furthermore,
by contrasting adult L2 acquisition and child LI performance, researchers may be able to identify the role played
by experience in general, as well as by the existence or
absence of an already functioning LI, in the types of
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Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
processes that language learners at different ages might
rely on.
On the other hand, L2 acquisition research has pointed
to striking similarities between child and adult language
acquisition, a fact that can be explained if we view these two
cognitive processes as fundamentally similar in nature. At
this level, then, the study of how individuals acquire an L2 is
essential for the development of theories of language. If
linguistic theory is to provide an empirically accurate and
comprehensive characterization of language capacity and
learning, it must accommodate the facts of L2 acquisition.
A theoretical or empirical account that is responsive to the
facts of children's LI learning alone is almost certain to be
incomplete and may be fundamentally misguided in its
conclusions.
In short, L2 acquisition is a critical issue for the study of
language and the mind. It represents a central domain of
inquiry that is essential for the development of an understanding of language and language learning and their relationships to other cognitive processes. In this target article
we will attempt to demonstrate how investigations in this
field can provide, and in some cases have already provided, important insights into broader issues of language
learning.
Thus, a central question is, to what extent, if any, is adult
L2 acquisition constrained by the linguistic principles that
determine LI acquisition?1 We adopt the Principles and
Parameters framework of Universal Grammar and examine
three logical possibilities that have been articulated regarding the role of UG in second language acquisition. The first
is the no-access hypothesis, according to which no aspect of
UG is available to the L2 learner. The second is the partialaccess hypothesis, according to which only Ll-instantiated
principles and Ll-instantiated parameter-values of UG are
available to the learner. The third, called the full-access
hypothesis, is that UG in its entirety constrains L2 acquisition. We argue that there is no compelling evidence to
support either of the first two hypotheses, but that evidence
does exist that is consistent with the third. In addition, we
attempt to (1) clarify some of the theoretical issues that
arise with respect to positing UG as an explanatory theory of
second language acquisition, (2) investigate certain crucial
methodological questions involved in experimentally testing the role of UG in second language acquisition, and (3)
present experimental results of our own.
The paper is organized as follows. In section 1 we briefly
outline the theory of UG as the biological construct characterizing the human language faculty and sketch several
ways in which the relationship between UG and the process
of language acquisition can be conceptualized. In section 2
we consider the no-access hypothesis as typified by Clahsen
and Muysken (1986), Clahsen (1988), and Bley-Vroman
(1989). This hypothesis is "that child first language and
adult second language acquisition are guided by distinct
cognitive principles" (Clahsen 1988, p. 47). According to
this view, child LI acquisition is constrained by principles of
UG, whereas L2 learners use only "general learning strategies" - UG-independent principles - to guide their construction of L2 grammar. We show that such proposals are
both conceptually and empirically problematic, to the extent that they fail to distinguish an L2er's knowledge of
language (as represented in a grammar) from the manner in
which such knowledge is purported to be acquired (e.g., by
"general learning strategies"). Since the no-access hypoth678
esis often appeals to Lenneberg's Critical Period Hypothesis for language acquisition, we discuss it briefly as well.
In section 3 we consider the partial-access hypothesis as
developed by Schachter (1989), according to which "UG in
its entirety will not be available as a knowledge source for
the adult acquisition of a second language. Only a languagespecific instantiation of it will be (Schachter 1989, p. 13)."
Although at first glance this hypothesis may seem less
extreme and therefore more attractive than the no-access
hypothesis, we will argue that it is nonetheless untenable. 2
Section 3.3 contains the central focus of our paper: a case
study of a particular version of the partial-access hypothesis, namely, the Weak Continuity Hypothesis. This approach has been developed to account for the acquisition of
functional categories for both LI (e.g., Radford 1990) and
L2 acquisition (Vainikka & Young-Scholten 1991; 1992). It
hypothesizes that although LI and L2 learners have access
to certain principles of UG, their early grammars are
incomplete in that they lack functional categories (syntactic
categories that are involved in such grammatical phenomena as verb tense, agreement, and question formation,
etc.) 3
In addition, according to the L2 Weak Continuity Hypothesis, L2 acquisition differs from LI acquisition in the
way in which functional categories are eventually incorporated in learners' grammars. Using Vainikka and YoungScholten s work as representative of the Weak Continuity
Hypothesis for L2 acquisition, we examine their data in
some detail and argue that serious theoretical and methodological difficulties undermine the purported support for
such a model of L2 acquisition.
In section 4 we propose an alternative analysis of certain
data presented by Vainikka and Young-Scholten using the
model of full access to UG, in which both lexical and
functional categories are fully available to the L2 learner at
all stages of acquisition. In section 5 we present experimental results from our own study of the acquisition of functional categories by child and adult native speakers of
Japanese learning English. These results, we argue, support
the full-access hypothesis, but neither of its competitors. In
section 6 we present our conclusions and discussion.
1. UG theory and language acquisition
1.1. Brief outline of UG theory
In the theory of Universal Grammar (UG), principles and
parameters are hypothesized to constitute the innate cognitive faculty that makes language acquisition humanly possible. An important tenet of this theory is that this faculty is
autonomous; in other words, it is an independent cognitive
module that may interact with, but does not derive from
other cognitive faculties.4
Chomsky (1980, p. 38) has summarized the mechanisms
of UG and their role in language acquisition as follows: "UG
consists of a highly structured and restrictive system of
principles with certain open parameters, to be fixed by
experience. As these parameters are fixed, a grammar is
determined, what we may call a 'core grammar'." In this
theory, the role of principles (i.e., the cross-linguistically
invariant [universal] properties ofsyntax common to all languages) is to facilitate acquisition by constraining learners'
grammars, that is, by reducing the learners hypothesis
space from an infinite number of logical possibilities to the
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Parameter setting-
>
Core
grammar
LI
Core Grammar
(all principles and particular
parametric values specified)
Figure 1. Diagram illustrating components involved in the process of core grammar construction in first language acquisition.
set of possible human languages. The role of parameters
(which express the highly restricted respects in which
languages can differ syntactically) is to account for crosslinguistic syntactic variation. That is, UG principles admit
of a limited number of ways in which they can be instantiated, namely, those allowed by the parameters specifying
"possible variation." The linguistic evidence available to the
child during acquisition allows him to determine which
parameter setting characterizes his language. Parameter
setting eventually leads to the construction of a core grammar, where all relevant UG principles are instantiated. This
process is schematized in Figure 1.
1.2. Relationship between UG and the course
of acquisition
Whether UG is accessible in L2 acquisition depends largely
on how one understands the relationship between UG and
core grammars.5 In principle, at least two relationships are
possible. The first is shown in Figure 2. Here, as parameters are fixed during LI acquisition, UG itself becomes the
core grammar. From this perspective, parameter setting
changes the initial form of UG. Subsequent relations between UG and the grammar of the L2 are necessarily
indirect, mediated by the core grammar of the LI (see
Figure 3.) Another possibility, illustrated in Figure 4, is that
UG and core grammars are distinct but related constructs.
Thus, one could conceive of UG as the cognitive module
that constrains grammar construction during acquisition
but itself remains constant during this process. In this latter
view, parameter setting does not entail changing the basic
form of UG but instead consists of incorporating into each
stage of the grammar the particular UG option that accords
with the primary language data (the utterances to which the
language-learning child is exposed).
An argument for the latter model comes from bilingual
child language acquisition (see related discussion in Flynn
& Martohardjono 1994). Here the learner is potentially
faced with the task of constructing core grammars requiring
different parameter settings for the same principle.
In this situation it is difficult to maintain the hypothesis
that parameter setting fundamentally alters the options
provided by UG, making nonselected parameter settings
unavailable. For example, consider the situation of the child
learning both English and Japanese, who must set a parameter for head direction in two different ways. As shown in
L2
grammar
Figure 3. Consequence for L2 acquisition of the model in Figure 2. UG in its initial state is inaccessible. The relationship
between UG and the grammar or L2 is indirect, mediated by the
core grammar LI.
(1), Japanese "heads" go at the end of phrases and English
"heads" appear at the beginning.
(1)
Example of parameterized principle (from Cook 1988)6
a. Principle of head direction: A language has its head on
the same side in all its phrases. This parameter has two
settings: head-first and head-final.
b. English is head-first.
(i) liked the man
(ii) in the bank
c. Japanese is head-last.
(i) nihon-m (prepositional phrase)
Japan-in
'in Japan'
(ii) Watahshi-wa nihonjin desu. (verb phrase)
I-topic
Japanese am
'I am Japanese.'
For example, the head of a prepositional phrase is the
preposition; the head of a verb phrase is the verb. Maintaining that UG changes after parameter setting would force us
to conclude that for the bilingual Japanese-English child,
knowledge about the grammatical principle of head direction derives from UG for only one of the languages being
acquired, presumably the one for which evidence has set
the parameter first. The parametric value determining
head direction in the other language could then not be
learned. Rather, the knowledge acquired would have to be
explicitly specified (i.e., what is it, if not a parametric
value?), and it would presumably be assumed that, whatever it is, it is not determined by the language faculty but by
some other cognitive faculty/faculties. However, this directly conflicts with the claim that the language faculty is
autonomous, from these other faculties (whatever they may
be), and there is, in our view, abundant evidence for such
autonomy. Moreover, the alternative is highly inexplicit - if
the bilingual has not acquired two different parametric
values for the same parameter, then what has he acquired,
and what exact cognitive capacity facilitates acquisition of
this knowledge? To maintain an explicit empirical hypothesis, we seem to need a model where the form of UG is not
altered by parameter setting but where uninstantiated
settings instead remain available, at least for child language
acquisition. If we accept this model for LI language acquisition, it could in principle be true for L2 accjuisition as well
- and indeed, we will argue that this is the case.
Figure 2. One view of the relationship between UG and language-particular grammars. In this view, as
parameters are set, UG itself becomes the core grammar.
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Figure 4. Alternative view of the relationship between UG and
language-particular grammars. UG constrains core grammar construction during LI acquisition but remains constant itself,
thereby remaining accessible during the L2 acquisition process.
2. The no-access hypothesis
Three hypotheses have been formulated with respect to the
role of UG in adult L2 acquisition. In essence, the first of
these - the no-access hypothesis - claims that child LI
acquisition and adult L2 acquisition are fundamentally
different cognitive processes, the former deriving from the
language faculty, the latter determined by nonlinguistic
processes. Proponents of this position (and of the partialaccess position discussed in sect. 3) often appeal to Lennebergs Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) (1967) for language acquisition. In this section, we will briefly summarize
the proposal for a neurologically based critical period for
language acquisition, as well as some of the evidence
challenging it, as this is central to understanding the arguments advanced in support of both the no-access and the
partial-access hypotheses.
2.1. Critical period hypothesis
To our knowledge, the first proponents of the CPH were
Penfield (1953; Penfield & Roberts 1959), who assumed
that language learning increases in difficulty with age and
who linked this difficulty to decreasing cerebral plasticity.
Lenneberg (1967) fleshed out a more detailed theory of a
critical period for language acquisition. Based on his analysis
of existing clinical literature on unilateral brain damage and
hemispherectomies, Lenneberg concluded that there is
progressive lateralization of the language function to the left
hemisphere, a process that is complete by puberty. He
linked this putative phenomenon to what he believed to be a
dramatic decrease in the ability to acquire language. Lenneberg's hypothesis of complete lateralization by puberty
was based on two observations: (1) that aphasia as a result of
right hemisphere lesions is more likely to occur in children
as opposed to adults and (2) after left hemispherectomies,
children but not adults are able to transfer the language
function to the right hemisphere. Both observations suggest
equipotentiality for language in children but not in adults.
This position has been challenged by much subsequent
research. Since Lennebergs initial formulation of the CPH,
increasing evidence has suggested that the notion of progressive lateralization of the language function culminating
at puberty is incorrect. Although the evidence supports a
biological substrate for language, it points to the presence
680
of such a substrate at birth. Moreover, the evidence suggests that there is neither an optimal age at which the
language function operates, nor that this age precedes
puberty.
In a well-known reanalysis of the data that formed the
basis for Lennebergs claim, Krashen concluded that lateralization is established around age 5 (1972, p. 65). Similarly, Whitaker et al. (1981) have shown that if lateralization
is to be linked to brain maturation, as postulated by Lenneberg, then puberty is an unlikely time for lateralization to
be completed because the language area of the brain takes
on most of its adult characteristics by age 5. As noted by
Snow & Hoefnagel-Hohle (1978), "relying on brain growth
as the biological process that times the critical period would
predict a critical period ending at 5. This is not an age at
which any sharp discontinuities in language acquisition can
be observed however (p. 188)."
The observation that the language function can be transferred to the right hemisphere after left hemispherectomy
was also seriously questioned by Dennis, who found permanent linguistic deficits even in children who were thought
to have recovered their language fully after left hemispherectomy (cf. Dennis 1980; Dennis & Kohn 1975).
As a result of the evidence that seriously challenges the
CPH, and in particular the claim that there is increasing
hemispheric specialization of the language function that
culminates at puberty, some researchers maintain that
there is no evidence against LI and L2 being subserved by
the same neural stratum (e.g., Kinsboume 1981). Today,
researchers investigating the link between behavior and
brain maturation tend to speak of "sensitive" rather than
"critical" periods (see Bornstein 1987; Oyama 1987). This
shift in terminology reflects the growing sentiment in the
field that whatever biological determinants there are of
behaviors/capacities, they are unlikely to become totally
unavailable after a certain age. Rather, evidence suggests
that during certain periods of development, certain organisms tend to have heightened sensitivity to certain environmental stimuli, thereby enjoying an optimal situation for a
given behavior/capacity to develop. It is possible that something not unlike this holds for language acquisition as well.
Furthermore, although there are clearly differences between child and adult language learning, these differences
need not reside in accessibility or inaccessibility of universal
linguistic principles themselves, as proposed in the noaccess hypothesis. Instead, they could well derive from
differential ways of instantiating such principles according
to the particular demands of a language. For example,
Johnson (1988); Johnson and Newport (1991) report an age
effect on the acquisition of certain aspects of grammar.
In their study, speakers who acquired L2 English after the
age of 7;00 show a steady decline in the acquisition of rules
such as third-person singular s-affixation or progressive
ing-affixation. These, however, are language-particular
morphological aspects of English, related to but still different from the principles and parameters of UG themselves.
It might thus be the case that the acquisition of languageparticular aspects of grammar is age-sensitive.
It is important to note that the full-access hypothesis
does not deny the existence of differences between LI and
L2 acquisition, nor is it incompatible with the existence of
linguistic development through time. Within this framework, however, the source of these differences is not a lack
of access to UG in L2 acquisition. Instead, it is hypothesized
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that they follow, for example, from the differences involved
in assignment of parameter values in LI acquisition versus
assignment of additional parametric values in L2 acquisition or, for example, from differences in the way children
and adults acquire the lexicon and integrate UG with
grammar-external performance systems. If this is correct,
the consequences of any one of these processes could lead
to what appear to be "major" differences between LI and
L2 acquisition, but differences that are in fact not central to
arguments concerning the role of the domain-specific faculty for language, namely, UG (see discussion in Flynn &
Manuel 1991; Flynn & Martohardjono 1991).
2.2. L2 acquisition as a nonlinguistic phenomenon
Clahsen and Muysken (1986), Clahsen (1988), and BleyVroman (1989) offer the most radical formulations of the
position that L2 acquisition is fundamentally different from
LI acquisition. The basic claim is that L2 acquisition is governed by cognitive faculties that are separate and distinct
from the domain-specific language faculty, UG. Clahsen,
for example, suggests that processes similar to Slobins
(1973) Operating Principles can account for L2 learning.
Bley-Vroman suggests that L2 learning strategiesderive
from Piaget's Formal Operating Principles; these include
the capacity for "distributional analysis, analogy, hypothesis
formation and testing" (Bley-Vroman 1989, p. 54).
We will argue that although these no-access models claim
that they explain L2 acquisition and present themselves as
empirically viable alternatives to a UG-based theory of L2
acquisition, they fail to address the central issues confronting any L2 acquisition theory: (1) what exactly does (can)
the L2 learner know and (2) how does the L2 learner come
to know what he knows? Neither model provides adequate
descriptions (i.e., explicit specification of the forma] properties) of the grammars L2 learners internalize, that is, the
knowledge-states L2 learners are in. Moreover, although
both models implicitly assume that the L2 learner eventually attains a natural-language grammar, neither model
shows how such grammars can be acquired by employing
the nonlinguistic principles they claim to be central to L2
acquisition. Both proposals suggest that general learning
processes are central; however, insofar as such analytical
skills are merely learning strategies (i.e., "tools") with which
L2 learners construct grammars, they tell us nothing about
the actual content of the end-state grammar (knowledge)
represented in the learners mind/brain. And this is of
course precisely where the explanatory power of a UGbased theory lies.
The hypothesis that L2 learning is not constrained by the
language faculty is empirically inadequate given what is
known about the L2 learner's linguistic knowledge as represented in a grammar. For example, the capacity to distinguish between speech and other noises is provided by the
language faculty, in particular, universal phonetics (see,
e.g., review in Eimas 1975). Positing total inaccessibility to
the language facility would fail to explain how adults even
distinguish primary L2 data from nonlinguistic acoustic disturbances ("noise"). Similarly, total inaccessibility would
seem to entail that learners do not approach the L2 learning
task knowing (for example) that, like all human languages,
the target language has lexical items ("words"), a construct
specified in UG (Chomsky 1980).7 To account for the facts
regarding L2 acquisition without appeal to UG, one could
of course (explicitly or implicitly) attribute to L2 learners
knowledge that is empirically equivalent to that provided by
UG in this domain. However, if one accepts the empirically
equivalent perspective, then one has in effect abandoned
the no-access hypothesis. We will discuss this and other related issues in much more detail in section 2.4 when we
consider Bley-Woman's (1989) specific version of the noaccess hypothesis, the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis.
2.3. L2 acquisition as an astructural
problem-solving process
To account for the core linguistic knowledge that L2
learners have, Bley-Vroman (1989) appeals to the ability to
analogize from the LI to the L2. Appealing to analogy as a
central process in L2 acquisition is problematic because it
fails to distinguish between what the L2 learner knows
(content of grammar) and how he attains this grammar
(process). Furthermore, it entails a fundamental difference
between the nature of LI and L2 acquisition and thereby
fails to account for the significant similarities between
them, neither of which can be explained by analogy.
First, appealing to analogy (however it is to be defined) as
a central process by which grammar is "built" leaves the
result of the process - the content of the grammar (= that
which is known) - wholly unspecified and therefore certainly unexplained. That is, what the L2 learner knows is not
even addressed. Clearly, whether or not "analogy" plays a
role in acquisition, it cannot be part of the content of the
grammar; that is, it is not part of what the L2 learner knows.
For example, to say "Person P's grammar of German
has/contains analogy" is anomalous (cf. "Person P's grammar of German has this subject-verb agreement rule, this
word order specification, this lexicon, etc."). In sum, appealing to analogy as a central process by which grammar is
built fails to specify (hence fails to explain) knowledge of
language, that is, the content of the grammar. These hypotheses thus exhibit the questionable property that they
make claims about how an object, X, is constructed without
even minimally specifying the properties X has.
Second, if analogy were central in L2 acquisition, knowledge of language (hence, (un)grammaticality) would remain unexplained. We know that analogy cannot explain
certain types of knowledge attained in LI acquisition. For
example, native speakers of English do not accept as grammatical a string such as *Who did you see John and? "on
analogy with" the sentence Who did you see John with?
Clearly, as syntactic research has shown, such contrasts are
not isolated but are in fact infinitely varied; knowing a
language entails knowing precisely such facts regarding
grammaticality. The entirely empirical question here is:
What does one know when one knows English? It is
incumbent upon the proponents of analogy theories to
define this notion explicitly enough to subject such theories
to empirical tests.
L2 research has shown that knowledge of L2 (un)grammaticality is similar to that found in LI acquisition (White
1989; Munnich et al. 1991; 1994). Furthermore, this is the
case when even the LI cannot be the knowledge source
(Li 1993; Martohardjono 1991; 1992; Martohardjono &
Gair 1993; Uziel 1991). These studies show that L2 learners
do not assume surface string grammaticality properties to
be the same or even similar in the LI and the L2, indicating
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that L2 learners do not "analogize grammaticality" from the
LI to the L2. Martohardjono (1991) investigated knowledge of constraints on movement of wh -words (what, who,
why, where, etc.) in L2 English by two groups of learners
whose Lls do not instantiate overt u;/i-movement, namely,
speakers of Chinese and Indonesian. The constructions
tested were tufo-questions (questions involving movement
of a wh-word) that violate a particular constraint on movement in English. Specifically, in English an argument such as the object of a preposition (2) or of a verb (3) embedded in a relative clause (2) or an adjunct clause (3)
cannot be extracted (moved from the position marked by
"
" to the front of the sentence) to form a question:
?
(2) *What did Sue read a book that talked about
(3) *Who did this letter arrive after Sue called
?
It is important to note that in the corresponding, perfectly
grammatical Chinese and Indonesian u;fo-questions, the
wh-word is not moved. For example, the Indonesian (4)
expresses the same question as does (2).
(4) Siti baca buku yang
menceritakan
apa?
Siti read book RELATIVE ACT -tell-BEN
what
(Literally) 'Siti read the book that talked about what?'
The same situation obtains in Chinese, where an unmoved
wh-word (i.e., occupying the "
" position) in a relative
clause (5), an indirect question (6), a sentential subject (7),
or a reason adverbial clause (8) is licit (cf. Huang 1982),
unlike the ungrammatical u)/i-movement analogs in English:
(5) Relative Clause:
Ni zui xihuan shei xie de shu
You most like who write REL book
°'Who do you like the books that
wrote?'
(6) Indirect Question:
Ni xiang-zhidao shei lai-bu-lai?
You wonder who come-not-come
"'Who do you wonder whether
will come?'
(7) Sentential Subject:
Lisi vnai shenme zui hao
Lisi buy what most good?
"'What is that Lisi buys
best?'
(8) Reason Adverbial Clause:
ni [yinwei wo shuo-le shenme] er bu gaoxing?
you because I said
what
then not happy
?'
"'What are you unhappy because I said
Where there is a mismatch in surface-string grammaticality
between the LI and the L2, a possible hypothesis involving
analogy is that learners "analogize grammaticality" from the
LI "onto" the L2. That is, if L2 acquisition diverged from
LI acquisition in that analogy were the determining factor
in establishing knowledge of grammaticality (as BleyVroman s proposal seems to imply), one would expect L2
learners to judge uj/j-question types that are grammatical in
their LI as also being grammatical in the L2. However,
Martohardjono's results indicate that this is not the case.
Both the Chinese and the Indonesian subjects rejected
English tu/i-questions exhibiting extraction out of relative
clauses, adjunct clauses and sentential subjects as ungrammatical. This suggests, contra Bley-Vroman, that "analogy"
(however this inexplicit term is to be defined) is not central
in L2 acquisition, and can therefore not be what critically
distinguishes L2 acquisition from LI acquisition.8
On the other hand, it also appears to be the case that
many patterns of acquisition match for both LI and L2
acquisition, suggesting that similar processes underlie these
682
two types of acquisition.9 These patterns do not derive from
knowledge of the LI; nor do they result by analogy to some
other forms in the L2 input. This conclusion is well documented in early literature, most notably in works that
focused on the acquisition of certain functor morphemes in
English, such as articles, past-tense endings, and possessives. Results of extensive study indicated parallels in orders
of relative difficulty for child L2 learners (Dulay & Burt
1974a; 1974b) and adult L2 learners (Bailey et al. 1974) for
the acquisition of these functors; moreover, these patterns
paralleled those isolated for LI acquisition of English.
There is a highly consistent order of relative difficulty in the use
of functors across different language backgrounds, indicating
that learners are experiencing intra-language difficulties. . . .
Children and adults use common strategies and process linguistic data in fundamentally similar ways. (Bailey et al. 1974,
p. 235)
Other work (e.g., Cook 1973) isolated common patterns of
errors among both child LI learners and adult L2 learners
in their elicited imitation and comprehension of relative
clauses in English.
To sum up, both groups [LI and L2 learners] seemed to have
tackled the tasks of imitation and comprehension of relative
clauses in much the same manner. The similarities are: (i) the
low proportion of word perfect imitations; (ii) the omission of
'that' even when required grammatically; (iii) the replacement
of'that' by grammatical alternatives; (iv) the addition of relative
pronouns to sentences where grammatically possible; (v) the
tendency tofindclauses qualifying the 'object' more difficult to
imitate than those qualifying the 'subject;' (vi) the fact that
neither group showed a markedly different pattern of imitation
with sentences differing in case grammar; (vii) the 'encoding' of
syntactic structure was found in both groups; (viii) the low
proportion of correct answers to comprehension questions in
both groups. (Cook 1973, p. 27)
Similar results can be found in the early work of, for
example, d'Anglejan and Tucker (1975) and Cooper et al.
(1979). We will return to a discussion of these data as well as
more recent work in section 3.2.4.
The same arguments hold with respect to structure
dependency in general. Several studies have shown that L2
knowledge, like child LI knowledge, is indeed structuredependent; that is, L2ers have knowledge of, that is, have
acquired the L2 rules generating, the hierarchical syntactic
structures associated with linear word-strings. As noted by
Zobl (1983), Jenkins (1988), Flynn (1983), Flynn andO'Neil
(1988a; 1994), Felix (1988), Thomas (1991), Flynn and
Martohardjono (1991), Uziel (1991), and Martohardjono
(1993), an infinite number of structure-independent error
types are never made by L2 learners.' ° For example, Jenkins
argues that L2 learners do not utter strings such as *Is the
dog which in the corner is hungry, and they presumably
judge them ungrammatical. If language learners were simply choosing a structure-independent rule that scans the
string of words looking for the first occurrence of is in the
linear word-string, and then preposes it to form a question,
on an analogy with the formation of simpler questions in
English (e.g., John is here => Is John here?), we might expect
from L2 learners utterances of the form *Is the clog which
in the corner is hungry? The absence of such errors
strongly suggests that L2 learners have structuredependent knowledge, specifically, knowledge of the "Head
Movement Constraint": a restriction on the movement of
certain structurally defined categories, for example, verbs
such as is, disallowing *Is [the dog which
in the corner]
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is hungry? but allowing Is [the dog which is in the corner]
hungry? (see also Chomsky 1975, Ch. 1 and Crain &
Nakayama 1987) Similarly, the Head Movement Constraint
blocks *Have John will
breakfast? but allows Will
John
have breakfast? (see Crain 1992; Freidin 1992b;
Travis 1984 for more extensive discussion of this constraint).
L2 learners also exhibit the creative aspect of language
use. Like children, adults are not limited to mimicry of what
they have heard (Felix 1988; Flynn & O'Neil 1988a; White
1988). L2 learners from all Lls thus far investigated achieve
mental states for the L2 that go well beyond available data
and beyond any explicit teaching; they can understand and
produce utterances they have not seen or heard before.11
In sum, the data elicited from L2 learners cannot feasibly
be accounted for in terms of inductive learning procedures
for language that are implicit in models that reject UG.
2.4. A case study: Bley-Vroman's version of
the no-access hypothesis, the Fundamental
Difference Hypothesis
An often-cited version of the no-access hypothesis is BleyVroman's (1989) Fundamental Difference Hypothesis
(FDH), which states that the difference between LI and L2
acquisition is "internal, linguistic and qualitative" (p. 50). It
is internal, because it is "caused by differences in the
internal cognitive state of adults vs. children, not by some
external factor or factors . . . such as insufficient input, for
example" (p. 50). Furthermore, "it is linguistic, in that it is
caused by a change in the language faculty specifically, not
by some general change in learning ability" (p. 50). Finally,
it is qualitative, not just quantitative, in that in L2 acquisition "the domain-specific acquisition system is not just
attenuated, it is unavailable." These differences in the
knowledge sources for the child LI learner and the L2
learner are schematized in the following table from BleyVroman (B-V) (1989, p. 51): 12
Child language
Adult foreign language
development
learning
A. UG
A. Native-language
knowledge
B. Domain-specific learning B. General problem-solving
procedure
systems
When we consider the details of the FDH, certain
inconsistencies will appear, and it will turn out that its most
central claim, that the mental representations of the LI and
L2 grammars are fundamentally different, is substantially
weakened. We will show that the FDH does not in fact deny
domain-specific linguistic knowledge in the L2 learner. At
the same time, it paradoxically argues that the domainspecific language faculty is inaccessible to L2 learners. To
resolve the paradox and account for the domain-specific
linguistic knowledge that L2ers acquire, the FDH ends up
according native-language knowledge a privileged role in
L2 acquisition. B-V writes:
(9) [T]he learner will have reason to expect that the language to
be learned will be capable of generating an infinite number
of sentences; a language of finite cardinality will not be
expected. The learner will expect that the foreign language
will have a syntax, a semantics, a lexicon which recognizes
parts of speech, a morphology which provides systematic
ways of modifying the shapes of words, a phonology which
provides afiniteset of phonemes, and syllables, feet, phonological phrases, etc. Universals of this sort are available to the
foreign language learner merely by observing (not necessarily consciously) the most obvious large-scale characteristics of the native language - no deep analyses are necessary and by making the very conservative assumption that the
foreign language is not an utterly different sort of thing from
the native language, (p. 52)
These qualifications modify rather drastically the original
and most fundamental claim that knowledge given uniquely
by the language faculty is unavailable to the L2 learner.
First, it is not clear that knowledge of phonemes, syntax,
morphology, and so on - the most fundamental concepts
provided by UG, which moreover are domain-specific in
the sense that they are pertinent only to language - can be
attributed to the L2 by the learner without "deep analysis"
of the L2. Second, for the learner to assume that the
architecture of the L2 is "not utterly different" from
the architecture of the LI is tantamount to saying that the
learner is able to identify and presumably treat the L2 as an
object that falls under the domain of the language faculty.13
This in turn amounts to an admission that the L2 learner is
in large part approaching the task of L2 acquisition with the
same domain-specific knowledge that underlies LI acquisition. The significance of this is intended to be weakened by
the statement that this knowledge comes to the learner "via
the LI." It is not at all clear, however, whether and how the
claim that domain-specific linguistic knowledge applied to
the L2 "comes from the LI" can be empirically distinguished from the claim that it "comes from" the language
faculty itself, since it is this very faculty that specifies
universally determined knowledge of the LI in the first
place. This is particularly relevant when the knowledge is
identical in the LI and L2, as we will indicate below.
Given that the ideas expressed in (9) are widely entertained and fundamentally alter the original claim of nonaccessibility expressed by the FDH, let us consider (9) in
more detail, beginning with the first sentence: "[T]he
learner will have reason to expect that the language to be
learned will be capable of generating an infinite number of
sentences; a language of finite cardinality will not be expected [our emphasis]." Here (and elsewhere) there seems
to be a confusion between "language" and "grammar." A
standard - and, we believe, necessary - assumption is that
the learner is in fact acquiring a grammar (in standard
theory, a grammar is a rule system that generates sentences;
in current theory, a set of universal principles with parameter values determined; in theory-neutral terms, a particular
set of linguistic laws (e.g., "The subject precedes the verb";
"The verb agrees with the subject"). Crucially, the learner is
not "learning a language"; that is, he is not learning some
infinite set of sentences (e.g., S EngIjsh = {Bill left, Sue
leaves, a man is leaving, a tall woman has left, . . . } ) . The
grammar is the knowledge-state rule system, the generator
capable of generating an infinite number of sentences; the
language is the infinite set that is generated. Thus, B-V uses
the term language to mean these two crucially different
things, and the first assertion in the quotation must therefore be restated as "[T]he learner will have reason to expect
that the grammar to be learned will be capable of generating an infinite number of sentences."14
Our first question then is this: Why/how is it that upon
exposure to (among other data) some finite (therefore,
proper) subset of the foreign language (i.e., foreign primary
linguistic data), human (and presumably only human)
foreign-language learners expect (know) that - like all
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natural-language grammars - the L2 grammar has infinite
generative capacity and that the L2 grammar has other
universal and very fundamental properties including a
multicomponentiai internal structure "exhibiting a syntax, a
semantics, a lexicon, . . . a morphology, . . . a phonology,
. . . etc."? In other words, Why/how is it that under the
FDH, the L2 learner "expects" (knows) that the L2 consists
of precisely those subcomponents that all natural-language
grammars display, as specified by UG? 15 As seems reasonable, we argue that this "expectation" comes to the learner
via the language faculty itself.
Note, in this regard, that the FDH implies something
much stronger than the (very weak) assertion that the L2er
expects the L2 to have for example, "a syntax" (see again
[9]). There are an infinite number of possible "syntactic
systems" (means of concatenating symbols), including systems such as "Freely concatenate any symbols in any order."
Presumably, what is intended is not that the L2er expects
the L2 to have "a" (i.e., any) syntax. In fact, B-V explicitly
claims that the L2er expects a syntax with infinite generative capacity, hence an infinite number of possible syntactic
systems; namely, all those having finite generative capacity,
are not "expected" by the L2er. It appears then that the
intended meaning is:
The learner will expect that the foreign language [i.e., the L2
grammar] will have a NATURAL LANGUAGE syntax (as
defined by UG), a NATURAL LANGUAGE semantics (as
defined by UG), a NATURAL LANGUAGE morphology
(as defined by UG), etc.
The same arguments hold with respect to the claims in
2(9) made about the learner's L2 phonology and morphology. Thus, B-V proposes that the L2 learner expects very
specific component-internal atomic-category and phrasalcategory inventories, for example, "a finite set of phonemes,
and syllables, feet, phonological phrases, etc." Here again,
the theoretical constructs B-V specifically mentions are precisely UG-specified sets of phonological constructs common to all natural language grammars.16 How/Why does the
L2er know ("expect") such UG-specified constructs?
B-V also proposes that the L2 learner expects componentinternal structure-building (symbol-concatenating) operations (or rules), for example, "a morphology which provides
systematic ways of modifying the shapes of words." This
statement in fact imputes far more specific knowledge to
the L2 learner than the phrase "a systematic morphology"
conveys. Clearly the claim is not that the learner merely
"expects" any morphology that systematically modifies the
shapes of words, such as a morphology incorporating rules
like the following (found in no human grammar to date):
(i) Form plurals by adding the suffix -s to all and only those
nouns that refer to an object weighing less than 40 tons.
We believe L2ers do not ever hypothesize (perfectly systematic) morphological rules such as (i) (even though they
are entirely consistent with, i.e., correctly generate, primary
linguistic data such as cat/cats, dog/dogs, stick/sticks, etc.).
Again, we presume that the intended meaning is that the
learner expects a natural-language morphology as defined
by UG - in other words, a morphology that excludes an
infinite number of systematic rules like (i). Again, why/how
is it that the learner "expects" (knows) that such UGspecified constraints characterize the L2?
This has been the recurrent question throughout our
discussion of (9). The FDH claims that second grammar
acquisition is not constrained by UG; that is, although no
684
empirical evidence is given against access to UG, the FDH
claims that UG need not be assumed to account for the L2
learner's knowledge, because the same knowledge is available elsewhere, from a purported UG-external source namely, from observation of the LI. Nonetheless, we have
argued, under the FDH the L2 acquirer has knowledge
that is in fact specified in UG; that is each property of the L2
that the L2 learner is claimed to "expect" is in fact a
property of grammar specified by UG, a property common
to all natural-language grammars. Thus, we claim that the
FDH attributes UG-specified knowledge to the L2 learner
after all, albeit in the form of the L2 learners "expectations"
about the nature of the second "language."
Notice, at this juncture, that any empirical distinctions
between an account that attributes to L2ers "UG-specified
knowledge" and one that attributes "UG-specified knowledge via the LI" are extremely subtle, since in the cases
discussed the knowledge attributed to the L2er is identical
in the two accounts (e.g., knowledge of "phonological
phrase"). The difference is the source of the knowledge:
UG versus UG-via-Ll. 17 Since much of the argument
regarding UG accessibility rests on this distinction, let us
consider it more closely. Recall that the FDH makes the
following claim:
Universals of this sort are available to the foreign language
learner merely by observing (not necessarily consciously) the
most obvious large-scale characteristics of the native language no deep analyses are necessary - and by making the very
conservative assumption that the foreign language is not an
utterly different sort of thing from the native language. (BleyVroman 1989, pp. 51-52)
As discussed earlier, "universals of this sort" are universal
properties of grammars (not languages) as specified by UG:
they have infinite generative capacity, a finite set of autonomous computational subsystems (e.g., "a" syntactic component), component-internal categorial inventories (e.g.,
phonemes, each a bundle of UG-specified feature specifications), and so on. The question is, how are these acquired
by "mere observation"? Specifically, what is an observable,
obvious, large-scale characteristic of the native language
requiring no "deep" analysis? One might imagine the following type of response: "An observable, obvious, largescale characteristic requiring no deep analysis is, for example, that the native language has words." But of course
"observing the large-scale characteristic 'word'" is equivalent to "analyzing the primary lihguistic data in terms of the
abstract construct 'word,'" a construct provided by UG and
common to all natural-language grammars. Thus, humans
can "observe" "words" and find this "large-scale characteristic" of the continuous acoustic speech stream "obvious"
only because the construct "word" is biologically provided
(by UG). That is, organisms not genetically equipped to
analyze human speech in terms of the UG-specified abstract construct "word" will be unable to "observe this
obvious, large-scale characteristic" of the acoustic disturbances that humans, by virtue of our biological constitution,
recognize as speech. Surely, then, such universal properties
of grammar, are not "available by mere observation" of the
LI. If in B-V's view no "deep" analysis is necessary, are
"shallow" analyses sufficient and, if so, what exactly is the
shallow analysis and why is it that only humans can posit it?
Under the FDH, once the L2er completes his "mere
observation of the most obvious large-scale characteristics
of the native language," he then makes the assumption that
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the foreign language is not an utterly different sort of thing
from the native language. Leaving aside the unclarity of the
phrase "not utterly different," the crucial question is, where
does this assumption come from? Clearly, the L2er is not
told or taught to make the assumption. Rather, it seems to
be a property of the L2er himself; that is, it seems to be a
property of humans that upon exposure to primary linguistic data from a new language, they just "[assume] that
the foreign language is not an utterly different sort of thing
from the native language."
In fact, it does not seem to be the case that the L2er
"assumes" the L2 and the LI are "not utterly different."
Rather, the L2er appears to analyze an L2 as fundamentally
the same as an LI, and we argue that this is the case
precisely because UG is still available to him to make this
analysis possible. For example, even under the FDH,
exposure to finite, fragmentary, and "degenerate" primary
linguistic data from the L2 results in the internalization of
an L2 grammar that, just like the LI grammar, is constrained by what are in fact posited principles of UG. 18
But how is this possible without UG? In other words, if
not by virtue of UG, how is it that the L2 is "assumed" to be
not utterly different from the LI? Here again, the FDH
analysis appears to appeal directly to UG-constrained L2
acquisition.
In summary, we hope to have established the following
points concerning this representative version of the noaccess hypothesis. First, it involves a fundamental and
hence serious confusion between "language" and "grammar." Second, it attributes not only fundamental but also
highly specific knowledge of linguistic universals to the
L2er. Therefore, the empirical distinction between the
FDH and a UG-constrained theory of L2 formation is
highly subtle, since they both attribute what seems to be the
same (UG-specified) knowledge to the L2er (again depending on B-V's implicit assumptions in [9] - e.g., what is
"a syntax," "a semantics"? - What is meant by "etc."? What is the finite set of phonemes, syllables, feet, phonological phrases? - What explicit definitions of these terms are
being assumed, but not provided?). Where they differ is in
the source of the UG-specified knowledge. We believe the
L2er has UG-specified knowledge by virtue of "having"
UG. By contrast, B-V asserts that the L2er obtains this very
same UG-specified knowledge from purported UGexternal sources, namely (1) mere observation of the native
language, and (2) the assumption that the foreign language
is not "utterly different" from the native language. We have
argued, however, that these assumptions are highly inexplicit and that once they are rendered explicit, each in fact
appeals directly to UG. Thus, the no-access hypothesis
would seem to entail access after all.
2.5. Clahsen and Muysken's version of the no-access
hypothesis
Another formulation of the no-access hypothesis, which
confronts potential difficulties different from those facing
the FDH, is found in the work of Clahsen and Muysken
(1986) and Clahsen (1988), who compare the development
of word order in the LI and L2 acquisition of German. They
claim that although child grammars are constrained by UG,
adult grammars are not. Clahsen states:
the observed differences between LI and L2 learning can be
explained by assuming that child LI acquisition falls under the
parameter theory of language development, whereas the acqui-
sition strategies used by adults in L2 development may be
defined in terms of principles of information processing and
general problem solving. (1988, p. 22)
The claim that adult L2 grammars are not constrained by
UG is based on evidence concerning differences in the
developmental sequences observed in LI and L2 acquisition of German word order. The authors claim that the
observed differences follow from the assumption that only
children have access to UG. Of course, these (like all other
such) conclusions crucially depend on the particular analysis, in this case, the analysis of German, that is assumed.
Alternative explanations of these acquisition data have been
proposed by several researchers, who have argued that a
different (and arguably empirically preferable) linguistic
analysis of German syntax reveals evidence for the role of
UG principles in the L2 acquisition of German word order
(e.g., duPlessis et al. 1989; Tomaselli & Schwartz 1990).
To illustrate briefly, any analysis of German must account
for the fact that in main clauses the tensed verb is found in
second position after the subject or a topicalized element,
as in (10) (duPlessis et al., p. 58).
(10) a. Die Kinder haben das Brot gegessen.
the children have the bread eaten
'The children have eaten the bread.'
b. Das Brot haben die Kinder gegessen.
the bread have the children eaten
c. Gestern haben die Kinder das Brot gegessen.
yesterday have the children the bread eaten
In embedded clauses, in contrast, the finite verb is found in
final position, as in (11) (Du Plessis et al. p. 58).
(11) Ich glaube dass die Kinder das Brot gegessen haben.
I believe that the children the bread eaten
have.
In brief, Clahsen and Muysken account for these facts by
adopting an analysis of German that assumes that the verbsecond effects can be accounted for if the underlying order
of German is TOPIC COMP(lementizer, e.g., daB) SUBJECT) O(BJECT) V(ERB) and if two obligatory movement
rules apply in main clauses. The first rule moves the
inflected verb (in [10], haben) to the COMP position and
the second moves some phrasal category into the TOPIC
position immediately preceding the inflected verb. That the
verb does not move to second position in embedded clauses
"is accounted for by the fact that the complementizer has
filled the position to which the inflected verb would normally move, thereby preventing this movement" (duPlessis
et al. 1989, p. 58). 19
Assuming this analysis of German, Clahsen and Muysken
review various empirical studies of the development of verb
position in German LI and L2 acquisition. As a result of this
review, they postulate two different stage grammars: one
for LI learners of German and one for L2 learners of German. They argue that the observed differences between LI
and L2 acquisition of German word order are due to the
L2er's internalization of "unnatural" rules proscribed by
UG. More specifically, they argue that, at a certain stage of
development, German adult L2 learners, but not child LI
learners, move elements "such as particles, participles, and
infinitives" to sentence-final position. Because such movement is prohibited under the particular analysis of German
that Clahsen and Muysken assume, they conclude that
adult L2 acquisition of German is not constrained by UG.
This conclusion regarding the role of UG in adult L2
acquisition can be challenged in several ways (see more
detailed discussion in Flynn & O'Neil 1988a).20 DuPlessis
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et al., for example, demonstrate that the adult L2 German
results can be accounted for by a UG-consistent analysis by
assuming a different independently motivated analysis of
German, that of Travis (1984). This account of German also
posits a verb movement rule; however, the verb may appear
in three positions, namely, in V(erb), in Infl(ection), and in
COMP(lementizer). 21 Verb movement in embedded
clauses is not absolutely prohibited as in Clahsen and
Muysken's account because there is an available landing site
for it, namely Infl.
2.6. Conclusion
In sum, we know of no version of the no-access hypothesis
that displays even descriptive adequacy, since invariably
these analyses fail to even specify the liter's knowledge of
language as represented in a grammar. Furthermore, the
various versions of this hypothesis remain speculative and
arguably contradictory, since in order to account for the
knowledge L2 learners patently have, such hypotheses are
forced to retreat (often implicitly) from the fundamental
claim that only "nonlinguistic principles" (whatever they
may be) govern L2 acquisition. Thus, in the end, such
hypotheses characteristically attribute domain-specific linguistic knowledge to the learner - the very knowledge they
presume to be unavailable in L2 acquisition.
3. The partial-access hypothesis
3.1. Overview
In contrast to no-access hypotheses, according to partialaccess hypotheses, UG knowledge is not totally unavailable,
but it is limited in very specific ways that vary according to
the particular version of the hypothesis. One representative
proposal argues that only an Ll-instantiated UG remains
available to the adult (cf. Figs. 2 and 3). This would mean
that only the invariant principles of UG, that is, those that
characterize grammars of all languages would remain accessible to the L2 learner. Under this proposal, the child LI
learner has available the entire range of options provided by
UG, namely, all invariant principles and all parameterized
principles with settings still available. However, the L2
learner has direct access only to the invariant principles of
UG (those that characterize the grammars of all languages).
With respect to the parameterized principles for which
values were set during the learner's LI acquisition, only the
parametric values instantiated in LI are available to the
learner during L2 acquisition. Where the LI and the L2
differ in a particular parametric value, the L2 learner having immutably set the LI value during LI acquisition is hypothesized to be incapable of assigning a new value to
this parameter to coincide with the target grammar; or, if a
particular value of a parameter is necessary for the acquisition of the L2 but this value is not realized in the L2
learner's LI, then the L2 learner will not be able to acquire
this value. One particular version of this proposal, the
Window-Of-Opportunity Hypothesis (Schachter 1989) is
outlined in (12).
(12) Window-Of-Opportunity Hypothesis
[A]ll that remains as part of the knowledge state of an adult
native speaker of a language is a language-specific instantiation of UG, that of thefirstlanguage. UG in its entirety will
not be available as a knowledge source for the acquisition of
a second language. Only a language-specific instantiation of
686
it will be. . . . If, however, it turns out that in the acquisition
of the target some instantiation of principle P is necessary
and P is not incorporated into the learners LI, the learner
will have no language-internal knowledge to guide him/her
in the development of P. Therefore, completeness with
regard to the acquisition of the target language will not be
possible. (Schachter 1989, pp. 13-14)
According to the proposal in (12), UG as it is available to a
child LI learner does not constrain the L2 learner's hypotheses. Grammar construction by the L2 learner is constrained not by principles and parameters of UG but by
principles of UG and the immutably set parameters of the
particular LI grammar. Thus, this theory predicts that L2
grammar construction will differ significantly from LI
grammar construction. Further, completeness in L2 acquisition is predicted to be impossible in a wide variety of
cases, namely, whenever one or more parametric values do
not match or whenever certain LI principles are not instantiated in the L2. 22
A similar proposal is made by Strozer (1992), who argues
that only the invariant principles of UG are available to the
L2 learner and that parameter setting is impossible in adult
L2 acquisition. Although this approach might seem to
provide an appealing account of L2 acquisition, we argue
that this position can be seriously challenged in at least two
ways: first, by demonstrating that L2 learners are able to
construct grammars incorporating parameter settings not
instantiated in the LI, and, second, by demonstrating that
other nonparametric grammatical options not instantiated
in the LI are available to the L2 learner.
•,
«•
\
y
<•'
.(:
•
3.2. Evidence against the partial-access hypothesis
3.2.1. New parameter settings. 23 The partial-access hypothesis entails that UG fails to constrain those aspects of
L2 acquisition where there is a mismatch between the LI
and L2 grammars. This claim amounts to the hypothesis
that an L2 learner has a type of hybrid grammar: one part
UG-constrained and one part not.24 If, on the other hand,
the L2 learner has continuous (full) access to UG, we expect
that regardless of the match or mismatch between LI and
L2 language specific principles, the L2 grammar will be
constrained by principles and parameters of UG. More
specifically, we expect that the L2 grammar will, for example, obey certain universal constraints on the movement of
certain elements, such as wh-words in questions. We also
expect that an L2 learner will be able to assign a new (i.e.,
non-Ll) value to a given parameter.
Results from several empirical studies of Japanese
speakers' acquisition of English support the hypothesis that
L2 learners are able to assign new parametric values in the
construction of the L2 grammar when there is a mismatch
between the LI and the L2 (e.g., Flynn 1983; 1987; 1991;
1993; Flynn & Martohardjono 1992; 1994). Importantly,
these learners do so in a manner consistent with predictions
made by the theory of UG.
Let us consider evidence regarding the head-direction
parameter mentioned in section 1.2. The particular formulation we focus on concerns a functional category head, a
C°, as the head of a CP (complementizer phrase) and the
adjunction direction that correlates with it: Left-headed C °
correlates with right-branching adjunction and rightheaded C ° with left-branching adjunction (see Lust 1992
for detailed discussion). Given this formulation, results of
several empirical studies (e.g., Flynn 1983; 1984; 1987)
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Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
investigating the role of this parameter in adult L2 acquisition of anaphora indicate that from early stages of acquisition, Japanese speakers learning English as a second language (ESL) are able to acquire the English value of the
parameter. (Recall that Japanese is a head-final language in
that the head of a phrase comes at the end, and that English
is head-first in that the head of a phrase comes first.)
Extensive cross-linguistic LI acquisition studies have
demonstrated that young children establish the headdirection order for their Lls at early stages of acquisition
(see review in Lust 1986). It has been argued that children
use this knowledge to constrain their hypotheses about
other aspects of the language-particular grammar they are
constructing, one such aspect being anaphora direction,
that is, the relative linear ordering of a pronoun and its
antecedent.
In an elicited imitation and comprehension study, Flynn
(1983; 1987; Flynn & Lust 1990) investigated the acquisition of the head-direction parameter by 21 Japanese
speakers learning ESL (mean age: 30;00 years; ESL placement: High score 42 [range 0-50]) (for more detailed
discussion see Flynn 1983; 1987). They were tested on such
structures as those shown in (13) and (14).
Pre- and postposed subordinate adverbial clauses
(13) PREPOSED: [[compiementizerWhen] [the actor finished the
book, [the woman called the professor]]].
(14) POSTPOSED: [The worker called the owner [[colllI)ienle,1.
tizor\vhen] [the engineer finished the plans]]].
These structures varied in terms of the pre- and postposing
of the subordinate clause in relation to the main clause. The
preposed left-branching structure in (13) correlates with a
right-headed C°; the postposed, right-branching structure
in (14) correlates with a left-headed C°.
We hypothesized that if L2 learners had access to their
LI parameter values alone, then the Japanese speakers
tested in this study would have access only to a head-final
parameter value. If this were so, we would expect to find no
evidence that these learners were able to identify and assign
a new value to the head-direction parameter for the L2, English, in a manner observed for child LI acquisition. We
might even expect that those structures that follow from the
LI parameter setting would be more accessible to the Japanese learner than those that follow from the L2 parameter
setting; that is, they might show a preference for preposed
sentence structures rather than postposed structures.
Results of these studies and other related experiments
reveal two very important overarching findings. First, at
early stages of acquisition, Japanese adult L2 learners of
English do not find preposed sentence structures significantly easier either to imitate or to comprehend. That is,
they treat both of the sentence structures in (13) and (14)
similarly in production and comprehension, suggesting that
they "know" that English and Japanese differ in head
direction and are working out the consequences of a new
parameter setting for English. Second, later in acquisition
(at the highest proficiency level tested), the Japanese
speakers snowed a significant preference for postposed
sentence structures (sentence [14]) over preposed ones
(sentence [13]). This finding is consistent with that for LI
learners of English and suggests that these L2 learners had
assigned a value to the head-direction parameter in conformity with the English value. These results suggest that UG
remains available to the L2 leamer. They have been replicated with other sentence structures and with other Ian-
guage groups, specifically, Chinese and Spanish speakers
learning ESL (e.g., Flynn & Espinal 1985).25
3.2.2. Differentially instantiated UG principles. Another
empirical test of the partial-access hypothesis investigates
nonparametric variation. For example, if in the LI, a UG
principle applies vacuously to a certain construction, the
partial-access hypothesis predicts that the learner will not
be able to apply this principle nonvacuously to the corresponding construction in the L2. Several studies have
investigated this version of the partial-access hypothesis by
testing L2 learners' knowledge of principles constraining
syntactic movement. The effects of such principles on the
acquisition of u;/i-questions has been of particular interest
to researchers because in some languages the u)/j-phrase
moves in the formation of questions and in others it does
not (as briefly discussed above in sect. 2.3). Furthermore,
when syntactic movement of the u;/i-phrase occurs, certain
UG principles, generally known as "movement constraints," are applicable. Consider, for example, question
formation in English from a declarative containing a relative clause (RC), as in (15a). Although it is possible to
extract a u;/i-phrase across the relative clause (indicated by
the square brackets), as in (15b), extraction out of the
relative clause results in ungrammaticality, as seen in (15c).
(15) a. The girl [RC who bought the book] introduced the boy to
the clerk
b. Who did the girl, [RC who bought the book] introduce
to the clerk?
c. *What did the girl [who bought
] introduce the boy
to the clerk?
This is known as a "subjacency effect," since it is subjacency, a constraint on syntactic movement, that is violated
in (15c). In languages without syntactic movement, that is,
where question-formation occurs without fronting the whword (e.g., Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian), movement
constraints like subjacency are not applicable, and in those
languages, the sentence synonymous with (15c) is grammatical. L2 researchers investigating movement constraints
have been interested in whether or not speakers of languages lacking syntactic movement attain knowledge of the
ungrammaticality of sentences such as (15c) in a target
language like English.
Movement constraints are of particular interest to L2
researchers because the knowledge tested involves rather
esoteric sentence-types that are assumed to be unavailable
in the (L2) input. For LI acquisition, it is similarly assumed
that knowledge of the illicitness of such sentences is not
determinable from the input: first, it is generally assumed
that speakers of the LI, who provide the primary linguistic
data for the LI learner, simply do not utter such sentences.
In addition, if sentences like (15c) were available, as for
example in speech errors, this would complicate matters
even more for the language learner, since he would by
hypothesis not be given any indication of the ungrammaticality of this sentence. Critically, negative evidence is
required to determine ungrammaticality from the input
alone. Since negative evidence of this type is not generally
made available to the learner, knowledge of subjacency and
other negative constraints is hypothesized to be biologically
determined, that is, given by UG. 26
This argument concerning underdetermination of the
data (or poverty of the stimulus) can also be shown to hold
in L2 acquisition. While in L2 acquisition, especially in the
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case of classroom learning, negative evidence is arguably
more readily available than in LI acquisition, it is highly
unlikely that negative evidence concerning these particular
structure types (i.e., ungrammaticality resulting from illicit
u>/i-extractions) is ever explicitly or implicitly given (cf.
Cook 1988; White 1985). Furthermore, knowledge of this
type of ungrammaticality is not a function of amount of
input, that is, no matter how long learners have been
exposed to the L2, they, like the native speakers, are
unlikely to come across these types of sentences, and are
furthermore unlikely to be told of their grammatical status.
With regard to knowledge of movement constraints,
several researchers have shown that L2 learners of English
from various LI backgrounds accept violations like (15c) to
a significantly higher degree than do native speakers of
English. For one group of learners in one study (Schachter
1989), their ability to correctly judge subjacency violations
as ungrammatical only barely surpassed 50%, or what is
considered chance level. On the basis of results such as
these, it has been argued that UG is not available to the L2
learner in the same way that it is to the child LI learner.
In a recent study, Martohardjono (1993) proposes a
different approach to evaluating L2 learners' knowledge of
UG principles governing syntactic movement. She argues
that percentages of rejection of sentences constituting
violations might not be the best indicator of learners'
competence, since, in general, L2 learners perform at lower
success rates across tasks, when compared to native
speakers. Thus, their performance on judging grammatical
sentences, which are often used as controls in their studies,
is also typically lower than that of native speakers. Instead of
comparing absolute rates of rejection of individual whconstructions between native and non-native speakers,
Martohardjono tested whether L2 learners' judgments of
violations conform to grammatical systems allowed by Universal Grammar. That is, although L2 learners may lag
behind native speakers with regard to accuracy rates, their
judgments of uj/i-structures may still derive from their
knowledge of UG principles and conform to a pattern
predicted by UG. The relevant principles were movement
constraints, in particular subjacency and the empty category principle (ECP). These principles restrict movement
out of certain subordinate clauses, such as relative clauses
and u)/i-islands (so-called because they constitute clauses
headed by a tuft-word/phrase, such as "whether," "why,"
etc.).
Martohardjono included several types of movement violations predicted by UG to vary in relative strength. Extractions of u;ft-phrases out of relative clauses, adjuncts, and
sentential subjects, for example, are predicted to be strong
subjacency violations, when compared to extractions out of
clauses headed by "whether" or noun-complement clauses,
which constitute weak subjacency violations. The gradience
in acceptability is exemplified in (16a-b):27
(16) a. ??Which book did John hear [NP a minor [CP that you
had read
?
b. *Which book did John meet [NP a child [CP who read
Similarly, certain subject extractions result in strong violations when compared to object extractions, because typically subject extractions involve the effects of violating two
movement constraints, subjacency and the ECP, while
object extractions involve only subjacency. This is exemplified below:
688
(17) Subject Extraction, violates Subjacency and ECP (STRONG):
*Which neighbor did John spread [NP the minor [ cp that
stole a car?
(18) Object Extraction, violates Subjacency (WEAK):
??Which car did John spread [NP the minor [CP that the
neighbor stole
?
Evaluating L2 learners' relative rates of rejection across
these various constructions, Martohardjono found that the
same pattern emerged across all L2 groups tested, regardless of whether their Lls instantiated u;/i-questions with or
without movement. For example, she found that strong
violations, such as u>/i-extraction out of relative clauses and
adjunct clauses, were rejected at a higher rate than weak
violations involving u;/j-islands and noun complements.
Similarly, subject extractions involving the violation of two
principles were in general rejected at a higher rate than
object extractions involving the violation of only one principle. Importantly, the patterns that arose bore striking similarity to the patterns that the native speaker control group
showed for these constructions. Finally, and most significantly, the patterns that arose for both L2 learner groups as
well as the native English control group were precisely the
ones predicted by UG in terms of relative strength of the
violation.28 Crucially, for two of the L2 groups (native
speakers of Chinese and Indonesian) the LI could not have
been the knowledge source, either for the ungrammaticality of the sentences or for the particular pattern
which arose, since the corresponding constructions in the
LI (displaying u;/i-in-situ within relative clauses, sentential
subjects, etc.) are grammatical. Since knowledge of ungrammaticality could not possibly have been derived from
the LI grammar, Martohardjono concluded that UG principles constraining syntactic u;ft-movement must still be
available to these learners.
The subjects for this experiment are described in (19).
Examples of stimulus sentences are provided in (20).
(19) Subjects:
(20)
No. of
LI
Sentences
ESL placement level
16
.advanced
Chinese
17
Indonesian
advanced
Italian
11
advanced
English Control
10
Examples of stimulus sentences:
a. Extraction out of " relative clause (strong violation)
Subject: **Which man Hirl Tom fix the rlonr that
had broken?
Object: *Which mayor did Mary read the book that
prnkprl
?
b. Extraction out of adjunct clause (strong violation)
Subject: **Which waiter did the man leave the table
after
spilled the soup?
Object: *Which soup did the man leave the table after
the waiter spilled
?
c. Extraction out of ty/i-island (weak violation)
Subject: **Which sister did Pat know where
had
hidden the candy?
Object: *Which patient did Max explain how the poison
killed
?
d. Extraction out of noun complements (weak violation)
Subject: **Which neighbor did John spread the rumor
that
stole a car?
Object: *Which car did John spread the minor that the
neighbor stole
?
As shown in (21), which gives the overall results, L2
learners from these LI backgrounds are, in general, quite
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able to correctly identify ungrammatical wh-questions involving these different syntactic domains.
(21) Overall results
Mean percentage correct
Chinese
65
Indonesian
74
Italian
82
English
92
The interlanguage variability in these results can be explained if we assume that the LI plays a role in L2
acquisition. In particular, the languages differ in the way the
principles under examination are instantiated. In Chinese
and Indonesian, for example, tu/i-questions are not generated by syntactic movement, resulting in the nonapplication
of principles like subjacency and the ECP. Italian, on the
other hand, is similar to English in that u>h-questions are
generated by syntactic movement, triggering both subjacency and the ECP. This cross-linguistic LI difference is
predictably reflected in the groups' L2 accuracy rates.
While it is clear from these figures that all groups were able
to recognize movement violations in English, the two
groups with an LI that does not instantiate the principles
under examination (Chinese, Indonesian) show a lower
accuracy rate than the two groups with an LI that does
instantiate these principles (Italian, English). This type of
interlanguage variability is expected, and indeed predicted
by a parameter-setting theory of L2 acquisition (see Flynn
.1987). Of greater importance in this study, however, are the
strikingly similar patterns that arise across all the language
groups as seen in Figure 5. As discussed above, extractions
out of those domains that are predicted by UG to result in
strong violations were rejected at a higher rate than extractions predicted to result in weak violations. An ANOVA
showed this differential treatment of strong versus weak
violations to be significant for all groups at p = .0001.
The Indonesian subjects in this particular study provide a
striking example of UG-specified knowledge independent
of grammaticality status in the LI. In addition to being able
to recognize violations of movement constraints in general,
Figure 5. Chart illustrating results for Chinese, Indonesian, and
Italian speakers learning English as a second language as well as
native English speaker controls in terms of their grammaticality
judgments of sentences with strong and weak subagency violations. • Chinese; 8 Indonesian; • Italian; • English.
they evidence a more subtle knowledge of degree of unacceptability in the L2 that is independent of their knowledge
of the LI. As noted earlier, Indonesian questions do not
involve overt syntactic movement, and therefore no movement violations occur in these structures. However, questions involving u>h-islands and NP complements in this
language turn out to be unacceptable or highly marginal for
other reasons.29 Examples of these constructions are shown
in (22).
(22) a. W/i-islands
*Siti ingin tahu dimana Adik menyembunikan apa?
Siti want know where Adik ACT-hide what?
'What does Siti wonder where Adik hid
?'
b. NP complement
?*Siti dapat kabar bahwa saudaranya pergi kemana?
Siti receive news that relative-POSS go where?
'Where did Siti receive the news that her relative went
In other words, the acceptability status of the corresponding sentences in Indonesian is precisely the reverse of the
weak/strong effects for English. Questions involving adjuncts and relative clauses, which in English constitute
strong violations, are perfectly acceptable in Indonesian,
since in this language the wh-phra.se does not move in these
sentence-types and hence does not violate movement constraints. In contrast, questions involvingu>h-islands and NP
complements, which in English constitute only weak violations, are highly marginal, if not unacceptable in Indonesian. These facts, however, do not seem to affect the L2
learners' ability to differentiate correctly between the two
types of violations when learning English. As the results in
(23) indicate, their judgments of these sentences pattern in
the same way as those of native speakers. That is, they
weakly reject NP complements and w/i-island violations,
and they strongly reject extractions out of relative clauses
and adjuncts.
(23) Mean percentage correct
Strong Weak
Indonesian
88
46 .
English
99.0
78.0
We argue that this pattern is not a coincidence30 but
results from the speakers' knowledge (both those for whom
English is the LI and those for whom it is the L2) of the
differential effects of movement constraints on sentences
generated by syntactic movement.31
3.2.3. Error data from adult L2 acquisition. A third piece of
compelling evidence against the partial-access hypothesis
emerges from error data collected from the same set of
Japanese speakers who were tested on pre- and postposed
sentence structures (see sect. 3.2.1). Elicited imitation of
sentences such as (24) was extremely difficult for these
learners of English, as shown in Figure 6.
(24) When the doctor received the results, he called the gentleman.
Sentence (24) displays a preposed, left-branching adverbial
adjunct clause as well as forward pronoun anaphora. In
forward pronoun anaphora structures such as (25) below,
the antecedent (Taroo) precedes the null pronoun form
(interpreted as "he" in this sentence). Sentences such as
these do not involve a surface contrast in the relative order
of: (1) the antecedents and the proform and (2) the subordinate and matrix clauses. These sentences are in accord with
Japanese as a head-final (or right-headed CP) language.
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3.0-
LOW
MID
HIGH
Figure 6. Results for amount correct in Japanese ESL learners'
elicited information of sentence involving pre-posed subordinate
adverbial clauses and forward pronoun anaphora.
(25)
Taroo wa nyuusi
no
kekka o
kiita toki
Taroo-topic entrance exam-possessive result-accusative heard when
0 hahaoya ni
denwa
sita
pro mother-dative telephone did.
'When Taroo heard (found out) the results of the entrance exam, (he)
called his mother.'
The extremely high error rate on these sentences is expected, given a UG parameter setting model of grammar
acquisition. As noted earlier, the Japanese speaker learning English must assign a new parameter setting for
head direction. In LI acquisition, the setting for this
parameter has been argued to involve a correlation between the resultant configuration (head-initial or headfinal) and anaphora directionality. When headcomplement order is principally head-initial, forward directionality (i.e., antecedent precedes pronoun) is productively licensed.
If the Japanese L2 acquisition of English is constrained
by the same parameter as is child LI acquisition, and if the
L2 learner draws the same empirical consequences as the
LI learner, then the Japanese L2 learners' difficulty with
sentences such as (24) can be explained in the following
way: Sentence (24) is not only inconsistent with the new
parameter setting (to head-initial direction) of English as a
head-initial language, but it also violates the empirical
consequence regarding anaphora direction that correlates
with this parameter setting. In this case, forward anaphora
correlates with head-initiality. Results such as these are
left unaccounted for within a model disallowing access to
principles and parametric values independent of the LI
grammar.
3.2.4. Nontransfer of language-specific aspects. Results
of a study investigating the L2 acquisition of the English
"control" verbs promise, remind, and tell by adult Spanish speakers also suggest that the L2 learner is constrained by UG rather than by the LI alone (see Flynn et
al. 1991).32
LI acquisition of the control structures exemplified in
690
(26a) has been widely studied (e.g., C. Chomsky 1969;
Maratsos 1974; McDaniels & Cairns 1990; Sherman 1983;
Sherman & Lust 1993; Tavakolian 1978). The results from
these and other studies indicate that: (1) in comprehension,
LI learners of English interpret all control verbs as if they
were object control verbs and (2) in both production and
comprehension, LI learners of English show a general
overall preference for the infinitive structures exemplified
in (26a) below when compared to their tensed counterparts
illustrated in (26b).
Similarly, early L2 acquisition studies focusing on the
comprehension of the structures in (26a) indicate a developmental pattern in which adult L2 learners interpreted
subject control verbs as if they were object control verbs at
early stages of acquisition (Cooper et al. 1979; d'Anglejan &
Tucker 1975). In addition, these comprehension studies
found no evidence that the L2ers attempted to "translate"
or to "map" their native language structures onto those of
the L2 even when the LI would have provided a correct
response for the English structures tested.
Given the comparable patterns of acquisition that LI and
L2 learners of English showed in comprehension of control
verb structures, the next question asked was whether their
patterns would also match for production. To test this, 21
adult speakers of Spanish learning ESL were tested in their
production of the structures exemplified in (26a and b). 33
The Spanish speakers tested were at either an Intermediate
(n = 9) or an Advanced (n = 12) level of competence as
measured by the standardized placement test from the
University of Michigan.
As exemplified in (27a and b), Spanish clearly has both
infinitives and tensed clauses. Spanish infinitivals also involve a null pronoun as in English (PRO) (27a[i]); however,
the tensed counterparts involve a pronominal form (pro)
(27b[i-iii]) not allowed in (subject) position in an English
tensed clause. All three control verbs tested in this study
(promise, remind, and tell) can occur in Spanish tensed
clauses, as in English. However, infinitives are not allowed
with tell or remind in Spanish; that is, Spanish does not have
counterparts to (26a[ii-iii]). The method used in this study
was an elicited imitation task, in which subjects were asked
to repeat sentences verbatim as given by the experimenter.
The sentences administered are illustrated in (26).
(26)
(27)
a. Infinitives
i. John promises Henry PRO to go to the store.
ii. John reminds Henry PRO to go to the store,
iii. John tells Henry PRO to go to the store,
b. Tensed finite
i. John promises Henry that he will go to the store.
ii. John reminds Henry that he will go to the store,
iii. John tells Henry that he will go to the store.
a. Infinitives
i. Juan le promete a Henry PRO ir
a la tienda
Juan him promises to Henry PRO to go to the store
'Juan promises Henry PRO will go to the store.'
b. Tensed finite
i. Juan le promete a Henry que PRO ird
a la tienda.
Juan him promises to Henry that PRO will go to the store
Juan promises Henry that he will go to the store.'
ii. Juan le dice a Henry que PRO vaya a la tienda.
Juan him tells to Henry that PRO go to the store
'Juan tells Henry to go to the store.'
iii. Juan le recuerda a Henry que PRO irii
a la tienda.
Juan him reminds to Henry that PRO will go to the store
'Juan reminds Henry that he will go to the store.'
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orr
2 .0-
O
1.5-
•peii
c
3
O
c
<a
That-Complements
1.0-
Hill
E
0.5^
I
Infinitives
00 Spanish
Figure 7. Results for amount correct for Spanish ESL learners' elicited imitation of
sentences with definitival subordinate clauses and finite subordinate "that-compliments."
• that-compliments; D infinitives
As shown in Figure 7, Spanish speakers significantly
preferred infinitives over finite that-clauses for the verbs
tested {promise, remind, and tell) when they were asked
to repeat both types of sentence in an elicited imitation
test. Importantly, these results replicate those for LI acquisition of- English (see review in Sherman & Lust
1993).
Given the results in Figure 7, we reason that if only the
learner's LI, and not UG, constrained L2 acquisition, we
would expect only Ll-instantiated lexical properties to be
available to the L2er. That is, at the very minimum, we
would expect the Spanish speakers to have found remind
and tell sentences with finite that -clauses to be significantly
easier to acquire than the infinitive structures for these
verbs. However, these results indicate that this is not the
case. These results, along with: (1) those from Japanese and
Chinese speakers - which match those for the Spanish
speakers - and (2) those from earlier comprehension
studies that indicate that L2 learners, like Li learners,
interpret both subject and object control verbs as object
control verbs, have been used to argue that a general
principle of locality plays a role in the L2 acquisition of
English. (See Sherman & Lust 1993 for details of a similar
proposal in LI acquisition.) Briefly, we argue that regardless of their Lls, L2 learners prefer object-controlled,
infinitive structures because in these structures an object
antecedent minimally c-commands PRO; that is, the nearest c-commanding element that appears in these structures
controls PRO. 34 In the infinitive structures in English,
there is a control domain within which the object is the
minimal c-commander of the proform, PRO. In the finite
t/iat-clauses (under their analysis), neither the subject nor
the object minimally c-commands the subject pronoun in
the subordinate clause. Both LI and L2 learners of English
seem to rely on this locality principle at early stages of
acquisition. Consequently, adults need to learn to override
this linguistic principle (and it appears that they do), in
order to learn the lexical language-specific subject control
properties of, for example, promise. Again, the important
result is that the patterns of acquisition isolated for the
Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese speakers seem inexplicable
in terms of "transfer from the LI," but can be accommo-
dated if one assumes that UG remains available to the adult
L2 learner.
3.2.5. Summary. In conclusion, the empirical results we
have reviewed in this section do not support the partialaccess hypothesis. L2 learners do seem to construct a
grammar of the new target language under the constraints
imposed by UG; the principles and parameters of UG
carefully investigated thus far indicate that both those not
instantiated in the LI and those that apply vacuously in the
LI but are operative in the L2 can be acquired by the L2
learner.35
3.3. The L2 acquisition of functional categories:
A case study
We now turn to a detailed consideration of a particular
version of the partial-access hypothesis, one concerning
the acquisition of syntactic categories - namely, the
Weak Continuity Hypothesis proposed by Vainikka and
Young-Scholten (VYS) (1991) (see also Eubank 1988; in
press; Kaplan 1993; Lakshmanov 1993; Liceras & Zohl
1993; Schwartz 1993 for related discussion).36
On the basis of data collected from several types of
production tasks, VYS claim that certain syntactic categories (namely, functional categories; see below) are initially absent from the grammars of L2 learners and that
these categories progressively emerge in discrete
stages.37 Because VYS's proposal provides interesting arguments in support of the partial-access hypothesis, we
focus on the theoretical (syntactic), empirical, and methodological (experimental) issues that it raises. In section
4 we will discuss possible alternative analyses of VYS's
data.
3.3.1. Methodology.
A. Experimental tasks: VYS's version of the Weak Continuity Hypothesis posits L2er knowledge of only those
syntactic categories that are represented by a certain percentage of phonetically correct forms in their subjects'
speech, collected from five elicited production tasks,
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each involving descriptive narration on the part of the
subject. In two of the tasks the test subjects were asked
to "tell the stories in comic strips which contained minimal or no text" (1991, p. 9). In the other tasks they were
required to describe a picture, to describe an action that
the experimenter had carried out, and to use the present
and the present perfect tenses to describe a particular
process.
First, to rely on the data collected from these particular
production tasks alone is in our view problematic. Although
inferences concerning linguistic knowledge must be based
on performance data of some sort, the type of production
data elicited in VYS's experiments do not provide a very
reliable indication of learners' knowledge of grammatical
categories. Production tasks of this kind make increased
performance demands as compared to other tasks, given
the lack of experimental controls. Thus, it is highly likely
that the absence or incorrect instantiation of certain syntactic categories in these "naturalistic" types of production
tasks is due to a deficiency in production or performance,
rather than to a knowledge deficit. To take one example,
contra VYS, it is not at all clear to us that failure to produce
(complex) sentence embedding necessarily indicates the
absence of the syntactic category characteristically employed in the analysis of embedded sentences (as we will
discuss in more detail below).
Moreover, even if a deficiency in the grammar (i.e., a
linguistic-knowledge deficit) is in fact responsible for this
particular performance/production failure, it is by no
means clear that the deficiency resides in the syntactic
component. Such deficiencies could, for example, be lexical. A learner may simply have not yet correctly associated
the appropriate lexical item with its grammatical category.
It is altogether possible that the absence of the German
complementizer dali ("that") in some of the utterances of
the L2 learners in VYS's data (which VYS interpret as
critical evidence for the absence of the syntactic category
COMP(LEMENTIZER)) is instead due simply to the L2
learners' failure to acquire this particular lexical entry
(word).
Similarly, the observed deficiencies may in principle be
phonological. For example, to attest the presence or absence of tense in English, one would presumably monitor
L2 learners' production of verb-final /-s/ or /-d[-ed]/.
However, if absent, the absence of these morphemes (suffixes) could in fact be due to a reduction of unstressed
phonemes or clusters in certain morphological environments - in this case, word final position. In order to
eliminate this as a possibility, one would have to monitor the
environments in which these morphemes were present or
absent, as has been proposed for LI acquisition (see
Demuth 1992).
In addition, these types of naturalistic production tasks
do not incorporate the controlled manipulation of target
structures relevant to the factors being investigated. Critically, the experimenters had to wait for the appearance
of target structures in the speech stream. Testing grammatical knowledge in this manner is not always efficacious or ultimately reliable and yields data that are
arguably inconclusive. It is also potentially problematic to
employ an experimental task in which subjects must narrate in a particular tense (e.g., present, as in VYS's study).
First, the subject might have difficulty with that particular tense, resulting in high error rates throughout.
692
Second, the present tense in English, for example, provides an infelicitous (or inaccurate) characterization of a
given event (e.g., a single event depicted in a comic
strip), since present tense expresses habitual action in
English. Thus, showing a subject a picture of, say, a boy
walking to school and asking the subject to narrate in the
English present tense ("A/The boy walks to school") arguably forces the subject to make infelicitous (or perhaps
false) statements (as noted in Hamburger & Crain 1982,
p. 256). In German, present tense is ambiguous between
habitual and present action. Finally, presenting subjects
with comic strips containing "minimal or no text" (VYS,
p. 9) is potentially problematic: Which comic strips had
which texts? Which comics had no text? How do the
text-comic pairings differ? How do these differences in
the (very complex pictorial and orthographic) stimuli presented influence or affect the subjects' linguistic performance in the quite different elicited production (descriptive narration) tasks?
B. Use of percentage correct as an indication of grammatical knowledge: An additional point, although one that is
not unique to this study, concerns the sole use of percentage
correct in the context of natural-speech data to substantiate
the (non)existence of knowledge of syntactic categories.
VYS set > 60% correct usage of a particular form as a
criterion that it has been acquired. We argue that this
inferential method is, for several reasons, unsound.
First, as we have already suggested, the tasks used to
evaluate grammatical knowledge in these studies do not
lend themselves to frequent occurrence of the target structures. Second, even if a structure is isolated by such a
method, in our view the likelihood of its being correct is low,
given the performance demands inherent in the tasks
themselves, which might well mitigate against their correct
use. Third, it is simply not clear whether there is a correlation between any percentage of correct usage of a particular
aspect of grammar and knowledge of that aspect. Thus, it is
conceivable that a learner may in fact know the target
language (i.e., the learner's grammar generates all the
target structures) but the learner never uses certain structures, or uses them incorrectly, for performance reasons. As
Chomsky (1991b, p. 19) notes, this is certainly true for
native LI speakers. An infinite number of grammatical
sentences in any language are not usable - for example, all
grammatical sentences (of which there is an infinite number) exhibiting three or more center-embedded relative
clauses.
To illustrate, 28(a-c) are all grammatical. However, (28a)
and (28b) are both usable (parsable), but (28c) (containing a
triply center embedded relative clause) is not.
(28) a. The rat died.
b. The rat the cat chased died.
c. The rat the cat the dog bit chased died, (meaning: "The
rat which was chased by the cat (which was, in turn,
bitten by the dog) died.")
Given this crucial distinction between grammaticality and
usability (a particular subcase of the crucial competence
[knowledge] vs. performance [behavior] distinction), it is
particularly problematic to attribute a knowledge deficit to
a subject merely because he fails to use a particular construction, especially in naturalistic production tasks not
specifically designed to elicit the particular structures under investigation (such as the tasks employed by VYS). As
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Poeppel and Wexler (1993) succinctly put it: "Absence of
evidence is not evidence of absence."
Of course, it is an empirical issue whether a particular
subject in a particular experimental study is omitting (or
less frequently using) a given construction for performance
reasons. If the omission is due to performance, and not to a
knowledge deficit, then decreasing experimental taskdemands should result in increased occurrence rates (see
sect. 5 below) - an unexpected correlation if a knowledge
deficit is involved. Needless to say, it is an empirical issue
which, if any, performance factors are in fact implicated
(and in what way they are implicated) in any given experimental result (see Lust et al. 1987).
C. Use of correct morphology: A final point in the context
of methodology involves reliance on correct morphology as
evidence of syntactic knowledge (regardless of thepercentage correct assumed to be criterial for acquisition).
For example, the correct use of subject-verb agreement
suffixes requires special morphological knowledge, not just
knowledge of the syntax, an issue to which we will return
(see also related discussion in Hyams & Safir 1991). Suppose, for purposes of illustration, that an L2 learner of
English had the agreement morphology (i.e., suffixal) analysis of English present tense "completely backwards"; that
is, suppose the learner thought that third-person singular
agreement in the present tense displayed no overt agreement suffix (e.g., He eat
) and that all other forms
exhibited the -s verbal agreement suffix (e.g., They eats). In
such a case, the subject would never use agreement
morphology/suffixes correctly, as in (29a) and (29b).
(29) a. He/She/It like
the boy.
b. I/We/You/They likes the boy.
Although strongly suggesting a morphological (suffixal)
misanalysis, such 100% incorrect use (which we will show
was not the case for VYS's subjects) does not necessarily
reflect incompetence regarding the syntax of subject-verb
agreement. 38
Notice first that our hypothetical learner, although having the morphology mixed up, does seem to know that the
grammar of English incorporates a rule of subject-verb
agreement - that is, the learner has not posited any of a
number of possible but non-English rules such as objectverb or object-preposition agreement. Given such knowledge and given that "subject" (a relational syntactic notion,
i.e., "subject of a sentence") and "verb" (a syntactic category
of a particular type, distinct from, say, noun or sentence) are
purely syntactic notions, it is clear from this alone that
ignorance of the morphology (i.e., ignorance of correct
verbal agreement suffixes) does not entail (total) ignorance
of the syntactic analysis. Thus, requiring correct morphology (correct verbal agreement suffixes) is a highly questionable criterion to employ in assessing the learners syntactic
knowledge.
Moreover, notice that our hypothetical learner, who has
the morphology wrong 100% of the time, could also have
more detailed native syntactic knowledge beyond the syntactic knowledge of the English rule/law that the syntactic
subject agrees with a particular type of syntactic category,
namely, the verb. First, our hypothetical learner could also
know that subject-verb agreement is in a certain sense
"local"; that is, the subject agrees not with just any verb in
the sentence, but with a/the local (nearby) one.
(30) a. "He say they likes Bob
b. He says they like Bob.
Second, our hypothetical learner could possess the syntactic knowledge that subject-verb agreement is blocked
whenever sentential negation (not) appears, exactly as is the
case in the target grammar English.
(31) a. He likes the boy
3s
3s
b. "He not like+s the boy (Direct subject-verb
agreement is blocked)
3s
3s
c. He does not like the boy
3s 3~s
agreement
That is, our "morphologically backward" learner could
nevertheless evince the target grammar knowledge that (1)
the syntactic (transformational) rule of rfo-insertion
(Chomsky 1965) is obligatory whenever sentential negation
appears, (2) do is inserted after the subject but before
negation, not (a syntactic [i.e., word order] fact), and (3) it is
do, not the main verb, that bears the agreement suffix (a
morphologically incorrect agreement suffix for our hypothetical subject).
(32) Incorrect morphology, correct syntax
a. Incorrectly, 3s = no suffix; correctly, do
required with negation
He/She/It do_ not like the boy
3s
3s
(not: °He/She/It not like_ the boy)
b. Incorrectly, 3pl = -s suffix; correctly, do required
with negation
I/We/You/They does not like the boy
3pl
3pl
(but not: "I/We/You/They not likes the boy)
I
|
Thus, even though displaying the wrong morphology (verbal agreement suffixes) 100% of the time, the learner would
seem to have the following native-speaker syntactic knowledge - specifically, knowledge:
(33)
a. of a distinct set of syntactic categories including the
category verb, which displays agreement morphology, as
distinct from, say, prepositions, which do not;
b. that English is a subject- (not, e.g., object-) agreement
language;
c. that English exhibits the syntactic order Subject-((/oNeg-)Verb-Object;
d. that subject-verb agreement is "local";
e. that f/o-insertion is obligatory when sentential negation
appears and do is a verb inserted into a position preceding negation but following the subject (a word order,
syntactic fact);
f. that when cfo-insertion applies, it is do and not the main
verb that bears the verbal agreement suffix, in the
present tense;
g. in the present tense, there is one verbal suffix for 3s and
one for all other person, number (and gender) forms.
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One way of providing a unified syntactic analysis of such
knowledge regarding the varying distribution (syntax) of
the agreement suffix (the knowledge that in some cases the
subject agreement verbal suffix appears on the main verb
(like in [29]) but in other cases it appears separate from the
main verb, on do (as in [32]), is to postulate that all cases
derive from a single type of underlying (abstract) D-structure (DS) representation of the sentence, in which the
agreement suffix invariably appears separate from the main
verb (Chomsky 1965; 1991c).39
(34) a. DS[Sentenc.e[SubjHe][Agreement-S][verblike][theboy]]
3s
3s
DS [ Sentence [Svhj H e ] [ A g r e e m e n t -s] not [veri) like][the boy]]
3s
3s
This unifying abstract type of representation clearly does
not undergo "rules of pronunciation"; that is, it is not an
accurate representation of the pronounced order of elements. Rather, D-structure undergoes transformational
rule application (i.e., application of rules that move, delete,
or insert syntactic categories (e.g., NP and V), yielding what
is called "an S-structure representation" that (for our purpose) does undergo pronunciation. In the S-structure representation, the third-person singular agreement suffix -s
must become affixed to a verb (Lasnik 1981). Thus, neither
D-structure representation in (34) can "survive" as a wellformed S-structure (pronounced) representation, since
both contain the unaffixed affix -s, an ill-formed object with
respect to pronunciation. In order to generate the desired
S-structure (pronounced) forms, transformational rules (in
particular movement rules) must apply to the D-structure
representation and attach the affix to a verb. In (34a), the
rule of "affix-hopping" (Chomsky 1965) can apply, moving
the affix -s over, and attaching it to, the immediate right of
the verb like. The result is the following S-structure representation containing the complex verb likes, consisting of
the uninflected verb like plus the third-person singular
agreement suffix -s.
(35)
3s
3s
In (36), the interesting appearance of not prevents the application of affix-hopping.
(36)
SS •[ S c n l e n c l ! [ ^ He] [Agrccmcnl
] not [verb Uke]+[ Agreemcnt -s] [the boy]]
3s
3s
I
4
Given that affix-hopping is blocked whenever sentential
negation not appears, in order to meet the S-structure
requirement that the verbal agreement affix -s appear affixed
to a verb, the so-called dummy auxiliary verb do is inserted by
a transformational rule to "support" the "stranded" affix,
yielding the (pronounced) S-structure representation (37).
subject-verb agreement
I
(37)
SS %c^ncc
1
[ ^ He][ Aux do] [Agrccmc.nl -s][Negot,,,n not][ verb like][the boy]]
3s
A
3s
t
Transformational insertion of do
694
Given that our "morphologically backward" hypothetical
learner could indeed know all these (as well as other)
relevant (and quite complex) syntactic facts regarding English agreement, while at the same time having the incorrect pairing of subjects with suffixes, we would attribute the
target grammar (English) syntactic analysis of subject-verb
agreement to him, while at the same time hypothesizing
that his morphological analysis was indeed incorrect.
The methodological point, we hope, is clear. Use of
nontarget morphology (e.g., incorrect agreement suffixes),
even incorrect use 100% of the time, by no means entails a
nontarget analysis of the syntax of agreement. In fact, we
will strongly suggest that such a distinction between
morphological and syntactic knowledge is not restricted to
our hypothetical learner, but may well accurately characterize certain subjects in VYS's study. We will argue that
experimental data VYS interpreted as indicative of a nontarget syntactic analysis are more readily inteqDretable as
evidence of target-grammar syntactic analysis cooccurring
with a misanalysis of the morphological facts. Thus, VYS's
reliance on correct morphology as an indicator of syntactic
competence may well result in a significant underestimation of their subjects' acquisition of the target syntacticanalysis. That is, VYS's results may simply indicate that their
subjects have not yet mastered the morphology of verbal
agreement. It is important to note that such a result would
be unsurprising, if not expected, because agreement
morphology is cross-linguistically idiosyncratic; in other
words, it is not a universal, invariant property of human
language but a property of particular languages and therefore must be "learned" (by LI learners as well).
We agree with VYS that the subjects investigated in their
study have not acquired "the full agreement paradigm."
Crucially, though, we take this to mean only that they do not
know the following idiosyncratic, nonuniversal, morphological facts about verbal agreement suffixes in German:
(38) -e = Is
-o = Is (colloquial)
-st = 2s
-t = 3s and 2pl
-n = lpl and 3pl
There is one final methodological point to be made in this
context: VYS's studies indicate a high occurrence of -n in
their data; they suggest that it represents only the infinitive
ending and therefore argue that its appearance is consistent
with their hypothesis that these subjects' grammars lack
agreement. We do not agree with this conclusion. As (38)
indicates, -n is indeed an agreement suffix in German, in
addition to being the infinitive suffix. Since it serves this
dual function, it may well have the highest distribution of
the suffixes and would therefore constitute the "best guess"
by a subject who has not mastered the paradigm in (38). A
learner might well know that an agreement suffix is needed,
but not know which one, and therefore pick -n - another
case where the learner knows the underlying morphosyntax but not the surface morpho-phonetics.
The methodological questions we have raised significantly weaken the theoretical claims made in the Weak
Continuity Hypothesis studies. Nevertheless, we will consider several of the (methodologically independent) theoretical arguments developed in VYS 1991. We will consider
these arguments in terms of each of the nontarget syntactic
stages postulated by VYS in their account of the acquisition
of German as an L2.
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We first outline what we tentatively assume constitutes
the target syntactic analysis of German. Having done this,
we can then isolate more precisely the formal differences
between the target syntactic analysis and the nontarget
misanalyses that VYS attribute to their subjects learning
German as an L2. This approach is necessary (though,
unfortunately, not ubiquitous) in all acquisition research.
That is, before one can ask "How is this (aspect of) grammar
(e.g., the syntax of subject-verb agreement) acquired?" one
must first (tentatively) adopt an explicit analysis (e.g., the
affix-hopping analysis outlined above) of what this (aspect
of) grammar is. (Readers unfamiliar with X' theory and the
hypothesized class of syntactic categories and projections
may wish to read the Appendix before turning to the next
section concerning those aspects of the analysis of German
relevant to our discussion of VYS.)
3.3.2. The target analysis of German. German displays the
following word orders, among others (from Haegeman
1991, sect. 11.2, p. 524):40
(39) a. ... das
Hans das Buch kauf + t
Complementizer Subj. Obj.
verb + inflection
... that
Hans the book buy + s
'... that Hans buys the book"
b. Kauf + t Hans das Buch?
buy + s Hans the book
'Does Hans buy the book?'
c. Das Buch kauf + t Hans,
the book buy + s Hans
'Hans buys the book'
In an embedded declarative clause introduced by the
complementizer daB (39a), the inflected verb occurs
sentence-finally. In an unembedded yes-no question (39b),
the inflected verb is sentence-initial. In an unembedded
declarative clause (39c), the verb is in so-called "second
position"; that is, it appears immediately after a sentence
initial phrase, here the noun phrase das Buch. This is known
as the "verb-second" or "V2" phenomenon.
All three word orders can receive a unified analysis by
virtue of being derived from one and the same type of
underlying (D-structure) representation in which (unlike
English), V is final in V and Agr is final in Agr'. That is, we
will assume here that German has underlying CompSubject-Object-Verb-Inflection order, as represented in
(40), conforming to the X' theory of phrase structure. 4142
(40)
das Buch
the book
Thus, it is hypothesized that in German, unlike in English:
(1) the direct object precedes the verb and (2) Agr follows
the VP. As noted earlier, in connection with Japanese,
although the hierarchical (dominance) relations imposed
by X' theory are assumed to be universal (e.g., each head
projects to a single-bar and to a phrasal projection, with
specifier and complement optional), the order of the head
and its complement is not universal, but instead varies
cross-linguistically.
The S-structure representation of the embedded clause
in (39a) is derived from the D-structure representation in
(40) by applying head-to-head movement; that is, the verb
kauf, a head, is moved to the inflectional suffix -t, which
occupies the head position Agr, so that the suffix is properly
affixed to the verb as is required in the S-structure representation. Example (39b) is derived by applying the same
movement transformation, yielding [kauf + t], but then
[kauf + t] undergoes additional head-to-head movement
from Agr to the Comp position (which is empty in this case,
dafi being absent), yielding the verb-initial word order.
Example (39c) is derived by applying the same two (head)
movement transformations, plus (phrase) movement of the
direct object NP das Buch into Spec CP (a phrasal position). Applying these three movements (as indicated by the
arrows) to the D-structure representation (40) produces
the S-structure representation of (39c) shown in (41)
(adapted from Haegeinan's [16e], 1991, p. 529).
(41)
a. = V-movement into Agr (= head-to-head movement):t becomes a suffix to [v kauf]
b. = [V + Agr] (= kauf + t) movement into C (= head-to-head
movement)
c. = direct object movement into Spec CP (= phrasal movement)
Thus, cases of V2 like (39c) are analyzed by positing
V-movement first to Agr and then to (the "second position")
Comp, with a phrase (here the direct object NP das Buch)
moving into the preceding "first position," Spec CP. Unification is achieved to the extent that all the different surface
word orders are derived from a single (invariant) type of
X'-consistent (unpronounced) D-structure representation
like (40), by application of independently motivated movement rules.
This movement analysis of V2, which hypothesizes that
the verb's appearance in second position is derived from a
unitary D-structure representation by movement ofV into
an unoccupied Comp position, additionally makes the empirical prediction that V2 is blocked when the Comp
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position is filled (by, e.g., the complementizer dafi). The
prediction is confirmed by the obligatory appearance of
non-V2 (and instead V-final) order in embedded clauses
like (39a), introduced by dafi.
3.3.3. The evidence for stages: Theoretical assumptions.
In this section we consider the existence of the stages (i.e.,
grammars) proposed by VYS (1991) in the L2 acquisition of
German. We argue that even if one completely accepts
their methodology (reviewed in detail in sect. 3.3.1 above),
their results still fail to provide compelling support for the
existence of the stages of acquisition that they postulate.
VYS argue that there exist at least the following three
discrete and ordered stages of syntactic development in the
acquisition of German as an L2:
(42) a. Stage 1: The VP-stage analysis. The grammar lacks the
functional heads C, I, Agr, and their corresponding
single-bar and phrasal projections. Consequently sentences are analyzed as:
VP
Spec
V
V
NP
b. Stage 2: The IP-stage analysis. The grammar lacks the
functional heads C and Agr and their corresponding
single-bar and phrasal projections. Consequently sentences are analyzed as:
IP
Spec
VP
Spec
V
V
NP
c. Stage 3: The AgrP-stage analysis. The grammar lacks the
functional head C and its corresponding single-bar and
phrasal projections. Consequently sentences are analyzed as:43
AgrP
At each stage, sentences are analyzed as instances of the
tree provided. A learner in the VP-stage analyzes the
German sentence as a VP; in the IP-stage as an IP; and in
the AgrP-stage, as an AgrP. Crucially, each stage is simply a
type of grammar and to say "Person P is in/at a particular
stage (e.g., the VP-stage)" is to say no more and no less than
"Person P's knowledge of language L is characterized by
grammar G exhibiting the formal properties F." For example, at the VP-stage, it is assumed that the categorial
inventory of the grammar altogether lacks the functional
categories Infl, Agr, Comp, and their corresponding X'
projections (VYS 1991, p. 18). VYS postulate that it is this
property of the grammar, namely, an "impoverished" cate696
gorial inventory (not, e.g., some imaginable performance
effect), that accounts for the purported VP-analysis of
German sentences by L2ers in this stage.
VYS's hypothesis that a given subject is at the VP-stage
entails that such a subject has no knowledge of the functional syntactic category Agr. Then, because all syntactic
operations concerning subject-verb agreement (e.g., English affix-hopping or German V-movement to Agr, discussed earlier) crucially refer to the syntactic category Agr,
one empirical prediction is that such a subject has no
knowledge regarding the syntax of subject-verb agreement.
Clearly, this prediction is a very strong one that, if incorrect,
should, in principle, be readily falsifiable.
3.3.4. The VP-stage. As noted, at the VP-stage the grammar
is assumed to lack functional categories, and sentences are
analyzed as VPs (as in [42a]). VYS assign three of their
seventeen subjects to the VP-stage: Aysel, Memduh, and
Changsu.44 We argue that the evidence VYS present does
not support their claim that the L2 German grammar of
these speakers altogether lacks functional categories. To
support the existence of such a grammatical stage, one
would minimally have to find a speaker whose utterances in
the corpus consistently lack evidence of an IP.45 However,
as VYS themselves point out, none of the speakers they
assign to the VP-stage fits this description. Instead, all three
speakers produce some sentences, albeit few in number,
that by VYS's own criteria must be analyzed as containing an
IP. For Aysel (see VYS, p. 22 and table 4), 12% of his
sentences display a word order that in VYS's view is amenable to an analysis in which these sentences "represent the
subsequent stage, with verb raising [to Infl] being the first
indication of this." With respect to the sentences that
Memduh produced, VYS note that "6% involve an agreement form of the copula or a modal, presumably in Infl"
[one of the categories the VP-stage is presumed to lack]
(our emphasis). For Changsu, the proportion of sentences
indicating the existence of Infl was 16%.
VYS do not discount these data; nor do they claim that
these subjects are in the next (IP-) stage (if they did, there
would be no evidence supporting the existence of the VPstage). Rather, to account for these sentences, VYS suggest
that they are "precursors of the next stage of acquisition"
(p. 23; see also p. 24) and state that "we find some indication
. . . that these speakers might be in the process of entering
the next stage, with a higher functional projection" (p. 22).
What does it mean to claim that these VP-stage speakers
might be in the process of entering the IP-stage? If stages
are simply grammars (i.e., "at the VP-stage" means "has a
grammar the categorial inventory of which lacks functional
categories"), what can it mean when a VP-stage speaker
(whose grammar by definition lacks functional categories)
is "in the process of entering" the IP-stage (the grammar of
which has at least one functional category, Infl)? This
suggests that such a speaker is in some (unspecified) intermediate stage equivalent to neither the previous nor the
following stage. But in the case at hand, if Aysel, Memduh,
and Changsu are neither in the VP-stage nor in the IPstage, they cannot provide evidence for a VP-stage (because
they are not in it). Hence, all the evidence for such a stage
becomes questionable.
Similarly, trying to account for particular data by suggesting that they are "precursors of the next stage" fails to address the empirical, linguistically significant question re-
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garding the subjects' knowledge of German: Does the syntactic inventory of the subjects'grammar of German contain
functional categories, or doesn't it? VYS themselves presume that 12%, 6%, and 16% of these three subjects' sentences are to be analyzed with a category "in Infl." They write
that "it is certainly possible that these speakers have at least
an IP" (p. 24) and (as noted earlier) "we find some indication
. . . that these speakers might be in the process of entering
the next stage, with a higher functional projection" (p. 22).
But if any syntactic analysis attributed to them is presumed
to include an Infl node, then it must also be presumed that
their grammar contains Infl. Otherwise, how could they
construct an analysis containing this category? But if their
grammars contain Infl, it cannot be presumed that these
subjects are in the VP-stage. Again, such subjects can therefore provide no evidence for the existence of this stage.
Why do VYS not attribute functional categories to the
categorial inventory of these subjects' grammars? They
themselves concede that the empirical support for the VPstage versus a grammar incorporating functional categories
is tenuous, writing, "It is difficult to distinguish between
this approach and our approach based on empirical data"
(pp. 24-25). One reason why they do not attribute functional categories in these three cases may be statistical. VYS
justify attributing a VP-stage grammar to these three subjects since "the majority of the sentences (i.e., those containing a verb) produced by these three speakers look like
bare VPs" (p. 24). Further, they state that "if there is an IP
projection in all of their VP sentences, we would have to
explain why in most sentences there is no evidence for the
IP" (p. 24). But clearly, the implication here is that (by VYS's
own criteria) some sentences do constitute evidence for the
presence of IP.
The remaining question is, "what exactly are the data that
are interpreted as indicating that these subjects 'might be in
the process of entering the next stage, with a higher functional projection'?" The data in question indicate that the
subjects' grammars do indeed have functional categories. If
the data are reliable, the evidence for the VP-stage consequently disappears. If the data are unreliable, the next
question is, "were the only unreliable data precisely the
data supporting the evidence of functional categories?" If
so, a principled account of this must be provided. If not, we
must determine precisely which data are reliable and which
are not (see sect. 3.3.1, and below, for discussion of methodology).
In summary, we hope to have shown that, even accepting
VYS's methodology, the arguments they provide for the
existence of a VP-stage, at which the L2er's grammar of
German altogether lacks functional categories, are arguably
uncompelling.
Before we turn to the IP-stage, it should be noted that
the VP-stage grammar, as postulated by VYS, is in large part
formally underspecified. Consequently, our discussion of it
has been (necessarily) quite restricted in its scope. Although VYS propose that this grammar generates the
phrase structure analysis in the VP tree (42a), myriad
(perhaps, all) other properties of the grammar remain
unspecified, thus leaving the generative capacity (empirical
[predictive] content) of this grammar unclear and in effect
"immunizing" it from further empirical test. A more explicit
proposal concerning tiie VP-stage would have to address a
host of empirical questions including these:
(a) If, as VYS propose, the VP-stage grammar lacks
functional categories, which, by hypothesis, are intimately
involved in, for example, Case assignment in the target
grammar (perhaps all grammars, as specified by UG), how
are Case assignment and the Case Filter formulated, if
indeed these universals are assumed to exist at all within the
VP-stage grammar, and what (Case-theoretic) predictions
are made by such formulations?
(b) More generally, given the absence of functional
categories, the command or government or minimal domain relations (or whatever geometric relation(s) one believes expresses syntactic relations) are radically different in
this grammar than they are in the target grammar (perhaps,
in all adult UG-constrained grammars). How then are
syntactic relations, including, for example, agreement, Case
assignment, Binding, and theta-assignment, expressed in
this grammar? Once this question is answered (by providing an explicit grammar), are the predictions obtained
confirmed by the data?
(c) As noted by Deprez and Pierce (1993; see also Boser
et al. 1991a; 1991b; Lee 1991; Nunez del Prado et al. (to
appear); Poeppel & Wexler 1993; and Whitman et al. 1991
for discussion of related issues in LI acquisition), if functional categories are absent at a given stage and if parametric variation among languages concerns morphological variation in functional categories (Borer 1983; Chomsky 1991c;
Fukui 1988), then parameter setting (= determining the
morphological features of functional heads in the target
grammar) simply cannot be done at a prefunctional stage. Is
this prediction experimentally supported by the L2 acquisition data?
The importance (and sheer number) of such questions
cannot be overemphasized. If one attempts to account for
some (necessarily restricted) class of experimental findings
by positingfundamental syntactic differences between the
target grammar (here, German) and the L2ers' grammar
(here, the VP-stage), then a host of questions regarding the
formal properties and hence generative capacity of the
hypothesized grammar (beyond the mere generation of
the VP tree in (42a)) must be at least revealed, as in (a)-(c)
and the widespread empirical consequences experimentally identified and investigated. As the parametric approach to LI acquisition demonstrates, even a single seemingly minor formal difference (e.g., one feature difference
in the morphological specification of one category) can give
rise to widespread differences in generative capacity. The
VP-stage grammar, once rendered explicit, is surely no
exception to the rule that even extremely minor formal
differences can yield vast empirical distinctions.
3.3.5. The IP-stage. In this section, we consider evidence
for the existence of an IP-stage. We argue that, as in the case
of the VP-stage, the evidence is, in our view, unconvincing.
At the second stage, the grammar incorporates IP. VYS
write:
(43) a. "Having developed a functional projection IP beyond
the head-final VP (from the previous stage), these
speakers optionally raise a verb to the Infl-position . . ."
b. "This movement is optional because [in contrast to the
next, AgrP-stage] no agreement features are basegenerated in Infl."
c. "If the verb does not raise . . . we assume that such an
utterance has the structure of a bare VP, similar to the
predominant structure of the previous stage." (1991,
p. 29)
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Although VYS provide no analyzed data (i.e., no word
strings with their associated phrase structure representation), they presumably intend that, for example, the following utterances (both from Kemal, an IP-stage subject) are
to be analyzed as in (45), given (43):
(44) a. Ich sehen Schleier. (VYS, [24b])
I see veil
'I see (the) veil.'
b. Der deustche Buch lesen. (VYS, [23b])
the German book read
"(I) read the German book(s).'
a.
(e.g., AgrP) extant in the categorial inventory of the target
grammar, the learner acquires a series of grammars each of
which generates: (1) only misanalyses, (2) all the misanalyses of the previous grammar, plus (3) new misanalyses.
Even leaving aside the crucial question of how/why subjects make the shift from one stage to another (in the
absence of which there is at best a description of stages with
no explanation of the acquisition process), it is not clear how
the VYS model in (46) can account for L2 acquisition.
B. The Full House Principle: At this point one might ask,
"Why do VYS assume (43c); that is, why do they assume that
the IP-stage subjects' analysis of V-final data consists of the
(retentive) VP-structure in (45b)? Why don't VYS postulate
instead that the IP-stage subjects' grammar generates only
IP-structures and hence that the IP-stage analysis of the
word string in (44b) is not the retentive VP-structure (45b)
but rather the IP-structure (47)?"
(47)
b.
VP
V
NP
Der deutsche Buch lesen
Thus, in accordance with (43), VYS propose that data
exhibiting verb-direct object (44a) order receive the
"V-raising within IP" analysis (45a). By contrast (see [43c]),
data displaying direct object-verb order (44b) receive the
"VP" analysis (45b).46
A. Increasing overgeneration as a model of L2 acquisition? One crucial aspect of VYS s account is (43c), entailing
that an IP-stage grammar retains the VP analysis (45b) from
the previous stage. Thus, in this framework, subjects who
have progressed from the VP- to the IP-stage have not
abandoned the VP-stage misanalysis. Rather, they have
acquired a grammar that makes available not only this
misanalysis but also a second (IP) misanalysis of the German sentence. The same appears to be true of the third
stage (see sect. 3.3.6): "the bare VP-structure is still available to some degree to the speakers in this [AgrP-stage]
group" (VYS, p. 33). Moreover, certain other data from
these AgrP-stage speakers "could be the result of some
sentences having the structure of the previous stage, the IPstage" (p. 33). Thus, crucially in our view, this analysis
entails that L2 acquisition of German consists of the ordered acquisition of grammars such that each grammar
acquired generates only misanalyses and generates more
types of misanalyses than its predecessor did.
(46)
Stage/Grammar
a. 1st = VP-stage
b. 2nd = IP-stage
c. 3rd = AgrP-stage
Types of misanalyses generated
generates
generates
generates
» VP-structure
> VP-structure and IP-structure
> VP-, IP-, and AgrP-structure
With respect to this "retentive" property of their model
of acquisition, VYS provide no explanation. But if there is
no explanation of this, then there is no explanation of
acquisition. That is, in the course of acquiring categories
698
Der deutsche Buch lesen
For the following reason VYS cannot propose (47). They
note "a strong correlation between the verb occurring in
Infl and lexical material (not necessarily a subject) occurring in the preceding specifier position." To explain this
correlation, they assume that (1) when the verb precedes,
say, the direct object, the V has raised to Infl (see (45a)), (2)
once a V occurs in Infl, an IP is projected, and (3) the IPstage grammar incorporates the following requirement:
(48) Spec IP must be filled by a lexical element.
Now, given this assumption, VYS cannot maintain the
structure (47) since Spec IP is lexically empty. Hence, they
are compelled to assume instead that the IP-stage grammar
generates the (retentive) VP-structure (45b). By contrast,
representation (45a) reflects the following IP-stage grammar operations/principles: (1) V-raising to Infl, (2) the
projection of IP, and (3) the requirement that Spec IP must
be lexically filled ( = [48]).
In sum, then, the associated "cost" of accounting for the
observed strong correlation between the verb occurring in
Infl and lexical material (not necessarily the subject) occurring in the Specifier of IP is the assumption that the IPstage grammar still generates VP-structures - a purported
fact for which (recall) VYS have no explanation.
Regardless of its associated "cost," what is the status of
(48)? Concerning the postulation of (48), VYS ask, "Why
should the Spec IP position need to be filled by a lexical
element?" They suggest that "this may be a consequence of
a general requirement that, in order to be licensed, phrase
structure positions must be lexically filled at some level of
representation" (p. 28). VYS call this requirement the "Full
House Principle" (FHP).
The assumption that the IP-stage grammar incorporates
the FHP is problematic, however. First, it entails discontinuity; that is, UG presumably prohibits the postulation of
the FHP. As far as we know, every adult natural-language
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grammar violates this principle, as evidenced by the legitimacy of derivations containing phonetically empty (nonlexicalized) categories such as PRO, pro, trace in Spec
CP/Comp, and null operators, which may occupy positions
that are never "lexicalized" in the course of a derivation (see
Chomsky 1981a; 1982 for discussion of such phonetically
empty categories).47 Thus, if L2 acquisition of German is in
fact possible, it is incumbent upon VYS to explain how it is
that the IP-stage subject subsequently abandons the FHP.
A second problem with the FHP is that on the one hand,
it is assumed to be (like other principles of grammar) an
inviolable principle of the IP-stage grammar. Yet, on the
other hand, it is invoked to explain what is merely a
correlation. To see why it is in this case problematic to
invoke a grammatical principle to explain a mere correlation, consider the following data from three of the five
(purported) IP-stage subjects.
(49)
Sevinc
Kemal
Kadir
Sentence with V in Infl
Something in Spec IP
51
139
103
37 (73%)
110 (79%)
84 (82%)
(adapted from VYSs Table 2, p. 28)
If (as VYS propose) the UG-inconsistent FHP is indeed a
principle of the IP-stage grammar and if each of these
speakers has such a grammar, it follows that for each of
them, approximately 20% of their sentences with a verb in
Infl violate a principle of their own grammar, namely, the
FHP (and, if asked, they would presumably judge these
utterances ungrammatical). This of course raises a general
question about the reliability of such production data as a
basis for inferring properties of the L2ers' grammar.
Summarizing up to this point, the FHP accounts for the
observed correlation, but it does so at the cost of precluding
structure (47) and "forcing" the retentive VP-structure
(45b). This, in turn, entails that VYS's model (see [46])
postulates "retention from the previous stage(s)," a phenomenon for which VYS have no explanation. In our view,
this retention represents a serious problem in that L2
development is predicted to involve only overgeneration
and in fact increasing overgeneration (at least at the stages
VYS investigate). Moreover, the FHP is UG-inconsistent;
that is, (at least) the IP-stage grammar is discontinuous.
Finally, attributing the FHP to the IP-stage grammar entails
that approximately 20% of (three of five) IP-stage subjects'
V-in-Infl sentences violate a principle of their own grammar
and therefore do not reflect competence, thereby raising a
general question regarding the reliability of these data.
C. An Infl-initial I' and the nonexistence ofCP at the IPstage: An additional point to be made with respect to the IPstage is that Infl is initial in I' - see (42b). The purported
postulation of an Infl-initial I' by IP-stage subjects is curious
because in both the L2 grammar (German) and the subjects'
LI grammar (Korean/Turkish) Infl is arguably final in I'.
This oddity is compounded by the assumption that the headfinal property of V , in direct contrast to IP, is "transferred"
from the LI (Korean/Turkish) to the L2 (German), with the
result that VYS's subjects "do not seem to have any problem
in acquiring the German head-final VP" (VYS, p. 5). Thus,
under VYS's analysis, the following crucial question
emerges: Why is V order readily "transferred" from the LI
to the L2 but I' order is not? That is, why do subjects
postulate an I' order different from both the LI and the L2?
VYS provide no answer. Note however that these difficult
questions would simply disappear if it were assumed instead that the L2er's grammar of German is capable of
generating an Infl-final I' (= the LI and L2 order) just as it
generates a V-final VP (= the LI and L2 order). Given an
Infl-final I', we could then abandon the mysterious Inflinitial IP-stage analysis like (45a) and could postulate instead that the subjects adopt analyses like (50).
(50)
CP
a. = V-to-I movement
b. = [V + I] to C movement
c. = movement of the subject from Spec IP to Spec CP
In the derivation of (50), the verb moves to Infl, picking up
the morphophonetically incorrect suffix -n, and then [V +
n] sehen inoves to C, while the subject ich moves from Spec
IP to Spec CP — exactly the analysis characterizing the
target grammar German. Crucially, given the analysis in
(50) (cf. VYS's [45a]), the strong and, for VYS, problematic
correlation found between V-raising and something (not
necessarily the subject) occurring in the associated Spec
position would quite naturally reflect acquisition of the
target grammar V2 analysis.
VYS are aware not only of the problems entailed by their
proposed Infl-initial IP analysis (45a) but also of the fact
that it is completely eliminated under a V2 reanalysis such
as (50), containing the functional projection CP. They write,
"Since the functional projection IP in Turkish and Korean
would have to be head-final . . . it is not obvious how the
head-initial IP is acquired by these speakers. . . . However,
in terms of word order, verb raising and filling the specifier
position, the IP behaves similarly to the German CP"
(p. 30). (Thus, VYS realize that the non-Ll, non-L2 Inflinitial IP analysis they attribute to their IP-stage subjects is
indeed similar to the target German CP analysis.) Consequently, VYS entertain the possibility that these subjects
have a CP analysis. However, they do not attribute such an
analysis to them. 48
VYS's reasons for maintaining the (non-Ll, non-L2)
head-initial I' (and the non-Ll, non-L2 CP-less) IP-stage
analysis are twofold. First,
(51) none of these speakers produce any yes/no questions or
WH-questions involving a raised verb and an overt subject
that cannot be construed as formulaic (p. 30)
Concerning this aspect of the data, we would ask only: (1)
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Do the data contain yes/no questions or u>/j-questions not
involving V-raising or nonovert subjects and if so, what is
the subjects' syntactic representation of these sentences?
(2) What is the subjects' syntactic representation of the
purportedly formulaic questions they do utter?
Second, VYS do not attribute a CP-analysis to these
subjects because:
(52) None of the five speakers produce any instances of embedded clauses with an overt complementizer.25 (p. 30)
VYS's footnote 25 then notes,
(53) Although we cannot necessarily draw conclusions from the
general absence of embedded clauses, the fact that none
occur in these speakers' data is a good indication that such
sentence types do not fall within their competence, (p. 30)
First, as discussed in section 3.3.l.B, we disagree with VYS
that failure to produce a particular sentence type is a good
indication that the grammar is deficient. As noted, an
infinite number of generable but unproduceable sentence
types undoubtedly exist. None of us have produced or are
likely ever to produce, for example, a quadruply centerembedded relative clause, yet we do not conclude that such
structures lie beyond our competence. In fact, on the
contrary, the grammar generates them, but performance
factors "filter" them (i.e., they are not usable/parsable).
Thus, a host of performance factors may well be responsible
for production failures. Moreover, even if a deficiency in
the grammar is responsible for this particular production
failure, it is by no means clear that the deficiency resides in
the syntactic component. Even more specifically, as we
have argued above, it is not at all clear to us that failure to
produce embeddings is indicative of the absence of "CP" in
the categorial inventory of the syntax. With respect to VYS's
hypothesis regarding the absence of CP, notice that the
nature of the production failure it is supposed to explain is
in fact unclear: (53) implies that "no embedded clauses" are
produced, whereas (52) asserts that "no embedded clauses
with an overt complementizer" are produced. We are not
sure which most accurately characterizes the data. Although VYS supply only ten pieces of data from their IPstage speakers (see VYS; sect. 4.2), it is interesting to note
that the following arguably represents a case of embedding
(as noted above, VYS provide no cases of a word string with
its associated phrase structure representation):
(54) Jetzt brau Wohnungsamt fragen. (= VYS (24a))
now need housing-authority ask
'Now (I) need (to) ask the housing authority.'
Perhaps, then, (52) more accurately characterizes the IPstage data. But if it is correct only that no embeddings with
an overt complementizer were produced, we take this as
weak support at best for the absence of CP, since it is
altogether possible that this production failure (if in fact it is
not attributable to performance factors) is due to a lexical
gap (as expected in both LI and L2 acquisition) - in
particular, the failure to acquire the lexical entry dafi, as we
suggested in section 3.3.1.C
In summary, we began by noting that the IP-stage grammar postulated by VYS generates a non-Ll, non-L2 headinitial I'. As VYS note, this Infl-initial misanalysis is similar
to the target "V2 in CP" analysis of German. VYS are
nonetheless unwilling to attribute a CP analysis to their
subjects because of certain production failures that we
believe to be unreliable indicators of the absence (of "CP")
from the categorial inventory of the syntactic component of
700
the grammar. We therefore disagree with VYS's strong
conclusion that (under their assumptions) "there is thus no
support for the existence of a CP at this stage" (p. 31).
Our investigation thus lead us to conclude that, as for the
VP-stage, the evidence for the IP-stage is insufficient.
Before turning to the AgrP-stage, we would like to discuss
one more point regarding the IP-stage. Notice that the
question of whether VYS's (purported IP-stage) subjects
have a "V2 in CP" target analysis, as we have tentatively
suggested, is distinct from the question of whether they
have CP. Of course, the attribution of our "V2 in CP"
analysis to these subjects could turn out to be empirically
incorrect, under more detailed investigation (as is true of
any empirical hypothesis). Thus, it may be the case that they
have CP, but (contra our suggestion) they do not have the
target V2 analysis. Interestingly, the latter state of affairs
represents a stage of LI development of V2 postulated by
Deprez and Pierce (1993); that is, they argue that acquisition of V2 (but not CP) is delayed in LI acquisition. The
important point, then, is this: Even if our suggested attribution of a V2 analysis to these subjects turns out to be
factually incorrect, this does not necessarily indicate that L2
acquisition of V2 differs significantly from LI acquisition of
V2, since LI acquisition of V2 is apparently "delayed." This
point is general; that is, a nontarget L2 analysis does not
necessarily indicate acquisition distinct from that involved
in LI. Again, of course, these matters are entirely empirical.
3.3.6. The AgrP-stage.
A. A proliferation of postulated stages? In the third and
final stage postulated by VYS, German sentences become
analyzable as in (42c). The defining characteristic of this
stage is that Infl, which was allegedly devoid of features in
the previous (IP-stage), is now endowed with agreement
features. The central diagnostic for the existence of this
stage is the subjects' correct use of agreement suffixes.49 It
is important to recall that this AgrP-stage grammar (like the
IP-stage predecessor) is retentive. That is, VYS suggest
(1991, p. 33) that the grammar does not generate just the
AgrP misanalysis (43c), but rather generates this misanalysis plus both the IP-stage and VP-stage misanalyses as
well. Hence, as noted, their model of the early stages
characterizes early L2 acquisition as the internalization of a
succession of three grammars such that:
(55) a. Each grammar only overgenerates, and
b. The set of structures overgenerated at each stage Sn
properly includes the set of structures overgenerated at
the previous stage Sn_i.
As far as we can tell, (55a) is not open to interpretation; that
is, VYS s model indeed entails that at the early stages not a
single correct/target analysis is generable. However, there
does exist a reinterpretation of VYS's results under which
(55b) does not obtain. As we will show, this reinterpretation
that we will present eliminates (55b), but it does so only at
the cost of postulating that the AgrP-stage is no stage at all,
but rather is decomposed into three (perhaps four) distinct
stages. Given that stages are simply grammars, this proliferation of postulated grammars entails that in certain cases
there is a 1-to-l correspondence between subjects and
postulated grammar-types. This is of central importance in
two respects. First, with respect to description, this maximally high correspondence between subjects and postulated grammars raises the question of whether these
grammars describe linguistically significant stages of devel-
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opment. Second, with respect to explaining L2 acquisition,
increasing the number of postulated grammars increases
the number of intergrammar transitions, each of which
must be accounted for if an explanation of the process of L2
acquisition is to be provided.
Six subjects are assigned to the AgrP-stage: Mine, Gabho,
Samran, Emine, Harva, and Ensook. Regarding the (retentive) generation of the IP-structure (42b) by the AgrP-stage
subjects, VYS write, "Note that even for these speakers
(except for Ensook), they have somewhat fewer empty
Spec(AGRP) positions than they do empty subjects. This
could be the result of some sentences having the structure
of the previous stage, the IP-Stage" (p. 33). Suppose VYS's
suggested explanation is correct; that is, suppose some
sentences have IP-structure. It then follows that the grammar (of these AgrP-stage) speakers does indeed generate
(the "retentive") IP-structure. But VYS's suggested explanation regarding the generation of IP-structure concerns
only five of the six purported AgrP-stage speakers; recall,
Ensook is excluded. This is important because it has the
following consequence: If we accept VYS's suggested explanation, then five of the six subjects' grammars generate IPstructures, but (by hypothesis) Ensook's grammar does not.
But now the generative capacity of Ensook's grammar
apparently differs in a central respect from that of the other
AgrP-stage subjects' grammars; specifically, her grammar
does not generate the IP-structure but the other five
subjects' grammars do. But now, since VYS assign all six of
these subjects to the AgrP-stage, their account entails a
contradiction: At the AgrP stage the IP-structure is no
longer generated and it is still generated. Our seemingly
natural way to avoid this contradictory result is to assume
that Ensook has one particular type of grammar (= is at a
given stage) whereas the other five have a different type of
grammar. Thus, these six speakers in fact represent (at
least) two different stages.
Now, what about the generation of the VP-structure
(42a) at the AgrP stage? VYS write, "We claim . . . that the
six speakers at this stage have acquired a full-fledged
AGRP. . . . However, except for Harva and Ensook, it
appears that the bare VP-structure is still available to some
degree to the speakers in this group" (p. 33). Thus, four of
the six (AgrP-stage) subjects' grammars (still) generate the
VP-structure (43a). But this entails that four of these
subjects have a grammar different from that of the remaining two. Thus, putting together VYS's results concerning
both "IP generation" and "VP generation" at the AgrP
stage, the following picture emerges:
along than for the speakers at the IP-Stage" (pp. 34-35).
Thus, these subjects are not assigned to the IP-stage by
VYS. Moreover, they are not at/in the AgrP-stage; rather
they "precede the AGRP stage." We conclude that, for
these three unclassifiable subjects, VYS's analysis must
recognize at least one other type of grammar (No. 3 in [57]
below). Of course, under more detailed analysis, conducted
in conformity with VYS's methodology, these subjects might
not all fall within a single (non-VP, non-IP, non-AgrP)
grammar type, but could necessitate the postulation of as
many as three more grammar types, yielding a total of eight
postulated grammar types. However, assuming these three
subjects all fall within a single grammar type, there is a total
of six postulated grammar types (for VYS's 17 subjects).
Thus, the following taxonomy of stages emerges:
(56) VYS's AgrP-stage subjects
a. Mine, Gabho, Samran, Emine: Grammar type A generates AgrP-, IP-, and VP-structure
b. Harva: Grammar type B generates AgrP-structure and
IP-structure
c. Ensook: Grammar type C generates only AgrP-structure
Thus, under VYS's own assumptions, the "AgrP-stage" (one
of the three stages they postulate) would seem to consist of
three distinct types of grammars. This would give a total of
five grammar types within VYS's account: the VP, the IP, and
the three AgrP grammars.
At this point it is important to note that in considering the
AgrP-stage (VYS, sect. 4.3), VYS discuss three subjects who
fall into none of their three stages. According to VYS, these
speakers "have not acquired agreement . . . [but] their
acquisition of agreement . . . may be somewhat further
Given our reinterpretation of VYS's data in (57), then,
there simply is no single AgrP-stage as they postulate it.
Furthermore, (55b) does not obtain; that is, although some
stages do retain previous misanalyses, this is not true of all
stages. But although our reinterpretation eliminates property (55b) (retention at all stages), (57) is, in our view,
descriptively problematic; that is, since there is such a high
correspondence between subjects and postulated grammar
types, the question arises whether this taxonomy lists a class
of linguistically significant stages of syntactic development.
Moreover, in the absence of a principled, explanatory
account of how/why it is that L2 acquirers make at least five
interstage transitions, the process of L2 acquisition is not
accounted for.
In this regard, note that VYS's analysis may well embrace
even more stages than those discussed here, with the result
(57)
Grammar
Type
Misanalyses
Generated
1. VP-stage
VP-structure
2. IP-stage
VP- and IPstructure
3.?
VP-, IP-, (and
AgrP?)-structure
4. AgrP-stage
Type A Vp-, IP-, and AgrPstructure
Type B
Type C
IP- and AgrPstructure
AgrP-structure
Subjects
Aysel, Memduh
Changsu
Sevinc, Kemal,
Kadir, Ahmet
Mehmet
Park, Ozgul,
Dosik
Mine, Gabho,
Samran,
Emine
Harva
Ensook
Grammars 1 and 2 are equivalent to (46a) and (46b).
Grammar 3 was just discussed. The decomposition of VYS's
AgrP-stage into three distinct grammar types was given in
(56). From (57), the following observations can be made:
(58)
a. As concerns the last nine (non-VP-, non-IP-stage) subjects (who represent more than 50% of VYS's subjects),
subjects and grammars are in at best approximately a
2-to-l correspondence.
b. The type B grammar/stage is postulated on the basis of a
single subject's data.
c. The type C grammar/stage is postulated on the basis of a
single subject's data.
d. (As in VYS's three-stage model itself) the classification of
the grammar type internalized by Park, Ozgiil, and
Dosik (approximately 17% of the subjects) is unclear
(and these three subjects could represent as many as
three additional grammar types).
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that other interstage transitions would demand explanation
as well. Specifically, it is not clear to us that the VP-stage is
presumed to be the initial stage; in addition, VYS explicitly
recognize the possibility that a head-final AgrP-stage
(Schwartz & Sprouse 1991) is acquired subsequent to their
head-initial AgrP stage. Consequently, depending on the
ultimate interpretation of No. 3 in (57), the VYS model of
L2 acquisition might in fact recognize 10 nontarget stages,
and since nothing in principle limits the VYS model to a
maximum of (these) 10 grammars, the possibility of postulating even more grammar types, on the basis of further
experimental inquiry, is by no means precluded.
It is even more important to recognize that so many
grammars are postulated in a study concerning the acquisition of only three functional syntactic categories. This raises
a crucial question confronting the entire stage-approach to
L2 acquisition (of which VYS is but one example): How
many more stages will be postulated by virtue of employing
similar techniques in the experimental investigation of all
other aspects of the syntactic component, including the
principles of Case theory, Control theory, Theta theory,
Binding theory, X' theory, Movement theory, and any other
aspects of syntax? Of course, a comprehensive account of
L2 grammar acquisition must also address the corresponding questions concerning nonsyntactic components of
grammar: How many more stages will be postulated by investigating the acquisition of (each specific aspect of) phonology, morphology, semantics, and so on? The possibilities
invited by the unconstrained stage-approach are prohibitive, given that a 17-subject study of the acquisition of only
three syntactic categories can lead one to postulate as many
as 10 distinct stage-grammars. Perhaps most important,
though, is that even if (as seems highly unlikely) a definitive
(i.e., empirically supported) answer was somehow reached
- for example, "There are exactly (these) 67 stages in the
acquisition of a second grammar" - an explanatory account
of the phenomenon of L2 acquisition (a developmental
process) would, in our view, still be lacking, since no
explanation of the mechanism(s) accounting for the 67
interstage transitions, the fact that there are 67 (not, e.g.,
104) and the relative ordering of the 67 would be provided.
B. On the generative capacity of the AgrP-Stage grammar: Before concluding this section, we should note that
VYS's characterization of the generative capacity (and categorial inventory) of the AgrP-stage grammar is, in an
important respect, unclear. As its name suggests, the defining characteristics of the AgrP-stage are the acquisition of
an Agr(eement) Phrase and the resulting generation of
structures like (42c), structures lacking Comp and its X'
projections Comp' and Comp Phrase (= CP). However, as
VYS note, "For all six speakers at this stage, we find some
evidence for a CP projection" (p. 33). 50
Thus, under VYS s own assumptions, "it is possible that in
addition to the AgrP, these speakers have acquired the CP
projection" (p. 34). As in the case of the VP- and IP-stages,
the clear possibility (for which there is indeed "some evidence") is that the subjects' competence - in particular the
cardinality of the set of syntactic categories - is being
underestimated.
4. Alternative explanations
We have discussed some of the theoretical and methodological problems associated with partial-access hypotheses,
702
as exemplified by VYS's Weak Continuity Hypothesis. Now
let us consider how the Full-Access Hypothesis (or, as it
might be called, the Strong Continuity Hypothesis) might
account for some of the data provided by VYS's subjects,
under the assumption that some of the data turns out to
reflect properties of the L2 grammar.
Recall that the full-access hypothesis postulates that the
L2 learners inventory of functional categories (given by
UG) is complete, and hypothesizes that some of the errors
observed are due to performance factors or nonsyntactic
deficits, including lexical and morphophonetic deficits.
Several of these factors may well be related to the experimental tasks used; others are independent of them and
reflect difficulties with applying a computation to a structure, as we will suggest in the discussion of our experimental study. Some errors appear to reflect the (mis)use of
morphology; other errors result from parameter setting and
"establishing new parameter settings" and the ensuing
necessary mapping of the principles and parameters of UG
onto the language specific aspects of a particular grammar.
As a more specific example of how a full-access hypothesis might reinterpret some of the data isolated by VYS, let
us consider the IP-stage.
Recall that in the L2 learners IP-stage grammar of German, VYS argue that V-to-Infl raising is optional - see (43b)
- since (in contrast to the next, AgrP-stage) there are no
agreement features in Infl. However, they also assume that
if the V does not raise, the sentence has the structure of a
bare VP. Therefore, this analysis entails that if an Infl node is
generated, the V obligatorily moves into it - in other words,
V-to-Infl raising is in fact obligatory when an IP is generated.
Why would this be so? The full-access hypothesis provides a natural explanation. Suppose first (contra VYS) that
agreement features occupy Infl. Second, assume (as discussed in sect. 3.3.l.C) that, as specified by UG, verbal (affixal) features, such as agreement features, must be "associated with a verb" in S-structure representations. That is,
suppose that these L2ers (albeit unconsciously) know (just
as an Ller unconsciously knows) that affixes must be affixed
before a string can receive a legitimate pronunciation - in
other words, that their grammar incorporates the universal
and arguably natural morphological principle prohibiting
"stranded" affixes at S-structure (as in, e.g., *Bill -s love
Mary) (Lasnik 1981). Finally, suppose they also know that
the way to associate the verbal, affixal agreement features in
Infl with the verb is to raise the verb from V to Infl.
If this explanation is correct, then there is no IP-stage.
Recall that at the IP-stage (as opposed to the subsequent
AgrP-stage) VYS propose that Infl lacks agreement features, yet our explanation crucially assumes that at this stage
the grammar does indeed generate derivations in which
agreement features are present in Infl.
It is important to recognize that if our explanation is
rejected and it is assumed instead (with VYS) that V raises to
an Infl that is devoid of agreement features, then this
analysis too would appear to entail discontinuity. Chomsky
(1993) suggests that UG incorporates a constraint on the
application of any movement transformation such that the
movement applies only in order to satisfy morphological
requirements that could not be otherwise satisfied.51 For
example, UG specifies that NP-movement is allowed only if
the movement supplies a (morphologically illicit) Caseless
NP with Case. As an illustration, consider the movement of
the NP John in:
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(59) a. Johiij seems [
to be here]
(cf. *It seems [John to be here])
b. *]ohnj seems [
is here]
(cf. It seems [that John is here])
The NP-movement in (59a) is permissible; a (morphologically illicit) Caseless NV,John, is moved to a Case-marked
position. By contrast, the NP-movement in (59b) is disallowed. Having been in a Case-marked position prior to
movement, the NP John already had Case. Thus, movement of this NP is not movement whereby a (morphologically illicit) Caseless NP acquires Case - it is unnecessary,
hence prohibited.
Since V-raising is just another instantiation of movement,
it too is allowed to apply only if its application results in the
satisfaction of some morphological requirement, such as
the attachment of a morphologically illicit stranded agreement affix in Infl. That is, movement of a V to an Infl devoid
of features (as in VYS's analysis) is prohibited by UG since
there is no morphological motivation for such movement; it
does not render a morphologically illicit category (a stranded
affix) morphologically legitimate.
Our "agreement in Infl" reanalysis is UG-constrained
and moreover can explain the obligatoriness of V-raising to
Infl. By contrast, VYS's "V-raising to an empty Infl" hypothesis is UG-inconsistent and therefore raises the question
implicitly raised by all Weak Continuity Hypotheses: "If L2
grammars have the UG-prohibited property P (in this
particular case, morphologically unmotivated application of
movement), then which of the infinite set of UG prohibited
properties do these L2ers' grammars have and which of the
infinite set of UG-prohibited properties can any L2 grammar have?" All too often, this central question is not posed
and therefore remains unaddressed in L2 acquisition research, with the result that a theory of L2 acquisition,
specifying "possible L2 grammar," is lacking.
We summarize our principal points from this subsection
as follows:
(60) a. Contra (43), VYS's analysis in fact entails that within the
IP-stage grammar whenever an Infl is generated, V-raising to Infl is obligatory.
b. Within the analysis offered by VYS, there is no explanation for the obligatoriness of V-raising, since Infl is
altogether empty. Furthermore, the existence of such
movement violates an arguably universal and independently motivated constraint on movement.
c. We have suggested that the central property of the IPstage grammar (the existence of V-raising to Infl) can be
explained by assuming that the L2er's grammar is capable of generating an agreement affix in the functional
category Infl/Agr, which, by virtue of universal principles, can and must be associated with a verb in S-structure representation.
d. If our suggested explanation is correct, there is no
evidence for the IP-stage grammar (= a grammar incapable of generating agreement features in Infl/Agr).
e. The data presented by the Weak Continuity Hypothesis
to support the "absence of agreement" at the IP-stage in
fact concern "use of correct morphological agreement"
(see sect. 3.3.1.C) not the syntax of inflectional morphologyOther alternative explanations of VYS's data have been discussed above. To take one more example, recall our hypothesis that VYS's purported IP-stage subjects have grammars
generating CP (not IP) analyses such as (50) involving both
V-to-Infl-to-Comp movement and subject movement to
Spec CP, reflecting: (1) acquisition of V2, (2) a head-final
Infl (as in. both the LI and the L2), and (3) generability of
the functional category Comp and its associated X' projections. As noted, our suggested "V2 in CP" (target) analysis
both avoids the (unexplained) non-Ll, non-L2 lnf[-initial
IP analysis proposed by VYS and explains why it is that "in
terms of word order, verb raising, and filling the specifier
position, the [VYS] IP behaves similarly to the German CP"
(VYS, p. 30).
5. The full-access hypothesis: Results
of an L2 acquisition study
5.1. The study
To further support our hypothesis that from early stages of
acquisition the grammars of L2 learners incorporate functional as well as lexical categories, we will present data from
an experiment of our own that strongly suggests this to be
the case.52
These data derive from an experimental study investigating the acquisition of functional categories by both child
and adult speakers of Japanese learning English as a second
language (ESL). We tested 33 Japanese-speaking children
and 18 Japanese-speaking adults learning ESL. The Japanese children, aged 6;00-10;00, are from a Saturday Japanese school located in Medford, Massachusetts, sponsored
by the Japanese government. The adult speakers, aged 22 to
36, are graduate students at MIT who were enrolled in a
low intermediate ESL class.
The average length of residence in an English-speaking
country was 3;0 years for the children and l;0 year for the
adults. The children had an average of 3;0 years of formal
English instruction and the adults an average of 7;0 years. 53
5.1.1. Hypotheses tested. To begin, it should be noted that
whether functional categories are present or absent in
Japanese, our subjects' LI, is arguably unclear. For example, Fukui (1988) writes,
[S]o far, to the best of my knowledge, no strong argument has
been given for the postulation of Inflection) as a syntactic entity
in Japanese. The same remark appears to apply to the other two
functional categories (COMP[lementizer] and DETferminer])
as well. (p. 259)
Thus, Fukui tentatively suggests that Japanese may lack the
class of functional categories. However, he continues,
[Tjhere is an alternative, equally plausible hypothesis. . . .That
is, instead of claiming that Japanese lacks the functional categories, one might hypothesize that the language does have the
functional categories neither one of which has agreementinducing features. . . . At this point, it is extremely difficult to
come up with the decisive evidence between these two hypotheses; furthermore, it is even not clear whether they make
different empirical predictions concerning the parametric syntax of English and Japanese, (p. 260)
Miyagawa by contrast provides for recent arguments that
there are indeed functional categories in Japanese (see
Miyagawa 1993 and the references cited there).
Notice that if Japanese does lack functional categories,
then one could reconstrue VYS's VP-stage (lacking functional categories) as a UG-consistent initial hypothesis in L2
acquisition, equivalent (in the relevant respect) to the
grammar of Japanese. On the other hand, if all naturallanguage grammars, including Japanese, incoqjorate funcBEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1996) 19:4
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tional categories into the categorial inventory of the syntactic component, then the categorial inventory of the VPstage grammar is not that of a natural-language grammar.
Regardless, one clear empirical prediction that follows
from VYS's proposal is that there should be no evidence of
functional categories at early stages of acquisition in the
grammars of the Japanese subjects we tested. Moreover, if
Japanese lacks functional categories and our subjects show
evidence of functional categories, we would then have
evidence against explanations of L2 acquisition based solely
on transfer of grammatical knowledge from the LI to
the L2.
We focused on a comparison between adults and children in order to isolate as precisely as we could any
similarities and differences between these two L2 learner
groups, in light of current hypotheses with respect to a
critical period in language acquisition (see Johnson &
Newport 1991 and sect. 2.1 above). Thus, a possible hypothesis would be that the L2 grammars of children and
adults differ in that one but not the other evidences functional categories. Alternatively if child and adult grammars
are similarly constrained (contra the Critical Period Hypothesis), then we would expect similarities in the learners'
grammars with respect to functional categories.
5.1.2. Stimulus sentences. The Japanese speakers in this
study were tested on a wide range of complex syntactic
factors. We focused on those structures involving functional
categories, specifically, IP and CP. Examples of the stimulus
sentences are shown in (61). Sentences (61a-f), exemplifying Present and Past tense, modals, the progressive, and
negation were designed to evaluate the learner's knowledge
of IP. Sentences (61g-k), exemplifying topicalization, relative clauses, and tuft-questions, were designed to evaluate
the learner's knowledge of CP.
(61) Examples of Stimulus Sentences
Inflection Phrase
a. Present tense
The nervous professor inspects the broken television.
b. Past tense
The nervous doctor wanted a new lawyer in the office.
c. Modal
The little girl can see a tiny flower in the picture.
d. Progressive
The clever student is inspecting the expensive basket.
e. Negation-rfo-support
The happy janitor does not want the new television.
f. Negation-Progressive
The elderly grandfather is not picking the blue flower.
Complementizer Phrase
g. Topicalization54 (one clause)
Breakfast, the wealthy businessman prepares
in
the kitchen,
h. Topicalization (two clause)
i. Subjectgap: Thepencil, the talented architect says
is expensive.
ii. Object gap: The photograph, the happy architect
says he understands
i. Relative clauses
The lawyer slices the vegetables which thefather eats.
j . W/i-questions
i. Subject question: Which young girl
erases
the tiny picture in the notebook?
ii. Object question: Which secret message does the
young girl
find
in the basket?
704
5.1.3. Experimental task. Ideally, of course, converging
evidence should be collected from a number of different
types of tasks. The first one that we asked subjects to complete was an elicited imitation task. This was chosen as the
initial diagnostic for two related reasons: (1) elicited imitation is controlled in very specific ways and this task therefore yielded data that could serve as a basis for future
comparisons, and (2) the task enabled us to elicit data comparable to the production data elicited in previous studies
of functional categories. One difference between our methodology and that of, say, VYS's study is that we were able to
control the syntactic factors that we wanted to isolate and,
as a result, could more directly test L2 learners' syntactic
competence. Use of the elicited imitation task assumes that
if a learner's grammar is not capable of generating a given
syntactic structure - for example, one containing functional
categories — the learner will have particular difficulty in
repeating a sentence (word-string) associated with the
structure, under the assumption that the task is reconstructive (see Epstein et al. 1993a; 1993b; 1993c; 1994).
Subjects were given two tokens of each land of sentence
exemplified in (61). All sentences were equalized in syllable
length (16) and approximately in number of words (9-11).
5.1.4. Lexical knowledge. Prior to testing, all subjects were
given bilingual lists of the lexical items used in the stimulus
sentences; that is, the English words were written in the
Roman alphabet and in Japanese characters. Subjects were
asked to study the words before they participated in the
testing session.
Immediately before testing, the list was read aloud in
English to the subject. Subjects were asked to indicate if
they understood each word by either providing a synonym
or giving us the Japanese analogue;55 if they did not, they
were given an opportunity to review the item again. In
addition, the experimenter asked each subject to provide an
English synonym for a number of selected words on the list.
All of these controls helped to increase the probability that
any difficulty that a subject might experience in producing a
given stimulus sentence would be due to the structure of
the sentence and not to the subject's failure to understand
the meaning of a particular word. All subjects were also
pretrained on all the experimental tasks. Testing did not
begin until a subject had satisfied all these prerequisites.
5.2. Results
Overall, as shown in the table in (62), the percentage
correct for the sentence structures in (61) was 59% for
children and 60% for adults. 56 The subjects thus showed a
general ability to produce sentences containing XPs in Spec
CP position and sentences containing X° (= non-phrasal
syntactic categories, i.e., words/lexical elements as explicated in the Appendix) in I(nfl) position. This result suggests that the grammars of both Japanese-speaking adults
and Japanese-speaking children contained the functional
categories we investigated, at early stages of L2 acquisition.
(62) Structure
% Correct
Present tense
Past tense
Modal
Child
77
66
Adult
78
64
66
58
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> Correct
Structure
Progressive
Child
61
Adult
72
Negation
(/o-support
Progressive
76
69
64
72
Topicalization
1 clause, obj gap
2 clause, obj gap
2 clause, subj gap
53
40
34
69
44
42
Relative clauses
56
65
Obj gap
Subj gap
58
48
42
50
Overall
59
60
VV/j -questions
Results of a multifactored Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
indicate no significant differences in results between the
child and adult L2 learners. This suggests that child and
adult grammars are similarly constrained in this regard.
Additional support for this can be found in Figure 8; as
shown by the nearly parallel lines, adults and children
treated the individual sentence structures comparably.
Another important similarity in overall patterns of acquisition emerges when we compare IP-structures with CPstructures across the two groups: Figure 9 shows that
sentences involving I(nfl) (sentences [61a-f]) had a lower
error rate than sentences involving movement to Spec CP
(sentences [61g-k]). 57 Another way that we can state this is
that movement to Spec CP involves long-distance maximal
movement, whereas movement to I(nfl) involves only
short-distance head movement. The results indicate that
the former is more difficult than the latter (adult IP total:
68%, child IP total: 69%; adult CP total: 45%, child CP
total: 50%). In addition, we propose that the higher error
rates on complex as opposed to simple topicalization is a
function of the number of clause boundaries crossed in the
movement of the topicalized element to Spec CP. These
two results suggest that the errors do not derive from a total
absence of functional categories in the grammar but may
instead be a function of the type of derivation and the
number of boundaries crossed.
This same hypothesis emerges from the results of the
error analyses, which indicate that no greater than 15% of
the errors for any one sentence type involved an error on
the functional category in question. In particular, 100%
of the functional category errors made on sentences involving topicalization constituted a conversion of this structure
to its corresponding declarative sentence. We would interpret these "errors" as suggesting comprehension of the
input, which in turn indicates correct syntactic analysis,
which then indicates knowledge of functional categories.
Taken together with the results for percentage correct,
these findings suggest that the problems the L2 learners
exhibit in their utterances of these structures involve not a
grammatical deficit but some form of production deficit
(the precise form of which requires further experimental
investigation to corroborate). Results also suggest that the
learners can correctly analyze the input in terms of functional categories, again supporting the conclusion that their
early grammars do contain functional categories.
eu-
70-
\
/V
^
!
o—a
y
\
•
Children
-
Adults
\
60-
Ar
o
O
50-
40
30
c
a>
w
a>
CO
CO
a.
co
o
O)
o
o
a
o
CD
CM
Q.
CL
,o
,o
CD
O
•- rr
W
a o
i i
Stniance Types
Figure 8. Results for amount correct for Japanese ESL learners' elicited imitation of sentences
with various types of functional categories. — E l — children; — • — adults.
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80
Children
Adults
Age Groups
Figure 9. Results for amount correct for Japanese children and adults learning ESL: Results for
the elicited imitation of IP functional categories compared to CP functional categories. H IP;
• CP.
To reiterate, the results from this study are, in our view,
of interest because they suggest that child and adult L2
acquisition is similarly constrained at least with respect to
the properties examined here. This is not a necessary
result in that the child L2ers were 10;00 years old or
younger and the adults were well beyond even the most
liberal definition of adolescence. When the two groups are
equalized on ESL proficiency level, the results also suggest, against what is commonly believed, that the children
did not find the task easier than the adults did.
These results are interesting at another level also. If
Japanese does not have functional categories, then the
results suggest that the L2 learner does not attempt at
early stages of acquisition to impose an LI grammatical
analysis (perhaps lacking functional categories) upon the
L2 PLD as is argued in many accounts of the L2 acquisition process (see e.g., White 1990). On the other hand,
even if Japanese does have functional categories, it does
not instantiate syntactic u;/i-movement, that is, overt whmovement to Spec CP. The results reported here indicate
that although the Japanese subjects have more difficulty
with the CP-structures than with the IP-structures, they
do generate these structures, contra the predictions made
by a model restricting L2 acquisition to "transfer from the
LI" alone.
Finally, we argue that the difficulty with the CPstructures does not derive from the absence of CP in the
inventory of syntactic categories, but can be characterized
in at least two ways: (1) as discussed above, these structures
involve long-distance maximal movement, which seems to
be more difficult for the learners than the short-distance
X°-movement involved in IP-structures and (2) since Japanese does not instantiate syntactic u>/i-movement, the Japanese speakers arguably need to assign another value to the
parameter governing u>/i-movement for English. Results of
706
other studies (e.g., Flynn 1987; Martohardjono 1993) indicate that assignment of a new parameter value can appear
to "take time" in the course of acquistion, for example, if
new parameter setting involves determining the features
of certain lexical entries. Althought our account is by no
means conclusive, and of course much more research is
essential, it is nonetheless consistent with the data collected thus far.
To summarize these results, we argue that the errors
observed when investigating functional categories do not
reflect a knowledge deficit, specifically, the absence of the
syntactic categories themselves. Instead, we have suggested that they may well derive from a production problem that is independent of the absence or presence of the
functional category in the grammar. This performance
difficulty may inhibit the expression of a particular functional category in a given utterance. Our results suggest
that this difficulty may vary according to the type of structure involved. For example, the study indicated that error
rate increases with increased number of boundaries
crossed by a given movement. Moreover, when it appears
that there is a grammatical deficit - for example in the
acquisition of structures involving CP - this again is arguably not to be explained in terms of the absence of CP, but
might be best understood in terms of the need to assign
new parameter settings, in this case [overt + whmovement] for English. It is important to note that there
is empirical support for this performance-based account
(as opposed to a knowledge-deficit account) in that no
subject in our study or in VYS's omitted all phonetic
reflexes of all functional categories. Of course, if errors are
indeed due to a performance factor, this is an empirical
issue and the nature of the performance factor (or factors)
purportedly responsible for the errors must be determined
by rigorous experimentation.
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6. Conclusions and discussion
This target article began by outlining three general approaches to L2 acquisition: the no-access, partial-access,
and full-access hypotheses. We considered the conceptual
and empirical support for each of these and argued that
only the full-access hypothesis exhibits the explanatory
power needed to account for L2 learners' knowledge of
language. The mechanism offered by the other two hypotheses, such as analogy or Slobin's Operating Principles,
fail to explain, describe, or even address the knowledge L2
learners possess. A major problem in the formulation of
the no-access and partial-access proposals is that they fail
to distinguish the explicit specification of the learners
substantive knowledge of language (the grammar) from
the process by which such knowledge is presumed to be
attained ("via" some "learning process"). These learning
processes (whatever else they might be) are construed by
proponents of these hypotheses as "tools" with which L2
learners are argued to construct grammars (e.g., "by analogy"); critically, they say nothing about the formal properties of the end-state grammar represented in the learner's
mind/brain, the specification of which is undeniably a
central goal of an explanatory theory of L2 acquisition.
In a more specific discussion of a particular version of the
partial-access hypothesis, we considered the Weak Continuity Hypothesis. We considered several methodological
and theoretical issues that arose in this context and demonstrated the weaknesses that we believe to be inherent in
existing models that fail to postulate UG-constrained L2
acquisition. We next offered alternative explanations of
certain data without invoking the arguably nonexplanatory
stage-grammar approach central to the Weak Continuity
Hypothesis. Finally, we presented experimental results of
our own that indicate that the functional categories are
apparently available to the L2 learner from early stages of
acquisition. Our results are also consistent with a theory
claiming that: (1) UG principles and parameters are available to the L2 learner and (2) L2 "language development" is
restricted to language-particular lexical, morphological,
and phonological acquisition, parameter setting, and the
integration of acquired linguistic knowledge with what are,
strictly-speaking, grammar-external systems.
To conclude, we intend this paper to serve both as an
overview of the existing principal approaches to L2 acquisition and as a detailed critique of representative versions of
both the no-access hypothesis (Bley-Vroman 1989) and the
partial-access hypothesis (VYS 1991). We hope that the
issues and many as yet unresolved (but hopefully explicit)
questions we have raised will contribute to continued
productive development and exchange within the important and interdisciplinary field of L2 acquisition.
APPENDIX: SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES
AND X' THEORY
In this appendix, we will present an introductory informal overview of
those aspects of syntactic theory directly relevant to the present study, in
particular, X' theory.
To begin with, we assume that Universal Grammar provides an innately specified set of abstract syntactic categories, including Noun,
Verb, Adjective, and Preposition. This hypothesis asserts that these categories constitute part of the analytical apparatus (knowledge) humans
need not learn or be taught, but rather bring to bear in acquiring their
language by analyzing the continuous linguistic acoustic speech stream
(noise) around them in terms of these categories (see in particular
Chomsky 1965, sect. 1.5).
To illustrate, any normal adult native speaker of English knows, perhaps unconsciously, that there is a discrete subject noun (or noun
phrase) bearing person and number features, and that it agrees in
person and number with another discrete entity, the verb (in the present
tense), as shown for example by (63).
(63)
Subject
He
3s
Verb
put
Agreement
s them on the tall table
3s
To know English includes knowing this - namely, that he — thirdperson singular (3s), that the third-person singular verbal agreement
suffix is -s, not for example -n (= morphological (suffixal) knowledge),
and that it appears suffixed (not prefixed or infixed) to the verb, a type
of syntactic category and is not for example suffixed to a preposition, a
different type of syntactic category, as in (64).
(64)
"He put them [Pre 3 on] s the tall table
3s
3s
Moreover, to know English is to know that agreement suffixes do not
appear suffixed to nouns, or to adjectives, as in (65) and (66).
(65)
"He put [Noun them] s on the tall table
3s
3s
(66)
"He put them on the [Ad. tall] s table
3s
3s
Thus, this constitutes but one of many forms of evidence that to know
English is to have knowledge of a set of distinct syntactic categories
distinguished by, for example, the fact that some (verbs) are known to
bear agreement suffixes whereas others (nouns, prepositions, adjectives,
etc.) are known not to. (For further introductory discussion of the
evidence for knowledge of syntactic categories, see Radford 1981, Chs.
2-3; 1988, Chs. 2-6.) Such knowledge of syntactic categories appears to
be universal; that is, all (normal) humans acquire such knowledge of
their native language. It arises with little or no direct instruction, and
independently of whether a speaker has knowledge of a written language.
Moreover, the knowledge is highly abstract, that is, in a sense dissociated from the surrounding physical (acoustic) disturbances. To know
English entails knowing subject-verb agreement, where, crucially, the
abstract syntactic notions involved ("subject," "verb," and "agreement")
have absolutely no acoustic properties/import. That is, someone who
knows English knows the rule of subject-verb agreement, a rule having
nothing to do with how loud, soft, deep, or high one's voice happens
to be.
Remarkably, it seems to be the case that such knowledge of phenomena like the above-mentioned complexities of subject-verb agreement
emerges, under naturalistic conditions, only in humans, indeed indicating that some property of the human mind/brain differentiates us from
other organisms/objects linguistically. All these different types of knowledge - that is, knowledge of a human language - appear to be attainable
under these conditions only by humans.
In addition to the aforementioned innately specified class of syntactic
categories (Noun, Verb, Adjective, Preposition), the existence of a
phrasal syntactic category corresponding to each is postulated: Noun
Phrase (NP), Verb Phrase (VP), Adjective Phrase (AP), and Prepositional Phrase (PP). Thus, there are two types of syntactic categories:
heads and their corresponding phrases or "phrasal projections of the
head":
(67)
a. Heads: N, V, A, P, . . .
b. Phrases: NP, VP, AP, PP, . . .
To illustrate, the noun cat, a head, when concatenated with a preceding
Det(erminer), such as the, yields an NP - the cat. This NP and its
constituents Det and N, can be syntactically represented in either of the
following two (notationally equivalent) ways:
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(68)
a. [NF[D,,, the] [N cat]] (= labeled bracketing)
b-
NP
(= tree structure)
Det
N
the
cat
Not dissimilarly, concatenating a V (e.g., likes) with a following NP (e.g.,
the cat) forms a VP.
(69) a. [VP[V likes] [ NP [Det the] [N cat]]]
b.
NP
Finally, concatenating a VP with a preceding NP yields the syntactic
category S(entence).
(70)
a. [ s [ NP [D(.t the] [N dog]] [VP[V likes] [N1, [IX., the]
IN cat]]]]
b-
S
NP
(74)
VP
Det
N
V
the
dog
likes
NP
Det
N
the
cat
Consistent with X' (read "X-bar") theory, we hypothesize that:
(71)
(75)
a. Lexical heads: e.g., N, V, A, P, . . .
b. Functional heads: e.g., Comp(lementizer), Infl(ection), Agreement), . . .
a. I think [Co, that] [ s(entence) [ NP the cat] [Ve2rb left]]
b[comp dafi]
An example of the functional head Agr is the third-person singular
agreement suffix s in English. As discussed in the text, one (unified)
syntactic analysis of verbal agreement, Chomsky (1965), presumes that
the agreement suffix appears as a distinct head separate from the main
verb in abstract (unpronounced) D-structure representations such as
(34a), repeated here (with further details):58
(34)
DS [sentence W S u bu.j ^H eJl U
^Agreement
3s
INP the boy]]]
p v,like]
3s
The functional heads differ from the lexical categories in the following ways. First, functional categories seem not to be involved in assigning or receiving thematic (semantic) roles. Thus, for example, the lexical
category V (e.g., kick) assigns the Patient ("kickee") thematic role only to
its direct object NP. For example, in Fred will kick the cat, the NP the
cat and only the cat is interpretable as referring to the entity that will
(potentially) undergo kicking. By contrast, complementizers and agreement suffixes neither assign nor receive thematic roles (also called
"6-roles"). Second, unlike lexical heads, functional heads constitute a
closed class.New nouns and verbs are readily coined - for example,
e-mail as in 7 received the e-mail (= noun) or Fred e-mails Bill (= verb).
By contrast, new functional categories (e.g., new complementizers or
agreement suffixes) are not "coinable" (= a new adjective). Third, func-
708
«- phrasal level
Det
N
the
cat
<- head level
Standard X' theory (assumed in VYS) postulates a third type (or tier)
of syntactic category, namely, the single-bar (equivalently, the X' or
X-bar) projection, which is neither a head nor a phrase, but is rather an
intermediate category appearing "between" the head and the phrase. To
illustrate this three-tiered analysis (and some now standard evidence for
it), first consider the two-tiered analysis of an NP such as (75):59
a.
b.
this student of linguistics
NP
Det
1
N
this
student
1
An example of the functional head Comp(lementizer) is the "sentenceintroducer" that in English or dafi in German.
(73)
NP
For every type of head (e.g., N), there exists a corresponding
phrasal projection (e.g., NP) (as in [67]).
Central to the discussion of L2 acquisition in the text is the hypothesis
that there exist two different types of heads:
(72)
tional heads are often phonologically and/or morphologically dependent;
for example, as noted in the text, the agreement suffix must be attached
to a verb in S-structure representation (but not at D-Structure). Moreover, functional categories are often stressless, often clitics or affixes,
and sometimes phonologically null, that is, unpronounced (e.g., plural
agreement as in They like
Bill). Fourth, functional heads typically
select only one type of syntactic category (or a restricted class) as
complement (e.g., complementizers, such as that, require a sentential
complement, as in / think fCoinp that] [St.nll.1KC John left]]).
As was discussed in the text, VYS's fundamental claim is that the
functional syntactic categories (including complementizers and agreement) are initially absent in the L2 acquisition of German; that is, L2leamers initially have no knowledge of such syntactic categories, which
emerge (or "grow") one by one in discrete temporally ordered developmental stages of syntactic acquisition/maturation. The evidence VYS
present in support of their hypothesis is that complementizers and
agreement (morphology) are (largely) absent in the naturalistic speech
elicited from their subjects.
In connection with the material discussed in the text, there is one
more refinement that must be added to the syntactic analysis presented
thus far. To this point, we have assumed that syntactic categories in
natural language universally consist of only two types, heads and
phrases, thereby postulating a "two-tiered" analysis in which, for example, there exist only two types of nominal expressions, N and NP, as
in (74).
1
1
PP (= Prepositional Phrase)
P
11
of
NP
linguistics
This analysis, recognizing only heads and phrases, postulates six syntactic categories: the entire NP (this student of linguistics), which in turn
consists of the three linearly ordered categories, Det (this), N (student),
and PP (of linguistics), where the PP is itself analyzed as consisting of 2
linearly ordered categories, a P (of) and an NP (linguistics). This twotiered, six-category analysis hypothesizes that, for example, this of (i.e.,
Det and P) does not constitute a syntactic category, whereas of linguistics (P and NP) does constitute a syntactic category, namely, a PP.
Now notice this crucial point, that just as this of is not analyzed as
constituting a syntactic category, so student of linguistics similarly fails to
constitute a syntactic category. Under this trinary-branching analysis of
the NP, which hypothesizes that the NP consists of three categories
(Det, N, and PP), N and PP together do not form a syntactic category.
However, there is some evidence that N and PP together in fact do form
a syntactic category.
Consider (76).
(76)
I like [D(,t this] [N student] [PP of linguistics] more than I like that
one
Here, as the italics indicate, the pronominal form ("proform") one has
substituted for student of linguistics (as indicated by the interpretation).
Now, if as seems a reasonable hypothesis, such proform-substitution
applies only to syntactic categories (i.e., we do not seem or expect to
find preforms that substitute for noncategories such as this of), then
student of linguistics (i.e., N and PP) must together form a syntactic
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category, contra the analysis in (75b), in which N and PP together do not
constitute a syntactic category.
The hypothesized syntactic category consisting of the N student and
the PP of linguistics is assumed to be a nominal (= "noun-like") category. However, this nominal category is clearly not a noun (i.e., it is not
correctly analyzed as a single word, on a par with student), nor is it
correctly unnlyzable as a noun phrase. Unlike a noun phrase, it does not
function as subject or object of a sentence.
(77)
(82)
The boy
a.
a. *Student of linguistics likes Bill,
b. *Bill likes student of linguistics.
Rather, student of linguistics is a type of nominal category "bigger" than
a noun, yet "smaller" than a noun phrase, the latter property indicated
by the fact that adding a preceding determiner produces a noun phrase,
which can indeed function as a subject or an object NP.
(78)
transitive verb (e.g., kick) - contain a complement NP, whereas other
VPs - namely, those headed by an intransitive V (e.g., sleep) - appear to
have no complement.
a. This student of linguistics likes Bill,
b. Bill likes this student of linguistics.
In order to represent the hypothesis that student of linguistics is
(79) a.
b.
c.
d.
a syntactic category (capable of undergoing one-substitution)
nominal
"bigger" than a noun
"smaller" than a noun phrase
V
VP
b. VP
1
V
^ \
1
1
kicked
V
1
1
NP
V
Bill
sleep
If, as seems to be the case, VP lacks a Specifier (an empirical and
debated issue), then Specifier too must not be obligatory.
If we adopt the X' schema (81) in which each head projects up to
both a single-bar and a phrasal projection, then an interesting problem
emerges concerning the functional heads Agr and Comp. Concerning
the former, recall the motivated and unified syntactic analysis of verbal
agreement in which the agreement suffix invariably appears at D-structure as a head separate from the main verb, as for example in (83).
(83)
the following t/iree-tiered, seven -category analysis is presumed, in which
the N student and the PP of linguistics together constitute a (nominal)
syntactic category, namely, N' (read "noun-bar") appearing "between"
the phrasal category NP and the head N:
S
.—-
NP
1
Agr
1
1
N'
1
VP
1
1
V
(3s)
(80)
Det
this
i
student
"Specifier" = (ZP)
1
he
(3s)
sleep
PP
P
NP
I
I
of
linguistics
This analysis supplants (75b).
Thus, X' Theory proposes a three-tiered analysis in which the head
(here, N = student), together with its complement (here, PP), form a
single-bar projection (N'). The single-bar projection (N') together with
its sjjecifier (here, Det) forms the phrasal or maximal projection (here,
NP). In other words, there exist three types/levels of nominal categories:
N, N' (= Noun + Complement), and NP (also called N lnax , where max
= maximal), consisting of a single-bar projection and a Specifier.
This overall theory of syntactic categories is called X' theory with the
variable "X," because the (strong, unified) hypothesis embodied by this
theory is that all heads, not just N, project to a single-bar category and
then to a phrasal projection.
Thus, we have the core X' schema,60 a highly unified hypothesis
concerning the structure of all phrases in all human languages:
(81)
1
1
N' = single-bar projection
N = head
V
N
NP = phrasal projection
XP = "phrasal" or "maximal" or
"double-bar" projection
X' = "single-bar projection"
X = "head"
or
X°
(YP) = "Complement"
Notice that although X, X', and XP are not parenthesized, Specifier
and Complement are. The parentheses indicate "optionally present."
Although it is hypothesized that each head obligatorily projects up to a
single-bar and to a phrasal category, the Specifier and Complement are
each optional. For example, certain VPs - namely those headed by a
The problem with this analysis is clear. It is X'-inconsistent in that Agr is
a head, but fails to project up; there is no Agr' or AgrP. The question is.
Can we maintain a unified, analysis in which all heads conform to the
single (simple) X' schema (81) or must we stipulate that a functional
head (or perhaps Agr alone) is different (i.e., induce X'-inconsistent
structures)? A second problem is evident as well. The phrasal category S
is a phrase, yet it (unlike the NP and VP) is not projected up from any
head. Moreover, at the conceptual level, tree (85) exhibits the type of
structure - trinary branching - that appeared problematic for NP, as
discussed above. A third issue, relevant to the X'-inconsistent analysis of
S in (83), is the "tight" syntactic relation between Agr and VP. Recall
that unlike a lexical head, a functional head seems to select one (or a
restricted class) of complement type(s). For example, Agr seems to have
an obligatory VP complement, but notice that the class of categories that
can appear as a complement of V is varied, arguably including every
phrasal type thus far discussed:
(84)
Verb
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Complement
sleep
kids. [NP the dog]
converse [PP with Bill]
consider [Bill (to be) silly]
become [AP fond of Mary]
be. [VP kicking Bill]
(as in John will not he kicking
0
NP
PP
S
AP
VP
Bill)
If Agr requires a VP complement, then there is, roughly speaking, a
"very close syntactic relationship" between these two categories. This
close relationship, the failure of the head Agr to project in (83), the
failure of S to be a projection of a head in (83), and the (potentially
problematic) trinary-branching analysis in (83), can all be accommodated by reanalyzing (83) as follows:61
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(85)
NP
Agr' = single-bar
N'
I
N
I
AgrP
(89)
AgrP = phrasal
N'
VP
Agr
I
I
N
V
1
I
(3s)
she
(3s)
V
He
(3s)
I
Agr'
Agr
VP
|
1^
(3s)
^
<
1
think
sleep
^ ^
C
--—^
C
11
If this is the correct analysis (and, of course, we desire independent
empirical support for it), we now have cross-categorial X' consistency.
All categories conform to the X' schema. In (85) VP is the complement
to the head Agr; that is, these two categories are in a "close" relationship
in that they and they alone constitute the syntactic category, Agr', the
single-bar projection of the head Agr. Agr' plus the NP specifier (He) of
AgrP (= the subject of the sentence), together form the phrasal projection AgrP. Thus, S is reanalyzed as the (phrasal) projection of Agr, and
the aforementioned potential problems regarding (83) are accommodated.
Now, if S is reanalyzed as AgrP, what becomes of our other functional
head, the "S(entence)"-introducer Comp(lementizer), for example, that
in English? Like the functional head Agr (and unlike a lexical head such
as V), the functional head Comp seems to require a categorially invariant complement type, namely, a "S(entence)." This "close" relationship
between a complementizer and its complement S, the latter reanalyzed
here as AgrP, can be accounted for as above by assuming that the two
together constitute a single-bar projection, namely, the single-bar projection of Comp (= C in trees), Comp' (= C in trees), as for example
in (86).
(86)
a. She thinks [that he sleeps]
b. She thinks
CP
1
1
— — •
c
c -.—^^--^ AgrP
that
IMP"
1
1
N'
1
1
N
1
He
(3s)
Agr'
_^~-^
^ ^
VP
Agr
i
1
V
1
(3s)
V
sleep
There is empirical evidence, again from the theory of proformsubstitution, independently supporting this X' consistent analysis, in
which the complementizer (that) and the AgrP together form a syntactic
category, C . Consider so-substitution, as in (87).
(87)
She said [that he sleeps] but I don't think so
Notice so might be interpreted as meaning either "that he sleeps" or "he
sleeps" (assuming perhaps wrongly that the two are not synonymous).
However, the important point is not how so is interpreted, but rather
that it substitutes only for [that he sleeps]. That it does not substitute for
[he sleeps] is shown by (88).
(88)
*She thinks that [he slee))s] but I don't think that so
Thus, the ungrammaticaliry of this example (more precisely, the fact that
knowing English entails knowing that (88) is ungrammatical) indicates
that so is by hypothesis (known to be) an AgrP substitute. Again, assuming (as seems supported by the evidence) that a proform can substitute
only for a syntactic category, so-substitution provides evidence for our
X'-consistent, unified analysis. The functional head [Colllp that] and its
AgrP complement together form a syntactic category that can undergo
so-substitution, thereby supporting categorial status. Assuming the most
unified hypothesis, that all heads project to both a single-bar and a
phrasal category, X' theory imposes the following illustrative analysis ( =
D-structure):
710
that
NP
Agr'
\i \
he
(3s)
V
|
sleep
Notice that the (optional) Specifier of CP (= Spec CP) is absent
here. Cases displaying the existence of Spec CP were presented in
section 3.3.2.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Various versions of this paper have been presented at the following
conferences: 1993 Workshop on Recent Advances in Generative
Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (MIT); 13th Second
Language Research Forum 1993 (University of Pittsburgh and
Carnegie-Mellon University); Fourteenth Second Language Research Forum (McGill); International Association for Applied
Linguistics (AILA) 1995 (Free University, Amsterdam); Boston
University Conference on Language Development (1994), and
The Linguistic Society of America (1995). We thank the participants of these conferences for their insightful comments and
questions.
We wish to extend our appreciation and gratitude to the students and teachers of the Japanese Saturday School, Medford,
Massachusetts, and Showa University, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, as well as to all the other participants in this study.
We wish to acknowledge and thank the many UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) students from MIT
who have worked on various aspects of the second-language
acquisition study on functional categories discussed in this article.
The students include Cashman Andrus, Ann Bui, Nikka Lee,
Adebisi Lipede, Belinda Chan, Gina Kang, and Whitney Postman.
We also thank those who read and commented on various
versions of the paper. We have greatly benefited from all discussions and suggestions for change. We extend very special thanks to
Robert Freidin, Jim Gair, Barbara Lust, Elaine McNulty, Lorraine
Obler, William Rutherford, Julie Sussman, as well as to Carlos
Otero and several (anonymous) reviewers from BBS.
Special thanks are due to Dean Philip Khoury of MIT for
financial support.
We also thank Geoffrey Poole both for his valuable commentary
and for his assistance in the preparation of this manuscript.
Finally, we are indebted to Anne Mark for her editorial help and
to Steve Peter for invaluable assistance with this project.
NOTES
1. In the text of this paper we would prefer to use the more
accurate terms second grammar (G2) and second grammar acquirer (G2er) rather than the standard second language (L2) and
second language learner (L2er). However, we will often use the
more traditional L2/L2er terms in the interest of convention. For
discussion of important distinctions between language and gram-
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mar in the context of (so-called) second language acquisition, see
section 2.4.
2. Throughout we assume that Schachter means that UG is
"not entirely available" (cf. "entirely not available") to the adult L2
learner.
3. We will develop and explain these notions in more detail
later in the text and, in particular, in the Appendix.
4. For a very clear introduction to the Principles and Parameters model of syntax and child first language acquisition, see Lust
(1986) and Atkinson (1992).
5. Throughout this article, we mean by "X is accessible" only
that "X constrains the learner's hypothesis space."
6. This parameter concerns Head-Complement order. For
example, in (lb) the head "V" (see Appendix), namely [v liked],
precedes its NP complement (see Appendix) [NP the man] in
English, whereas, in for example, Japanese, the "V" head follows
its NP complement.
Importantly, the hypothesis (as expressed here by Cook 1988)
that in any given language, all heads (e.g., N, V, A, P) either
consistently precede or consistently follow their coinplement(s)
may well be too strong. For example, German, as illustrated
insertion 3.3.2 example (41) is, by hypothesis, C(omplimentizer)
initial, but Agr(eement) final.
Interestingly, the purported parameter Head-First vs. HeadLast, if veridical, would represent a case of parameterization not
attributable to cross-linguistic variation in the morphological features (strong vs. weak) of "functional" (see Appendix) syntactic
categories (see Chomsky 1993).
7. That is, following Chomsky (1980; see also Chomsky "Rules
and Representations" BBS 3(1) 1980), we are making the claim
that UG provides all humans with antecedent knowledge that
languages have words. In our work with L2 acquisition, we are
asking an empirical question with respect to whether or not L2
learners also approach the L2 learning process with the knowledge
that languages will have words/lexical entries.
8. ABBS reviewer writes that L2 learning could proceed on the
basis of analogy based on positive evidence. We agree that there
may be areas of language learning that resort to analogy. Our point
is that if analogy were the only learning strategy available to the L2
learner then the knowledge of ungrammaticality of L2 sentencetypes manifested by learners remains unexplained, especially if
the patterns of ungrammaticality are different in the LI and the
L2, and the LI can therefore not serve as a source for this
knowledge.
9. We are grateful to a reviewer for pointing out the importance
of these data with respect to the argument we are developing here.
10. One BBS reviewer notes that we argue in subsequent
sections of this paper that the lack of linguistic evidence in the
natural speech of a language learner does not necessarily indicate
the lack of competence for a particular "associated structure."
Thus, we cannot in turn argue that the lack of evidence for nonstructure-dependent utterances in natural-speech samples argues
that learners do not in fact invoke structure-independent hypotheses. We agree with this logic. However, we argue that once we
move beyond natural speech samples and investigate the properties of learners' linguistic competence in the context of carefully
controlled production and comprehension studies systematically
varied along certain critical factors, then the evidence we isolate in
these contexts can be used to support certain conclusions concerning the nature of the learner's linguistic competence. In the
context of this section and paper, we are developing empirical
arguments based on the evidence elicited from these systematically controlled studies.
11. To argue this about the nature of the human capacity for
language does not mean either that we are arguing that this is the
only innate domain of human cognition. Our purpose here is
twofold: (1) to argue that one cannot attempt to account for the
human capacity for language by appealing to an account that
reduces language learning to inductive learning mechanisms (see
Chomsky's 1959 review of Skinner (1957) for detailed arguments
in this regard) and (2) to argue that the ability to generalize and
abstract beyond the data alone is insufficient as an explanation of
the language-learning process. To account for all that a child
knows about his first language, one is led to assume that much of
this knowledge has been innately specified (see, e.g., Chomsky
1980,1986, and references therein for detailed arguments in this
regard).
12. As concerns Bley-Vroman's "Adult Foreign Language
Learning: A. Native Language Knowledge," a BBS reviewer asserts "Bley-Vroman would have done better to have 'Knowledge of
languages (native and other)': if the learner already has knowledge
of other languages, that ought to get into the act too." Of course, in
the absence of experimental evidence, the knowledge that "ought
to get into the act" is unclear. The (purely empirical) question is
rather, "what knowledge does get into the act?"
13. A reviewer points out that it might be possible to retain
knowledge of what a language is like without having access to UG.
But this is precisely the issue we are contending. Under the view
that the language faculty, and only the language faculty enables
human beings to analyze (certain types of) acoustic disturbances
(leaving aside sign language here) as natural language, we question
whether it is possible to assign or even recognize units of analysis
specific to language (such as phonemes, morphemes, and syntactic
structures) to sound, if one does not have access to the language
faculty. In short, the question we are raising is: If not the language
faculty, then what would enable the learner to recognize and
analyze an L2 as natural language, as opposed to, say, a computer
language? Whether the L2 learner in fact does treat the L2 as
natural language is of course precisely what UG-based L2 acquisition research is attempting to investigate. However, to distinguish
"gross architecture of language" from "principles of language"
seems to be arbitrary (except that the former more readily accommodates inexplicitness).
14. On the fundamental difference between what we are
calling "grammar" versus "language," see, among many other
works by Chomsky, 1955; 1964; 1965; 1968; 1975; 1980; 1981a;
1981b; 1982; 1986; 1988; 1991a; 1991b. The interested reader
should be forewarned that all these works use different terminology, some of which differs from ours as well. For example, a BBS
reviewer points out that, in contrast to us, Chomsky (1986) (in
contrast to Chomsky 1955) used the term "grammar" to refer to
the linguists' theory, and used the term "language," specifically
"I-language," or as the reviewer notes, "generative procedure," to
refer to the knowledge-state, not some infinite set of sentences.
15. We find B-V's use of the term expect somewhat misleading
in this context. Expectation can fail to come true (e.g., We expect
the Red Sox to win the 1996 World Series). However, within B-V's
account, the L2ers' expectations always come true. For example,
the L2er expectation regarding infinite generative capacity is
"invariably correct," since, by hypothesis, all natural-language
grammars indeed have precisely this property. Thus, we suggest
that a more accurate characterization of L2 acquisition would
result from B-V eliminating L2er expectation and instead using the
locution L2er knowledge of universals.
16. Depending on B-V's interpretation of etc. in (9), it may be
that B-V in fact recognizes all such UG-specified constructs.
17. The only time that one could empirically determine
whether the L2 knowledge derived from UG or from UG-via-Ll
would be in the case of a mismatch in parameter settings. If all that
were available to the L2 learner was a UG-via-Ll, then non-Llinstantiated parameter settings would not be accessible to the L2
learner. As we will discuss in more detail below, such inaccessibility seems not to be the case.
18. For important discussion of the degenerate nature of the
primary linguistic data and the (direct) relevance of this to first
language acquisition, see Hornstein and Lightfoot (1981, Ch. 1).
19. See section 3.3.2 for a more detailed account of German
word order.
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20. This is under the assumption that the experimental results
replicate in subsequent studies.
21. We are significantly simplifying the analysis proposed by
duPlessis et al. for German as well as their explanation of how their
analysis can account for Clahsen and Muysken's data. The reader is
referred to the original text as well as to subsequent papers (e.g.,
Flynn & O'Neil 1988a; Schwartz & Sprouse 1991), which treat the
details in considerably more depth.
22. A reviewer asserts that if by completeness is meant "knowing everything that a native speaker knows," then the claim that
"L2 completeness is impossible" is too strong, since it is in
principle possible to approximate that knowledge with "nonlanguage" learning devices. With respect to the reviewer's assertion, it is, of course, an empirical issue whether some (explicitly
defined) existing "non-linguistic learning device" underlies the
acquisition of some (explicitly defined) existing L2 linguisticknowledge.
What it might mean to "approximate" knowledge, we leave as an
open (and in our view, unclear) issue.
23. New parameter setting is the assignment of a new, additional value to a parameter in the case in which the parametric
values of the LI and L2 do not match. Often in the literature this
process is referred to as parameter resetting; however, this term
cannot be accurate. If it were, it would mean that after learning an
L2 that differed parametrically from the LI, the learner would
lose the LI parameter settings and would therefore no longer have
the grammar of the LI represented in the mind/brain. For a
discussion of this point and its importance regarding (1) LI
acquisition (apparently involving both grammar adoption and
"abandonment") and (2) L2 acquisition (involving grammar adoption without abandonment of the LI) and language change, see
Hale .(1995).
24. Such a proposal has interesting empirical consequences
(not investigated here) regarding both language production and
comprehension.
25. One BBS reviewer argues that postposed subordinate adverbial clauses "are frequently used in colloquial Japanese, although they would never appear in writing and, indeed, would be
considered 'poor Japanese.'" Thus, this reviewer suggests that
Japanese learners are "not exactly acquiring a 'new' parameter
value when they learn English." However, S. Miyagawa (personal
communication) argues that although postposing of subordinate
clauses as well as many other elements is quite common in
Japanese and although some syntactic analyses have been proposed for these phenomena, the postposing processes are essentially pragmatic, that is, not syntactic. Thus, it seems untrue that in
learning English the Japanese speakers do not have to assign a new
parameter value to the head-direction parameter.
26. Even if the learner were, by some wild chance, explicitly
told "(15c) is ungrammatical," this is clearly far different from
being told that "Each of the infinite number of strings exhibiting
wh-extraction from a Relative Clause is ungrammatical." This
latter instruction too is different from being told "(15c) violates
Subjacency, as opposed to the Case Filter." It is moreover important to note that merely being told "that X" does not entail
understanding/knowing that X. On linguistic knowledge of types
of ungrammaticality, see Chomsky (1965), Esptein (1990), as well
as Grimshaw and Pinker (1989). For a recent introductory discussion of negative evidence, see Atkinson (1992 and the references
cited).
27. In these and the examples that follow in this section,
standard notation is used: * (an asterisk) indicates ungrammaticality, ? indicates marginality. In addition, hierarchies within
ungrammaticality and marginality are indicated by an increasing
number of * or ?. Thus, a sentence marked ** is more ungrammatical than a sentence marked *, and a sentence marked ?? is
more marginal than a sentence marked ?. All judgments are
relative.
28. Cf. Epstein (1991) on using degrees of ungrammaticality as
712
a source of empirical evidence to determine the precise structure
of UG.
29. In the case of u;/i-islands, this seems to be due to the unacceptability of clauses containing two u;/i-phrases in Indonesian.
30. A BBS reviewer points out that the pattern exhibited by the
Indonesians need not be ascribed to grammatical or UG knowledge, but could be derived from the same (presumably extragrammatical) source that renders the corresponding Indonesian sentences unacceptable. Although this hypothesis, like many others
must remain a possibility, it would leave us with two unanswered
questions: (1) Why did the same extragrammatical factors render
the same sentence-types unacceptable in Indonesian, but acceptable in English for the same set of speakers, (the Indonesians)? (2)
Why do we find the same pattern for the English speakers and the
Indonesian speakers? In the view that the pattern does not derive
from the same source of knowledge (e.g., UG), we are left to
ascribe this striking similarity to two different factors: the grammar for the English speakers, and as yet unspecified extragrammatical factors for the Indonesians.
31. A BBS reviewer remarks that degree of unacceptability for
the L2 sentences could be derived by obsendng that they are "the
reverse" of the LI, without resorting to UG. As we have explained,
evidence regarding the unacceptability of tu/j-extraction types is
assumed to be unavailable in the input for both LI and L2
learners, since it is highly unlikely that the relative grammaticality
status of these sentence-types would or could ever be taught. For
the Indonesian learners, knowledge of the acceptability status of
these sentence types in Indonesian has already been attained
during LI acquisition. Without resorting to UG, these learners
could subsequently notice that the L2 facts are the reverse from
the LI facts only if they were explicitly taught the grammaticality
status of these particular sentences. But the assumption for these
sentence-types is that this knowledge is not available from the
input, for either LI or L2 learners.
32. Control verbs are verbs such as told, as in:
(i) I told John [PRO to buy cookies]
The subject of the infinitival clause is a phonetically null noun
phrase called "PRO." By virtue of Control theory, PRO is assigned
an antecedent with which PRO corefers: In (i) the antecedent is
the NPJohn. Hence (i) means (ignoring tense distinctions) "I told
John that he (meaningyo/in) 'should' buy cookies." Since John, the
direct object of told, is the antecedent of PRO, tell is said to be an
"object-control verb." By contrast, promise is a "subject-control
verb," as in (ii), in which the subject of promise is the antecedent of
PRO.
(ii) I promised John [PRO to buy cookies] (meaning: "I promised John that I would buy cookies")
The phonetically null subject of finite sentences in null-subject
languages, such as Spanish, is assumed to be a noun phrase distinct
from PRO called "pro."
(iii) [pro hablo] (meaning: "I speak")
For arguments supporting a distinction between PRO and pro,
see Chomsky 1982, p. 79 and Jaeggli & Safir 1989, pp. 15-21.
33. Adult Japanese and Chinese speakers learning English as a
second language were tested on the same structures as the Spanish
speakers. We will not report on the results of these two language
groups (see Flynn et al. 1991 for a complete report). We will note
later in the text that the pattern of results for these two groups
matches those obtained for the Spanish speakers in spite of the
differences that exist in the Lls of these speakers with respect to
tensed and infinitive stmctures and the nature of the control
properties of the verbs investigated.
34. "C-command" is commonly defined as: A c-commands B if:
(1) the first branching node dominating A dominates B; and (2) A
does not dominate B, and (3) A does not equal B (Reinhart
1979). For a deduction of this fundamental syntactic relation, see
Epstein (1994; 1995).
35. A BBS reviewer points out that the particular syntactic
analysis for a given set of facts may turn out to be wrong and that
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for example "some effects currently attributed to parameterized
principles [could] turn out to be due to invariant principles . . . in
which case results that could be taken to offer support for the
setting of a parameter lose their force." We fully agree with the
reviewer: As is the case for any science, linguistic hypotheses are
open to continuous revision and reformulation as more data and
analyses are brought to bear on the issue in question. However,
this does not detract from the force of our argument that LI and
L2 acquisition derive from the same linguistic principles. If a
particular set of facts, hypothesized to fall out of parameter setting,
turns out to be governed instead by invariant principles, this would
simply mean that this particular set of facts can no longer be used
to substantiate parameter-resetting abilities in the L2 learner.
36. For related discussions, see also Vainikka and YoungScholten (1992; 1993).
37. If functional categories are initially absent in LI acquisition
(as hypothesized by Radford [1990]), then VYS's (similar) model of
L2 acquisition would not really constitute "partial access," in the
sense that LI and L2 functional category acquisition would be
similarly constrained. But if (as we believe) functional categories
are not initially absent in LI acquisition, as convincingly argued
most recently by Boser et al. (1991a; 1991b), Lust (1992), and
Poeppel and Wexler (1993), then VYS's "initial absence" hypothesis does indeed constitute partial access in the sense that certain
constructs (in this case, functional syntactic categories) constraining LI acquisition are hypothesized to be initially absent in L2
acquisition.
38. Contra a BBS reviewer, our argument does hold even in the
framework of checking theory (Chomsky 1993), a very recent
approach that, for expository purposes, we do not adopt here.
Thus, for example, our morphologically incompetent subject who
thinks that, say, third-person plural present tense agreement is -s
(e.g., They likes. Bob) could concomitantly know the syntax of
subject-verb agreement, as specified within checking theory. See
Epstein (1993, forthcoming) for a recent Checking Theory analysis of English verbal agreement.
39. Again, for expository purposes, we are adopting a noncontemporary syntactic analysis of subject-verb agreement. Note that
there is another logically possible unified analysis, namely, one in
which (contra Chomsky 1965) the agreement suffix invariably
appears united with (as opposed to separate from) the main verb
(as in Chomsky 1993). See also Chomsky 1991c.
40. This subsection directly follows the presentation in Haegeman 1991, sect. 11.2. For much more detailed discussion of this
analysis of German, see Haegeman (1991), Chapter 11, and the
references cited therein. We cite the complementizer dafi as doss
where our sources have that orthographical variant.
41. Since VYS assume X'-consistent analysis both of German
and of L2ers" misanalyses of German (see below), we too will
simply assume an X'-consistent analysis as outlined here; that is,
we will not argue against VYS's analysis by arguing that the phrase
structure theory in which it is formulated, namely, X' theory, is
"wrong." However, it should be noted that X' theory, like any
formally explicit (falsifiable), well-studied (and far-reaching) empirical hypothesis, is not without potential empirical and conceptual problems. For recent critical discussion, see Chomsky (1994);
Freidin (1992a, sect. 2.3); Kayne (1994); Kitahara (1994); (1995; to
appear), and the references they cite. For a review of X'-Theory,
see the Appendix.
42. Note "CP" = Complementizer Phrase (dafi/that being
complementizers (C°), i.e., "sentence-introducers"). "AgrP =
Agreement Phrase, roughly equivalent to what we have been
calling "Sentence," e.g., "Hans bought the book." AgrP is also
sometimes called "IP" = Inflectional Phrase, containing Infl =
I(nflection), as will be discussed below. See Appendix for detailed
clarifying discussion of these syntactic category labels.
43. Note in (42c) VYS replace IP (= Infl Phrase), I' (= Infl')
and I (= Infl) with AgrP (= Agreement Phrase), Agr' (= Agreement'), and Agr (= Agreement), respectively.
44. The 17 subjects in VYS's study (and their native languages)
are given here.
Name
Ahmet
Aysel
Emine
Harva
Kadir
Kemal
Mehmet
Mine
Ozgiil
Sevinc
Changsu
Dosik
Ensook
Gabho
Park
Sam ran
Language
Turkish
Turkish
Turkish
Turkish
Turkish
Turkish
Turkish
Turkish
Turkish
Turkish
Korean
Korean
Korean
Korean
Korean
Korean
45. For purposes of this subsection, the reader may interpret
IP as being nondistinct from AgrP, as discussed above. Below, we
will see that VYS distinguish IP/I from AgrP/Agr; but here the
distinction is irrelevant.
46. Concerning (44b), VYS provide only the word string arid
translate it as '(1) read the German book(s).' Since they do not
provide word strings with phrase-structure trees assigned, we
donot know whether they assume that a null first-person singular
subject occupies Spec VP in (44b). This unclarity will not bear on
the subsequent discussion.
47. In fact, VYS themselves assume the existence of empty
categories, in particular empty subjects.
48. The particular CP analysis they entertain and reject is,
unlike (50), one in which CP "replaces" IP and IP is hence missing:
C
ICP [ c
tvp [v NP V]]]]
49. As noted in section 3.3.l.C, VYS seem not to distinguish
between the syntax and the morphology of agreement. They write,
"Given the [AgrP-stage] tree [(= our (42c))], subject-verb agreement is expected to occur . . . correctly" (VYS, p. 32). Again, we
disagree: Knowing that the phrase-structure representation contains an Agr node (= syntactic knowledge) does not entail knowing
(38) (= morphological knowledge).
50. The fact that each of these subjects produce wh- and
yes/no questions constitutes some of VYS's evidence for the
existence of a CP projection. But here (as is the case throughout),
VYS provide only word strings (i.e., no syntactic analysis), as in (i)
(i)
Was ist er denn?
(=VYS, fn. 28, ex. b)
what is he then (i.e., boy or man)
Since they do not provide analyzed data, we do not know whether
they assume the following type of utterance receives a CP or an
AgrP analysis if indeed the grammar does incorporate "CR."
(ii)
Ich kaufe
dich
Eis.
(=VYS, 27b)
I
buy-lSG you-ACC ice cream
51. See also Epstein (1992) for a postulated deduction of some
desirable empirical consequences from this independently motivated constraint.
52. The results we report here are part of a much larger study
that investigated the acquisition of functional categories by both
child and adult Spanish and Japanese speakers learning English as
a second language.
53. One reviewer notes that our subject pool differs from that
of VYS in terms of socioeconomic status and educational levels
asserting that we "gratuitously assume that e.g., L2 acquisition will
work the same way in an ESL class for graduate students at the
University of Michigan as in a class in German for uneducated
Gastarbeiter in Berlin." The reviewer continues, "This is as ridiculous as not paying attention to the difference between upper-class
five-year olds and ghetto-dwelling two-year olds in studies of first
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language acquisition." As concerns the latter assertion, with respect to which the reviewer provides no citations, we would ask,
"What is the difference in linguistic competence between "upperclass five-year olds" and "ghetto-dwelling two-year olds?" We
believe that there are no differences (other than age-related ones),
just as there are no principled differences between the linguistic
competence of students at the University of Michigan and those
who do not attend American universities. To the extent that
linguistic competence is biologically determined we expect uniformity here just as we expect uniformity in the visual system to hold
independently of socioeconomic factors. Of course, crossstudy/subject is always an important issue as is replication in the
experimental natural sciences.
54. Topicalization involves a CP on the assumption that the
topic (or a null-operator) moves to Spec CP in a matrix clause (see
Lasnik & Saito 1992 and the references cited there for recent
discussion of English Topicalization).
55. This included testing subjects' knowledge of the modals
(e.g., can) as well as the copula verb, be.
56. Several different scorings were computed with these data.
In the results reported in this paper, all errors in imitation were
scored as incorrect with the exception of the deletion of adjectives.
Thus, if a speaker substituted one lexical item for another (e.g.,
gentleman for woman) the sentence was scored as incorrect.
Similarly, if a speaker (for example) deleted a past tense ending or
changed a question into a declarative sentence, the sentence was
also scored as incorrect. However, if a speaker simply deleted one
of the adjectives in the sentence, it was not scored as incorrect in
the results reported here. This was an extremely common error
that was made across all structures to a comparable degree. Notice
this is an extremely rigorous scoring procedure biased against our
hypothesis. In light of this, 59/60% overall success rate is in our
view compelling.
57. Here we leave open the question of whether English finite
main verbs - as in (61a) and (61b) - are derived by: (1) syntactic
affix lowering, that is functional category lowering (as in standard
accounts), or by (2) LF V-raising to a functional category
(Chomsky 1993), or by (3) application of both (1) and (2)
(Chomsky 1991c).
58. The third functional head, Infl, will be discussed here in
detail.
59. This discussion directly follows the presentation in Radford
1981, Chapter 3 and Radford 1988, Chapter 4. For more detailed
argumentation and empirical support see, Radford 1981,1988 and
the references cited there. For other, not dissimilar introductions
to X' theory, see Cowper 1992, sect. 2.5; Haegeman 1991, sect.
2.5; Horrocks 1987, sect. 2.3.3; Sells 1985, sect. 2.1; and van
Riemsdijk & Williams 1986, sect. 3.3.
60. For expository purposes, we ignore adjunction, as well as
the DP hypothesis (Abney 1987) throughout. Under the DP
hypothesis, the above arguments for a single-bar N-projection
based on one-substitution (interestingly) disappear. More generally, Chomsky 1994, p. 10, suggests that all single-bar projections
(i.e., those that are neither maximal nor a head) are syntactically
inert. See also Freidin (1992a, sect. 2.3) for important discussion.
61. In certain literature "Agr(eement)" is called "Inflection"
( = 1). Correspondingly AgrP(hrase) is sometimes called "Infl
Phrase" (IP).
Open Peer Commentary
Commentary submitted by the qualified professional readership of this
jottnial will be considered for publication in a later issue as Continuing
Commentary on this article. Integrative overviews and syntheses are
especially encouraged.
Functional categories in L2 acquisition:
Evidence of presence is not necessarily
presence of evidence
John Archibald, Eithne Guilfoyle, and Elizabeth Ritter
Department of Linguistics, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4
Canada. archibal@acs.ucalgary.ca; guilfoyl@acs.ucalgary.ca;
ritter@acs.ucalgary.ca
Abstract: Epstein et al. fail to show that L2 learners have full access to UG
because they do not explain the relationship between UG and functional
categories (FCs). Nor do they provide an explanation of why learners with
(supposed) full knowledge of FCs fail to use them in a native-like way.
The partial access hypothesis (PAH) predicts that L2 learners can
access phenomena that are part of the LI grammar but not
phenomena that are instantiated only in the L2. While it is possible
to identify such elements in the domains of phonology and lexicon
it is difficult to find syntactic phenomena that are present in the LI
but not the L2. Phonologically, an LI could have pitch accent or
tone while the L2 has stress; lexically, an LI could have gender
while the L2 does not. Archibald (1995) and Carroll (1989) suggest
that L2 learners may be unable to trigger new structure. Syntactically, there is variation in the instantiation of a phenomenon,
rather than the phenomenon itself. The choice of functional
categories (FCs) as the focus for Epstein et al.'s study is, thus,
problematic. There is no consensus of the exact number and type
of FCs made available by UG, so how can we tell if the learner is
accessing UG when acquiring the L2's FCs?
To decide whether the full access hypothesis (FAH) or PAH
makes the correct predictions, one must be explicit about the
relationship between FCs and UG. What information does UG
provide the L2 learner about FCs? To determine this we could
compare the LI and L2 acquisition data. If children have full
access to UG and we find similar data in LI and L2 acquisition we
might reasonably conclude that L2 learners also have full access
toUG.
The LI data on the acquisition of FCs in German and other V2
languages (e.g., papers in Meisel 1992) are remarkably similar to
those discussed for L2 acquisition by Vainikka and YoungScholten (VYS). Children use more infinitival verb forms and less
verb movement than adults do. How many and what kind of FCs
are present in early child stages is controversial. However, even
those researchers who have claimed that no FCs are present in
early grammars (Guilfoyle & Noonan 1992) have argued that these
grammars are constrained by UG. Thus, the absence of FCs does
not necessitate lack of access to UG. Conversely, authors who have
argued that FCs are present from the earliest stages have also
asserted that the FCs of the early grammar are not identical to
those of the adult grammar. Either there are fewer FCs (Rizzi
1993/94), or they are underspecified in some way (Roeper 1992),
or they contain features that are treated differently in child
grammar than in the adult (Wexler 1994). It has been argued that
these views are consistent with a grammar that draws on UG. So an
L2 grammar that lacks some or all FCs does not necessarily
support the PAH. Unless we know the exact relationship between
UG and FCs, their presence or absence in the grammar cannot
provide an argument for or against either the FAH or PAH.
Epstein et al. argue that the presence of inflectional morphol-
714
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
ogy is not necessarily evidence for the presence of an FC, nor is the
lack of inflectional morphology evidence against a particular FC.
However, they fail to provide an articulated analysis of inflection or
of the mapping relation between morphology and syntax necessary
to support this claim. Such an analysis would need to pay special
attention to the paradigmatic nature of inflection. Knowledge of
inflection necessarily includes knowledge of a paradigm. The
assumption that inflection is present in the grammar can only be
based on evidence of paradigmatic variation, and not simply on the
presence or absence of any single inflectional item.
Even assuming inflection is present and correctly analysed in
terms of its morphological content, one would need independent
evidence to determine whether or not it has been assigned to the
appropriate syntactic category. This type of error might be especially common in noun phrases, where there is evidence for
variation in the mapping of inflectional elements to functional
projections across languages and across constructions (cf. Borer
1996; Ritter 1995). Assuming that inflectional elements may either
be generated in FCs or raised from lexical categories to FCs one
needs more explicit evidence to determine whether presence of a
particular inflectional element constitutes evidence of an FC.
Epstein et al. are also unsuccessful in accounting for the
absence of FCs in non-native speaker (NNS) utterances. They
argue that NSs find sentences with multiple centre embeddings
grammatical but "unusable" and NNSs find certain FCs the same.
The equation of NS avoidance of centre embeddings with NNS
omission of tense marking is simply implausible. Furthermore,
they suggest that comprehension implies correct syntactic analysis
which implies knowledge of FCs. An imitation task cannot tell us
this. NSs can understand NNSs ungrammatical utterances without representing them. Comprehension is influenced by information from many sources (top-down and bottom-up), not just the
ability to represent a structure.
In conclusion, Epstein et al. fail to show that L2 learners have
full access to FCs, because they do not explain the relationship
between UG and FCs. Nor do they provide a clear explanation of
why learners with full knowledge of the FCs fail to use them as a
native-speaker would.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Guilfoyle and Ritter acknowledge the SSHRCC for grants 410-95-0382
and 410-95-0478, respectively.
Transfer in L2 grammars
Rakesh M. Bhatta and Barbara Hancin-Bhattb
"Department of English, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996.
rakesh@utk.edu; "Department of English, University of South Carolina,
Columbia, SC 29208. hancin-bhattb@garnet.cla.sc.edu
Abstract: Although the Full-access hypothesis accounts for a range of
empirical generalizations of L2A, it underrepresents the role of language
transfer in the construction of the L2 grammar. We suggest the possibility
that linguistic principles which constrain the L2 grammar are available
both directly from UG and via the LI, a logical hypothesis which Epstein et
al. do not consider.
In their critical appraisal of three general hypotheses on the role of
UG in L2A, Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono successfully
present strong arguments against the No-access and Partial-access
positions, and argue that only the Full-access hypothesis is supported by the data available. Although the Full-access hypothesis
accounts for a range of empirical generalizations of L2A, it
severely underrepresents the role of transfer - the use of prior
linguistic knowledge (LI) - in the construction of the L2 grammar.
The generative literature on L2A provides compelling evidence to
show that noncompliance with UG initially is linked to transfer.
Here we suggest the possibility that linguistic principles and
operations which constrain the L2 grammar are not only available
directly from UG, but also via the LI, a fourth logical hypothesis
on UG access which Epstein et al. do not consider. Our suggestion
speaks directly to one of the central questions they raise: What
exactly does (can) L2 learner know? (sect. 2.2, para. 2)
Transfer is discussed in several previous studies, but space
limitations allow reference to only a few. In our own data of 125
Hindi-speakers learning English over five grade levels, we find
that learners' initial knowledge of productive wh-questions appears to be without "wh-movement" (e.g., You where go?). When
wh-movement appears, it does so initially without "inversion"
(e.g., What you are doing?) and/or "do-support" (e.g., Where he
go?). Even in advanced learners noninversion in direct questions
persists. We argue (Bhatt & Hancin-Bhatt 1996) that noninversion
in the L2 grammars is a case of nonobvious transfer in the
following manner: Hindi, a wh in-situ language, does not have LF
wh-movement to Spec-CP. It has been suggested (Mahajan 1990)
that Hindi forms constituent questions by QR at LF. What Hindi
does at the level of LF (logical form), Hindi-speakers learning
English appear to be doing it at the level of surface structure (SS),
that is, adjoining wh-phrases to IP yielding questions without any
room for inversion or "do-insertion." Additionally, the role of the
UG economy principle, "procrastinate," in the derivation of noninverted questions is also warranted. Procrastinate, under our view,
militates against any overt (cost ineffective) movement, which
explains the three general stages we observe in the acquisition of
wh-movement:
(I) no movement => (II) adjunction (w/i-phrase moves) =>
(III) substitution (u;/i-phrase moves to CP-Spec and Infl
moves to C°).
Although the first and third stages can be explained straightforwardly by direct appeal to UG principles, it is the presence of the
second stage that mandates the transfer explanation since the
relevant derivation does not follow from any known UG principles.
We must therefore consider the fourth hypothesis on UG access,
the "Full-Transfer/Full Access" model (Schwartz & Sprouse
1996), which has the potential to honor the L2 acquisition facts
presented.
Epstein et al. have not looked at beginning learners. The cited
proficiency levels of the learners in their studies are intermediate
to advanced. In fact, their intermediate Japanese subjects have
studied English an average of 7.0 years and have lived in an
English-speaking country an average of 1 year (sect. 5.1). Their
experience with the L2 is greater than that of our own beginners,
who had no more than two years of formal instruction, without
significant out-of-classroom exposure to the L2 (Hindi-dominant
speech community in Delhi). That their learners are not in early
stages of L2A may explain the diminished role of the LI in building
L2 syntactic representations. Vainikka and Young-Scholten (1996)
also show evidence of transfer in the initial state of their subjects
(Lls = Turkish, Korean, Italian, and Spanish) learning German in
the form of LI settings for the VP - head-initial for Spanish,
Italian, but head-final for Korean and Turkish.
The weight of the evidence in L2A suggests that the learning
algorithm does not proceed initially with all of UG ("unmarked
options only") prescriptions (White 1989). As mentioned above,
the noncompliance is linked to transfer (see Eubank 1993/94;
Hale 1988, pp. 31-32; Schwartz & Sprouse 1996; Vainikka &
Young-Scholten 1996; White 1992). In view of the overwhelming
transfer effects in early L2A, Epstein et al.'s theory also needs to
address questions such as: What does the L2 learner begin with? If
they do not accept that syntactic operations and principles in L2A
can be guided at least initially by the LI, then it must be shown
experimentally that UG is accessed entirely independently of the
LI at ALL stages of acquisition, especially beginning levels where
it is argued to be most prominent.
While we commend these critiques of the No-access and
Partial-access positions, we encourage Epstein et al. to address the
fourth possibility, which may, we suggest, help explain the interaction between transfer and universal effects in L2A. Acknowledg-
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
ing the existence or non-existence of LI influence on the L2
grammar will provide a more representative treatment of the
research issues in L2A today.
A dim monocular view of Universal-Grammar
access
Derek Bickerton
Department of Linguistics, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822.
derek@hawaii.edu
Abstract: This target article's handling of theory and data and the range of
evidence surveyed for its main contention fall short of normal BBS
standards. However, the contention itself is reasonable and can be supported if one rejects the "knowledge" metaphor for linguistic competence
and accepts that "syntactic principles" are no more than the way the brain
does language.
My principal reactions to Epstein et al. s article were threefold: (1)
It reads as if it had bypassed the normal (and normally rigorous)
BBS refereeing process. (2) For an article in an interdisciplinary
journal, it addresses a surprisingly narrow range of data. (3)
Despite (1) and (2), its main contention, given the odd caveat, is
probably correct.
Some explanation of how I reached such apparently self contradictory conclusions seems in order.
1. Sloppy argumentation and data. Epstein et al.'s view of language abstracts away from the facts to an inordinate extent. We are
told (Example 1) that English is a "head-first" language, although
two of its four major phrasal categories are head medial - Adjective) (almost always ABLE to compete) and N(oun) (the big red
BOX on the table in the hall). Third person singular =s is not a
"language-particular morphological aspect of English" (sect. 2.1,
para. 5) (unlike progressive =ing, which is) but a local instantiation
of a universal grammatical category, AGR(eement), central to
generative accounts of language. Epstein et al. play fast and loose
with the terms Universal Grammar (UG) and "language faculty."
These are not synonymous, though treated here as such (see, e.g.,
the closing paragraph of sect. 2.2). UG is normally restricted to the
categories and processes of core syntax, while the language faculty
embraces any aspect of the organism that helps make language
acquisition possible. Thus it is absurd to suppose that without
access to UG one could not distinguish speech from noise or words
from nonwords: countless cues (such as being informed that
"Dummkopf is a German word" or being called estupido for
treating a command in Spanish as noise) would quickly alert one to
these distinctions even if one's access to UG were less than zero.
A deeper problem underlies these misfired reductios: the equation of UG with "knowledge." This, at best a metaphor - on the
most plausible assumption, UG is simply the way languagededicated brain circuits must work, see below - Epstein et al. take
with deadpan literalness, concluding that nothing we know about
language can come from anywhere but UG. Have they never
heard of grammar books? Or do they suppose that, without direct
access to UG, I would open my Teach Yourself Italian with jaw
dropping stupefaction: Lesson One, Indefinite Article - Gender
. . . Huh? Come again? Wozzat mean?
In all other spheres, "empirically equivalent" (sect. 2.2, para. 3)
knowledge can be acquired in a variety of ways: for instance, one
can learn the clarinet by attending music school, by hanging
around clarinetists, or through the eerie serendipity of a clarinet
savant (seemingly nearest of the three to primary language acquisition). Would one's clarinet solos sound any different as a result?
Epstein et al. treat knowledge of language as if, unlike all other
forms of knowledge, it could only be acquired through one route,
and was totally encapsulated and incommunicable.
They should be on firmer ground with experimental data, but
both experiments and presentation leave much to be desired. The
716
study of Japanese children and adults learning English described
in section 5 aimed at comparing their control of functional categories, but scores given include (with a trifling exception in note 56)
all errors in repeating test sentences, including ones totally unrelated to functional categories such as wrongly repeated nouns!
Moreover, if failure to control relevant syntactic structures causes
faulty repetitions (which it may), it is a logical error to assume that
such failure is the sole cause or need even be the major cause of
such errors.
We are told (sect. 5.1.3, para.-1) that this "elicited imitation" task
was merely "the first" that these subjects were asked to complete,
but no subsequent tests are mentioned. A similar imitation study
with Spanish subjects (sect. 3.2.4) claims a significant difference
between repetitions of t/iaf-clauses and infinitives, but the only
evidence offered, the bar-graph in Figure 7, suggests a difference
of only about 12%, with no figures and no way of evaluating
significance.
A third empirical study lacking crucial data deals with the
distinction between subject and object extractions; allegedly the
former were rejected more often than the latter, but no supporting
evidence of any kind is offered. Instead, we find two sets of figures,
one in Figure 5 relating to strong versus weak subjacency violations, and another in the text (example 21) summarizing overall
scores on all subjacency violations. On the reasonable assumption
that equal numbers of strong and weak violation stimuli were
presented, the latter should represent averages of the former, but
they do not. I could find no coherent way of relating the two sets to
one another; no word of explanation is given, and no references
provided that would help the reader evaluate the startlingly high
significance level supposedly obtained. The foregoing suggests,
while far from exhausting, the amount of material that thorough
refereeing could have eliminated before submission for peer
commentary.
2. Limited domains of evidence. Epstein et al. restrict themselves
to second-language acquisition in its narrowest sense, ignoring
(except for a cursory dismissal of Lenneberg 1967) the several
other fields of study that bear on the issue of access to UG, and
raising again the question of whether this article was properly
referred - as it stands, it seems more appropriate for an in-house
L2 journal than for BBS. Within linguistics alone, these fields
include Creole languages, sign languages, and language deprivation.
At first sight, such fields seem to offer Epstein et al. little
comfort. It is now clear from recent historical research in Hawaii
(Roberts 1995; 1996) that the account of Creole genesis proposed
by Bickerton (1984) was empirically correct down to the last detail:
Creoles are languages created by children, in a single generation,
on the basis of radically degenerate pidgin input data. We now
know from literally thousands of contemporary attestations that
even in the 1910s, the pidgin spoken by adults in Hawaii was no
more stable or elaborated than it had been in the 1790s - in other
words, we know that what adults failed to do in over a century,
children achieved in less than two decades.
These findings and those in sign language mutually support one
another: it has been abundantly documented, since Goldin
Meadow's (1979) groundbreaking paper, that children acquiring
sign languages go well beyond any input they receive, and that the
later in life one is exposed to them, the less one grasps of sign
languages' extremely subtle and complex grammars. It is also well
known that children who are deprived of access to language prior
to puberty fail to acquire full natural language, although they may
achieve some kind of pidginlike protolanguage (see, e.g., Curtiss
1977, 1988 on the cases of Genie and Chelsea).
The picture presented by these areas might seem to suggest that
UG access gradually shrinks to zero over years 7-14. However, a
strong case for continuing access can still be made, though to make
it, Epstein et al. might have to jettison their belief that UG consists
of, or provides, knowledge.
3. The brain can't help it. Suppose that universal principles of
syntax have only epiphenomenal status, being derived from the
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Commentary /Epstein et al: Second language acquisition
natural processes by which the brain links words to form sentences. There would no longer be any fund of knowledge into
which post-adolescents failed for mysterious reasons to tap. The
brain would just go on doing what it was built to do, with a second
language as much as with a first, unless trauma or degenerative
disease disabled it.
However, this automatic mechanism would need triggering by
linguistic input before a certain age. Zero input would yield cases
like Genie's. A limited input would trigger language, as in the
pidgin-to-creole case. What the absolute minimum input consists
of cannot be determined without human experimentation of a type
not readily fundable nowadays.
If UG is process not principle, full access to it must continue, or
we would stop speaking! But quality of access must change
somehow, or adults in Hawaii would have created a creole. Given
motivation, and perhaps other variables, adults seem able to
acquire existing languages, but not to create new ones. Why this
should be so forms an interesting research question, but one that
cannot be resolved simply by positing null or reduced access to
UG. How then can we account for the notorious differential
between average levels of first- and second-language attainment?
Varying degrees of motivation could be one factor. Another could
arise because advanced Piagetian tactics - going to class, studying
grammar books, trying to figure out consciously what we ought to
be saying - may actually interfere with, rather than help, the
operations of UG.
Acquisition of second language by general-cognitive means
would predict some correlation between intelligence and second
language attainment. I don't know of a good or indeed any study of
this, but anecdote and experience suggest no correlation at all.
Unpersuasive as Epstein et al.'s arguments are, there remains a
good case for a UG potentially open to all. Psychological variables
unrelated to language would then lead to second-language
learners' widely varying degrees of success.
Full access to the evidence for falsification
David Birdsong
Department of French and Italian B7600, University of Texas, Austin, TX
78712-1197. birdsong@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
Abstract: The Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjorno full access hypothesis
could be enhanced by inclusion of criteria for falsification.
Epstein et al. wish to advance the debate on access to UG in L2
acquisition by staking out a position of full access, and by challenging the adequacy of the no access and partial access hypotheses. I
submit that the scholarly discourse might be elevated by a consideration of what kinds of data might constitute falsifying evidence. I
raise the issue of falsifiability not out of a commitment to a
particular philosophy of science; the label "naive falsificationist,"
as Kuhn dubbed Popper, doesn't stick. My reaction is rather one of
frustration with the way data and theory are forced into apparent
congruence. I would like to see more rigor in the use of evidence,
starting with the articulation of explicit falsification criteria.
A straightforward illustration of the need for falsification is
Epstein et al.'s account (sect. 3.2.2) of a commingling of Ll-based
and UG-based knowledge. Among native speakers of Chinese,
Indonesian, and Italian, differing percentages of correct judgments for English sentences are attested. Epstein et al. attribute
this variability to the role of the LI in L2 acquisition. The results
may be consistent with such a coexistence or interaction of the LI
and (fully-accessed) UG, but they are also consistent with partial
access, since none of the learner groups responds at native-like
levels. And, .because the results are reported as means, it is
conceivable that some members of a subject group have no access
at all, while others have full or partial access. Clearly, it would be in
Epstein et al.'s interest to spell out the type of results that would
exclude or falsify these various alternatives to their position. More
to the point, if non-nativelike judgments are consistent with full
access, then what (above chance) pattern of judgments would not
be consistent with full access? Under Epstein et al.'s interpretation
of the data in section 3.2.2, there is no apparent way to falsify the
full access position.
This criticism can be generalized to the entire Epstein et al.
enterprise, because their full access position is too loosely formulated to allow for falsification. Full access is defined as "UG in its
entirety constrains L2 acquisition." (I take care not to confuse this
with a related claim that UG is the exclusive source of grammatical
knowledge, i.e., "UG entirely constrains L2 acquisition.")
So stated, the full access position does not exclude other
knowledge. Thus it would permit access to other sources of
linguistic knowledge, such as knowledge of the native language or
additional nonprimary languages. So stated, it would not exclude
knowledge of UG that is derived, along the lines of the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (Bley-Vroman 1990), from knowledge
of the LI. (In sect. 2.4, Epstein et al. suggest that knowledge of UG
comes directly from the language faculty, and cannot be derived
from other sources. Even so, this is not stipulated in the definition
of full access.) Furthermore, it would allow for access to nonlinguistic knowledge. Finally, since Epstein et al. do not develop a
generic schedule by which other knowledge is suppressed or
supplanted, we must conclude that at any point from initial state
to asymptote, UG-in-its-entirety-as-well-as-other-knowledge is
available under their hypothesis of full access. With so few constraints on learners' knowledge, Epstein et al. license scads of
unwelcome predictions - anything goes, short of wild grammars and expand the areas of overlap with competing proposals. At the
same time, they deprive themselves of the obvious choice for
falsifying evidence: non-nativelike judgments or imitations. When
experimental performance is non-nativelike, Epstein et al. can
argue that it is not because UG is not fully accessed, it is because
other knowledge is also being accessed.
Epstein et al. could justifiably reply that other theories of L2
acquisition lack explicit criteria for falsification (see Beretta 1991;
McLaughlin 1987). But this is a matter for discussion elsewhere.
And EFM might argue that many of the predictions of their
hypothesis are met, and therefore falsification is not an issue. For
example, in section 3.2.2, the asymmetry predicted for strong
versus weak violations of wh-extractions is attested in L2er experimental performance. But suppose the predictions had not been
met. Would Epstein et al. have conceded that their hypothesis had
been falsified? One would hope so. However, throughout the text a
pattern of explanations for results that had not been explicitly
predicted suggests that falsification is not high on their agenda. As
we see in section 4, Epstein et al. summarize an assortment of ways
to dismiss unruly data: subjects make "performance errors"; they
have "nonsyntactic deficits"; they have "difficulties with applying a
computation to a structure"; and so on. These factors may indeed
come into play. But by resorting to post hoc rationalizations
whenever the full access position is vulnerable, Epstein et al.
remove a mechanism for falsification. The full access hypothesis,
for whatever epistemological truths it is ultimately shown to
embrace, is deficient for now because it cannot be falsified.
In our everyday theory of (full) duckness, the evidence for a
creature being a duck is that it has feathers, quacks, and walks like
a duck. The criterial evidence that a creature is not a duck is
absence of feathers, vocalizations other than quacks, and movement on the ground by means other than waddling. In applying the
theory, we do not dig around for nonplumage deficits, and we
make no allowance for performance errors in quacking and waddling. Our theory is simplistic and its application shallow, but at
least we can falsify it.
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
What we have to explain in foreign
language learning
Robert Bley-Vroman
Department of English as a Second Language, Program in Second
Language Acquisition, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822.
vroman@hawaii.edu
Abstract: While child language development theory must explain invariant "success," foreign language learning theory must explain variation and
lack of success. The fundamental difference hypothesis (FDH) outlines
such a theory. Epstein et al. ignore the explanatory burden, mischaracterize the FDH, and underestimate the resources of human cognition. The
field of second language acquisition is not divided into camps by views on
"access" to UG.
The explanatory burden of the theory of child language development is that language develops in children inevitably and completely on exposure to input. In this sense, we informally say that
child language development is "invariably successful." Adult
foreign-language learning (L2A) is radically different. There is
wide variation, even among learners exposed to very similar input.
Few (if any) adult learners achieve native grammatical knowledge,
although some can use the foreign language fluently and effectively. The explanatory burden of L2A theory is, in the first
instance, to account for this lack of inevitable success and for this
variability. For child language development, the theory of innate
constraints, triggers, parameter-setting, deductive consequences,
and language-specific learning-procedures (the acquisition theory
of Universal Grammar) is designed to predict inevitable, invariant,
and complete language acquisition on exposure to degenerate
data. On the face of it, it is hard to see how such a theory could
work for L2A. Child language development theory is chronically
"success-plagued" when applied to adult foreign-language learning. "The logical problem of foreign language learning" (BleyVroman 1990) focussed on the need for an L2 acquisition theory
which was adequate to the explanatory burden.
In addition to arguing that an adequate L2 acquisition theory
would need to account for "failure" and variability, Bley-Vroman
(1990) also outlined an approach to such a theory: the "Fundamental Difference Hypothesis" (FDH). The FDH holds that, for
the adult, information about what languages can be like is primarily available through the first language and the mental representation of its grammar. Various mechanisms not specifically linguistic
are involved in the construction of the L2 knowledge system. I
made reference to a range of promising developments in cognitive
science, including work in general human problem-solving, nonmonotonic reasoning, and production systems. Epstein et al.'s
concentration on simplistic "analogy" greatly underestimates the
richness of human cognition and suggests a view of the cognitive
sciences in which little has happened since Skinner. For a review
of the relevance to L2A of current findings on the human capacity
to find structure, see Carr and Curran (1994). The proposals of the
FDH are thus by no means "astructural" (Epstein et al. target
article, sect. 2.3).
Bley-Vroman (1990) provides several specific mechanisms
which might be involved in L2A, including construction-byconstruction acquisition based on positive evidence (which I
discussed in an account of the lack of extraction from coordinate
structures - a case which Epstein et al. mention). I also speculated
that there were parallels between foreign-language learning and
the acquisition of "peripheral constructions" in native languages.
The foreign-language learner, in this view,
proceeds by accumulating peripheral facts, rather than by setting
parameters and deducing consequences. The end result can be a system
of knowledge, which, while weakly equivalent to the native language
grammar in certain areas, has quite a different origin and, presumably, a
different psychological status. (Bley-Vroman 1990, p. 42)
Similar observations have also been made by Pinker and Bloom
(1990) regarding the evolution of language: they point out that
processes like "analogy, rote memory, and Haigspeak," which they
718
relate to Chomsky's notion of periphery, could "function as a kind
of jerry-rigging that could allow formally incomplete grammars to
be used in generating and comprehending sentences" (p. 732).
Epstein et al. ignore the central issues and fail to propose even
an outline of an account which might meet the basic explanatory
requirements. As far as one can tell, the essence of their "fullaccess" hypothesis amounts to the uncontroversial and unsurprising observation that many aspects of non-native language performance can be discussed using the vocabulary of linguistic theory.
So, for example, studies have shown that beginning Japanese
learners of English cannot repeat accurately sentences with subordinate clauses. Epstein et al. say that these learners "'know' that
English and Japanese differ in head direction and are working out
the consequences of a new parameter setting." More advanced
learners do better: "[T]hese L2 leaners had assigned a value to the
head direction parameter in conformity with the English value"
(sect. 3.2.1, para. 8). Epstein et al.'s new research here is similar.
Learners are sometimes able to repeat many kinds of sentences.
After a beginning course in syntax, you can describe these sentences using words like "IP," "CP," "Spec." The emptiness of such
rhetoric and problems with the theoretical conceptualization have
long been noted (Bley-Vroman & Chaudron 1990; White 1989,
pp. 94-100).
Epstein et al.'s portrayal of the field of SLA as being divided into
contending camps based on three degrees of "access" is oversimple and misleading. The FDH permits UG-like effects via the LI
and has proposed that "peripheral" language processes might be
involved in L2A. Vainikka and Young-Scholten's analysis of the
acquisition of German assumes the operation of UG. How is it
"partial access"? There is much excellent theoretical work in L2A
which does attribute a prominent role to UG (the work of Eubank,
of Schwartz, and of White is prominent and contains arguments
which must be taken seriously), but a "full-access" view is poorly
represented by the work of Flynn and colleagues. Indeed, if there
is anything which unites researchers in L2A, it is agreement that
research like that reported in this target article is largely irrelevant.
Access to Universal Grammar:
The real issues
Hagit Borer
Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
01003. borer@linguist.umass.edu
Abstract: Issues concerning UG access for L2 acquisition as formulated
by Epstein et al. are misleading as well as poorly discussed. UG accessibility can only be fully evaluated with respect to the steady state gram mar
reached by the learner. The steady state for LI learners is self evidently the
adult grammar in the speech community. For L2 learners, however, the
steady state is not obvious. Yet, without its clear characterization, debates
concerning stages of L2 acquisition and direct and indirect UG accessibility cannot be resolved.
The emergence of greater understanding of L2 acquisition (L2A)
alongside the growing awareness of its significance is indeed one
of the more exciting developments of the past decade. It is
therefore unfortunate that one of the first major articles on this
topic to appear in a major cognitive science venue should turn out
to give a flawed review of the major theoretical trends, to pose the
wrong theoretical questions, and proceed to give even poorer
answers.
The extent to which LI acquisition (L1A) and L2A are or are not
alike is the major subject matter of L2A. However, Epstein et al.
avoid this question entirely. In section 2.1 they state briefly that
L1A and L2A are distinct, but proceed to attribute this to "differences . . . in assignment of parameter values in LI acquisition
versus assignment of additional parametric values in L2 acquisition, o r . . . differences in the way children and adults acquire the
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
lexicon and integrate UG with grammar-external performance
systems." Along with an equally vague statement, attributing
differences between L1A and L2A to "differential ways of instantiating [UG] principles according to the particular demand of the
language," and hence making "the acquisition of languageparticular aspects of grammar . . . age-sensitive," this is the sole
account for the most crucial question of L2A: why is it clearly
behaviorally distinct from L1A? From both a cognitive and a
linguistic perspective, the answer they offer to this major question
is every bit as problematic as the problem-solving explanation for
L2A which they demolish with so much verve.
Worse, the discussion, here as elsewhere, reveals a profound
misunderstanding of the term Universal Grammar as it has been
utilized in linguistic theory and in acquisition models based on it.
UG is first and foremost a set of constraints on possible natural
language grammars, and only secondarily, and not according to all
models, a language acquisition device (LAD). It is perfectly
possible for an output grammar to be constrained by UG, although
the process of acquisition is informed by an independent acquisition device. Nor is it logically necessary for every step in L1A to be
a natural language grammar in the UG sense; the literature on L1A
abounds with proposals concerning intermediate stages which are
not, themselves, strictly speaking, grammars of natural languages.
Ironically enough, this is precisely the nature of current proposals
that the early grammar is prefunctional, fully or partially. While in
the 80s it was proposed that the presence versus absence of
functional projections is a parameter of UG, making it possible for
some natural languages (notably Japanese) to have no functional
structure, this view is no longer held. To the best of my knowledge,
no current analysis of Japanese postulates the absence of a tense
node. Yet in the pre-functional stage, it has been claimed, TP may
be absent, making that grammatical stage non-UG constrained.
The Principles and Parameters Model was put forth originally as
a solution to the logical problem of language acquisition, abstracting away from developmental issues altogether. It effectively
divides grammatical competence into two components: those
parts which are fixed and unchanged, and those parts which are
disjunctive in nature, allowing different grammars to select different options. Acquisition becomes the determination by learners as
to which of the disjunctive parts of a particular principle are
applicable in their grammar. Once this determination is complete,
the core grammar of the target language has been acquired. It thus
follows that the only part of UG relevant to language acquisition is
the "disjunctive" part that varies from language to language. To
state, as Epstein et al. do, that "the acquisition of languageparticular aspects of grammar [is] age-sensitive" while other parts
of UG are fully accessible amounts to asserting that L2 learners
have difficulties in acquiring "language particular aspects" in L2
distinct from those of their LI, acquiring in full only that which is
not language particular. The first part of this claim is in essence
how Epstein et al. define "Partial Access," which they claim to
refute. The second part of this claim is nonsensical. What is fixed
and constant across languages is precisely not in need of being
learned.
A strict application of the Principles and Parameters Model to
LI development (without assuming cognitive or linguistic maturation) is, indeed, only compatible with the claim that every intermediate stage of L1A is constrained by UG. Within that model,
there is no room for the learner ever to construct a grammar that
would violate UG, as all choices for a given parameter are UG
compatible. The learner, by definition, can only make mistakes
which would lead to a mismatch between the constructed grammar and the target grammar. This is the model that informs the
formulation of "Partial Access" by Epstein et al. and its challenge:
"Partial Access" attributes to L2 learners an inability to alter their
Li choice for the value of a particular parameter, alongside the
inability to activate principles which are inert in the LI.
The first argument for the acquisition of new parametric settings by L2 learners, and hence against "Partial Access," is based
on the acquisition of postposed adverbial clauses in English by
Japanese speakers. The argument, unfortunately, is demolished by
Epstein et al. s own admission that postposed adverbials do exist in
Japanese (note 25).' A second argument concerns the acquisition
of the complementation structure of control verbs. Here the
discussion seems to assume a version of "Partial Access" that is
certainly not the only sensible one. If LI has both infinitival and
tensed complements, but their distribution with respect to particular verbs differs from that of L2, the learners need not acquire
any new grammatical knowledge. They only have to learn the
properties of some lexical items.
As an argument against the non-activation of inert principles,
Epstein et al. discuss the Empty Category Principle (ECP) and
subjacency effects in the English of L2-ers whose Li does not have
syntactic movement. "Partial Access," they claim, would predict
no Subjacency and ECP effects, as the principles are inert in the
LI. This argument is puzzling. A fundamental tenet of syntactic
theories is that the same principles constrain overt and covert
movement. Logical Form movement is subject to the ECP, and
according to most current scholars, to Subjacency as well. Much
research is devoted to showing this to be true for Chinese and
Japanese, which lack overt WH-movement. The claim that ECP
and Subjacency are ever inert in any grammar is incompatible with
the very grammatical model EFM assume.
Finally, consider the detailed discussion of Vainikka & YoungScholten (VYS). First, once used to point out, correctly, the many
methodological problems with V&YS's research, that particular
study could not serve as the foundation for attacking an entire
approach. Contrary to Epstein et al. s assertion, the methodological problems do not "weaken the theoretical claims made in the
Weak Continuity Hypothesis studies." They only weaken the
specific claims of VYS. More importantly, VYS s study is not a case
of "Partial Access" in the sense of Epstein et al. A pre-functional
grammar is not the grammar of Li, nor is it clear in what sense UG
is accessible only through LI to give rise to it. In fact, it is not a
possible natural language grammar, and hence, unlike the Li
grammar, it is not constrained by UG at all. Regardless, then, of the
merits or demerits of pre-functional grammars in L1A or L2A, this
proposal, like much current literature on L2A, cannot be characterized under the label "Partial Access" or "Full Access." In fact,
the description of current research in L2, as it emerges from
Epstein et al.'s tripartite classification, is misleading and uninformative. Epstein et al. seem to equate "No Access" with "no
grammatical learning," "Partial Access" with "no new grammatical
learning," and "Full Access" with "new grammatical learning."
Unfortunately, however, "no new grammatical learning" is almost
trivially absurd, and if the total of the claim made here is that there
is "new grammatical learning," a point which in spite of its relative
obviousness is nevertheless rather poorly substantiated, then the
main question - what does this new grammatical learning consist
of? and what, in the target L2, may or may not be learned? — has
been evaded.
Ultimately, the only true test of full UG accessibility is the
degree to which the target language can be attained by L2
learners. Should it turn out to be the case that, given enough
exposure, native-like attainment is possible (see Birdsong 1989;
Krashen 1985; White 1989), then the full accessibility of UG
would become an inevitability. Although poverty-of-the-stimulus
arguments do not carry over straightforwardly to L2A, discussions
of the Logical Problem of L2A (see White 1989) make it clear that
although somewhat different, the problem is nevertheless equally
challenging and a perfect acquisition would require the postulation of full UG accessibility on a par with its postulation for
the L1A.
Should it turn out, however, as appears at least observationally
plausible, that native-like attainment is not possible (see Coppieters 1987; Johnson & Newport 1989), the research agenda of L2A
should acquire a different direction. The first question to be
resolved then is what is the steady state of L2A, and whether given
a constant LI and a constant L2, this steady state is homogenous
across speakers. An extremely interesting hypothesis in this re-
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Commentary/"Eastern et al.: Second language acquisition
spect is the "interlanguage grammar," put forth by B. J. Schwartz,
L. Eubank, and others, according to which the grammar constructed by L2 speakers is neither that of the LI nor that of the L2,
but a hybrid of sorts. From the perspective of the classification
offered by Epstein et al., this work is unclassifiable: it entails
learning some new stuff, and hence is not "Partial Access."
However, it also entails a measure of adherence to options provided by LI, and is hence not "Full Access." Viewed differently,
however, the existence of an "interlanguage grammar," if validated, would be the strongest possible evidence for the existence
of UG. The emergence of grammatical constructions in L2 which
represent neither the LI grammar nor the target grammar is the
ultimate proof for the existence, in the construction of L2 grammars, of an active and powerful innate grammatical system. An
example of such a construction is the existence of subject-aux
inversion in English embedded questions for LI speakers of
Hebrew, a language with subject-verb inversion in embedded
clauses, but no auxiliaries, (la) is therefore missing in the LI input
and in the L2 input, but is nevertheless a very consistent feature of
the L2 performance. On the other hand (lb), which would
represent a direct transfer of the LI system, is not attested:
1. a. Mary asked what did Jill cook for dinner
b. Mary asked what cooked Jill for dinner
Little attention is paid in studies of L1A to the characterization
of the steady state. It is taken to be, self-evidently, the native
grammar of the input language. Rather, developmental studies of
L1A center on matching intermediate stages with that target,
attempting, on the one hand, to account for deviation from it, and
on the other hand, to explain the development which guides the
learner toward it. This methodology, however, cannot be taken for
granted for studies of L2. While matching intermediate stages of
L2A with the target grammar has been a main topic for investigation, it is not evident that these can shed light on L2A. If steady
state L2 users have a grammar distinct from that of native
speakers, a direct similarity between L1A and L2A is no longer
expected, and a learning mechanism must be proposed and
described that accounts for the knowledge these steady state L2
users have acquired.
Postulating a difference between L1A and L2A is independently attractive, as a parallel account gives rise to a number of
conceptual problems. First, if stages of L1A are maturationally determined, as is proposed by Borer and Wexler (1987) and subsequent literature, such stages are not expected in L2A. Second,
even without grammatical maturation, other developmental proposals are not straightforwardly transferable to L2A. The prefunctional stage hypothesis itself requires very different assumptions when incorporated into L2A. While for L1A it is compatible
with gradual structure building, for adult learners it requires the
suspension of structures already in existence in the LI grammar.
If the principles and parameters model should turn out to be the
correct one for modeling L2A, the existence of interlanguage
grammars raises an important question with respect to it: Are
some parameters in principle resettable, while others are not? For
instance, Finer and Broslow (1986) argue that only LI parameter
settings which are subsets of parameter settings in L2 can be reset.
Consider a different approach. Research on the L2 acquisition
of phonology (Bohn & Flege 1992) suggests that the acquisition of
the "similar" is harder than the acquisition of the "dissimilar," or
"new." Thus the acquisition of the tense/lax distinction for English
/i/ and III by LI speakers of German is problematic, as a similar,
but not identical, distinction exists in German. On the other hand,
the acquisition of the English vowel /as/ is unproblematic, as it
does not overlap significantly with any German vowel. Further,
while the acquisition of the /i/-/I/ distinction shows little improvement over time, the acquisition of /ae/ shows a marked improvement.
This "similar'V'difficult" and "dissimilar'V'easy" association can
be accounted for if the l\l-l\l distinction somehow occupies the
same "linguistic" slot as an activated distinction in German, and its
720
acquisition requires "resetting." However, /ae/ occupies a distinct
slot, never activated in German altogether, and its acquisition can
be accomplished directly. While such an account allows certain
acquisition to proceed only through LI, it allows direct access to
UG for anything that is truly inert in the LI grammar. Research
conducted by Schwartz (1993), although differently focused, suggests that this approach is on the right track for syntax as well.
Based on results discussed by White (1991), Schwartz (1993)
shows that while French learners of English persist in erroneous
adverb placement, the same speakers acquire fully the knowledge
that verbs do not move to C and the correct use of do support.
Plausibly, the auxiliary system in English with its use of a dummy
auxiliary do is sufficiently dissimilar to that of French to warrant
acquisition. On the other hand, the placement of adverbs is not.
To summarize, supposing that the steady state of L2A is a
natural language, the following is the set of questions L2 researchers must face, and some have faced in the last decade:
1. What is the L2 steady state? Is it the same for all L2-ers with
the same target? Is it the same for all L2-ers with the same target
and the same LI?
2. Of the LI grammar, what is retained? What is given up? Why
are certain aspects of the LI grammar retained while others are
given up?
3. What do intermediate stages tell us, given that (at least) the
following is not true of L2: a. No negative evidence; b. Cognitive
immaturity; c. Grammatical immaturity. Do the intermediate
stages of L2 constitute "grammars" compatible or incompatible
with UG? Are intermediate stages of L2 constant across speakers?
NOTE
1. The claim that "postposing processes are essentially pragmatic,"
seems to reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the distinction between grammatical processes and their discourse function. Passive, too, is
pragmatically different from active, a fact which does not interfere with its
syntactic status.
Parameter-setting in second language
acquisition - explanans and explanandum
Susanne E. Carroll
Institute for English and American Studies, Universitaet Potsdam, PF 60 15
53, 14415 Potsdam, Gennany.carroll@rz.uni-pot8dam.de
Abstract: Much second language acquisition (SLA) research confuses the
representational and the developmental problems of language acquisition,
assuming that attributes of a property theory will explain the transitions
between the stages of a psychogrammar, or that induction will explain the
properties of the representational systems which encode language. I argue
that Principles and Parameter-setting theory deals only with the representational problem, and that induction must play a role in explaining the
developmental problem. The conclusion is that both Epstein et al. and the
papers they criticize are right; they are just not right about the same issues.
Epstein et al. show that the field of SLA (second language
acquisition) is suffering from a confusion as to what the explanandum is. We see a systematic failure to distinguish between the
representational and the developmental problems of SLA. The
former asks: How does any human come to have representational
systems which encode linguistic phenomena? The latter asks:
How do a (specific) learner's knowledge systems change over
time? Related developmental questions are: What causes learning
to begin at time t? What causes the particular transitions between
stages? Why does learning stop? Answering these questions entails
inventing both property and transition theories of SLA (Gregg
1994). Most non-Universal Grammar (UG) approaches to language learning conflate the two and try to define the property
theory via induction. Those theories are seriously wrong as accounts of human cognition. The critique of non-UG approaches to
SLA offered here asserts nothing more. UG is a reasonable
response to the Representational Problem, but it does not follow
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Commentary/Epstein
that UG, and especially the parameters part of Principles and
Parameters (P&P) theory, explains the developmental problem of
SLA. Why not?
There has never been any serious attempt by SLA P&P researchers to connect the construct of parameter-setting to a theory
of (a) speech perception, (b) language parsing, (c) cognitive
functional architecture, (d) learning relevant for parameter(re)setting, (e) language production, or (f) how UG relates to the
metalinguistic classification tasks which comprise so much of the
evidence on its behalf. The criticism of vagueness directed at
inductivist approaches applies to Epstein et al. as well. Not only
does P&P not tell us what the contents of the learner's psychogrammar are (only a case study could do that), it is difficult to
pinpoint what the contents of the P&P theory are. When it comes
to parameters, it is definitely "here today, gone tomorrow." We
need only ask our developmental questions to see the vacuousness
of claims of explanatory adequacy regarding the Developmental
Problem. There is no theory of triggers for SLA, no account of why
setting a parameter in one system does not create unlearning in
the others, of why there is no "pendulum effect" (Randall 1990), or
how learners interpret ambiguous data (Valian 1990). All of the
major questions about how the psychogrammar develops over
time remain unanswered, which leads me to ask: Just what do SLA
P&P theorists think they are explaining?
Who will provide answers? Learnabiliry theory? It is unlikely.
Problem 1. Parameter-setting cannot even guarantee learnability of relevant classes of grammars (Gibson & Wexler 1994).
Problem 2. Maturation is increasingly being used to explain
acquisition. Gibson & Wexler (1994) assume that access to parameters is limited by maturation. This has the effect of ordering the
data the learner has access to. Bertolo (1995) generalizes this
analysis and offers maturation as a principled account of the
gradual nature of language acquisition. This should bring joy to
the hearts of all P&P SLA researchers, since we can now explain
the absence of sudden, wholescale restructurings in SLA development, originally predicted as the "deductive" consequences of
parameter-(re)setting (Meisel 1991), by the assumption that adult
bilinguals are all suffering from a language-specific, autonomous,
modular, senilitas praecox.
Problem 3. How do learners recognise triggers? P&P theory
hinges on the availability of triggers, which must be located in the
stimuli. However, learnability theory does not explain how the
learning mechanism connects to the perceptual and processing
systems. Psycholinguistic research has provided solid evidence
that bilinguals use the same parsing strategies for L2 stimuli that
they use for their LI (see Kilborn & Ito, 1989, and references
therein). Learners are transferring highly overleamed Ll-specific
processing strategies. Transferred parsing strategies can cause the
learner to overlook particular stimuli in the environment (see
VanPatten, 1984, for examples). Parsing failure does not necessarily lead to a failure to interpret the stimulus since adults have a
number of compensatory mechanisms which permit them to
project an interpretation. The standard learnability supposition
that learning is error-driven and that parameter-setting is initiated
whenever parsing fails (Berwick 1985) is too strong. How, then,
can we guarantee that learners in fact notice the relevant stimuli
and represent the relevant triggers? Nothing in the SLA P&P
literature even acknowledges this issue.1 I conclude that at the
moment P&P theory has nothing to say about the developmental
problem of SLA.
Does P&P theory make the right claims regarding the Representational Problem of SLA? Perhaps not. There is good evidence
that the representational systems available to the child are not
those available to the adult. Work on speech perception in babies
suggests that they are either born with or rapidly develop the
capacity to discriminate the full range of phonetic features needed
to acquire the phonetic and phonological categories of the LI
(Jusyczyk 1992).
Various studies (see Werker & Pegg 1992) have provided
important evidence for a process of perceptual reorganisation
et al.: Second language acquisition
during the first year of life which makes certain phonetic features
unavailable to older children and to adults. There is an absolute
loss in the ability to detect certain features, a process sometimes
referred to as canalisation. This is proof enough that the representational systems used in LI acquisition are not the same as those
deployed in L2 acquisition. Werker and her colleagues have
nonetheless shown that for most non-Ll features the capacity to
detect them remains into adulthood, but the ability to learn and
use them is determined largely by the abstracted categories of the
LI phonetic system. Ll-irrelevant features are treated by the
parsing system as noise and have no effect on the activation of
higher-order categories (phones and phonemes).
Flege, in a large body of work (see, e.g., Flege 1987), has shown
how adults can nonetheless learn some of the phonetic categories
of the L2 via a process of recategorisation. The contrast could not
be clearer: in LI acquisition an a priori representational system
becomes available and particular features are activated by specific
stimuli, retained, and then become the basis for the creation of the
phonetic and phonological categories. Features which are not
activated "disappear" either in an absolute way (they can no longer
be detected at all) or in a relative way (they are ignored by the LI
parsers). In L2 acquisition, the parsing strategies of the LI are
transferred and play a critical role in determining what input
becomes available to the learning mechanism. The categories
drawn from existing representational systems which can be imposed by the parsers on the stimuli are imposed. Sometimes
phonetic detail can be lost to the system. In other cases, the
properties of the categories are readjusted so that there are subtle
changes in the "best exemplar" or "central tendency." Finally, new
categories can be gradually formed where the stimuli cannot be
reduced to the known categories. All of this smacks of induction,
which manifests itself across a large number of cognitive domains,
including language. Induction therefore plays a role in the explanation of the developmental problem.
In my view, the debates about the "accessibility" of UG have
given off more heat than light. It is not false to suggest that adult
learners "access" UG since they encode linguistic stimuli in
language-specific autonomous representational systems which
can ultimately be traced back to UG. It is only false to assert that
"learning" in SLA can be reduced to parameter-setting and that
induction does not apply to linguistic cognition.
NOTE
1. Parsing considerations are relevant to the argumentation in other
respects since the case dismissing the partial access hypothesis hinges
largely in showing "access" to subjacency by Chinese & Indonesian
learners of English, something which can be explained in terms of the
architecture of the parser (Berwick & Weinberg 1984), or in terms of
specific parsing constraints (Hawkins's argument trespassing generalization, Hawkins, 1996) rather than UG.
How adult second language learning differs
from child first language development
Harald Clahsen8 and Pieter Muyskenb
••Department of Language & Linguistics, University of Essex, Colchester
C04 3SQ, United Kingdom; "Department of Linguistics, Universiteit van
Amsterdam, 1012 VT Amsterdam, The Netherlands, harald@essex.ac.uk;
tnuysken@let.uva.nl
Abstract: We argue that the model developed in Epstein et al.'s target
article does not explain differences between child first language (LI)
acquisition and adult second language (L2) acquisition. We therefore
sketch an alternative view, originally developed in Clahsen and Muysken
(1989), in the light of new empirical findings and theoretical developments.
Epstein et al.'s target article makes use of the so-called full
competence hypothesis (FCH), that was originally developed for
child LI development, and applies it to adult L2 learning. Under
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CommentaryVEpstein et al.: Second language acquisition
the FCH (cf. Poeppel & Wexler 1993), the child embarks on
grammatical development with a complete system of syntactic
categories and representations, including general principles and
parametric options of Universal Grammar (UG). Epstein et al.
argue that this is also the case when adults learn an L2. The
underlying paradigm of the research reported in the target article
is: UG development is interesting, non-UG development is not
interesting, so for L2 development to be interesting as a research
topic we have to make it as UG as possible. In our view, this is not a
very fruitful line of thinking: it is precisely the division of labour
between UG- and non-UG learning that is crucial to our understanding of the modular structure of language development. It is
implausible that all of LI development is UG-driven, since it is
embedded in a highly intricate process of general cognitive development, involving all kinds of learning. Knowledge of language
interacts in yet ill-understood ways with other knowledge-systems,
many of which have highly abstract computational properties. A
non-UG rule such as the one given as a caricature in section 2.4 of
the target article about plurals with -s for all objects of less than 40
tons is no more typical of language than it would be of other
cognitive systems. Incidentally, Epstein et al. would be surprised if
they looked at the semantics of (LI to be sure) Niger-Congo or
Sino-Tibetan noun classification systems. Similarly, adult L2 development is plausibly not fully UG-driven. Adults can learn many
things, like ritual dances, computer languages, literary forms, and
complex kinship systems, which are presumably not fully defined
by UG but still share with natural languages a number of computational features such as structure-dependency. If much of L2
learning is not UG-driven, the comparative investigation of LI and
L2 acquisition provides a window for the systematic study of the
properties of different knowledge systems. How much of a language can you and do you learn without UG? Do we use UG for
other symbolic systems besides language? Below we will claim that
the triggering properties of morpho-syntactic categories may
belong to UG, and indeed differentiate LI from L2, but constituency and structure-dependency, which occur in L2, but also in
computer languages and ritual dances, may not.
In the target article, differences between LI and adult L2
acquisition are claimed to be peripheral, attributable to L2
learners' ostensible performance difficulties in expressing functional categories in their utterances. Unfortunately, however,
these difficulties are not made explicit, and Epstein et al. appeal to
future "rigorous experimentation" to determine their precise role
for acquisition. This is a very unsatisfactory answer that leaves us
with little understanding of the nature of L2 acquisition. We do not
see how performance difficulties could lead to children consistently arriving at smarter analyses than adults. In the LI developmental literature, nongrammatical factors such as processing
limitations on sentence length, incomplete phonological acquisition, and so on, have been invoked to explain why children do not
do as well as the syntactic analyst would predict. It is not clear why
adults would be more hindered by performance factors than are
children. All we know about performance points the other way.
Another explanation for L1/L2 differences to which Epstein et al.
allude in passing is that LI settings may get in the way, at least
initially, of L2 learners setting the parameters of the language to be
acquired. At several points, however, this explanation in terms of
transfer effects is undercut by the authors themselves, when they
stress the importance of universal, as opposed to LI, features in
learning a second language. In our earlier work we argue that L2
learners with different LI backgrounds (= LI parameter settings)
often have the same difficulties with second language structures,
even if their LI would favor their being acquired easily. Thus
Turkish learners, with a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) LI background, still tend to analyze German in L2 acquisition as a
Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) system, ignoring the same cues that it
is SOV underlyingly to which LI learners catch on automatically.
Such differences between child LI and adult L2 acquisition
cannot be interpreted as transfer effects.
In trying to explain the differences between LI and L2 develop-
722
ment let us adopt a restrictive theory of language learning in which
"learning" involves the loss of information specified in UG
(Lebeaux 1988). A UG parameter, according to this model of
acquisition, provides the language learner with a set of options that
have to be filled in by experience. Under this restrictive theory, we
would expect that once a parametric option (consistent with the
available input) has been chosen, the remaining unexercised
options are no longer accessible. This constraint implies that the
steady final state, that is, the grammar of a particular language,
contains less information on parametric options than the initial
state. One desirable consequence of this is that it obviates a
learnabiliry problem of LI acquisition: parameter re-setting is
made impossible, and thus the child may not switch parameter
values back and forth never settling on the correct grammar
(Randall 1992; Valian 1989). Another consequence is that adult L2
learners (as a result of their LI acquisition) have lost parametric
options which are not instantiated in their native language
(Clahsen & Muysken 1989). Thus, under this view, the contrast
between LI and adult L2 development is real and fundamental:
parametric options specified in UG are accessible to LI but not to
adult L2 learners. Some empirical findings from comparative
L1/L2 acquisition studies indicate that this view might be correct,
in contrast to the position the target article seeks to argue for.
Consider the following relatively well-established facts from the
acquisition of German.
Finiteness and verb-second (V2). Verb raising to Comp (= V2) is
restricted to finite verbs in German (cf. sect. 3.3.2 of the target
article). The same restriction holds for German child language.
Despite theoretical differences, there seems to be agreement
among LI acquisition researchers that verb raising is available
early on, that only finite verbs undergo V2 and that nonfinite verbs
almost always appear in clause-final position (Poeppel & Wexler
1993). This is different in adult L2 learners' German. Here
nonfinite verbs (= infinitives) are not restricted to clause-final
position, but may appear in the same positions as finite verbs,
resulting in a general X-V-Y word order system in which V can be
filled with finite and/or nonfinite verbs; cf. (44a) in the target
article for illustration. This has been shown to hold for L2 learners
with different LI backgrounds (cf. Clahsen & Muysken 1989;
Vainikka & Young-Scholten 1994, pp. 283ff). Thus morphologically driven syntactic phenomena such as V2 cause major acquisition problems for adult L2 learners, but not for child LI learners.
By contrast, L2 learners have no difficulty manipulating constituents such as NP and PP in production. In this sense, constituency
and structure-dependency are clearly part of their L2 competence.
Finiteness and negation. The negative element (Neg) always
precedes nonfinite verbs in German, and in main clauses Neg
follows finite verbal elements. These properties are indirect consequences of V2. Several studies have shown that the same
distribution holds for early child German (cf. Clahsen et al. 1993,
p. 416; Verrips & Weissenborn 1992, p. 287). The ungrammatical
pattern [Infinitive + Neg] does not exist, and if there is a finite
verb in a child's sentence, it precedes Neg. Again, this is not the
case in adult L2 acquisition: Neg may precede or follow finite as
well as nonfinite verbs yielding all possible orders, even the
[Infinitive + Neg] pattern which is always ungrammatical in
German; see the appendix to Clahsen (1984) for examples.
Finiteness and null subjects. In nonfinite clauses, that is, infinitives, referential null subjects are allowed in German, whereas in
finite clauses they are ungrammatical. In embedded clauses,
referential null subjects are also disallowed. The same restrictions
hold for German child language. Null subjects are frequent in
young children's speech, but they typically occur in sentences with
nonfinite verbs (Weissenborn 1992). In embedded clauses with
finite verbs and overt Comp, children do not drop subjects
(Clahsen et al. 1995). In adult L2 learners of German, however,
subject drop does not interact with finiteness distinctions (cf.
Meisel 1991). Moreover, results from reaction-time experiments
indicate that adult L2 learners of German treat embedded sen-
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Commentary/Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
tences containing null subjects on a par with the grammatical
control sentences (Clahsen & Hong 1995). This again differs from
both adult and child German.
These findings show that there are close morphology-syntax
connections in child LI development: the distinction between
finite and nonfinite verbs is relevant for the placement of verbs and
Neg and for the distribution of null subjects. In adult L2 acquisition,
however, the syntactic phenomena seem to be independent of the
morphological ones. How could these differences be explained?
Let us assume, following Chomsky (1995), that parametric
options of UG are restricted to a fixed set of formal features (F) of
functional categories which can be "strong" or "weak" and that
overt movement is feature-driven: only strong features need to be
overtly raised and checked. From the perspective of acquisition,
this implies that the child is equipped with a mechanism for
determining whether F is strong or weak in any particular language and that the acquisition of movement is dependent upon
morphological properties. Thus, once the child has discovered a
lexical entry associated with some feature F in his particular
language, by relying on the parametric option, he will determine
its feature strength. Subsequently the parameter is set for F and
the unexercised option is lost. If F is a strong feature (as in the
cases discussed above) movement effects follow. In this way,
morphology-syntax correlations such as those mentioned above
for child German can be accounted for. Suppose a model along
these lines holds for child LI acquisition.' We can then account for
adult L2 acquisition without invoking any extra mechanisms. As
parametric options, that is [± strong], are lost as a result of LI
acquisition, feature strength is left undetermined in the L2. In
other words, when L2 learners acquire a lexical entry corresponding to some feature of the target language, there is no mechanism
or device that forces them to decide whether the feature is strong
or weak. This implies that phenomena such as verb movement and
the syntax of subjects are not driven by morphological properties
in L2 learning, and that the acquisition of these properties is not
determined by UG parameters. In sum, then, the major difference
between LI and adult L2 acquisition seems to be that adult
learners have lost access to the open parametric options for
morphosyntactic features of UG.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We thank Martin Atkinson, Sonja Eisenbeiss, Claudia Felser, Roger
Hawkins, Jiirgen Meisel, and Andrew Radford for helpful suggestions in
preparing this note.
NOTE
1. One consequence of this might be that monolingual and bilingual
language acquisition are different; in the latter there is always a first (=
dominant) language and a second weaker language. This, however, is a
controversial issue: Cutler et al.(1992) and Schlyter (1993) have produced
evidence that this is indeed the case, but others, for example Meisel
(1994), argue against qualitative differences between bilingual and monolingual acquisition. We will leave this issue open.
UG and acquisition in pidginization
and creolization
Michel DeGraff
Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. degrafl@mit.edu
Abstract: I examine the target articles hypothesis in light of pidginization
and creolization (P/C) phenomena. L|-to-L 2 transfer has been argued to
be the "central process" in P/C via relexification. This seems incompatible
with the view that UC sans Li plays the central role in L2A. I sketch a
proposal that reconciles the hypothesis in the target article with, inter alia,
the effects of transfer in P/C.
If, as cogently argued by Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono, UG
uniformly plays the central role in L1A and L2A, then one of
creolists' enduring puzzles might be somewhat off-base - namely,
is it children or adults that are the main agents of creolization?
(For a sample of the debate, see Andersen 1983a and, more recently, Wekker 1995.)
A number of P/C phenomena seem to stem from fundamental
differences between L1A and L2A, for example, the use of L, in
L2A. For example, Sylvain (1936) and Lefebvre and Lumsden
(1989) have, among others, argued with some success that certain
properties of Haitian Creole (HA) originated with some of its
West-African substrates, Ewe/Fongbe, and were "passed down"
via L2A of French by Ewe/Fongbe speakers. According to
Lefebvre and Lumsden s (1989) relexification hypothesis, adult
Fongbe speakers, in trying to learn French, kept their Ll syntax
and semantics relatively intact while replacing L, lexemes with
forms phonologically derived from L2 [See Lumsden (in press) for
refinements and Bickerton (1988), Chaudenson (1990), DeGraff
(1992; 1993; 1994a; 1994b; 1994c; 1995, in press a), Thomason &
Kaufman (1993), etc., for critiques of this hypothesis.] Certain
approaches to L2A are similar in spirit to the relexification hypothesis in providing (noncreolizing) L2A instances where L, properties appear to shape the structure of the learner's (early) interlanguage; [see various contributions to Gass & Selinker (1992),
and to Flynn et al. (in press)]. (Following L2A-research terminology, let us use the term "transfer" to refer to such L,-to-L 2
influence.)
Is the hypothesis put forward in the target article consistent
with the effects of relexification and of transfer? Although adult
learners bring in "an already functioning L," (Introduction),
Epstein et al. explicitly argue for "non-transfer of [L,s] languagespecific aspects" onto the hypothesized L2 grammars (sect. 3.2.4;
also see sects. 2.1 and 3.2.2; Flynn 1987). Such L,-onto-L2
mapping is exactly what Lefebvre and Lumsden's relexification
hypothesis would lead us to expect, at least in initial L2A stages.
Thus, Epstein et al.'s proposal seems inconsistent with relexification in Creole genesis and with transfer in L2A.
Adapting ideas on L2A from Schumann (1982) and Andersen
(1983b) and on learnabiliry from Lightfoot (1995) might help
resolve this apparent inconsistency, along the following (admittedly very tentative) lines. Beyond assuming UG-constrained
acquisition, what is also needed, according to Lightfoot (1995), is a
learning theory that delineates what triggers are required to set
what parameters, and how; cf. Clark and Roberts (1993); Gibson
and Wexler (1994). Whether or not such a learning theory applies
uniformly across L1A and L2A, what it does naturally require in
each case is that the primary linguistic data (PLD) reach a certain
threshold T before UG-constrained learning can proceed. In turn,
the PLD constitute the source of the triggers used for parameter
setting; in absence of adequate triggers, attained settings might
differ from the target. In language-contact contexts, factors determining whether T is reached include: range of uses of- and access
to - the target language, length of exposure, sociopsychological
context, and so on, while factors determining the robustness of
triggers include at least the stability and structural complexity of
the PLD (Andersen 1983b; Schumann 1982).
If target PLD in L2A remain (moderately) below threshold T,
then the adult learner might have no other choice but to resort to
relexification-like strategies that make crucial use of L, settings,
that is, the learner cannot "attempt" to set L2 parameters in
absence of adequate PLD from L2. It is presumably in such
circumstances that pidgins are created that reflect substrate properties (cf. Bickerton 1977; 1984; Schumann 1982).
It can be further surmised that, in the (literally) worst-case
scenario for L2A in which the PLD are catastrophic-ally reduced
way below T (e.g., when the inter-language communicative contexts are utterly restricted), no UG-based learning can take place.
In such "panic" situations, the learner would have no recourse to
UG^qua-Li) as he is not even attempting to learn a language, but
only innovates some emergency means toward sporadic communication. It is in these contexts that we find "UG-inconsistent"
(perhaps context-based pragmatically oriented) modes of commu-
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
nications, as in jargons and early/pre-pidgins (cf. Bickerton 1984;
Roberts 1995; Schumann 1982).
What about Creoles - especially properties thereof that differ
from their counterparts in the source languages, as partly documented for HA in DeGraff (1992; 1993; 1994a; 1995; in press
a)? Given the above, it could be hypothesized that creolization
occurs when the PLD (say, from a pidgin and/or the contact
languages) adequately meet threshold T, due to the learners
age, length of exposure, extended use, and so on. In this case,
UG does kick off and uniformly constrains acquisition (independently of LL, if any), as in the target article. Although the
PLD in creolization situations are too variable or too structurally reduced to provide robust triggers (Bickerton 1984;
Lightfoot 1995; Andersen 1983b, etc.), the learner still attains a
relatively stable system, but one whose (default? unmarked?)
settings will be partially independent from those underlying the
PLD sources. Yet, acquisition being UG-constrained, the resulting Creole is itself fully UG-consistent. In other words, UG
irons out the kinks introduced in the PLD by the sometimes
conflicting influences from the various source languages and
from the pidgin's fledgling morphosyntax (cf. Mufwene 1996);
see various papers in DeGraff (in press b) for recent considerations of learnability issues in P/C.
To recapitulate, relexification (or UG-qua-Lj) would play a key
role in pidginization (= L2A with PLD below T; cf. Bickerton
1977; Schumann 1982) whereas UG without Lj determines the
outcome of creolization (= acquisition with "trigger-poor" PLD
above T). This scenario allows substrate and superstrate properties to be transmitted into the Creole via the pidgin, with UG acting
as a sieve (Mufwene 1996); see DeGraff (in press a) for one case
study in this vein.
Fleshing out a theory of language change (and of creolization)
requires us to pay attention to non-syntactic factors and even to
look outside the language faculty toward external factors (Lightfoot 1995; see also Lightfoot: "The Child's Trigger Experience:
Degree-0 Learnability" BBS 12(2) 1989). For P/C, these (often
elusive) external factors involve the histories, demographies, and
socio-linguistics that shape PLD and triggers from the (incipient)
linguistic systems in contact (Baker & Come 1982; Bickerton
1984; Singler 1993, etc). But ultimately it is UG that imposes
internal order on the (sometimes chaotic) structures of the emerging languages. In this sense, a learning theory such as Lightfoot's
(also see Clark & Roberts 1993; Gibson & Wexler 1993) is fully
compatible with and enriches Epstein et al.'s proposal, as applied
to the P/C case.
Thus, I agree with Epstein et al. that L2ers are able to acquire
"new parameter settings" (in the sense of sect. 3.2.1; cf. note 23).
But, to fully understand how and when this happens and what goes
on in the meantime, one does need a learning theory that takes
into account (1) the nature of PLD and triggers on a case-by-case
basis; and (2) the influence of L, and/or of non-UG cognitive
processes in acquisition with overly impoverished PLD, as in P/C.
Indeed, if target settings could be acquired with any amount of
PLD whatsoever, then jargons, pidgins, and Creoles would not
exist.
Is it children or adults who are the main agents of creolization?
In light of the target article s findings and my speculations above,
this question can perhaps be best rephrased as follows: In the P/C
context, who was exposed (for how long) to what kinds of PLD and
to what kinds of triggers, if any?
724
Methodological problems with Epstein,
Flynn, and Martohardjono's research
Lynn Eubank
Division of Linguistics, Department of English, University of North Texas,
Denton, TX 76203. eubank@jove.acs.unt.edu
Abstract: In this commentary, I examine the experiment reported by
Epstein et al. in section 5. What I show here is that the experiment is so
poorly executed that little, if anything, can be concluded from it regarding
the role of UG in L2 acquisition.
Anonymous review is intended to catch shortcomings in academic
work, but sometimes "errors" slip through. Alas, with Epstein,
Flynn, and Martohardjono, the process allowed an extraordinarily
large number of errors. (To name a couple of the more egregious:
criticizing the fundamental difference hypothesis (FDH, sect. 2.4)
without reference to Bley-Vroman (1990), the more thorough
treatment which deals with several of Epstein et al.'s criticisms; or
miscasting Vainikka & Young-Scholten (VYS) as a "partial access"
hypothesis (sects. 3.3 and 3.4) and then not discussing their
central, published work in Vainikka & Young-Scholten 1994.) But
rather than dealing with Epstein et al.'s various misrepresentations, I will focus on their work, specifically, the experimental
study they present in section 5. Contra Epstein et al., who claim to
find strong support in their study for the view they propose, I will
suggest that this study does nothing of the sort.
In Epstein et al.'s imitation task, learners were provided with
lists of lexical entries as a control for lexical knowledge. The crucial
- and, apparently, only - criterion in this control procedure is
"understanding." This procedure is woefully inadequate: among
other things, it fails to take into consideration lexical frequency,
long known to play a significant role in lexical access (for discussion of access factors, see, e.g., Garman 1990). Given this problem
alone, the error rates in Epstein et al.'s example 62 could just as
well reflect the lack of control over factors associated with lexical
access rather than those associated with syntactic representation.
Indeed, because Epstein et al.'s error procedure (see note 56)
tabulates any failure to repeat stimuli verbatim (except for adjectives), this problem is particularly acute.
A second important problem with the Epstein et al. design
concerns the Japanese-speaking learners themselves: all are assumed to be at a level of competence where one of VYSs earlier
stages would obtain, if there are such stages. But how would one
really know? In fact, to test the VYS view experimentally, one
would have to use independent measures that operationalize the
very criteria that VYS themselves employ: use of the various
"Auxiliary" elements for the IP stage; use of CP-related items like
complementizers for the CP stage. Instead, Epstein et al. use
these criteria in their dependent measure, which opens them to
the obvious charge that these learners are beyond the relevant
VYS stage in the first place and, therefore, that the Epstein et al.
results are simply irrelevant. And, indeed, there is indirect, yet
suggestive evidence that VYS would be right in such a criticism:
the child L2 data in, for example, Gerbault (1978) indicate that
VYS s Verb Phrase (VP) stage would be surpassed within the first
year of exposure, that is, nearly two years before the point in time
at which Epstein et al. examined their child subjects. (As for the
Epstein et al. adults, one simply wonders how "graduate students"
at an English-speaking university could be considered to be at only
the VYS VP or IP stage.)
Now consider the Epstein et al. results. (I won't even mention
the lack of empirically testable hypotheses that such results would
be intended to falsify.) We are told that there are no significant
child-adult differences, but from there on we are left to believe in
the simple averages in the table in example 62. But simple means
may be very misleading. Suppose, on relative-clause stimuli (CP),
for example, that a good number of the learners do poorly (e.g.,
around 10%) while the others do well (e.g., 90%): the mean result
for the whole group would fall more or less in the range of the
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Epstein et al. mean. More generally, by failing to provide adequate
statistical support and by focusing their discussion only on differences among individual stimulus types rather than on possible
differences among subjects, Epstein et al. fail to provide convincing evidence that their data show much of anything at all about
learners.
Finally, I bring up an old question about the work of Flynn and
her colleagues: What does elicited imitation (El) show? Flynn has
long maintained that El is essentially "reconstructive" in nature
(Flynn 1987; Flynn & Lust 1990), that is, that it is sensitive to
specifically grammatical factors; by contrast, Bley-Vroman &
Chaudron (1990) argue that El is confounded by processing
effects. In this light, consider Epstein et al. who adopt the
"reconstructive" view. Taken at face value, this view would suggest
that Epstein et al. s results on CP versus IP sentences - even if not
confounded by methodological problems - support the VYS view
that CP sentences appear later than IP sentences. Of course,
Epstein et al. recognize this as a problem and provide their own,
alternative understandings (sect. 3.3.2). They then suggest that
their overall El error rates derive from some kind of "production
problem" that is independent of representational matters.
In fact, one could argue that this "production problem" represents the very problem with El: in all likelihood, the task is
sensitive not just to representational concerns, but to difficulties in
processing as well. Indeed, that El reflects processing is supported
by Flynn's (1995) report that native speakers, properly pressured,
produce El error rates not entirely unlike those of non-natives. We
are, then, left with ambiguity: El results may be interpreted in
either way that one just happens to prefer for a given set of data.
UC-constrained research on L2 knowledge is, in fact, an exciting area of academic pursuit. Sadly, what we find in Epstein et al. is
an article that not only falls well below minimum scientific
standards for the area, but also, with its very selective bibliography,
fails to represent the vibrance of the field itself.
Adult language acquisition and
Universal Grammar
Robert Freidin
Department of Philosophy/Program in Linguistics, Princeton University,
Princeton, NJ 08544-1006. bob@clarity.princeton.edu
Abstract: The current conception of the relation between UG and the
grammar of a language rules out the no-access hypothesis, but does not
distinguish between the full-access and partial-access hypotheses. The
former raises the issue of why language acquisition in child and adult
should be so different. The evidence presented in Epstein et al.'s target
article seems inconclusive regarding a choice between hypotheses.
The target article makes the very strong claim that Universal
Grammar (UG), the portion of the human language faculty that
presumably accounts.for the rapid growth of a first language in
children, is fully accessible to adults for the acquisition of a
"second" language. It rejects the hypothesis that adults attempting
to acquire a new language have no access to UG and also the
hypothesis that such adults have only limited access to UG. It
should be noted, however, that the rejected hypotheses can
address perhaps the most salient difference between language
acquisition by child and adult, namely, that children acquire a
language apparently flawlessly and without conscious effort, in
contrast to adults who, if they acquire a second language at all, do
so only imperfectly in spite of (or maybe because of) considerable
conscious effort. Because the full-access hypothesis does not
distinguish between child and adult, it offers no basis for explaining this crucial difference.
The plausibility of an account of adult language acquisition1
depends on how the relation between UG and the grammar of the
target language (i.e., the state of knowledge attained) is concep-
tualized. The no-access hypothesis is a plausible candidate on the
old view that a grammar is primarily a set of rules specific to
individual languages, rules which are derived through the application of UG to primary data from a particular language. If UG
becomes inaccessible in the adult brain, then no natural grammar
can be constructed for a new language. This could account for why
most adults are so poor at acquiring new languages.
The conception of the relation between UG and the grammar of
a language has undergone a radical change over the past decade
and a half (at least). With the development of the principles and
parameters framework of generative grammar (essentially from
the late 1970s - see Chomsky & Lasnik 1993; Freidin 1994a;
1994b), rules that seemed to be specific to individual languages
have been replaced by more abstract, general rules which obviously belong to UG itself (e.g., Move Category, alias Move a) and
whose syntactic behavior is governed by general principles which
apply across languages and often to different syntactic constructions. This research has demonstrated that much of what had been
thought to require rules specific to particular languages is automatically subsumed under the principles and grammatical mechanisms of UG. Thus under the current view, a natural language
grammar consists of the lexicon of the language plus UG with its
relevant parameters fixed in accord with the settings for that
language. Since there is essentially no way to separate UG from
the grammar of an individual language, it must be that adult
language users have rather extensive access to UG.
A few years ago, Chomsky put forward the bold conjecture that
aside from phonetic variation and Saussurean arbitrariness (the
phonetic labelling of lexical items), "variation is limited to nonsubstantive parts of the lexicon and general properties of lexical items.
If so, there is only one computational system and one lexicon, apart
from this limited kind of variety" (Chomsky 1993, p. 3). If this
conjecture proves to be correct, then every adult who has acquired
a single language has acquired the computational system and
lexicon that underlies every other language. The no-access hypothesis cannot be formulated under this view; however, the
partial-access hypothesis still can be.
In accordance with the current view that the principles and
mechanisms of UG must be an intrinsic part of the knowledge
attained in first language acquisition, we would expect the same
kind of argument for principles of UG in child language acquisition to apply in the case of adult language acquisition - in
particular, arguments from poverty of the stimulus. Perhaps the
strongest form of poverty-of-the-stimulus argument involves relative grammaticality judgments where all of the examples are
judged to be deviant but where speakers can distinguish examples
in terms of degree of deviance. Given that language acquisition at
any age never involves instruction about degrees of deviance, a
demonstration that such differential judgments follow from principles of UG provides a strong argument for the innateness of UG.
Epstein et al. discuss the interesting case of differential judgments for English interrogatives by non-native speakers, showing
that even non-native speakers can distinguish between degrees of
deviance in English as native speakers do - though with less
accuracy. To explain why non-native speakers of English perform
with less accuracy, the authors suggest that the native language
grammar "plays a role in L2 acquisition" (sect. 3.2.2). For example,
Chinese does not have overt movement of interrogatives "resulting in the nonapplication of principles like Subjacency and the
ECP." Such explanations may be too facile, especially in view of
certain analyses in the literature where such movement constraints have been argued to apply to covert u;/i-movement at
Logical Form (see Huang 1995). Such analyses would counter one
purported argument against a partial-access hypothesis.
Given that the principles of UG are part of the computational
system for human language, perhaps the most plausible candidate
for a partial-access hypothesis would be that adults are unable to
make new parameter settings for the acquisition of new languages
(cf. Strozer 1994); though it is not clear that this specific hypothesis is what Epstein et al. have in mind (see Otero's commentary,
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this issue). They argue against this possibility on the grounds that
adults can acquire new parameter settings for new languages.
However, this argument is based solely on the so-called headparameter, which is itself determined solely on the basis of
abundant positive evidence in the primary language data. The
more convincing case would involve variation for parameter settings which affect the operation of UG principles (e.g., the
specification of binding domains, cf. Freidin 1992, Ch. 7; see
Freidin & Quicoli 1989 for discussion). Thus it seems to me that
the choice between a full-access and partial-access hypothesis has
yet to be resolved. Nonetheless, this target article raises many
important conceptual and methodological issues in the study of
adult language acquisition and demonstrates how UG might
inform such investigation, and conversely.
NOTE
1. I am going to drop the reference to "second" languages because the
relevant distinction is child vs. adult, notfirstvs. second. Presumably if an
adult has not acquired afirstlanguage as a child, then that adult will be
incapable of acquiring one as an adult. Note that this is another problem
for the full-access hypothesis.
UG and SLA: The access question, and how
to beg it
Kevin R. Gregg
St. Andrew's University, 1-1 Manabino, Izumi-shi, Osaka, Japan 590-02.
gregg@andrew.ac.jp
Abstract: Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono trivialize the question of
access to universal grammar in second language acquisition by arguing
against a straw-man version of the no-access position and by begging the
question of how second language (L2) knowledge is represented in the
mind/brain of an adult L2 learner. They compound their errors by
employing a research methodology that fails to provide any relevant
evidence.
Although there is no particular reason to believe, pace Epstein et
al., that much of consequence for linguistic theory hinges on the
successful elaboration of a second language acquisition (SLA)
theory, they do address a respectable intellectual problem. Unfortunately, they address it in terms that no respectable problem
would tolerate, and the problem walks away from them in a huff.
Epstein et al. need at the very least to give an accurate account of
competing positions and to provide some cogent evidence in favor
of their own. They fail on both counts.
Epstein et al. define "having access to UG (universal grammar)"
simply as being constrained within the hypothesis space UG
provides (n. 5). This leaves a raft of questions untouched. It is
consistent with Epstein et al.'s definition, for instance, to claim
that parameters cannot be "reset"; after all, the learners LI (1st
language) parameter settings are within that hypothesis space. For
that matter, Epstein et al.'s position is consistent with an L2
learners flying in the face of the input and setting every single
parameter wrong. Restricting the hypothesis space restricts the
learner's choices; it .does not guarantee that the choice will be
correct. A theory of L2 knowledge is distinct from a theory of L2
acquisition (Gregg 1996); while Epstein et al. accuse their adversaries of ignoring the former (sect. 6, para. 1), they themselves say
nothing about the latter.
Of the various partial-access proposals in the SLA literature, the
Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (FDH; e.g., Bley-Vroman
1989) is the most detailed, and is thus the one to defeat. Epstein et
al.'s version of the FDH is a straw man, a vacuous proposal that L2
grammars are created by "analogy." In fact, the FDH claims that
adult L2 learners make use of the full panoply of learning processes available to adults in cognitive areas outside of language,
"including distributional analysis, analogy, and hypothesis formation and testing" (Bley-Vroman 1989, p. 54).
726
Epstein et al.'s anti-analogy argument (sect. 2.3) misses the
point (as well as making the odd assumption that a learner would
see Mj/i-movement strings as analogous to non-movement strings):
appealing to "general learning strategies" (including analogy) is
intended to account for the virtually universal failure of adults to
acquire an L2. LI acquisition cannot be primarily an inductive
learning process, because induction is fallible while LI acquisition
is not; the FDH takes the very fallibility of SLA as prima facie
evidence of the centrality of inductive processes. The FDH may
be wrong - I hope it is -but in any case it is not simply an appeal to
analogy.
Epstein et al. also make heavy weather of Bley-Vroman s rather
innocuous claim as to what an adult learner might "expect" of an
L2, namely that it would have words, phonemes, and so on.
Epstein et al. see this is as a major concession to a full-access
position, on the peculiar grounds that UG specifies a definition of
"word," a repertoire of phonemes, and so on. The argument thus
runs: UG includes X; L2 grammars include X; therefore L2
learners have UG. Affirming the consequent is never a trivial
error, but it is especially egregious here, where the very question
of how L2 grammars are internally represented is precisely what is
at issue.
Grammarians are continually revising their characterisations of
the contents of UG and of individual grammars. One thing these
characterisations have in common (other than being to a greater or
lesser degree wrong) is that they are not themselves the contents
of UG or of individual grammars. They are part of the general
knowledge of the individual grammarians, and are arrived at
through non-modular, inductive processes of thinking. Well, if
grammarians can do it, why, mutatis mutandis, can't learners?
What is to prevent a learner from coming up with ideas - to a
greater or lesser degree wrong, of course - as to what counts as a
noun in the L2, or a relative clause? Certainly not the fact that UG
has a copyright on the terminology. Epstein et al. claims notwithstanding, there is no a priori reason to reject Chomsky's claim that
"language-like systems might be acquired through the exercise of
other faculties of mind, though we should expect to find empirical
differences in the manner of acquisition and use in this case"
(1980, p. 28).
The access question is an empirical one; to settle it we need
compelling evidence. The published SLA literature includes a
large body of relevant, albeit inconsistent, evidence; amazingly,
Epstein et al. cite virtually none of it. Other commentators will no
doubt fill in some of the lacunae, but I must say something about
Epstein et al.'s experiment in section 5, as it is typical of the
evidential reeds they lean on.
Even assuming, counterintuitively, that the subjects, after 3 to 7
years of formal English instruction, are actually still at an early
acquisition stage - assuming, in other words, that the experimental results might actually be relevant to Epstein et al.'s claims, what
are the results? Simply that the subjects were able to repeat, with
some success, sentences instantiating IP and CP. Epstein et al.
deduce that their subjects' English grammars also include IP and
CP. Since Epstein et al. presumably would not want to attribute a
similar knowledge to a talented parrot, they have an obligation to
show why successful imitation entails correct syntactic analysis by
the imitator (sect. 5.2, para. 4); they do nothing to discharge this
obligation, either in the target article or anywhere else in the
published literature.
Epstein et al.'s "reconstructive" claim is all the less credible
given that most of their stimulus sentences could be correctly
interpreted without any syntactic analysis, let alone an analysis
involving functional categories, simply on the basis of knowledge
of word meaning and common sense: flowers do not smell grandfathers, pencils don't say that architects are expensive, and so on.
(Conversely, native speakers can parse sentences without knowing
the meaning of the lexical items.) To have any confidence that
subjects are using their syntactic knowledge to comprehend a
sentence, we need sentences like "The boy that the sandwich ate
slices the pencil." We should also investigate whether perfor-
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
munce varies according to the (un)grammaticality of the stimulus
sentence.
Access to UG has been a central theoretical and empirical issue
in SLA research for the past fifteen years. Epstein et al.'s contribution toward resolving this issue is, literally, nil.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Lynn Eubank and Mark Sawyer for helpful comments.
Does second language grow?
Gunther Grewendorf
Institut fur Deutsche Spmche und Literatur II, UniversitSt Frankfurt/Main,
D-60054 Frankfurt, Germany, grewendorf@lingua.uni-frankfurt.de
Abstract: The evidence that L2 learners have full access to UG is not
convincing. The following will be shown: (1) The argument that L2
learners "expect" L2 to have particular properties rests on the conceptual
confusion of luwing the concept of language (in the sense of knowing the
meaning of "language") with having access to UC. (2) The claim that L2
acquisition takes place under the constraints imposed by universal principles lacks empirical support. (3) The assumption that L2 learners assign
new parameter values is based on a problematic example and remains
unclear.
We all know that we need to learn the grammar of a second
language but that we did not need to learn the grammar of our first
language. Depending on our talent, on practice, and on the
amount of conscious effort we expend, we acquire the grammatical system of a second language to a higher or lower degree of
perfection, but acquisition of our first language was achieved in a
perfect way independent of talent and effort. In the second
language we do not have intuitions of grammaticality nearly as
reliable as we do in our native language. In view of these truisms,
one is led to conclude that the claim that L2 learners have access to
UC cannot be understood as meaning that L2 acquisition proceeds the same way LI acquisition does, namely, by the unconscious fixation of parameters resulting from oblivious confrontation with the facts.
What can be meant by Epstein et al.'s claim that UG principles
and parameters are fully available to the L2 learner? I want to
show that the evidence they adduce against the "no-access" and
"partial-access" hypothesis and for their own claim that L2
learners have "full access" to UG does not provide a satisfactory
answer to this question. First, the argument that L2 learners
"expect" L2 to have particular properties rests on a conceptual
confusion. Second, the argument that L2 acquisition takes place
under the constraints imposed by universal principles lacks empirical support. Third, the claim that L2 learners assign new values to
parameters is based on a problematic example and remains unclear.
Turning first to the conceptual problem, it is certainly true that
L2 learners have expectations about the nature of the (grammar of
the) second language, for example, that it has lexical items
("words"), that there are rules of pronunciation, that there is some
sort of morphology, that there are combinatory rules, that a
transitive verb requires an object, and so on. Obviously, these
expectations need not be the result of mere observation of the
native language. The average L2 learner may not be aware of most
of the properties of his native language, or his native language may
not exhibit the specific properties he expects from the second
language (e.g., overt morphology). But to conclude from this fact
that these expectations derive from biologically provided constructs of UG is to overestimate the power of the unconscious. I
seriously doubt that L2 learners are generally capable of distinguishing between (totally unfamiliar) speech sounds and other
noises without having any reason to associate the former with the
intention to convey meanings. And even the ability of the German
L2 learner of English to identify the Italian accent of his English-
speaking Italian friend does not yet show that universal phonological principles are available to L2 learners, otherwise the German
L2 learner should be able just as easily to identify his own accent in
English, which, as we all know, is much more difficult (and often
requires a cooperating English native speaker).
My claim is that L2 learners' knowledge and expectations
concerning a second language cannot be attributed to any mysterious access to UG but have to do with the fact that L2 learners
have acquired the concept of a language (of a grammar) as a result
of having learned the meaning of the word by which this concept is
denoted in their native language. When people set out to learn
chess they expect the chess pieces not to be made from jelly, but
such expectations do not derive from access to universal principles
of chess but from familiarity with the notion of board game.
Regardless of the question of how such a commonsense notion
of a language may develop, there is reason to believe that it is
highly likely that it will come closer to the Wittgensteinian concept
of language than to Chomsky's idea of Principles and Parameters.
Thus, should they ever have this expectation at all, L2 learners will
not expect the second language to have infinite generative capacity
because they have access to UG but because they assume that in
principle, they can do in the second language whatever they can do
in the first. I conclude that Epstein et al.'s argument in support of
the L2 learners access to UG rests on the conceptual confusion of
having the concept of language (i.e., "knowing" what a language is)
as a result of knowing the meaning of the relevant word in their
first language with having access to UG (whatever this is supposed
to mean, if it is supposed to mean something different from Llaccess to UG, which it should, as I have tried to demonstrate).
Evidence related to the former is mistakenly used as an argument
for the presence of UG-accessibility. Once this confusion has been
recognized, the paradox that they attribute to Bley-Vroman's
(1989) Fundamental Difference Hypothesis dissolves.
Other evidence that may help to clarify the notion of L2
learners' access to UG concerns the alleged fact that L2 learners
obey universal constraints on movement in cases that are not
instantiated in their native language. But again, there is no need to
assume inspiration by UG in cases where L2 learners of English
whose LI does not have overt u>/i-movement reject English whquestions that exhibit a violation of subjacency. Without dealing
with the evidential value of elicited imitation tasks, I only want to
point out two things in this connection. First, there is evidence that
supposedly "wh-'m situ" languages such as Japanese do in fact have
overt tu/i-movement: Watanabe (1992) has tried to show that there
is overt movement of a "pure wh -operator" in Japanese. Takahashi
(1993; 1994) presents evidence that Japanese has overt whmovement of lexical wj/i-phrases to Spec of CP, and Grewendorf
and Sabel (1996) argue that Japanese lexical w/i-phrases may
undergo overt operator movement by adjoining to AgrsP.
If it is indeed correct that there is overt wh -(operator) movement in "wh-in situ" languages and that this wh -extraction is
subject to specific constraints, as demonstrated by Japanese linguists, then Japanese L2 learners of English are at least familiar
with the fact that overt iu/i-fnovevnent is constrained in some way,
which already suffices to considerably weaken the above mentioned evidence for L2-access to UG. Second, even if the constraints on overt u>/i-(operator) movement in Japanese did not
operate the same way as those that apply to the ungrammatical
English sentences rejected by Japanese L2 learners of English,
this would still not show that L2 learner's judgments are inspired
by UG. Languages like Japanese, Korean, or Hindi have other
kinds of overt movement of tuli-phrases, which are instances of
scrambling, though not necessarily of operator movement. But
Japanese long u;/i-scrambling is not possible out of relative clauses
(Saito 1992, p. 72), nor is it possible with subjects; and with respect
to extraction out of adjuncts, it behaves exactly like tu/i-movement
in English (Saito 1985, p. 246). So the Japanese L2 learners
rejection of English wh -extraction out of relative clauses and
adjunct clauses may well be attributed to his familiarity with
similar situations in his native language which arise with other
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Cominentanj/Epstein
et al.: Second language acquisition
kinds of movement. L2 learners perform at significantly lower
success rates when judging ungrammatical L2 sentences than
native speakers. This difference would be unexpected if both were
supposed to have the same kind of access to UG.
Given that "knowledge" of L2-constraints on movement does
not yet show that UG is operative in L2 acquisition in a direct way,
let us put the question of "UG accessibility" in the following form.
If L2 acquisition were constrained by the principles of UG, it
should not be possible for the L2 learner to acquire a "steady state"
of knowledge of the second language that violates UG principles. I
must admit I see no reason why the L2 learner should not reach a
steady state in which principles of UG are violated, and empirical
evidence can be adduced that may well support this view. If pidgin
is considered to be an instance of a second language, then there
certainly exist L2 steady states that violate principles of UG. After
all, this is a crucial assumption of certain theories of creolization.
If, however, pidgin is not considered as an instance of L2, then the
claim that the result of L2 acquisition cannot violate principles of
UG is no longer a matter of empirical study, it is true by definition.
It accordingly seems that if we want to keep discussing this
problem as a question of empirical study, the goal to specify the
notion of "possible L2 grammar" can be achieved rather easily: a
possible L2 grammar is a "grammar" (a steady state) with which
the L2 learner is satisfied.
The claim that L2 learners have access to UG is crucially
correlated with the idea that L2 acquisition consists largely of
assignment of new or additional parameter values. This idea seems
to me to be highly problematic for several reasons. In their
criticism of the partial-access hypothesis, Epstein et al. refer to the
so-called "head-direction parameter," according to which leftheadedness correlates with adjunction to the right (as in English)
while right-headedness correlates with adjunction to the left (as in
Japanese). The fact that Japanese L2-learners of English show a
preference for the postposing of English subordinate adverbial
clauses is taken then as evidence that these L2 learners are able to
assign a value to the head-direction parameter in conformity with
the English value. Contrary to the authors' claim, however, this
does not suggest that UG remains available to the L2 learner. First,
the head-direction parameter, at least as stated in Fukui (1993),
does not exist, since there are subject-verb-object (SVO) languages like Polish and Russian which make extensive use of
scrambling in the form of adjunction to the left (see also Grevvendorf & Sabel 1996). Thus the tests that Epstein et al. refer to
cannot be taken as evidence for the possibility of assigning new
parameter values. Second, even if we consider the other examples
of supposed new parameter settings such as the Japanese L2
learners new assignment of the English parameter value for whmovement, it is absolutely unclear in what way this kind of new
parameter fixation is supposed to take place. As is obvious from the
effort that it takes to acquire a second language, this parameter
setting cannot take place in the unproblematic way it does in first
language acquisition. But I fail to imagine myself as fixing a
parameter consciously. A generative linguist may well be able to do
so, but conscious fixation of parameters nevertheless seems to me
to be at variance with the very idea of parametrization as it is
instantiated by LI acquisition.
To avoid misunderstanding I should emphasize that I do not
deny that the L2 learner's knowledge of language (his "steady
state") can be described, specified, and analyzed in terms of the
theory of Principles and Parameters (if only to state incompatibility with UG). What I do deny is that the process by which
such knowledge is attained takes place in the way first languages
are acquired according to this theory. What I actually cannot deny
is the claim that the L2 learner has "full access to UG," because I
still fail to see what might be meant by this claim.
728
Can UG and L1 be distinguished
in L2 acquisition?
Ken Hale
Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139. khale@mit.edu
Abstract: The contribution to L2-acquisition which comes from UG is
conceptually distinct from that which comes from LI (or from LI and L2
jointly), but it is difficult to tease the two apart. The workings of deep, core
principles (e.g., locality and subjacency) are so massively evident in LI and
L2 as to be of questionable use in the search for the contribution which is
purely of UG.
Although I agree with the basic points of the target article, I
wonder, with the authors, whether it is possible to distinguish
empirically between two of the theories discussed. One of these is
the hypothesis (resembling that of Bley-Vroman's fundamental '
difference hypothesis: FDH) to the effect that "domain-specific
linguistic knowledge applied to the L2 'comes from the LI.'" The
other is the claim (essentially that of Epstein et al.) that this
knowledge " 'comes from' the language faculty itself, since it is this
very faculty that specifies universally determined knowledge of LI
in the first place" (sect. 2.4, para. 3). This seems to me to be the
hardest case to make. If knowledge of LI fully represents the
fundamental universal principles of the language faculty, then it
will be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to detect the influence of
UG, as opposed to the domain-specific principles inherent in
knowledge of LI, in the acquisition of L2. To persist in the
program of eliminating a theory of this type, encouraged perhaps
by the conceptually real distinction between UG and its reflection
in LI, we must be able to tease the two apart, somehow. This task
becomes all the more difficult when L2, the language being
acquired, is itself brought into the picture. Surprisingly, this
essential component often goes unmentioned in discussions of this
sort, but the contribution of positive evidence coming from L2
must surely be enormous. LI and L2 together might, in fact, so
thoroughly embody and therefore mask the constraining effect of
UG that, for all practical purposes at this stage of our abilities to
probe into these matters, the task is impossible. But it is not very
useful to be pessimistic. In what follows, I will rarely mention the
contribution which L2 makes to the learning process, concentrating on the possible role of LI.
Let us assume that UG is active and accessible to the L2 learner,
keeping this as a constant. There are at least two possibilities in
relation to LI: (1) once acquired and present in an adult, LI is
static and unchanging, a "withered leaf," an "appendix," ceasing to
function in any positive way in the acquisition of L2; (2) LI
functions in the acquisition of L2 as an embodiment of UG, but LI
underdetermines UG.
In the first case, only UG could be involved in the acquisition of
L2 as a system embodying the domain-specific principles of the
language faculty, but I think this is an unlikely scenario. My own
experience with LI tells me that it is anything but static; it is
constantly being influenced, often in nontrivial ways, by other
languages. My experience in multilingual communities tells me
the same thing. Who is to say, for example, that a Warlmanpa
speaker in Central Australia is not "speaking his language properly" if he uses Warlpiri constructions when in a Warlpiri frame of
mind (as when translating from Warlpiri, for example) and quite
different Warumungu constructions when in a Warumungu frame
of mind? Is he only speaking proper Warlmanpa when he is not
using these "alien" constructions? The kind of flexibility just
described is commonplace in some parts of the world, and it grows
in the course of a person's life; it is not all there once LI is
acquired. And we are not talking about trivial "extensions," either,
but rather such things as the use or non-use of a second-position
auxiliary in certain tenses, a hallmark of some Central Australian
languages, but not others. These remarks are little more than
anecdotes, at this point, but the suspicions behind them make me
leery of (1) above.
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
1 am not so suspicions of (2). It is easy to imagine that LI might
simply not exemplify some aspect of UG. But we have to be careful
in two respects. First, and easiest, we cannot invent some outrageous rule and announce, happily, that no L2 learner ever invents
it, so learners must be constrained by UG. The L2 learner is surely
guided by what is there in L2. It is probably not accidental that no
language has a plural-formation rule which adds the "the suffix -s
to all and only those nouns that refer to an object weighing less
than 40 tons," but no principle of UG precludes this, surely. What
about the following? "Add the suffix -sh to animate nouns to form
the dual and plural, add the same suffix to inanimates to form the
singular and dual." Or the following: "In cardinality DPs, with
numerals from 3 through 10, use the feminine for a masculine
noun, and vice versa, and use the plural form of the noun; with
numerals from 11 through 19, use the singular accusative for the
noun, and for the teen subpart of the numeral use masculine for a
masculine noun and feminine for a feminine, and for the unit
subpart of the numeral, use feminine for masculine, and vice
versa." These learnable and attested systems do not obtrude any
principles of UG, but they are in some sense "wondrous and
outrageous," surely not something a learner of L2 would "invent,"
unguided by L2 itself. So far as I am aware, no known wondrous
system of this sort is inconsistent with principles of UG, although,
to be sure, many have forced us to reconsider and revise our
theories of particular details of UG, contributing in this way to the
goals our general research program.
Where do we look then? I think much of the L2 research
described in the target article is based upon an idea that seems to
me correct, if I actually understand the research and the problem.
The procedure is to take well established principles of UG and see
whether the L2 learner is constrained by them, independently of
LI. Simple enough. Now a principle like Structural Dependency
is of little use, since LI will surely reflect it at every turn.
Subjacency and the ECP (empty category principle), on the other
hand, are useful and are so identified in the literature. But this is
where the second cautionary note should be sounded, I think.
Subjacency and the ECP are useful because they are typically
associated with movement, and languages differ in their use of
syntactic, or overt, movement. Thus, it is natural to ask whether a
person whose LI lacks syntactic movement will overgeneralize
movement in learning an L2 that has overt movement. A reasonable question, since if not, it is reasonable to assume that UG
constrains it. The problem with this line of reasoning has to do with
LI: Is it true in each such case that the learners knowledge of LI is
totally devoid of evidence for the principle? Presumably, this does
not matter, if we assume that the learner has access to UG. But that
is what we want to show. So ultimately we must show that LI
actually lacks the necessary evidence, that domain-specific linguistic knowledge embodied in LI is properly included in UG and
that crucial elements of UG are outside LI.
Suppose an individual has an LI that lacks U/7i-movement in
syntax, that is, lacks overt displacement of u>/i-words in questions,
relative clauses, and the like, having u;/i-in-situ instead, as in the
experiments reported by Martohardjono. What does it mean if
that speaker never "violates" subjacency when learning an L2
which has tu/i-movement, even in the most aggressive and probative experimental situations? Is it "pure and uncontaminated" UG
that constrains L2 acquisition in this case? To answer this question,
it will be necessary to show that this learners knowledge of LI is
entirely devoid of evidence for subjacency. I think it will be
difficult to show this. Minimally, we must learn how one answers
an LI question of the form "you know the woman [who wrote
which book]?" (cf. English, ungramrnatical: "which book do you
know the woman who wrote
?"). Do you answer short (e.g.,
"Gone with the Wind") or long (e.g., ". . . the woman who wrote
Gone with the Wind")? If only long, then there is nothing more to
say, since the LI question and the ungramrnatical L2 (English)
question are not comparable. If the short answer is possible, then
we must probe further to see if the LI question in this instance is
truly comparable to the ungrammatical sentence of English, or
whether it is to be likened rather to what John (Haj) Ross refers to
as a "Perry Mason" question (e.g., lawyer to witness: "(and you say)
you know the woman who wrote which book"), which can be
answered short. The issue here, of course, is whether Logical
Form (LF) movement obeys subjacency or not, an issue not
definitively settled. If LF and overt syntactic movement are alike
in this respect, then it will be extremely difficult, it seems to me, to
locate knowledge of subjacency in UG as distinct from LI (or UG
as instantiated in LI). Similarly, it seems to me, relations which
involve "locality" (e.g., government, affix-hop, the head movement, concord, selection, etc.) are probably so abundantly present
in LI that they will be of little use in detecting the separate
influence of UG in L2 acquisition.
I emphasize that I am assuming that UG is fully active in L2
acquisition, but I argue that it is difficult, if not impossible, to
separate UG from LI. I am entertaining the possibility that "to
have knowledge of LI is necessarily to have knowledge of UG."
The research question is whether this knowledge is fully accessible to learners of L2, always. The research reported in the target
article makes a good case for the idea that it is accessible. But
before concluding, I would like to suggest another place to look
for evidence for the role of UG alone as distinct from LI or UG
in combination with LI. I think that the difficulty referred to
above pertains to the grand and deep core principles of UG, like
subjacency and locality. These determine the essential grammatical structures of LI. Unsurprisingly, therefore, "evidence"
of them is everywhere in LI. But this is probably not true of
those aspects of grammar customarily thought of as "parametric." Thus, agreement obeys locality, as demonstrated in the
target article, but the very existence of overt agreement morphology is parametric.
Now let us ask the following question. What is a possible
agreement system? This may be a question that LI is not going to
have anything at all to say about. Or, returning to numbers, what is
a possible system of grammatical number? Suppose English were
the only language. Would we be justified in saving that the only
possible number system was one that distinguished singular and
plural - or perhaps, singular and nonsingular, or plural and
nonplural — that is, a simple binary system distinguishing "one"
from "more than one"? We would probably have little to say about
it, in fact, unless we found a language with the so-called "dual
number." Then what would we say? Is the universal system of
grammatical number defined by a pair of binary features - say,
plus/minus singular and plus/minus plural, or some such thing?
Or would we suspect that the existing languages represent just the
lower end of a "counting system" - singular, dual, plural - which, if
we had more information, would yield up richer n-ary systems:
singular, dual, trial, quadruple, . . . , plural.
What we find, typically, are simple "binary" systems (singular/nonsingular) and simple "three way" systems (singular/
dual/plural). The question now becomes whether the second
'system is really ternary (i.e., limited n-ary) or is it a system of two
binary features as suggested above. Either is possible a priori. We
need more data. Hopi gives us evidence in favor of the second
alternative. While the Hopi noun makes a three-way number
distinction, pronouns and verbs each mark a simple binary opposition - singular/nonsingular and plural/nonplural, respectively
(using "plural" here to refer to cardinality greater than two). That
is to say, Hopi "analyzes" the three-way number system into two
binary oppositions. If Hopi reflects the true universal system of
grammatical number, and if n-ary systems are not properly a part
of UG, then this is something that an individual's LI could be, and
typically would be, too impoverished to reveal. And if this is a
system constrained by UG, then here is a place where an aspect of
UG can be "seen" separately from the grammar of LI.
There are many examples of this sort in the parametric systems
of natural languages. The interesting cases, of course, are those for
which L2 is likewise too impoverished to reveal the constraining
effect of UG - English control, the German IP system, and the
head-parameter are probably not instances, unless it can be shown
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
that L2 itself fails to provide the positive evidence needed to "set
the parameters" correctly. The mental structures involved in such
systems as grammatical number, the semantic relations embodied
in adpositions, in the tense system, in the aspectual system and so
on - these seem to me to be things which could well be variously
and underrepresented in the overt morphosyntax of any given
natural language, and hence in both LI and L2. But are these
aspects of grammar constrained by domain specific linguistic
principles? How do we determine this? And how do we actually go
about determining that an L2 learner is constrained by UG in
learning these aspects of grammar? It will not do simply to show
that an adult can learn a complex system of oppositions, unless we
can also show that the positive evidence present in L1/L2 significantly underdetermines the system actually acquired. We need to
know if overgeneration, beyond what is evident in L1/L2, is
constrained by UG.
This is not an unpromising situation. But we need more information. In addition to more experimental results, we need more
information from the linguistic diversity that exists in the world.
We simply do not know how diverse the parametric systems are.
We really do not know what is and is not possible in domains of the
type just discussed, for example. Each new language studied
presents us with something new, quite literally, be it something
unexpected, forcing a reconsideration of received theoretical
proposals, or something confirmatory, suggesting certain refinements in received theory. That is why linguistic diversity is so
important to the field. We must take it seriously, and we must not
take it for granted - it is disappearing now at an unprecedented
rate, with a large percentage of the worlds languages seriously
endangered, lacking child speakers, and unlikely to survive
through the next century.
Competence and performance
in language acquisition
Mark Hale
Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Concordia University,
Montreal, PQ, Canada H3H 1Z8. hale1@alcor.concordia.ca
Abstract: The implications of Epstein et al. s critical evaluation of much of
the existing literature on L2-acquisition extends far beyond the domain
they discuss. I argue that similar methodological clarification is urgently
needed in analyses of the role of UG in Ll-acquisition, as well as in
discussions in such seemingly "distant" areas as the study of language
change.
The target article provides compelling evidence that, within UGbased approaches to the study of L2-acquisition,1 several a priori
plausible hypotheses about the accessibility of UG to adult acquirers (the "no access" and "partial access" hypotheses) are not
supported by the empirical evidence. A key component of Epstein
et al.'s argument is that existing approaches to the important
question of UG-accessibility are marred by a failure to heed the
crucial distinction between the output of the grammar (a representation) and the output of the organism (an utterance), that is,
the distinction between the products of "linguistic competence"
and those of "performance." Since the theory of UG is concerned
only with the former, this failure severely undermines the relevance of studies such as that of Vainikka and Young-Scholten
(1991) - explicitly asserted as being about UG - for the question at
hand.
It is not clear at present which cognitive (and/or physiological)
systems ^intervene between the grammar and production, nor
precisely what types of effects they can have on the output of the
grammar. However, it is important to point out, as mentioned but
(appropriately) not particularly emphasized by Epstein et al., that
precisely the same issues arise in the study of Ll-acquisition. As is
the case with literature on the role of UG in L2-acquisition (as
surveyed by Epstein et al.), much of the literature on the signifi-
730
cance of Ll-acquisition for our understanding of UG fails to
faithfully respect the competence/performance distinction. The
similarities (and contrasts) between the LI- and L2-domains
within the context of the ground-breaking work of Epstein et al.
are, I think, quite instructive.
It has become commonplace in studies of LI phonological
acquisition at least since Jakobson (1941) to view the acquisition
process as involving the attainment of ever more complex segments by the child acquirer. The output of young children shows
massive "simplification" vis-a-vis adult forms, steadily approximating these more complex targets as acquisition progresses. As a
recent textbook on phonological theory puts it, "the un-marked
values are the first to emerge in language acquisition and the last to
disappear in language deficit" (Kenstowicz 1994, p. 62). It is of
some value to ask, in light of the discussion of Epstein et al., what
precisely does the "emerge" in the quotation just cited actually
mean? Figure 1 below sketches the acquisition process, assuming
UG (= So, the initial state), the "primary linguistic data" (PLD)
which triggers, over time, changes in that initial state (= acquisition stages), the steadily developing production system (here
called simply the "body" in which the grammar is located), and the
regularly changing output of the acquiring child (taken from Hale
1995, p. 18). "Emerge" means, of course, appear at some particular stage of the performance output (O) of the organism. As
Epstein et al. make overwhelmingly clear, to attribute appearance
in the output to the underlying grammar may involve a failure to
recognize the filtering effects of the performance system (B) that is, it is an empirical question whether "late emergence" in
acquisition is to be attributed to the current knowledge state of the
organism or, in the case of an LI-acquirer, to the current state of
maturation of the production system. If it turns out that the latter
provides the proper explanation (note that the evidence from
language deficits - aphasia, for example - would seem to strongly
support such an account), then "late emergence" is irrelevant for
our understanding of the developmental staging of linguistic
competence.
What intrigues me about the figure above, transported to the
issue of L2-acquisition, is this: whereas we would all readily accept
that the "playback" system of the child is undergoing regular
maturational development (B, > B 2 > B 3 . . .), this does not seem
to be likely in the case of adult acquirers - they would appear to be
working with the same "production system" throughout the acquisition process. If this were true, then the "filtering effects" of the
performance system (B) would be constant and could not be used
to account for differences in output in L2-acquisition.
\
su
^*
L'"
1
s2
•s,
B,
s,
B3
B.
0:
o,
o4
Figure 1 (M. Hale). Staging of the Grammar (S), the Production System ("body," B), and the Output (O).
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
Epstein et al. provide compelling evidence that the assumption
that the production system is constant during L2-acquisition is
false. Upon deeper consideration (inspired by the target article), it
is clear why this is so: the label "B" covers a set of cognitive
systems, operating in real time. Whereas in the case of Llacquisition the most salient aspect of these systems is their
maturational development over time (which, at least in its most
physiological manifestations, is patently obvious). Epstein et al.
make it clear that the "filter" B is also affected by issues such as
processing load (in particular, distraction of the relevant cognitive
systems by parallel tasks), current physiological state and conditions, and so on. It is clear that such factors also play a key role in
accounting for certain aspects of Ll-acquirer's output (e.g., its
variability), though they tend to be overshadowed in discussions of
that output by maturational considerations.
It is, in this regard, helpful to look at the account offered by
Vainikka & Young-Scholten (VYS) for the 6-16% of utterances
produced by their VP-stage subjects which do not actually fit the
"VP-stage" (target article, sect. 3.2.2). You will recall that VYS
claim that these utterances reflect the fact that the acquirers are
"in the process of entering" the IP-stage. As Epstein et al. properly
point out, the grammar is a knowledge state - it is the speakerhearer's current competence to generate linguistic representations. As such, it cannot be "in process" (one either is or is not in a
particular knowledge-stage). It seems clear from the Figure 1 that
the source for variable output, once the grammar is excluded, is to
be sought in differences in the real-time state of the processing
system.
Finally, this in turn has implications for similar claims in
historical linguistics. It is common to come across claims that a
particular language was "in process" between, for example, word
order X and word order Y. Since, under modern assumptions,
language = grammar, such assertions cannot be correct. All
grammatical output must be able to be generated by the current
knowledge-state (= grammar). Hale (1995) develops these implications further.
NOTE
1. It is clear to me from my own contact with cognitive scientists
working in a variety of subdisciplines that the assumption of an innate UG
is by no means universally held. It is important to realize that the work
discussed by Epstein et al. explicitly adopts and invokes such a model. The
issues which arise when confronting the question of the continued accessibility of UG in L2-acquisition are simply irrelevant for scholars whose
work assumes there is no such thing as UG (attributing, e.g., Llncquisition to "general learning strategies" and "analogy"). As Epstein et al.
point out, a host of other issues do arise for such scholars, none of which
has been explicitly dealt with in the literature.
L2 access to UG: Now you see it,
now you don't
Michael Harrington
Centre for Language Teaching and Research, University of Queensland,
Brisbane 4072 OLD Australia, mwharr@cltr.uq.oz.au
Abstract: The confirmatory nature of the empirical evidence used to
establish UG effects in L2 development is considered. Specific issues are
also raised concerning the internal validity of Epstein et al.'s findings. It is
concluded that the role of UG in adult L2 development will only be
established when researchers better understand the interaction between
the development of UG-constrained structural knowledge and the development of overall L2 proficiency.
At issue is the extent to which innate, human language-specific
knowledge (UG) constrains L2 development. Epstein et al. address this issue in terms of the learner's access to UG structures X,,
X2, Xn, accessibility being used interchangeably with constraint.
According to the "full access" view, the full range of UG principles
and parameters available to the LI child learner, are, in principle,
available to the L2 child or adult learner. As the authors make
clear, this does not mean that adult L2 development is fully
explained by UG, which is posited to constrain only the development of the core grammar.
The role of UG in the development of the adult L2 core
grammar is obscured by the fact that there is significant variation
in ultimate learning outcomes among adult L2 learners (Birdsong
1992). These differences are apparent in core and non-core
aspects of the grammar - both within and between learners - and,
prima facie, are not expected if UG is a biologically determined,
modularly encapsulated process like vision. Given this variability,
researchers attempting to establish the empirical effects for UG
must take a confirmatory tack in data interpretation. In the study
reported here, for example, response rates of 60% on functional
category structures are considered consistent with the full access
view, as these core grammar structures are apparently unavailable
in the participants' LI Japanese. The remaining 40% of responses
are then attributed to largely unspecified non-UG factors and
processes, for instance, computational demands, memorial resources, and affective factors. The now-you-see-it, now-you-don't
nature of the empirical evidence thus requires a compelling
theoretical account of the results.
A major obstacle to testing for UG effects is the fact that the
adult L2 subjects must be proficient enough in the non-UGconstrained aspects of the L2 to perform the grammaticality
judgments, elicited imitations, and so forth, on structures that are
designed to test such effects. The problem of circularity between
proficiency as a result of a UG-constrained developmental process
or the cause of the correct (= native-like) responses can be
minimized by dissociating UG structure effects from overall
proficiency. Epstein et al. attempted to do this by testing subjects
who were putatively at the early stages of L2 development. The
ability of child and adult L2 learners to correctly imitate 60% of
the functional category sentence stimuli, despite having "early
grammars" (sect. 3.3.2, para. 2) was presented as evidence supporting a "full access" role for UG.
As Epstein et al. report no independent measures of proficiency
in the study, it is debatable whether the adult Japanese participants were, in fact, at the early stages of L2 development. The
level of English required for international students in the United
States to gain admittance to extremely competitive institutions like
MIT is usually beyond the "early stages" of L2 acquisition. A score
upwards of 600 is typically required on the standardized Test of
English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), which requires an
extremely strong command of English, particularly structure,
which Japanese students get in junior high and high school, and
which makes up an important part of the entrance examination to
the upper tier universities from which a Japanese graduate student
at MIT typically comes. That the adults were enrolled in a "low
intermediate" ESL class (sect. 3.3.2, C) may say more about the
relative sophistication of ESL classes offered in Cambridge than
about the participants' grammatical knowledge.
Another way to demonstrate that UG constraints are available to
adult learners is to show similar responses by the child and adult
learners. Epstein et al. report a null effect on an ANOVA comparing the two groups, though the design was not given. Care must be
taken in arguing conceptual significance for a statistical null effect,
the latter merely indicating that both samples had the same
amount of variability. As little detail was provided (e.g., experimental effects, item effects), it makes the reported null effect
difficult to interpret. The fact that 58% of the adults were able to
imitate the stimulus sentences may mean that half the adults got
both tokens of each structure, suggesting full access for some, but
not others; or that all the subjects got one token each, resulting in
strong item effects. Likewise, for the 60% correct response rate by
the children, with the possibility that there are between-group
asymmetries. The error analysis reported ostensibly addresses this
issue, but the same lack of detail is a problem; for example, what is
an "error on the functional category" (sect. 3.3.2)? To be sure, the
complex nature of the question means that a single study cannot
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
hope to resolve the issue. However, a basic coin of experimental
research is internal validity, and in its absence the results must be
questioned, as Epstein et al. did with Vainikka & Young-Scholten
findings.
Even with these important methodological caveats, the authors
are not wrong in stating that the range of evidence is consistent with
the "full-access" view, in that all the subjects produced the non-Ll
UG structures, at least some of the time. The issue, however,
remains concerning when there is "enough" evidence to conclude
that a constraint is operative, and will not be answered until the nonUG effects that contribute so heavily to performance outcomes,
that is, computational deficits, can be specified and related to the
UG structures in question (Juffs & Harrington 1996).
Finally, given the multi-disciplinary audience for this target
article, it is important to underscore the fact that the theory under
discussion is a theory of formal constraints on the development of
L2 knowledge, and not a complete theory of L2 acquisition.
Although the development of the grammatical knowledge constrained by UG is a crucial aspect of L2 development, the more
important question for the development of general theory of L2
acquisition is how this structural knowledge interacts with other
aspects of the learning process. It is not until more is done on this
front that we will be able to understand the extent to which UG
constrains L2 acquisition.
In support of the early presence of functional
categories in second language acquisition
Kazue Kanno
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Hawaii,
Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822. kanno@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu
Abstract: This commentary focuses on whether the full set of categories is
available to beginning L2 learners. After critiquing Epstein et al.'s experimental evidence for the presence of functional categories, I outline the
results of an experiment involving English speakers learning Japanese as a
second language that does indeed point toward the early presence of
fuuctional categories.
Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono argue that the full set of lexical
and functional categories is available to L2 learners at all stages of
acquisition, in accordance with the strong continuity hypothesis.
This view is worth pursuing, if only because it constitutes the null
hypothesis. As even proponents of the weak continuity hypothesis
(e.g., Vainikka & Young-Scholten 1994) acknowledge, there is no
obvious reason why adults should lack functional categories in
their L2 structural representations. (Unlike the case of LI acquisition, for example, maturation cannot offer an explanation for the
early absence of functional categories.)
In order to test the full-access hypothesis properly, it is necessary both to work with subjects who are unquestionably in the
early stages of acquisition and to consider a phenomenon that
clearly involves the presence of functional categories. Epstein et
al.'s task (reported in sect. 5) meets neither of these conditions,
since they work with subjects who have had several years of
English instruction (an average of 3 years for the children and 7
years for the adults) and who have had a significant period of
residence in an English-speaking country.
Moreover, although Epstein et al.'s argumentation is based on
the assumption that an elicited imitation task can be used to
examine the structural knowledge of L2 learners, they offer no
independent evidence that the Japanese subjects assign the same
structural representations to the test sentences that native
speakers of English do. Even granting that elicited imitation can
shed light on structural knowledge, one could easily question
Epstein et al.'s assumption that modal verbs are transparently
instances of Infl and that topicalization requires the presence of a
CP projection. For example, Hyams (1986) claims that modals are
732
yonda
read
John
John
Figure 1 (Kanno). Tree diagram.
instances of V in Italian, and Baltin (1982) argues that topicalization is adjunction to IP. (Lasnik and Saito 1992, p. 78, are cited in
support of the claim that topicalization involves the CP projection,
but they actually propose that matrix topicalization can involve
either movement to SPEC of CP or IP adjunction.) In addition,
since VP is a possible adjunction site for leftward movement in
Japanese, there is no reason to assume that Japanese speakers
believe that English topicalization involves adjunction to a functional category rather than to a VP (with an internal subject).
Let us consider a somewhat different approach to the study of
functional categories in early SLA. In Japanese, the subject and
direct object are marked by case particles which contrast in terms
of their omissibility: the objective can be freely "dropped" while
the nominative cannot.
(1) Nominative case particle g« is missing
'John 0 sono hon o yonda
John that book Ac read
'John read that book.'
(2) Accusative case particle o is missing
John ga sono hon 0 yonda.
John Nm that book read
'John read that book.'
Fukuda (1993) suggests that we can account for this contrast in a
straightforward fashion by assuming (a) that the case particles are
syntactic heads (instances of the functional category 'K,' which is
presumably not found in English) and (b) that null case is a type of
empty category and therefore subject to the empty category
principle (ECP).
(3) The Empty Category Principle
Nonpronominal empty categories must be properly
governed. Null case in a direct object phrase can be lexically
governed by the verb, but no proper governor is available for
null case in a subject phrase (since INFL is not a lexical
head), as the tree in Figure 1 illustrates.
Kanno's (in press) study of case drop in SLA contains data
relevant to the presence of functional categories in beginning L2
learners. The study involved 26 American college students who
were enrolled in a first-year Japanese course. At the time of the
experiment, they had had approximately 13 weeks of instruction,
with 250 minutes of class time per week. An examination of the
instructional material and interviews with the instructors revealed
that the students had received no information about the subjectobject asymmetry in case drop. (Most of the class time was
devoted to the development of speaking, listening, reading, and
writing skills, including mastery of the two Japanese syllabaries.)
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
Subjects were presented with a variety of transitive sentences
containing different combinations of overt and null case and asked
to rate the naturalness of these patterns on a scale of 1 (unnatural)
to 3 (natural). The subjects exhibited a strong, statistically significant preference for null objective case over its nominative counterpart (2.49 vs. 1.71), consistent with the UG principle. Indeed,
their performance was not significantly different from that of a
native speaker control group. This suggests both that the L'2
learners are able to use the ECP for a phenomenon that has no
counterpart in their native language and that their structural
representations contain the functional categories (here K) to
which this principle applies.
Claims about L2 learners' syntactic knowledge and representations (including those proposed here) are necessarily theorydependent and encounter many methodological problems. Nonetheless, I believe there is evidence for the early presence of
functional categories, justifying further research on this subject.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to William O'Grady and Kevin Gregg for comments.
Why don't L2 learners end up with uniform
and perfect linguistic competence?
Ping Li
Department of Psychology, University of Richmond, VA 23173.
plng@urvax.urich.edu
Abstract: Children in a given linguistic environment all uniformly acquire
their target language, but adult learners of L2 do not. UG accounts for
children's uniform linguistic behavior, but it cannot serve a similar role in
accounting for adult learners' linguistic behavior. I argue that Epstein et
al.'s study does not answer the question of why L2 learners end up with
nonuniform and imperfect linguistic competence in learning a second
language.
Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono propose that UG is available
to L2 learners wholly, in all of its power, and in the same way as it is
available to LI learners. This proposal is thought-provoking, but as
it currently stands, I see major gaps between theoretical exposition
and empirical evidence and between UG principles and L2
learners' linguistic behavior. Epstein et al. undertake a lengthy
analysis of the alternative hypotheses and subsequently reject
them, but they provide little solid empirical grounds to support
their own position. Their strong argument leaves many fundamental issues unanswered, two of which I will focus on here: (1) the
differences between child LI and adult L2 acquisition, and (2)
individual differences among adult L2 learners.
My first question: If adults can indeed "grow" a language with
the right UG parameters as children, why don't they all end up
with the same linguistic competence in L2 as children in LI? In
LI, UG serves as a solution to the "logical problem of language
acquisition," that is, limited and "degenerate" input from the
linguistic environment can trigger parameter setting for a particular language, resulting in a productive grammatical system. Here,
UG principles are not explicitly taught to children who learn their
LI by natural exposure to the language. Children, given a linguistic environment for a limited number of years, all learn their
target language (LI, L2, or L3) without much trouble. Apparently, motivating a similar account for adult L2 is difficult, because (1) adult L2 learners may receive rich and systematic input
through formal instruction; (2) unlike children, adult learners
approach the L2 task at different ages, with different linguistic
backgrounds and using different learning methods; (3) most, if
not all, adult learners fail to achieve perfect linguistic competence
in a second language, no matter how hard they try and for how
long; (4) there is no empirical evidence that UG principles cannot
be taught or are not actually taught in classrooms (e.g., in English
we must have a subject before a verb, hence "-null subject"; in
Chinese we can omit the subject of a sentence when the context is
clear, hence "+null subject"); and (5) many errors that we observe
with L2 learners are errors not due to UG parameters but are due
to the influence of LI properties (e.g., subject-verb agreement
errors and word order arrangement errors produced by Chinese
learners of English). I think no one would want to deny that as
distinct groups, child LI learners and adult L2 learners display
qualitative differences in their ultimate control of the target
language.
Related to the above question is the fact that there are also
individual differences among L2 learners in how well they acquire a second language. Again, if L2 learners have full access to
UG principles and if UG serves as a solution to "the logical
problem in L2 acquisition," why can some L2 learners acquire
their second (or even third) language to near-native proficiency
while others can barely produce complete sentences after even
years of exposure to the language? One might be tempted to say
that the latter are not motivated to learn the language, or that
they are too old to learn it. But, then we are using UG-external
factors to account for individual problems to which UG does not
give uniform solutions. How much weight are we going to assign
to UG versus non-UG factors in accounting for the learners'
ultimate performance? Individual differences of the kind observed in L2 are rare among children, because children uniformly seem (at least according to UG theory) to acquire their
first language to native proficiency no matter where they grow up
and what language they learn (not counting putative feral child
cases like Genie).
In order to address these two issues, I think that Epstein et al.
need to give strong empirical evidence showing that (1) the
differences between LI and L2 acquisition are indeed not due to
variability in the accessibility of UG, and that (2) there is a causeeffect relationship between UG constraints and L2 learners'
linguistic behavior. I don't think that we are provided with such
evidence, or even that it is possible for Epstein et al. to provide
such evidence, given the state of the art in L2 research. We are
told by Epstein et al. that L2 learners are sensitive to some
grammatical violations (in grammaticality judgment) and are able
to repeat some formalized sentences (in elicited imitation). However, grammatically judgment, elicited imitation, or the like at
most tell us whether L2 learners are sensitive to certain parameters; even there the results are often consistent with alternative
explanations. Consider the experiment in which an L2 learner
judges the grammaticality of the sentence "Which man did Tom
fix the door that had broken?" sect. 3.2.2, Ex. 20a). The learner
could reject such sentences on a number of grounds, for example, that the phrase "which man" cannot be assigned a sentence
constituent (something they had learned in school about English
ujfc-questions), or that they have never heard of a question with
the structure 'Wi-element + auxiliary + subject noun + verb +
object noun + relative clause." Moreover, how can one tease
apart the constraints of UG from the influence of the learner's L2
experience in a grammaticality judgment task or an elicited
imitation task? This becomes more difficult when one uses subjects who have substantial linguistic experience in L2 (as have the
"advanced" students who have studied in the United States, or
children who have lived in Massachusetts for 3 years in Epstein
et al.'s experiments sects. 3.2.2 and 5.1). There are too many
degrees of freedom in accounting for Epstein et al.'s data, and it
is not clear to me that there is a direct link between UG principles and the experimental patterns they observe.
Epstein et al. argue that UG allows us to describe the knowledge base of the L2 learner, that is, the end-state grammar. They
insist that the no-access hypothesis "fails to distinguish between
what the L2 learner knows (content of grammar) and how he
attains this grammar (process)" (sect. 2.3, para. 1). However, it
seems that Epstein et al.'s full-access hypothesis fares no better in
this regard because it tells us at best what the learners possess (the
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Commentary/Epstein
et al.: Second language acquisition
content), but not how they come to possess it (the process). To
Epstein et al., what implies how, since UG is biologically determined. It is like saying: UG leads to end-state grammar with the
right parameter settings for both children and adults, but don't
ask me how, because UG is innately given. At one point, Epstein
et al. say that it is difficult to distinguish empirically the claim of
direct access to UG and the claim of access to UG via LI (sect.
2.4). The difficulty arises, I think, because the UG account of L2
does not allow us to tap into the underlying processes governing
L2 acquisition. The difficulty also poses a serious question related
to my
my earlier point: How can we test the role of UG empirically in
L2ithrough rigorously controlled experiments?
In sum, I Ihink that there is more to be said about the
relationship between UG principles and L2 acquisition, but I
don't think that Epstein et al. have provided us with strong lines of
theorizing or rigorous methodology in testing UG principles in L2
acquisition.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Liz Bates, Michael Bond, Francois Grosjean, and
Thomas Lee for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this
commentary.
To "grow" and what "to grow,"
that is one question
Juana M. Liceras
Department of Modern Languages, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario,
KIN 6N5, Canada. jliceras@aix l.uottawa.ca
Abstract: L2 learners may access UG principles because these are
realized in all natural languages. Since this is not the case for the
parametrized aspects of language, parameter setting may be progressively
replaced by restructuring mechanisms which are specifically related to the
process of representational redescription because L2 learners are not
sensitive to the [±] features which define parameters.
Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono have done us a great service
in opening the discussion on the nature of second language
acquisition to the interdisciplinary community because the discipline and some of its tenets cannot but benefit from being
exposed to healthy scrutiny. While I agree with the authors that
arguments against the availability of UG in L2 acquisition are not
strong and that the discussion becomes fussy both in terms of the
vocabulary used and the manipulation of the data, I believe that
the actual problem is far from being as transparent as they mean
to present it.
First, it is not clear how the formula L2 acquisition = LI
acquisition minus maturation would work. Namely, is there any
"growing" that affects UG? Second, while principles are supposed
to be realized in all natural languages, parameters account for
variation and are clearly related to differences among languages.
Thus, it is possible that parameter-setting is related to maturation
or growth and consequently not available as such to the adult
learner. Third, will the selection procedure which accounts for LI
acquisition (Piatelli-Palmarini 1989) be immune to growth? That
is, if UG constitutes the basis for the "language instinct" (Pinker
1994), should it not grow into a unique mental structure that
would shape any subsequent development? Fourth, not all linguistic constructs are relevant for addressing the issue of the
possible idiosyncrasy of L2 grammars.
1. The fact that maturation does not affect adult L2 acquisition
is in itself a fundamental distinction which will determine the
overall nature of the learning procedure. In Epstein et al.'s model
of the relationship between UG and a given "core grammar," UG
remains constant and accessible (Fig. 4). That is, maturation does
not affect UG. But is this UG the actual initial state? Are they
proposing that UG as a mental representation is not at all affected
734
by growth? In the Principles and Parameters model, UG constitutes the biological endowment which, via domain-specific learning procedures, selects the triggers which determine its growth
into an I-language. Is it possible to maintain that this embryo
remains intact once the actual LI learning process originates a
mental structure? But even if it does remain intact, since UG
principles are realized in all natural languages, it may be impossible to determine whether it is the UG principles or the I-language
principles which are available to an adult. Thus, it may be difficult
to determine whether adults access UG principles or I-language
principles.
2. Even under the assumption that "grown" UG principles are as
active as their embryo counterparts, we still have to deal with the
proposal that parameter-setting may not be accessible to adults
because it relates to the UG lexicon which is the sub-module
subject to maturation (Ouhalla 1993; Tsimpli & Rousseau 1991).
Assuming that parameters are defined as (± features) of functional categories, the selection procedure that responds to the
environment trigger (the LI data) may not be available for adult
L2 acquisition. In other words, adult L2 learning may be blind to
the (±) features which trigger primary language acquisition. If this
is the case, adult L2 learners will not instantiate the various
properties of a given parameter on the basis of the (±) of the
functional categories but will project a non-native grammar via, for
instance, local re-structuring. Consequently, the various properties associated with a given parameter in an I-language may be
displayed in a non-native grammar. Non-native grammars will not
be I-languages however, because they are not the result of the
selection procedure (parameter setting) which characterizes an
I-language.
3. If the mind does not begin with pre-specified modules but
undergoes a process of modularization (Karmiloff-Smith 1992; see
also multiple book review of Beyond Modularity BBS17(4) 1994),
how will this affect L2 learning? It seems to us that something
along the lines of the process of "representational redescription,"
the process by which information that is in a cognitive system
becomes progressively explicit knowledge to that system, could
play an important role in L2 acquisition. In fact, it could explain
the "age factor phenomenon" which, unlike the "critical period
hypothesis" has not been challenged. In other words, both UG
principles and parameter-setting may be subject to "representational redescription" and consequently, nonprimary acquisition
will progressively ("the age factor") differ from primary acquisition. Furthermore, parameter-setting will be gradually displaced
by local restructuring, which might be closely related to "representational redescription."
4. UG principles such as overt versus covert instantiation of whmovement do not seem to be the kinds of constructs that will
provide evidence for UG accessibility. As Epstein et al. argue,
analogy cannot explain the results obtained by Martohardjono
(1991) with respect to the instantiation of tt>/i-movement in the
English non-native grammar of Chinese and Indonesian speakers.
However, this in itself does not exclude the LI as the source of
knowledge, because w/i-movement applies covertly (at the level of
logical form) in Chinese and Indonesian. Thus, the L2 data should
provide enough evidence for projecting a non-native grammar
with overt uj/i-movement. Hence, perhaps constructs such as the
parametrized [±] features, which account for language variation,
will provide us with insights as to the differences between LI and
L2 acquisition.
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
Universal Grammar and critical periods:
A most amusing paradox
Philip Lieberman
Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rl 029121978. lieberman@cogvax.cog.brown.edu
Abstract: Epstein et al. take as given that, (1) a hypothetical Universal
Grammar (UG) exists that allows children effortlessly to acquire their first
language; they then argue (2) that critical or sensitive periods do not block
the UG from second language acquisition. Therefore, why can't we all
effortlessly "acquire" Tibetan in six months or so? Data concerning the
neural bases of language are also noted.
The primary argument for the existence of Chomsky's hypothetical Universal Grammar (UG) is that though all normal human
children raised under reasonable circumstances effortlessly acquire a particular language or languages, it has become apparent
that only a small subset of the sentences of any language can be
described by means of the algorithms used by linguists. As Jackendoff (1994, p. 26) notes,
Thousands of linguists throughout the world have been trying for
decades to figure out the principles behind the grammatical patterns of
various languages. . . . But any linguist will tell you that we are nowhere
near a complete account of the mental grammar for any language.
The obvious difficulty that adults have in acquiring new languages after puberty has been ascribed to the existence of a
"critical" or "sensitive" period within which the brain retains
"plasticity" allowing the UG to function, or alternatively to allow
new learned cognitive-motor "programs" to become instantiated
neurally (e.g., Bates et al. 1992; Lieberman 1991). This effect of
age on the acquisition of grammar has been documented by
Johnson and Newport (1989) and is apparent on any university
campus. People of "a certain age" generally find it impossible to
acquire a second language at "native" proficiency. Epstein, Flynn,
and Martohardjono dispute these findings and argue that the
hypothetical UG is available in second language learning.
So, a most amusing paradox emerges. If the UG allows young
children to acquire languages effortlessly without formal instruction and this target articles argument is correct, why can't we all
learn to speak Tibetan with native proficiency?
I will not address the question of whether UG exists here (cf.
Lieberman 1991), but a few comments concerning the biology of
language are warranted. The lateralization of the human brain is
not, in itself, an index for the "language area of the brain" (sect.
2.1). Brain lateralization is a "primitive" feature; the brains of frogs
are lateralized to control their vocalizations (Bauer 1993). Moreover, studies of brain lateralization are not central to the issue of
sensitive periods. Neurophysiologic and behavioral studies of
many species demonstrate, beyond reasonable doubt, that many
of the neural substrates that regulate behavior are shaped phenotypically, that is, in response to environmental stimuli within
"sensitive" periods, which in some instances terminate in an
abrupt manner yielding "critical" periods. Edelman (1987) reviewed this issue. Subsequent data confirm that critical periods
exist. Neuroanatomical experiments, for example, show that inputs to visual cortex develop in early life in accordance with visual
input; different visual inputs yield different input connections
(Hata & Stryker 1994).
The concept of a "language area of the brain" is itself an
anachronism. It is apparent that distributed neural circuits involving neuroanatomical structures throughout the brain regulate
language (Lieberman 1991; Mueller 1996). Studies of intact
human subjects using Positron Emission Tomography, for example, show that naming pictures of both animals and tools activated
the ventral temporal lobes and Broca's area. Tool names activated
a left premotor area (also activated by imagined hand movements)
an area in the left middle temporal gyms also activated by action
words. In contrast, animal names activated the left medial occipital lobe, a region involved in the earliest stages of visual percep-
tion. It is clear that the brain regions that are activated by words
depend on the intrinsic properties of the concepts coded by the
word (Martin et al. 1995). In short, the neural underpinnings of
the lexicon are not localized to a linguistic lexicon coding prepositional logic; they are distributed and reflect knowledge of the real
world coded throughout the brain.
Nor can a clear case be made for "universal phonetics." The
supposedly innate phonetic contrasts cited in section 2.2 can be
"acquired" by a comparatively simple simulation of associative
distributed neural networks modelled on current knowledge of
neocortical physiology; it can "learn" to identify the formant
frequency patterns that specify stop-consonants in syllables like
[ba], [da], and [ga] (Seebach et al. 1994).
Language is learned
Brian MacWhinney
Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
15213. macwhinney+@cmu.edu
Abstract: Epstein et al. attribute second language learning to the forces of
transfer and language universals. They show that transfer is minimally
involved in certain types of learning and therefore conclude that universals
are involved. However, they forget to consider the important role of
learning in second language acquisition.
Any basic textbook on second language learning makes it clear to
the reader right at the beginning that there are three potential
sources of second language linguistic knowledge. These three
sources are transfer, language universals, and learning. The latter
is often referred to as "L2 generalization." Bypassing this tradition,
Epstein et al. assume that the only plausible sources of L2
structures are transfer and universals. Since speakers of languages
as different as Japanese and Spanish behave similarly when judging complex English sentences for grammaticality, they conclude,
reasonably enough, that LI—>L2 transfer cannot be the source of
this knowledge. This leaves them with only one possible source for
second language learning — Universal Grammar. However, the
conclusion that they reach is far from inescapable. Epstein et al.
ignore the obvious possibility that the learners enrolled in their
experiments might be basing their grammaticality judgments on
the facts they have learned about their new language, rather than
on the urgings of UG. In other words, Epstein et al. ignore the
third possible source of second language knowledge, that is, the
role of L2 learning.
The exclusion of this third potential factor is not an accidental
omission. It is clear that Epstein et al. believe that neither a first
nor a second language is learned in the usual sense. After all, they
argue, language learning through mechanisms such as distributional analysis, operating principles, analogy, or hypothesis testing
involves nothing more than the application of "strategies." According to their analysis, real language identification requires
parameter-setting, rather than strategy application, since strategies can never identify the parameters that underlie language
competence. Therefore, according to Epstein et al., students of
second language learning can safely ignore learning and restrict
their attention to the impact of transfer and universals on second
language learning.
Robert Bley-Vroman has been singled out as the principle
source of the notion that second languages may be learned.
However, there are dozens of researchers in cognitive psychology
who have been exploring the possibility that both first and second
languages are learned on the basis of exposure to primary linguistic data. These researchers have used both symbolic systems
(Ling& Marinov 1993) and connectionist networks (MacWhinney
& Leinbach 1991; MacWhinney et al. 1989) to model the learning
of all aspects of language development. Most recently, it has
become clear that the various arguments regarding the "poverty"
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
of the linguistic stimulus as a motivation for a belief in Universal
Grammar fail to stand up against the facts of first language
acquisition and the capabilities of connectionist modeling (MacWhinney 1993).
The Competition Model of MacWhinney and Bates (1989)
provides a particularly clear alternative to the analysis promoted
by Epstein et al. Moreover, this alternative analysis has been
articulated fairly thoroughly as an account of second language
learning in adulthood (MacWhinney 1996b). The Competition
Model emphasizes the role of transfer and L2 learning as the
primary determinants of second language acquisition, while minimizing the importance assigned to language universals. This
account has been supported in dozens of empirical papers examining second language learning in Dutch —» English, English —>
Dutch, Japanese —» English, English —> Japanese, Italian —>
English, German —» English, English —> Russian, Chinese —>
English, and English —» Chinese contexts across a variety of online experimental measures of language comprehension and lexical processing. The basic findings of this work are that there is
good evidence for both transfer and learning in second language
acquisition. Transfer is the strongest in the areas of phonology and
lexicon, where specific between-language equivalencies are easily
established. In the area of syntax, some local attachment structures, such as adjective-noun orderings, show a brief period of
initial transfer, but are quickly overwhelmed by strong L2 learning. In general, the stronger and more reliable syntactic patterns
are learned first. The last patterns to be learned are those involving
the complex raising and control structures examined by Epstein et
al. When these structures are learned, they are acquired in a
conservative fashion that minimizes potential false overgeneralizations.
The linkage of the Competition Model to connectionist formalisms has important empirical consequences. In particular, it places
the phenomena of transfer and analogical generalization on a
much stronger formal basis. To the degree that we can model both
the established first language system and the developing second
language system within a single network topology, we can make
precise predictions regarding the ways in which transfer will occur.
MacWhinney (1996a) presents one such model for the learning of
major word order patterns in the Dutch —> English and English —•
Dutch contexts. In that model, we see an initial period of transfer,
followed by a period of L2 learning that resembles the stages of
native language learning. However, the model generalizes only
very cautiously across syntactic patterns. When confronted with
complex and structurally variable patterns of the type studied by
Epstein et al., the model shows virtually no transfer and only slow
L2 generalization learning.
Although UG and the Competition Model differ vastly in
methods, assumptions, and conclusions, the basic empirical findings provided by Epstein et al. are compatible with both. In the
framework espoused by Epstein et al., these data are used to argue
that second language learning is controlled by Universal Grammar. In the framework of the Competition Model, these data are
used as evidence that transfer is blocked for complex structures
that show little cross-language equivalence. Given the ability of
both accounts to deal quite happily with these data, it would be
interesting to know whether UG models are also able to account
for the empirical data on syntactic learning that have been collected in the context of the Competition Model.
Some incorrect implications of the fullaccess hypothesis
Frederick J. Newmeyer
Department of Linguistics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 981954340. fjn@u.washington.edu
Abstract: If Epstein et al. are right that adult second language learners
have full access to UG, then all of the following should be true: adults
736
should be able to consciously transform their I-Language; adults should be
able to transform pidgins into Creoles; adults should be as likely as children
to restructure their grammars on the basis of "functional" pressure. All the
foregoing are false, however, which seriously calls into question the
correctness of their hypothesis.
As the authors of the target article are aware, I have gone on record
as an advocate of the hypothesis that adult second language
learners have full access to UG in second language acquisition
(see, for example, Newmeyer 1983; Newmeyer & Weinberger
1988). In recent years, however, I have begun to explore the
implications of this hypothesis for other domains and have found
disturbing evidence that suggests that it might not be right.
A corollary of the full-access hypothesis is the claim that one's
"I-Language" (Chomsky 1986) does not become fixed in childhood, but has the capacity to develop throughout one's lifetime.
Thus, in the view of Epstein et al., an adult-acquired second
language is an I-Language. It follows then that there should be
evidence from other domains that our I-Language can change in
adulthood. In particular, the following three propositions should
be true:
1. Adults should be able to consciously transform their I-Language.
2. Adults should be able to transform pidgins into Creoles.
3. Adults should be as likely as children to restructure their
grammars on the basis of "functional" pressure.
I believe all three propositions to be false. As for the first, there
is good evidence that, no matter how hard we try, consciouslyinitiated changes to our own dialect are never fully integrated into
our I-Language, but remain as "appendages" to it. Labov (1972),
for example, discusses how difficult it is for middle class blacks
who did not grow up in vernacular culture to learn the vernacular
as adults and adds: "If it is true that Received Pronunciation
cannot be mastered by someone who has been to the wrong
school, this would stand as additional confirmation of the fact that
the regular rules of the vernacular must be formed in the preadolescentyears" (p. 290). Alongthese lines, Emonds (1985; 1986)
and Pateman (1987) give examples of late-acquired prestige constructions that seem unintegrable into one's linguistic system.
As for the second proposition, Derek Bickerton reports (personal communication) that there are no reliable examples of adults
transforming a pidgin into a Creole in one generation. But children
do it with ease. As Slobin (1977) has noted in this regard: "It seems,
given the limited but suggestive evidence at hand, that it is adult
speakers who invent new forms, using them with some degree of
variability in their speech. Children, exposed to this variability,
tend to make these new forms obligatory and regular" (p. 205,
emphasis added).
Third, every generative model of language change with which I
am familiar assumes that it is children, not adults, who have the
capacity to restructure their grammars due to parsing pressure or
as the result of a change in the external evidence presented to
them. The most thorough recent study of language change in
action, Ravid (1995), notes that the functionally driven changes in
Hebrew observed among lower-class speakers are all initiated
in childhood. But if the I-Language of adults is as malleable as that
of children, as Einstein et al. claim, then shouldn't adults be major
players in initiating language change? At the risk of appearing to
tarnish Epstein et al. with the sin of guilt by association, I might
point out that the idea that adults are as apt as children to
restructure their grammars due to external pressures has always
been a hallmark of the functionalist opposition to generative
grammar (for a recent statement to that effect, see Croft 1995).
Perhaps Epstein et al. would try to explain why these propositions are false by appealing to the same "grammar-external performance systems' that make learning a second language so difficult
for most adults. For example, they propose a "performance-based"
explanation for why long-distance movement is difficult for Japanese learners of English: "The assignment of a new parameter
value can appear to "take time" in the course of acquisition, for
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
example, if new parameter setting involves determining the features of certain lexical entries" (sect. 5.2, penultimate para.).
This leads me to my second major criticism of the target article.
The sketchy remarks on these putative performance systems make
them look nothing like well-understood performance systems that
affect language production. And, one might ask, how are we to
distinguish an explanation employing them from one which says
simply that an L2 is "parasitic" on an LI, so adult Japanese learners
need to "take time" as they assess the positive evidence and call
into play whatever cognitive tricks they can muster to get English
wh-movement right. If UG were available to children and adults
equally, we would expect adults to be even faster than children at
"time-taking" complex cognitive tasks, not slower. But apparently
it takes adults longer than children to get their parameters reset.
The conclusion then seems to be that adults are not literally
resetting parameters at all - they are simply doing their best with
the parameters that they already have.
The necessity of having to resort to poorly understood performance factors to explain every difference between LI and L2
acquisition undercuts Epstein et al.'s often repeated assertion that
UG "is fully available to the L2 learner," who has "full access" to it
in acquisition. Given the everyday English meanings of the words
"available" and "access," this assertion is simply not correct. UG
may be there, but a host of mechanisms block available access to it
for the normal adult. An analogy might help to illustrate my point.
Imagine human vision being very different from what it actually is.
Suppose that in adulthood the neural wiring allowing vision
remained essentially unchanged from childhood, but that most
adults had the tendency to develop severely degenerated retinas,
corneas, irises, and so on. As a result, few adults in this imaginary
world would be able to see reliably enough to undertake any task in
which good vision was required without, say, the accompaniment
of a fully-sighted child. Would we be comfortable saying that in
this world visual competence is "fully available" to adults? How, I
would ask Epstein et al., is such a world fundamentally different
from the world that they posit, in which we have so little true
access to our UG as adults, that overwhelming our attempts to call
it into play in learning a second language end in abject failure?
Syntactic representations and the
L2 acquisition device
William O'Grady
Department of Linguistics, University of Hawaii Honolulu, HI 96822.
ogrady@hawaii.edu
Abstract: Epstein et al.'s theory of SLA is heavily dependent on assumptions about both the nature of the acquisition device and the grammar that
it produces. This commentary briefly explores the consequences of an
alternative set of assumptions, focusing on the possibility that the acquisition device does not include UG and that syntactic representations do not
contain functional projections.
Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono claim that adults have access
to the full resources of UG and that even beginning L2 learners who may express neither tense nor agreement overtly - nonetheless construct representations containing syntactic projections for
both elements.
other failings of their proposal and the experiments intended to
support it.
O'Grady (1996; in press) outlines an acquisition device consisting of five innate modules, none of which corresponds to UG in the
conventional sense. A perceptual module is responsible for
the analysis of the auditory stimulus, a learning module offers the
means to formulate hypotheses in an appropriately constrained
manner (e.g., it includes the Subset Principle), a conceptual
module makes available an inventory of notions relevant to grammatical contrasts (e.g., singular-plural, past-nonpast), a propositional module provides a representation of predicate-argument
structure, and a computational module provides a set of structurebuilding operations. The latter module is largely responsible for
the architecture of syntactic representations, ensuring that they
exhibit binary branching and other hierarchical features, in accordance with principles largely shared by the mechanisms used for
arithmetical computation.
The grammar produced by this acquisition device has at its core
a type of categorial syntax (e.g., Wood 1993), which builds representations such as the following by drawing on the resources of the
propositional and computational modules. (The information in
angled brackets indicates the number and type of categories with
which an element must combine.)
S (=V < 0 > )
(2)
y<N>
N
Mary
left
Here, the verb leave - a "functor category" requiring a nominal
argument - combines with Mary, satisfying that dependency and
creating a sentence. (Note that S is treated as a verbal category
with no unsatisfied dependencies - Keenan and Timberlake 1988
- not as a projection of an abstract functional category.)
According to the proposal outlined in O'Grady (1996), adults
have access to a diminished version of the LI acquisition device,
with the computational and propositional modules intact but the
perceptual and conceptual modules (and perhaps the learning
module) compromised to some degree. This predicts defects and
difficulties in the mastery of L2 phonology and of the subtle
semantic contrasts that underlie many morphosyntactic phenomena (e.g., the use of articles in English), but predicts that fullfledged syntactic representations should be within the reach of
even beginning L2 learners. However, the representations in
question do not at all resemble those posited by Epstein et al.
Consider in this regard the common case of learners who
produce full sentences (e.g., 'Mary work), but without agreement
inflection. Thanks to the continuing availability of the propositional and computational modules of the acquisition device, these
learners are able to build representations parallel to (2) above just as native speakers of English do. The eventual emergence of
agreement depends on their ability to take note of the -s affix (via
the perceptual module) and to link it with the notions of person
and number provided by the conceptual module. Assuming that
these are still available, the same operations responsible for the
formation of (2) will yield (3).
S (=v <0> )
(3)
y<N3sg>
N
(1) [c..[AKr..Mary [T1, [VI, work]]]]
The success of this argument depends on controversial assumptions about both the acquisition device and the grammar that it
produces. By adopting a different set of assumptions, one arrives
at very different conclusions about the nature of SLA. I Believe
that this point is worth pursuing and I will devote my commentary
to it, confident that colleagues will take Epstein et al. to task for
Mary
work-s
Here, the affix has combined with the verb, creating a verbal
category that depends on a 3rd person singular nominal (the
dependency on the nominal argument coming from the root and
the person/number features from the affix). This representation
involves no phrasal projections other than those employed in (2):
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
the only difference is the presence of a particular morpheme - the
agreement affix - and the person/number features associated
with it.
Given this view of the acquisition device, it is possible to
maintain both that the complete structure-building resources of
the language faculty are available to the L2 learner (which allows
the formation of full-fledged syntactic representations) and that
certain types of elements (e.g., verbal affixes and the person/number features associated with them) can be missing from
these representations in the early stages of L2 (or LI) development. This is because, in contrast to Epstein et al.'s approach, the
emergence of affixal elements is not dependent on the module of
the acquisition device that determines the architecture of syntactic representations. Moreover, affixal elements are not treated as
syntactic heads and do not create phrase structure; their absence
therefore does not dramatically alter the character of the syntactic
representation. (Of course, by eliminating functional projections
in this manner, we lose familiar GB analyses of phenomena such as
verb-second effects in German and adverb placement in French
and English; however, these analyses are questionable to begin
with - see, e.g., Anderson 1993 on the first issue and Iatridou 1990
and Baker 1991 on the second.)
No syntactic theory is accepted by more than the minority of
linguists. Each is compatible with a different acquisition device
and, therefore, with a different view of LI and L2 acquisition.
Epstein et al. have perhaps demonstrated the consequences of one
syntactic theory. Some will doubtlessly feel the exploration of
alternatives remains a worthwhile enterprise.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Kevin Gregg and Kazue Kanno for comments.
Language growth after puberty?
Carlos P. Otero
Program in Romance Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
90095-153202. otero@ucla.edu
Abstract: The range of hypotheses considered is surprising in that the
most arguably plausible one is not included: the invariant principles of
language are available for life, while the parameters of variation cannot be
set after puberty. This hypothesis provides a better explanation than the
author's for both the deep similarities and the vast differences between
child "language growth" and adult language acquisition.
The field of foreign language acquisition, as understood by researchers at the cutting edge such as the authors of the target
article (it is hard to think of a team with better credentials), is only
about ten years old, and the realization that this new field has
much to contribute to the study of language and mind, as a careful
reading of the article makes clear, is of even more recent vintage.
Naturally enough, Epstein et al. raise a host of important and
much debated issues that deserve careful attention. For want of
space, I will comment only on what I take to be the central issue.
The range of hypotheses Epstein et al. consider is surprising in
that one of the hypotheses found in the literature (and, arguably,
the most plausible) is not included. This is the hypothesis which
claims that the invariant principles supplied by the genetic endowment for language (the language "organ"), if normally developed
during the "window of opportunity" provided by the maturational
schedule, are available for life, while the uninstantiated settings
remain available only during childhood (making true multilingualism possible for children - cf. sect. 1.2) since the brain appears to
lose its plasticity for parameter setting relatively early, perhaps
before puberty.1 Let us call this set of assumptions Hypothesis 2b
or H2h. What Epstein et al. present as "the" partial access
hypothesis (call it H2a) is clearly not the only "logical possibility"
outside the no access hypothesis (call it HI) and the full access
hypothesis (call it H3).
738
HI would appear to be of little interest at our current level of
understanding. There is plenty of persuasive evidence (cf. sect. 2
of the target article and Strozer 1994, sect. 7.3.1) that fluent
speakers of a foreign language know many things about the
language which they could not possibly have learned, so the
"poverty of the stimulus" argument applies here as well. In
contrast, H2b is a highly interesting and not implausible hypothesis, and is not without advocates (see Smith & Tsimpli 1995;
Strozer 1994, and references therein). If so, one would expect H2b
to receive more attention than HI in any study of the topic, not just
the passing and misleading remark at the end of section 3.1. 2
This is because the basic fact that demands explanation is that
most (possibly all) normal adults who try do not succeed in
developing a truly native command of a single foreign language,
no matter how hard they try or for how long, even with conscious effort and with the help of instruction (including negative
evidence), while any normal child can come to speak a number
of languages natively without need of instruction (in particular,
negative evidence) or conscious effort. As Chomsky has repeatedly remarked, becoming a native speaker is not something the
child does, but something that happens to the child. However, it
is not something that happens to the adult.3 That this is the
basic issue is partially acknowledged in section 2.1, where it is
observed that "there are clearly differences between child and
adult language learning." A particularly interesting fact is that
the differences in the degree of success between two adult
acquirers can be vast, while presently available tools reveal no
similar relevant differences among children.4 The question is,
Why is this so?
From this perspective, the terms Epstein et al. use may prove
misleading. In the case of children, "language growth" is a more
appropriate term than "language learning," as Chomsky has repeatedly emphasized (cf. Cook & Newson 1996, p. 296). Our
question then becomes, Is further language growth more likely
than growth in stature for a twenty year old? As Chomsky has
noted, there are empirical consequences to the assumption that at
least some of the invariant principles remain active in adult
acquisition, whereas parameter-setting raises difficulties, because
it entails that at the steady state attained in language growth
the invariant principles of language are "wired in," and "remain distinct from language-particular properties," hence distinct
from "the acquired elements of language, which bear a greater
cost" (Chomsky 1995a, n. 23, originally written in September of
1988). As he put it a few months later (Chomsky 1989):
It seems that invariant principles of language count as "less costly" than
those that reflect particular parametric choices. Intuitively, it is as if the
invariant principles are "wired in" and therefore less costly than
language-specific properties. If this is correct, then in the steady state of
mature knowledge of language, there must still be a differentiation
between invariant principles of the biological endowment and
language-specific principles.
The great merit of the target article is that it formulates and
attempts to address some central questions in the study of nonnative language acquisition, and does so at a high level of sophistication. Even if the evidence offered in support of H2a is not as
compelling as the authors appear to believe, their contribution is
an important one and deserves to be carefully examined and
discussed. But the extremely tentative nature of the research
which can be carried out at the current state of our knowledge (or
ignorance) must be recognized. The results can be, at best,
suggestive, which is not the impression one gets in reading the
target article. It does not appear to be the case that its experimental base and its analysis of the data are already sufficiently strong,
or that the interpretations of the results are sufficiently sound and
well-supported. It is much too early for that. Most people would
agree that the field is still in its infancy. As our theoretical
understanding deepens, conclusions are likely to be quickly undermined. It comes as no surprise that recent theoretical advances
have already led to a radical reinterpretation of some results
confidently offered as evidence of adult parameter setting.
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NOTES
1. Cf. Chomsky (1988), p. 179: "Something must happen to the brain
about the time of puberty. . . . Most biological capacities have a time at
which they have to operate, and they won't operate before or after that
time." Why should the little we know about embryologieal development be
irrelevant in the case of "language growth"? This is of course what
underlies a proper understanding of the two dimensions of the Critical
Period Hypothesis, too lightly dismissed in section 2.1. (See Strozer 1994,
Ch. 7, for an alternative view; cf. Ioup et al. 1994).
Since some adult language acquisition is possible, it must be the case
that this acquisition is within the range of the human mind, a conclusion
not in conflict with faculty autonomy (contrary to the assertion in sect. 1.2)
under the assumption that child language growth and adult language
acquisition are not identical developments, which appears to be a truism
(see sect. 2.1).
2. Misleading in that Strozer's proposal of the late 1980s (developed
further in Strozer 1994) is not unlike a proposal made independently at
about the same time which goes without mention (Clahsen & Muysken
1989), but differs radically from Schachter's proposal. Furthermore, it
takes for granted that "other nonparametric grammatical options not
instantiated in the LI are available to the L2 learners," contrary to what the
target article appears to suggest. The main point of contention is whether
adult learners are capable of parameter setting, and Strozer's proposal is
consistent with the findings of the most searching and thorough investigation of the question to date, in particular, with the conclusion that the
foreign language syntax of perhaps the most closely observed learner is far
from (lawless, in sharp contrast with his "stunning" lexical ability (Smith &
Tsimpli 1995, p. 122).
3. This has repeatedly been noted. For example, Cordemoy points out
that "children learn their native language more easily than an adult can
learn a new language," as Chomsky has noted (1966, n. 114). Chomsky
himself takes a stronger stand: "we say that a child of five and a foreign
adult are on their way towards acquiring" a language; the child, "in the
normal course of events, will come to 'have'" the language, while "the
foreigner probably will not" (1992, p. 102).
There are reasons to believe that when the learner's output "appears to
approximate to that of a native speaker,... it none the less does not have
the same status" (Smith & Tsimpli 1995, p. 36; see also Sorace 1992; 1993a;
1993b). As is well known, unusually gifted individuals are no exception: the
carefully studied syntax of a linguistically gifted savant appears to be
"basically English with a range of alternative veneers" (Smith & Tsimpli
1995, p. 122); of the celebrated linguist and polyglot Roman Jakobson it
was said that he could speak Russian in many different languages.
Compare Obler and Fein (eds.) 1988 and references therein.
4. It is important to keep in mind that these are unexplained individual
differences. As Chomsky has recently emphasized once more (during the
discussion following the presentation of Chomsky 1995b), "nobody has the
slightest idea what all that's about." This followed what seems to be a rather
illuminating remark: "I'm completely incapable of learning a second
language. 1 just can't do it, partly because I'm so bored out of my mind by it
that I can't put my mind to it. But I probably can't do it." Crucially, children
do not have to put their minds to it.
Now for some facts, with a focus on
development and an explicit role for the L1
Bonnie D. Schwartz
Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Durham,
Durham DH1 3JT England, b.d.schwartz@durhatn.ac.uk
Abstract: Curiously, two central areas are unaddressed by Epstein et al.:
(i) L1A-L2A differences; (ii) L2 development. Here, findings relevant to
(i) and (ii) - as well as their significance - are discussed. Together these
form the basis for contesting Epstein et al.'s "Full Access" approach, but
nonetheless analyses of the L2 data argue for UG-constrained L2A. Also
discussed is the inadequacy of accounts (like Epstein et al.'s) without an
explicit and prominent role for the LI.
1. Facts. Most of us who argue that (adult) L2A is UGconstrained do so based on facts. Let us review some. Robust
findings in the L2A literature document word-order patterns
distinct from what the target language (TL) allows. Consider, for
example, the six facts in Table 1 below. What is the generalization
to be drawn from (l)-(6)? Word-order patterns found neither in
the TL nor during L1A of the TA occur robustly and consistently in
the course of L2A of the TL.
What do facts such as (l)-(6) have to say to the issue of "UC
access"? On their own, nothing. Differences alone between L1A
and L2A (of a given TL) say nothing about the type of knowledge
at stake (Schwartz 1990). What matters is analysis. (l)-(6) all have
UG-compatible analyses, which crucially implicate the LI syntax.
Facts such as (l)-(6) challenge Epstein et al.'s statement: "many
patterns of acquisition match for both LI and L2 acquisition,
suggesting that similar processes underlie these two types of
acquisition." Assumingthe viability of UG-constrained analyses for
(l)-(6) (space precludes summaries), matching L1-L2 acquisition
patterns are not necessary to argue for UG-constrained (adult) L2A.
But are mere "matches" even sufficient? All the "matches"
Epstein et al. cite are problematic:
(7) Morpheme-order studies (sect. 2.3): Epstein et al. argue extensively for differentiating syntactic from lexical/
morphological knowledge (sect. 3.3.1, C), saying the former alone
implicates UG.1 Thus morpheme orders are irrelevant to UG
issues (Schwartz & Sprouse, 1996 pp. 57-8, n. 17).
(8) Cook's relative-clause study (sect. 2.3): What can one infer
from L1A-L2A similarities like "low proportion of word perfect
imitations [and] . . . of correct answers to comprehension questions"? Such gross similarities "tell us nothing about the actual
content of the [knowledge] represented in the learnerfs']
mind/brain" - and in fact exemplify Epstein et al.'s charge against
others: lack of "even descriptive adequacy."2
Table 1 (Schwartz).
Adult
or Child
TL
LI
(1)
English
French
(2)
English
Turkish
(3)
French
Dutch
older
children
young
child
adults
(4)
French
English
adults
(5)
German
German
German
Romance
Turkish
Romance
adults
adult
adults
children
(6)
ok in
in L1A
Phenomenon
TL?
ofTL?
Source
VAdvO
NO
NO
White (1992b)
XV
(e.g. OV)
XV & 'V2'
(e.g. OAuxSV)
*quantifier float
(*SVtoiis('all')X)
•V3'
(e.g. AdvSV)
NO
NO
Haznedar (1995)
NO
NO
Hulk (1991)
NO
NO
Hawkins et al. (1993)
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
Meisel et al. (1981)
Schwartz & Sprouse (1994)
Meisel et al. (1981)
Pienemann (1980)
vx
(e.g. AuxVO)
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
(9) Principal Branching Direction (PBD) (Sect. 3.2.1): Higherproficiency Ll-Japanese L2ers significantly "prefer" postposed
adverbial clauses in English, similar to early English L1A. Atkinson's (1992, p. 285, n. 13) remarks on PBD in L1A are relevant:
"much of [Lusts] work is concerned with children's preferences
. . . , and is therefore more plausibly linked to processing strategies than to representational issues." If so, Flynn's PBD work in
L2A is also unrelated to UG issues.
(10) Subject control (sect. 3.2.4): Epstein et al. claim that as
early in English L1A, L2ers miscomprehend subject control,
citing d'Anglejan & Tucker (1975) and Cooper et al. (1979).
However, those sources actually show high comprehension of
subject control for all groups (French, Arabic, Hebrew) acquiring
English (mean across least-proficient, 75%; native controls, 93%).
(Moreover, L2ers" "preferences" in elicited imitation are irrelevant to UG issues; see Atkinson quoted above.)
Summarizing, Epstein et al. draw the conclusion that UG
constrains L2A from the premise of L1A-L2A similarities. However, L1A—L2A similarities are neither necessary nor sufficient for
this conclusion: first, (l)-(6) contest the premise, but analyses of
them nevertheless support UG-constrained L2A; second, data from
Epstein et al. either fall outside UG, do not address "knowledge
states," or do not represent L1A-L2A similarities - they are
therefore insufficient for deducing anything about UG's role in L2A.
2. Development. In stark contrast with VO data from Romance
speakers' early L2A of German ((6) above), Vainikka & YoungScholten's (VYS's) least-proficient Korean/Turkish subjects overwhelmingly produce OV.3 Comparable findings dissociate L l ArabicfromLl-TurkishL2AofDutch.Jansenetal.(1981)showthat
especially early on, Turks use OV heavily, whereas Arabic speakers
mostly produce VO. These asymmetries demand explanation.
Many researchers, following the lead of Lydia White, attribute
asymmetries such as these to the L2er's knowledge state, one
significantly defined by the LI grammar:
(11) Korean/Turkish are XV, determining those speakers' earliest L2 state;
(12) Romance/Arabic are VX, determining those speakers'
earliest L2 state, with later parameter REsetting to XV for German/Dutch.
By contrast, Epstein et al.'s treatment of VYS's data ignores the
LI. Indeed, Epstein et al. in general ignore important developmental asymmetries such as the above. In their zeal to support
their Full Access account, which contains no explicit role for the
LI grammar, they ignore the data most revealing in this regard and
most damaging to their position.
Why do Epstein et al. relegate LI influence to a bit part?
Perhaps it is because, like Dulay et al. (1982), Epstein et al.
misassume an "if-and-only-if" relation between (a) similarity in LI
and L2 development and (b) similarity in cognitive processes (and
hence knowledge types), as discussed in section I. 4 Perhaps it is
because Epstein et al. misassume that LI influence is inextricably
linked to behaviorism. My best guess: they fail to separate Strong
Continuity from the LI initial state. But Strong Continuity merely
maintains that all developmental states of knowledge are UGconstrained. Schwartz & Eubank (1996, p. 4) observe that "exploring the mechanisms of development of Interlanguage requires an
understanding of what a particular stage changed from - and,
taking this to its logical extension, this means coming to an
understanding of the precise form of the L2 initial state."
In short, Epstein et al. ban LI syntax from defining the L2 initial
state - and consequently end up denying (purely syntactic) development of L2 knowledge states. In fact, they fail to specify what
the L2 initial state is. Unlike many other generative L2 researchers, Epstein et al. are stuck at "access/no access"; they have
yet to see that '"access to UG' alone does not constitute an
explanation for Interlanguage development" (Schwartz & Eubank
1996, p. 3).
NOTES
1. Given this (valid) distinction, why - in Epstein et al.'s study - are 4 of
6 purported tests for INFL ((61a)-(61d)) morphological and lexical?
740
2. Indeed, almost every study Epstein et al. approvingly summarize is
subject to this charge, as is theirs. More remarkable is that much generative L2A research that does attempt to characterize L2ers' knowledge
(e.g., (l)-(5) above) is either not mentioned or (under-/mis-)cited in
passing.
3. Epstein et al.'s account of verb raising ((62c)) begs the question: why
is (the feature of) Agr only optional? At issue are (abstract) features, not
the phonetic shape of affixes.
4. Schwartz (1992) argues - assuming child L2A is UG-constrained that the critical comparison is not between L1A and L2A, but rather adult
and child L2A. Does the adult L2 developmental path mirror the L2
child's? If so, then adult L2A is UG-constrained; if not, only child L2A is.
Syntactic (naturalistic, longitudinal) data show developmental paths to be
the same.
Metalinguistic ability and primary
linguistic data
M. A. Sharwood Smith
Utrecht University, 3513 JK Utrecht, The Netherlands.
mike.s.smith@let.ruu.nl
Abstract: The role of metalinguistic ability in L2 development is seriously
underestimated. It may be seen both (1) as a means of initiating or
boosting the flow of primary linguistic data and (2) as a generator of
substitute knowledge (derived, but epistemologically distinct from
domain-specific knowledge) that may compete with or compensate for
perceived gaps in the learners current underlying competence. It cannot
serve as a simple means of distinguishing the rival theoretical positions.
I will argue that the potential contribution of metalinguistic ability
in shaping L2 development has been generally misrepresented.
Admitting an important role for metalinguistic knowledge in the
mature learner seems to confirm the fundamental difference
hypothesis (FDH). Also, the large scale deployment of metalinguistic knowledge is incompatible with the notion that second
language learners have access to UG. A closer look at the nature of
metalinguistic ability provides the FDH with more credibility than
is granted by Epstein et al. At the same time, it opens up new
possibilities for rival positions.
A characteristic of older learners is their cognitive maturity.
Depending upon their degree of literacy and linguistic training,
they have more or less explicit knowledge about what language is
and how it is structured. The irrelevance of this knowledge has
recently been reformulated in learnability terms as a claim to
ineffectiveness of negative evidence to enable learners to (re)set
parameters (Schwartz 1986; White 1990). Metalinguistic knowledge may be seen as epistemologically similar to encyclopedic
knowledge. When freely generalising on the basis of current
knowledge, it is crucial for learners to be told what is not possible.
They will maintain a false hypothesis about, say, customs in Rome
or null subject pronouns in English until they get the explicit
information that Romans do not behave the way they imagined or
that the null subject option is ungrammatical. So, L2 Spanish
learners of English can simultaneously become metalinguisticallij
aware that null subjects are unacceptable, but, in their unreflecting use of English, continue to say "
is very cold here." The
resetting of the appropriate parameter can only be triggered by
primary linguistic data (PLD) (Hilles 1986).
The "atrophied UG" positions hold that L2 grammatical knowledge cannot be created by UG. It must therefore be the kind of
knowledge that is dependent on negative evidence for the extinction of false assumptions: Spanish learners would never reset the
English parameter relating to null subjects. On correctly producing the "It is very cold" they will either be: (1) producing, Spanishstyle, what is optional in Spanish, or: (2) filling the subject gap by
applying consciously gained metaknowledge about English.
In the first case, the optional use of lexically filled subject
position will mimic exactly the usage in Spanish, following appropriate pragmatic constraints. In the second case, the use of the
metalinguistic "patch" will be sporadic, that is, assuming the
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Commentary/Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
Krashen (1985) position that the deployment of such knowledge is
highly limited in spontaneous language use, making, for example,
excessive demands on the learners attentional capacities.
Does metalinguistic knowledge play only this "poor substitute"
role in L2? Consider what is, nowadays, a highly unusual type of
acquisition. On the face of it, acquiring a language available only in
written form and without the benefit of native speakers ought to
be, for adults, a purely metacognitive affair: many foreign language learners know this type of situation. Nevertheless, there are
people on this globe who converse fluently even in Latin, enough
to provoke the question of whether it is actually possible to fully
acquire a dead language. There is, indeed, a prima-facie argument
for their being speakers of a natural language with a grammar that
conforms totally with UG and reflects just those parametersettings instantiated in the (written) input.
In order to revive Latin as an LI, one might have to have
children grow up amongst Latin-speaking adults. The children
would process the PLD through the filter provided by UG and
thereby recreate a mother tongue. Our young neo-Latinates
would then become the first new generation of native speakers.
Under one scenario, the parents would be speaking a Latin that
was learned as an L2, using the LI as a basis and adapting this
initial template (Sharwood Smith 1994) to formulate utterances in
via relexification, analogy, and so forth.
In arguing the apparently bizarre position that written PLD
might, after all, be enough to enable full acquisition, a cognitive
ability is implicated that, ironically enough, is a mainstay of NoAccess theory. Since written input is even more impoverished than
spoken data - many of the communicative props available in
speech situations are unavailable - learners are forced to adopt
metalinguistically sophisticated ways of extracting meaning. They
are, nevertheless, presented with word, sentence, and paragraph
boundaries explicitly (visually) marked as gaps on paper. They can
identify words more easily, attempt to locate them in a dictionary,
puzzle over word order, backtrack to previous sentences, and so
on. Consequently, they seem able to read with increasing speed
and efficiency until the interpretation of texts becomes spontaneous and similar to the decoding of conversational speech. At
some point, learners may start to acquire Latin, set parameters,
and do all the things that accord with the access-to-UG positions
by virtue of having PLD freed up by painstaking textual interpretation.
Now it is argued, in Epstein et al., that the alleged assumption of
learners that the architecture of L2 will be "not utterly different"
from that of LI implies that they do, after all, have access to
domain-specific knowledge. The authors see this as a serious
contradiction. But it depends on the nature of the learner's
"assumption." This may not involve direct access to domainspecific knowledge but rather to a representational redescription
of it. This is Karmiloff-Smith's (1992; see also BBS multiple book
review of Karmiloff-Smith s Beyond Modularity BBS 17(4) 1994)
view of metalinguistic knowledge. Explicit representations of
structure come about in an optional but normal LI phase that may
occur after each (subconscious, implicit) change in the developing
grammar has occurred (Karmiloff-Smith 1992). It seems at least
reasonable that, over time, it is this redescribed knowledge that
might form the basis for the general learning principles alleged to
account for all L2 learning just as it might give some learners the
ability to liberate PLD even from highly impoverished input.
In sum, the metalinguistic capacities of the L2 learner may be
seen in different ways, as a means of initiating or boosting the flow
of PLD or as a generator of substitute knowledge (derived from
prior domain-specific knowledge) that may compete with, patch,
or compensate for perceived gaps in the learner's current underlying L2 competence. So, if we grant a more substantial role to
metalinguistic ability, this does not automatically threaten FullAccess positions: it can even be incorporated usefully within them.
However, it also means that the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis itself represents a perfectly coherent position and may be seen
as a suitable rival rather than a mere straw man.
On gradience and optionality
in non-native grammars
Antonella Sorace
Department of Applied Linguistics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8
9LN, Scotland, antonella@ling.ed.ac.uk
Abstract: Epstein et al.'s "full access to Universal Grammar" position is
conceptually and empirically problematic. Its shortcomings are illustrated
through a brief discussion of the following issues: (1) initial versus final
states of grammatical knowledge in a second language, (2) knowledge of
gradience of grainmaticality, (3) optionality and retention in non-native
grammars, and (4) the empirical measurement of syntactic knowledge.
The target article has the merit of drawing attention to the
potential relevance of L2 acquisition for the investigation of
human cognition. However, the array of arguments presented by
Epstein et al. fail to convince either the L2 acquisition expert or
the general reader. Epstein et al. leave out of their discussion vast
areas of recent research that bear directly on the question of
"access to UG"; they do not seem to have taken on board any of the
criticisms that have been made of their approach; at times they do
not accurately represent the theoretical positions that they criticize. They also take as axiomatic certain assumptions that are at
best controversial.
In particular, Epstein et al. assume that if UG is accessible to L2
learners and constrains the development of non-native grammars,
there must be identity between the knowledge representations
constructed by L2 learners and the corresponding representations
in the monolingual LI speaker. L1-L2 identity becomes the only
criterion against which the naturalness of non-native grammars is
evaluated. This "identity view" is a fundamental flaw of much
literature on second language acquisition, which Epstein et al.'s
target article helps to perpetuate. They provide data (based almost
exclusively on their own studies) in support of what they term the
"full access" position, that is, that the L2 functional categories are
available to L2 learners in a continuous fashion from the early
stages of acquisition regardless of the facts of their LI. In their
view, therefore, there is identity between LI and L2 early grammars.
Leaving aside rather serious methodological problems that
undermine Epstein et al.'s study, two objections may be raised to
the identity view. The more obvious one has to do with the striking
omission of any reference to the many reports that the LI does
affect the initial stage of L2 acquisition, either absolutely (e.g.,
Schwartz & Sprouse 1994; White 1989), or partially (e.g., Eubank
1994 on underspecification of features associated with functional
heads as a case of partial transfer). Less obviously, the question of
access to UG can be addressed not only on the basis of initial
grammars, but also - perhaps more crucially - from the point of
view offinal grammars. That is, if L1-L2 identity is not found at the
level of initial grammars, it is always possible to argue that this is
because of LI influence or, as Epstein et al. would argue, because
of "production problems" (sect. 5.2) that would disappear with
increasing exposure to the L2 input. However, if identity is not
found in final state grammars after years of exposure then it is
difficult to maintain that L2 knowledge is really the sanw kind of
outcome as native knowledge. If L1-L2 identity is the only
available criterion, one might indeed be tempted to interpret
differences between native and near-native speakers as an indication that UG cannot be accessed in its entirety. But this is not an
inescapable conclusion: it has been shown (Sorace 1993a) that L2
knowledge at the near-native level may be systematically divergent
from the corresponding knowledge in native speakers and still
UG-constrained.
The target article discusses at some length Martohardjono's
very interesting study which, probably for the first time in the
field, proposes to look at degrees of acceptability as a more subtle
and revealing probe of L2 learners' grammatical knowledge than
simple discrimination between acceptable and unacceptable. In
many cases, (un)grammaticality is a matter of degree, rather than
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an either-or question, and native speakers have strong intuitions
about the relative strength of violations. This makes it possible to
redefine ultimate attainment in a second language in terms of
sensitivity to the "acceptability hierarchies" of native speakers. I
have investigated non-native intuitions about acceptability hierarchies in several domains (e.g., Sorace 1993b; 1993c; 1995) and
have found, first, that it is easier for L2 learners to acquire
sensitivity to hierarchies governed by lexical-semantic factors that
to those arising out of syntactic constraints, and second, contra
Martohardjono, that ultimate attainment is in some cases clearly
determined by the grammatical status of particular constructions
in the LI. Lack of identity between LI and L2 hierarchies, as
mentioned before, does not entail that L2 grammars are not
constrained by UG.
Epstein et al.'s treatment of this topic - like Martohardjono s considers only one possible source of gradient acceptability,
namely, the cumulative effect of how many constraints are violated. Another possible source of gradience could be the relative
inherent strength of UG principles themselves (what Epstein 1990
defines as "different types of ungrammaticality" as opposed to
"different degrees"). If one accepts this distinction, then the
empirical question for L2 acquisition is whether L2 learners can
become equally sensitive to cumulative deviance and to inherent
degrees of ungrammaticality. Preliminary evidence (Sorace
1993c) suggests that sensitivity to the relative strength of principles may be a more direct reflection of UG than sensitivity to the
number of constraints violated in derivations.
Epstein et al. criticise Vainikka & Young-Scholten for analysing
L2 development in terms of retentive stages (i.e., grammars), each
of which may contain structures generated by the previous grammars). They object that if the functional category IP were consistently absent at an early VP stage, then it should not be possible to
find any evidence for IP at that stage; similarly, if CP develops
after IP, then the CP stage should be completely free of evidence
for IP-structures. In other words, Epstein et al. endorse a view of
interlanguage development as a succession of discrete, nonoverlapping grammars that do not allow optionality. But the
existence of optionality is a well-documented fact of both native
grammars and child LI grammars (e.g., Fukui 1993; Wexler 1994):
it is disconcerting that Epstein et al. do not acknowledge this
literature at all. If optionality is both a stable and a developmental
characteristic of natural grammars, why should it be "unnatural" in
L2 learner grammars?
Optionality is indeed attested in L2 acquisition (Eubank 1994).
The difference between LI and L2 acquisition in this respect is
that optionality is mostly temporary in child grammars (children
eventually converge towards the only structure allowed by the
target language), whereas it may be permanent in adult learner
grammars. An increasing number of studies in fact suggest that
permanent optionality may be regarded as a distinctive feature of
non-native grammars (Papp 1996; Robertson et al. 1995). Again,
the only testing ground to decide whether or not optionality is
permanent is the state of knowledge represented in advanced, or
final, L2 grammars.
From a methodological point of view, Epstein et al.'s elicited
imitation is inadequate for capturing optionality or gradient acceptability in L2 learners' syntactic competence. If the aim is to
test knowledge of acceptability hierarchies, what is needed is an
elicitation technique that allows the researcher to measure acceptability judgments on an interval scale, and therefore to determine
the strength of preference that speakers have for one construction
over another. One such technique is magnitude estimation of
linguistic acceptability, a procedure borrowed from psychophysics
which may be successfully adapted to psychosociological and
other non-physical domains. Experiments with both native and
non-native speakers (see Bard et al. 1996 for details) have shown
magnitude estimation to be a robust and reliable tool for research
on grammatical competence, and a particularly revealing method
for the investigation of acceptability hierarchies in different areas
of linguistic inquiry.
742
Appreciating the poverty of the stimulus in
second language acquisition
Rex A. Sprouse
Department of Germanic Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
47405. rsprouse@indiana.edu
Abstract: The most compelling evidence for Epstein et al.'s central thesis
that adult second language acquisition is constrained by the innate
cognitive structures that constrain native language acquisition would be
evidence of poverty of the stimulus. Although there are studies that point
to such evidence, Epstein et al.'s primary form of argumentation, targetlike performance by second-language acquiring adults, is much less
convincing.
The most interesting approach to the study of adult second
language acquisition (L2A), in my opinion, involves the hypothesis
that it is constrained by the innate cognitive structures that
constrain L1A (Universal Grammar, UG). Although Epstein et al.
purport to offer support for this approach, I suggest here that they
undervalue argumentation from the poverty of the stimulus,
which is the classic argumentation for UG in child language
acquisition (see Chomsky 1986 and many others).
After several decades of extensive investigation, generative
linguists have documented a wide range of complex syntactic
properties in natural language grammars which are routinely
acquired despite overwhelming underdetermination in the
primary linguistic data available to the language acquiring
child: subject-nonsubject, complement-noncomplement, and
pronominal-nonpronominal asymmetries, restrictions on interpretation of pronouns, locality conditions on movement, interpretive effects of movement, and so on. While linguists continually
strive to refine syntactic theory, it is well established that these
poverty of the stimulus problems unequivocally point to an innate
domain-specific restriction on the grammatical hypothesis space
available to the language acquiring child. Stated perhaps crudely,
children figure out the intricacies of backward pronominalization
before they figure out how to tie their shoes. This demands an
explanation in terms of innate cognitive architecture, because the
environment alone does not provide an adequate account.
However, it is not obvious that adult L2A is characterized by the
same dual poverty of the stimulus as L1A, since adults have higher
reasoning skills unavailable to small children, and it is an empirical
question whether Interlanguage exhibits the same complex patterns of knowledge found in native adult grammars and developing child grammars. The identification of genuine poverty of the
stimulus problems in adult L2A would represent the strongest
possible demonstration that adult L2 acquisition is indeed constrained by innate mechanisms. Consider, for example, Schwartz
& Sprouses (1994) longitudinal study of the European Science
Foundation's Cevdet transcripts, in which Cevdet's TurkishGerman Interlanguage exhibited a pronominal-nonpronominal
asymmetry with postverbal subjects for a full year. This type of
asymmetry is attested in French, but in neither Turkish nor
German, which excludes both the LI and the target language as
possible explanations. Thus, a genuine poverty of the stimulus
problem attested in a native grammar is mirrored in an Interlanguage grammar. Similarly Martohardjono (1993, discussed in
the target article, sect. 3.2.2) showed that L2 learners with Lls
lacking overt syntactic movement exhibited the same sort of weakstrong distinction in movement violations in English exhibited by
native speakers of English. This is again an L2A poverty of the
stimulus, which is found in a native grammar and which can be
attributed neither to the LI nor to target language input. I
consider it irrelevant to the discussion at hand that in the first
example the relevant Interlanguage property happens not to
match the target language, while there is an Interlanguage-target
language match in the second example (see Finer & Broselow
1986).
Unfortunately, Epstein et al.'s primary form of argumentation is
not an appeal to the poverty of the stimulus in L2A, but (1) to a
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
reanalysis of Vainikka & Young-Scholten's (VYS 1994) data, in
which Epstein et al. argue for the presence of functional categories
from the earliest stages; and (2) to target-like performance by L2
acquiring adults. However, VYS is an inappropriate target for
Epstein et al.'s critique, because (their idiosyncratic and distorted
interpretation of VYS's position notwithstanding) VYS assume that
L2A is fully constrained by UG. In fact, in light of Epstein et al.'s
reluctance to consider the transfer of abstract properties of the LI
grammar at the initial stage of L2 development (sect. 5.2), it is
extremely ironic that Epstein et al. attack VYS so furiously, since
they actually represent very similar positions conceptually: minimal or no effects of transfer, but "full access" to UG.
In their discussion of their own L2A study of Japanese-English
Interlanguage (sect. 5), Epstein et al. lose sight of the fact that the
assumption of functional categories in linguists' analyses of linguistic data does not immediately mean that the operation of UG is
required to account for the ability of adults to (re-)produce
sentences with periphrastic verb forms. Here Epstein et al. make
the error of equating a theoretical construct that accounts for
many empirical phenomena with one particular subset of phenomena associated with that construct under particular theories.
This error is hardly surprising, since they have already told us that
UG is required in adult L2A in order to account for the presence of
words (sect. 2.2) and for the absence of grammatical rules containing predicates like "weighing less than 40 tons" (sect. 2.4). This
rhetoric fails to appreciate what poverty of the stimulus means for
adults, since adults have developed general problem solving skills
which could easily lead adult learners (as it has led generations of
grammarians) to such knowledge. In order to demonstrate the role
of UG in L2A one must either design experiments that probe
grammatical knowledge beyond both the LI grammar and the L2
input (as in, e.g., Martohardjono 1993) or search for evidence of
such knowledge in production data (as in, e.g., Schwartz &
Sprouse 1994). Simply showing that adults are not totally incapable of any sort of L2 performance will convince no one.
"Full access" and the history of linguistics
Margaret Thomas
Program in Linguistics, Slavic and Eastern Languages Department, Boston
College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167. thomasm@bcvms.bc.edu
Abstract: This commentary addresses two pervasive misconceptions
which emerge in Epstein et al.'s target article: (1) that study of second
language acquisition (SLA) began in the mid-twentieth century; (2) that
SLA has only recently become able to contribute to linguistic theory.
There is abundant historical counterevidence; I argue that (1) and (2)
obscure the legitimacy of Epstein et al.'s "full access" hypothesis.
My remarks are mainly addressed to what readers may consider
the least controversial portion of the target article: its first four
paragraphs. In this section, Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono
invoke two pervasive assumptions about second language acquisition (SLA) research. I believe that both are unwarranted and, in
fact, distort our view of Epstein et al.'s "full access" hypothesis,
diminishing its legitimate status. I will argue against these two
assumptions, and will suggest that we reconstruct a full access
hypothesis without them.
The first assumption is entrenched in modern study of SLA: that
the germane history of the field began sometime in the 1970s (or at
the earliest, 1940s). Epstein et al. do not spell this out, but it is
implicit in their statement that "until recently [SLA] was not well
understood . . . because traditional approaches to the study of L2
learning were inextricably linked to language pedagogy alone"
(Introduction). A second conventional assumption is that SLA is
only now developing to the point where it can command the
interest of theoretical linguistics. This belief hovers under the
surface of Epstein et al.'s text: "Traditionally, . . . language scientists have paid little attention to the issues surrounding L2 acquisi-
tion" (Introduction). Together, these two assumptions instill a selfconcept of SLA as an adolescent field just starting to talk back to a
parent discipline. I do not doubt that modern SLA research has
new things to say about L2 acquisition, and that it can contribute to
linguistic theory. What I doubt is that these activities are without
relevant precedent. I offer here two sketches illustrating the real
(long, rich) history of SLA studies, and the complex interactions of
that history with linguistic theory.
(1) Roman bilingual education (ca. 50 BCE) was probably the
first widespread experience of SLA within western culture. Aristocrats' children were exposed to Latin and Greek at home, then
acquired literacy and metalinguistic skills in the two languages
simultaneously at school, a system which fostered Roman commitment to the equivalence of LI and L2 knowledge (Thomas, in
preparation). Eventually, the concept that LI and L2 learning
were essentially identical outlived its supporting social circumstances. The Roman bilingual ideal eroded so that few children
entered school knowing Greek, but schools continued to teach
Latin and Greek literacy in tandem. From this era (ca. 350 CE) we
have Augustine's famous reflections on learning LI Latin and L2
Greek (Confessions, 1.8; 14). Augustine attributed his native
fluency in Latin and lastingly mediocre Greek to the different
circumstances of his exposure, home versus classroom. There is no
evidence that (in modern terms) he considered LI and L2 knowledge as other than "epistemologically equivalent" (Schwartz
1986). Although this scandalized Wittgenstein (1953), for Augustine LI and L2 acquisition were not fundamentally different; in
this sense he assumed a fourth-century version of the full access
hypothesis.
(2) In thirteenth-century Paris, the Modistae (speculative grammarians) developed proposals about the necessary properties of
language, a draft of "universal grammar." They based their work
not on cross-linguistic observations, but on arguments which
assumed an isomorphism between grammar and logic. Insofar as
they used data, they used Latin data - and Latin was their L2. The
Modistae held an implicit version of the full access hypothesis,
because they invested their knowledge of L2 with the status of
knowledge of an ideal human language. Furthermore, the terminology the Modistae used to analyze language was appropriated
from the L2 grammatical tradition (Thomas 1995). Thus, the first
articulations of universal grammar in the west were shaped by L2
data, and expressed in terms borrowed from the experience of
SLA. It is not the case that twentieth-century study of SLA has just
now achieved the maturity to address linguistic theory. Rather,
reflection on L2 knowledge (at least in part) gave birth to linguistic
theory.
Several concessions are in order. The first is obvious: generative
theories of SLA (e.g., full access) cannot predate generative
theory. But when did generative theory start? Chomsky (1966)
locates his intellectual ancestors in the seventeenth century, while
others (inter alios, Breva-Claramonte 1977) have argued that
generative theory has a considerably longer past. A second concession is related: if we can speak of (e.g.) an Augustinian full access
hypothesis, it resembles Epstein et al.'s full access only after
abstracting away from many details. But I would argue that
current SLA research suffers because, through the virtually unexamined conviction that a Kuhnian (1962) paradigm shift separates
itself from its own past, no one tries to define where that resemblance fails and where it may hold. As a result, the field frets its
(self-imposed) isolation (Gass 1993). Third, it could be said that a
drive to understand the process of how L2s are acquired may
distinguish modern discussion of SLA. But despite liberal use of
the word "process" in Epstein et al.'s first four paragraphs, notice
that their three hypotheses focus more on what resources are at
the disposal of L2 learners than on the mechanisms (processes) by
which learners move through successive states of knowledge of
L2. Earlier conceptualizations of SLA paid little attention to
mechanisms; but that work may be ahead of the present cutting
edge of the field as well.
Finally, it should be clear that fourth- or thirteenth-century
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Commentary /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
linguistic-historiographical evidence does not have the same role
within SLA research as the arguments for full access of the kind
that Epstein et al. present. To understand the history of something
is not necessarily to understand its nature. But it behooves us to
consider full access from every angle: empirical, because it finds
support in the research represented in this target article and its
commentaries; logical, because it may preempt the position of null
hypothesis (Schwartz 1986); and historical, because it is not a late
twentieth-century invention. Its core insight goes back to the
beginning of intellectual curiosity about SLA, and in fact, western
linguistics owes much to its inception.
these verbs, even though the Spanish counterparts of these verbs
do not take infinitives (I simplify slightly). The question, however,
is: Why do they? Or putting the matter differently: What is it about
English and Spanish clauses containing these verbs that UG
comes to rescue? Whatever the answer, it must relate to the
grammatical factors that prevent these two verbs in Spanish from
appearing with an embedded infinitive.
Obviously, much knowledge needs to be gained about matters
like this, and it would help to have some answers at our disposal for
the theory of L2. However, there is no doubt that Epstein et al.'s
article is a step in the right direction.
Towards characterizing what
the L2 learner knows
Partial transfer, not partial access
Anne Vainikka3 and Martha Young-Scholtenb
Bilingual ESL Program/Hispanic Studies, University of Massachusetts,
Boston, MA 02125. torrego@umbsky.cc.umb.edu
"Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6228; "Department of Linguistics and English
Language, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3JT, United Kingdom.
vainikka@linc.cis.upenn.edu; martha.young-scholten@durham.ac.uk
Abstract: This target article is mostly a presentation of experimental
research devoted to the larger issue of the role of Universal Grammar in
second language learning. Deliberately excluding the aspects of human
cognition that makes second language (L2) so variant, Epstein et al. focus
on what the learners may know and how they come to know it. This is the
aspect of Epstein et al.'s work which is more limiting, and potentially more
interesting.
Abstract: Our results support the idea that adults have access to the
principles and parameters of Universal Grammar (UG), contrary to
Epstein et al.'s misrepresentation of our work as involvingptirtial access to
UG. For both LI and L2 acquisition, functional projections appear
to develop in a gradual fashion, but in L2 acquisition there is partial
transfer in that the lowest projection (VP) is transferred from the speaker's
LI.
Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono present an overview of what
they believe are the three main theoretical trends of the emerging
and increasingly important area of research on second language
(L2) acquisition, arguing for one of them. Their view is that
research in L2 is guided by one of the following approaches: (1) no
aspect of UG is available to the language learner; (2) a partial
aspect of UG is available, and (3) L2 is constrained entirely by UG.
They advocate (3).
While their critique of the first two approaches offers some
illuminating points, the main subject of their target article is the
specific pieces of research they have done in support of (3). In
most of the paper, the substantive question they raise is: What
exactly does (can) the L2 learner know, and how does the L2
learner come to know it? It would seem difficult to do justice to
alternatives that do not address the questions that Epstein et al.
address. The most compelling part of their work, however, is
precisely their attempt to offer an explicit characterization of the
linguistic knowledge of L2 learners, and how they acquire it.
The role of invariance of linguistic knowledge in L2 learners is
likely to be secondary to that of the language teacher. What is
more, as with all research concerning language, the question of
invariance in L2 learners seems indispensable to the whole enterprise. Nothing of this, of course, eliminates the many murky issues
attending answers about the acquisition of L2 grammars; and for
the most part, the aspects of human cognition that make foreign
language learning so hard are not addressed in this target article.
But ignorance in these matters should not impede investigation of
what exactly the L2 learner does or can know, and how the L2
learner comes to know it.
This is not to say that the more specific empirical work Epstein
et al. present is without theoretical reverberation. For example,
their approach to the Head parameter seems straightforward, but
it is not without commitment to empirical consequences. What
would happen if, rather than by the directionality parameters of
Head-complement relations, the surface ordering of elements
were to be determined by structural hierarchy, along the lines of
Kayne's (1994) proposal, or Chomsky's (1995) revision of it, or
some other version? Some of the consequences may remain, and
some others may not. Let us take another concrete example, this
time having to do with Spanish. Epstein et al. report that Spanish
speakers learning English, when confronted with verbs such as
"remind" and "tell," invariably choose the infinitival structures for
Because our findings support Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono's position regarding full access to Universal Grammar (UG),
we are dismayed by their misapprehension of our research methodology, which seems to have led to misinterpretation of our
results, reflected most strikingly in their misrepresentation of
our approach as one involved partial access to UG (Introduction,
para. 8).
Our study re-examines Clahsen and Muysken's (1986) claim
that adult L2 acquisition (L2A) of German phase structure is
fundamentally different from acquisition by German children, a
claim partly based on the production data from the ZISA and von
Stutterheim corpuses which we also used. Because their data were
collected largely through interviews of non-instructed learners, we
followed similar procedures, adding several elicitation tasks designed to reduce ellipsis, which interviewing promotes (full details
appear in Vainikka & Young-Scholten 1994; 1996b). We were
successful in eliciting the data required for our purposes: a full
range of subject, verb, and object types.
Our results led us to propose that only lexical categories such as
VP are present at the earliest stages of L2A - similar to Radford's
(1990) proposal for LI acquisition. LI learners serve as a "control
group" for UG-based research in L2 acquisition, given children's
presumed full access to UG. Identifying commonalities between
LI and L2 acquisition while controlling for possible influence of
the L2 learners mother tongue enables the researcher to explore
the issue of adult access to UG. We chose spontaneous and elicited
production data to allow a direct comparison with related work on
the early LI acquisition of phrase structure, which is exclusively
based on production data. Among our results is the intriguing
finding that both children and adults produce nontarget "root
infinitives" (Wexler 1994) in early-stage German.
Along with Radford and several other L1A researchers, including Clahsen et al. (1994) on German and Wijnen (1994) on Dutch,
we adopt for L1A a non-maturationist, weak continuity approach
under which functional projections gradually emerge. While the
child has access to all principles and parameters of UG from the
start, much syntactic structure is initially absent; functional projections develop through the interaction of the input language with
UG parameters (in contrast to the approach adopted by Epstein et
al. for L1A, where the entirety of adult syntactic structure is
assumed to exist from the outset of development). The relevant
stages are summarized in Table 1.
Esther Torrego
744
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Coimnentary/Epstein
Table 1 (Vainikka & Young-Scholten). Stages in LI (Clahsen
1991) and L2 development of German.
PROJECTION
German children
Korean adults
Turkish adults
Italian adults
Spanish adults
VP
[initial]
I-i
I-i
VP
[final]
-ii
-ii
FP
[initial]
AGRP
[initial]
II
II
II
II
II
III
III
III
III
III
While both LI and L2 learners start at the VP-stage, evidence of
transfer exists in that headedness of the VP is initially transferred
from the L2 learner's mother tongue, to later flip if necessary. This
transfer is only partial; at subsequent non-final stages, both children and adults in all four language groups posit head-initial
functional projections, although the AgrP in German is head-final,
and functional projections are head-final in Korean and Turkish.
Clearly children and adults have something in common here: their
access to X'-Theory.
The rich morphology and instances of obligatory syntactic
movement in German provide a window on the relationship
between morphological and syntactic development. Similar to
what Epstein et al. note regarding Dulay and Burt's L2A findings
(sect. 2.3, para. 6), we propose that the acquisition patterns for
functional morphemes such as the German agreement suffixes
displayed by L2 learners do not derive from their LI knowledge.
Regardless of the parallelisms, it is clear that the LI and L2
acquisition processes are not identical. One of the observed
differences is that adults, even at more advanced stages, often
produce sentences reflecting earlier stages. This phenomenon is
also observable in L1A, but it is our impression that children
"shed" earlier grammars more quickly than adults do. One characterization of L1-L2 differences concerns the difference in possible
triggers for syntactic structure, explored in Vainikka and YoungScholten (1995). Such a morphosyntactic difference could potentially be tied to the notion of a sensitive period for language
development.
Epstein et al. might disapprove of our stage-based analyses (cf.
sect. 3.3.6), but their alternative analysis - consisting chiefly of the
elusive notion of "performance" - fails to account for the parallel
development in the LI and L2 acquisition of phrase structure. All
research attempting to define stages of syntactic development in
the fields of language acquisition and language change faces the
challenge of non-instantaneous changes; in historical linguistics,
this problem has been solved by adopting the notion of simultaneously present, competing grammars (Santorini 1993). Thus
stages are necessarily idealizations.
A further misunderstanding concerns the status of certain
syntactic phenomena with respect to UG. In particular, contrary to
Epstein et al. s claim, we propose no syntactic principles specific to
L2A (sect. 3.4.5, para. 8). The Full House Principle, which
requires that syntactic positions be filled, is a general one, operative in L1A, L2A, and adult syntax. While the discussion of this
principle in the syntactic literature has been preliminary, it has
recently been developed and utilized in Speas's (1994) work on
null subjects. Several of the consequences of our syntactic assumptions are addressed in Vainikka and Young-Scholten (1996a).
Whatever the ultimate conclusion may be regarding the syntactic structure young children possess when they only produce
utterances without finite verbs and other functional elements, our
L2 data show that adults behave in much the same manner as
young children and thus can be said to have full access to whatever
principles and parameters of UG are involved in the development
of phrase structure. In raising new questions - to which none of us
et al.: Second language acquisition
have all the answers - our research suggests that we have not yet
arrived at the final explanation for second language acquisition.
UG, the L1, and questions of evidence
Lydia White
Department of Linguistics, McGill University, Montreal, Oue. H3A 1G5,
Canada. lwhite@langs.lan.mcgill.ca
Abstract: Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono's presentation of the principal approaches to UG access in L2 acquisition is misleading; they have
neglected the possibility that the LI grammar forms the learner's initial
representation of the L2, with subsequent modifications constrained by
UG. Furthermore, their experimental data are open to several interpretations and are consistent with a number of different positions in the field.
One cannot consider the issue of UG access in L2 acquisition in
isolation from a theory of the L2 learner's mental representation of
grammar. For many years, a central claim has been that the LI (in
whole or in part) serves as the L2 learners initial representation of
the L2. This claim has been made for a number of properties of
grammar, including parameters (White 1985b; 1991), null arguments (Martohardjono & Gair 1993; White 1992c), headedness of
functional or lexical categories (Eubank 1993/1994; Vainikka &
Young-Scholten 1994), and the total grammar (Schwartz &
Sprouse 1994). In all cases, associated "deep" consequences of the
LI grammar, such as clustering of parametric properties, are
argued to be present. This is not a "no access" or "partial access"
position, since UG is assumed not to be restricted to an LI
instantiation (White 1989, p. 50).
Proponents of this position assume (as do Epstein et al.) that
UG does not essentially change as a result of LI acquisition and
remains available in nonprimary acquisition. In response to properties of the L2 input that reveal the inadequacy of the LI
grammar, the learner has recourse to UG options, for example,
new parameter settings (Hilles 1986; Hirakawa 1990; Schwartz &
Sprouse 1994; Thomas 1991b; White 1985b). These new settings
will not necessarily be appropriate for the L2 (Finer & Broselow
1986) and there are circumstances where the relevant L2 properties will be unattainable (Schwartz & Gubala-Ryzack 1992; White
1989); thus, identical outcomes in LI and L2 acquisition are not
predicted.
In their overview of the UG access debate, Epstein et al. neglect
the possibility that both the LI and UG are centrally involved.
Their presentation of the role of the LI is naive and simplistic.
They imply that transfer necessarily involves only superficial
properties. They effectively allow for only two possibilities; either
the LI is the sole source of access to UG-specified knowledge
(their "no access" and "partial access" positions) or L2 learners
have direct access to UG alone ("full access").
In fact, Epstein et al.'s position on the role of the LI is
inconsistent. They attribute some influence to the LI, although its
precise status is unclear. While denying that the LI constitutes the
L2 learners initial state, they nevertheless speak of the need to
assign new parametric values when LI and L2 differ (sect. 3.2.1).
But if the L2 learner does not use the LI representation as a
starting point, the issue of match or mismatch between LI and L2
does notarise. If L2 learners start from UG, all parameter settings
are new settings; thus there should be no difference between cases
where LI and L2 settings coincide and cases where they differ.
The various hypotheses on access to UG differ in the predictions they make regarding the L2 initial state, developmental
changes and final outcome. Given the approach advocated by
Epstein et al. (i.e., UG and a minimal role for LI, the onus is on
them to show that there are L2 data which could not be accounted
for on the basis of LI knowledge alone, or on the basis of the LI as
the initial representation with subsequent UG-constrained restructuring. It is not as simple as demonstrating absence of
transfer effects or presence of functional categories.
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Response /Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
The results of Epstein et al. s experiment (sect. 5.2) are consistent with any position on UG access. The results fail to distinguish
between hypotheses that assume a role for the LI versus those that
do not because subjects had the same LI and because results could
be attributed to that LI, if Japanese has functional categories.
(Indeed, the uncertain status of functional categories in Japanese
makes it a poor choice of LI.) The results also fail to distinguish
between weak and strong continuity (which are not, contra Epstein et al., synonymous with partial and full access) because the
learners were not beginners. The problem is that similarities in the
performance of learners at a particular point are consistent both
with earlier differences and with earlier similarities. The presence
of functional categories at one stage is no guarantee of their
presence at an earlier stage. Lack of evidence for transfer at some
point does not preclude an Ll-based representation at an earlier
stage. This is not to say that there are no published data that can
help to distinguish between the various approaches to UG access,
but those data are not to be found in Epstein et al.'s work.
Authors' Response
Universal Grammar and second language
acquisition: The null hypothesis
Samuel David Epstein,a Suzanne Flynn,b and Gita
Martohardjono0
"Department of Linguistics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.
epstein@fas.harvard.edu; "Department of Foreign Languages and
Literatures, Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139. sflynn@mit.edu; cDepartment of
Linguistics, Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of
New York, Flushing, NY 11367. qmaqcaqcuni@.acc.qc.edu
Abstract: The target article advanced the null, unified and widely
misinterpreted generative hypothesis regarding second language
(L2) acquisition. Postulating that UG (Universal Grammar) constrains L2 knowledge growth does not entail identical developmental trajectories for L2 and first language (LI) acquisition; nor
does it preclude a role for the LI. In embracing this hypothesis, we
maintain a distinction between competence and performance.
Those who conflate the two repeat fundamental and by no means
unprecedented misconstruals of the generative enterprise, and
more specifically, of the empirical content of the null hypothesis
regarding L2 linguistic knowledge growth. We hope to have
identified certain common goals, the adoption of which might
constitute a firm foundation for continued productive interdisciplinary development of contemporary theoretical and experimental L2 acquisition research.
To the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the
same causes.
Isaac Newton, as quoted by L. K. Nash. In: Nature of the Natural
Sciences (1963, p. 183)
R1. Introduction
The objective of the target article was to present both
conceptual arguments and empirical evidence for a simple
yet compelling idea: that the independent cognitive module
(UG) that constrains first language (LI) acquisition similarly constrains second language (L2) acquisition. We
746
called this the "Full Access Hypothesis" (FAH). The simplicity of the FAH can be misleading, because it is also the
strongest position among those positing a language-specific
cognitive function; it is, as pointed out by Ton-ego and
Kanno, the null hypothesis.
The commentaries about this null hypothesis can be
classified into four groups. The first group identified innovative applications of the FAH to domains of linguistic
research that we had not originally considered (see e.g., M.
Hales comments on historical linguistics and DeGraff s
regarding pidgins and Creoles). A second group viewed the
underlying assumptions of the FAH (namely, that there
exists, by hypothesis, a language-specific module) as untenable, and proposed alternative accounts of language acquisition not appealing to UG (see e.g., MacWhinney and
O'Grady). Members of this as well as other groups appealed, to one extent or another, to notions such as "higher
reasoning skills," "general cognitive ability," "learning," and
"intelligence" (see e.g., Bickerton, Clahsen & Muysken,
Grewendorf, Sharwood Smith, and Sprouse). A majority of commentators, constituting the third group, viewed
the FAH skeptically, willing to accord LI - but not L2 acquisition full access to UG (see e.g., Liceras and Otero).
Finally, a fourth group consisted of L2 researchers who
themselves adopt the FAH, but believe that, in certain
respects, we did not present an entirely accurate characterization of its role in the target article (e.g., Eubank,
Schwartz, and White). Because we have little to say
regarding the commentaries of the first two groups, we will
principally address the comments of the last two. In the
process, several important theoretical and experimental
issues concerning the domain of contemporary generative
L2 acquisition research will emerge.
Given that generative L2 inquiry is, as aptly stated by
Otero, "in its infancy," (cf. Thomas) the appearance of the
controversies articulated in the target article and the commentaries is hardly surprising and is, in our view, a desirable
outcome of this entire project. A principal objective of the
target article was to present these issues in an open forum
that would invite productive interdisciplinary discussion.
We are indebted to each of the commentators for their time
and effort in expressing their thoughtful views. In the
following, we will address what we believe to be the central
issues they raised.
R2. The scope of the target article
Because it is not possible to provide a comprehensive
analysis of all contemporary L2 acquisition research in one
article, we carefully investigated some of the most explicit
proposals in the field whose claims diverge significantly
from the null hypothesis (as stated in sect. 1 above). We
examined the conceptual and methodological underpinnings of these proposals, as well as some of their unnoted
empirical consequences. We chose Vainikka & YoungScholten's (VYS s) analysis as a case study of the partial
access hypothesis because it is one of the most syntactically
explicit hypotheses for which empirical support has been
adduced.1
Because the target article was to be an introduction to
contemporary research in generative L2 acquisition rendered comprehensible to our colleagues in other areas of
cognitive science (as evidenced, e.g., by the appearance of
our Appendix), we chose accessibility to UG as one central
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theme. We agree with Schwartz and White, who note that
some research in generative L2 acquisition has progressed
"beyond" the question of UG accessibility to an investigation of the nature of the initial state in L2 acquisition. As
indicated by the commentaries we received, however, the
issue of accessibility is (as also perceived by Otero and by
Freidin) certainly far from resolved, and thus warrants
considerable further discussion. We will address the relationship between the FAH and the L2 initial state in section 5.
R2.1. A note on empirical inquiry. We take UG accessibility
in L2 acquisition to be an entirely empirical issue. Hence
there are no "proofs." Instead, there are data (ranging from
controlled experimental results to observations of naturalistic speech) that are interpreted according to a theory in
which we have some confidence. Specifically with respect
to linguistic inquiry, there are, on the one hand, hypotheses
about (idealized) knowledge-states, and, on the other hand,
experiments in which behavior is recorded and interpreted
by the experimenter as indicative of a hypothesized
knowledge-state.
Many commentaries might be read as either directly
expressing the belief or directly implying that, for example,
there exist exactly nine questions constituting "the real
issues" (see the last paragraph of Borer), or that generative
linguistic research is deductive, reveals "facts" or "truisms,"
while providing "proofs," "solutions," or absolute certainties (e.g., see Bickerton, Clahsen & Muysken, Gregg,
Grewendorf, Lieberman, MacWhinney, Newmeyer,
Schwartz, and Vainikka & Young-Scholten). It is important to remember, however, that in empirical inquiry, all
such terms are merely abbreviatory conventions. One can
find the evidence we adduce for our hypothesis more or less
persuasive, but to provide "facts" and "proofs" was certainly
not our goal, and is indeed antithetical to our fundamental
methodological assumptions. Needless to say, "what is observed is often neither relevant nor significant, and what is
relevant and significant is often very difficult to observe, in
linguistics no less than in the freshman physics laboratory,
or, for that matter, anywhere in science."2 We should also
note here that we would not evaluate the adequacy of any
empirical hypothesis (advanced in any field) on the basis of
any one or a combination of the following criteria - even if
statistical support were provided: (1) its representation in
textbooks (MacWhinney); (2) the number of university
campuses hosting proponents (Lieberman); (3) whether a
majority of researchers subscribe to it (O'Grady); (4)
whether it enjoys a consensus (Archibald et al.); (5)
whether it is taught in beginning syntax classes (BleyVroman); or (6) whether "most current scholars" endorse it
(Borer).
We began with the FAH as an empirical question, on a
par with certain other competing hypotheses in the field. In
this context, we sought to provide explicit examples of
extant arguments and experimental results that could be
interpreted (or reinterpreted) as providing some evidence
supporting the null hypotheses, namely that the language
faculty constrains the hypothesis space in all human natural
language acquisition processes.
R3. Distinguishing knowledge from
its development
One of the recurring critiques of the FAH is that it fails to
explain L2 development (e.g., Borer, Carroll, Gregg,
Grewendorf, Schwartz). In L2 generative acquisition
research, as in associated LI acquisition research, there are
at least three major areas to investigate: (1) knowledgestates, (2) development of the knowledge-states, and (3) use
of knowledge of language.3 We assume that these three
domains must be separated but that they are nonetheless
intimately related. Before one can investigate the development or use of a given knowledge-state, it is crucial that the
knowledge-state in question be at least partially specified.
Therefore, before one can address the questions of: (i) how
the L2 learner develops this knowledge-state X, and (ii)
how the L2 learner uses this knowledge-state, the
knowledge-state (or the relevant aspect of it) must itself, be
specified. That is to say, although an appropriately circumscribed theory of humanly attainable linguistic or syntactic
competence (the knowledge-state) underlies theories of
development and use, it is not itself a theory of these
phenomena. No theory of humanly attainable linguistic
knowledge-states seeks (in isolation) to explain use and
development, nor should it.
Several commentators seem to regard the explanation of
development as one (if not the most) important aspect of a
theory of L2 acquisition, interpreting the FAH's inability to
explain development as an inherent and fatal flaw (see, e.g.,
Clahsen & Muysken's discussion which, like Borers,
purports to define the "real and fundamental"). Insofar as
the FAH only claims that L2 learners' grammars are constrained by UG principles and parameters, it says little, by
itself, about development or the course of acquisition. This
is because it is a hypothesis about attainable L2 learner
knowledge-states, that is, what the L2 learner can come to
know, and not a hypothesis about how language acquisition
proceeds (development) or about how language is used
(performance). This fundamental distinction, described by
Carroll as the difference between the "representational"
and the "developmental," is critical in understanding exactly what the FAH purports to explain.
Under the FAH, development would be accounted for
by, at least, the interaction of a theory of attainable
knowledge-states with a theory of linguistically significant
environmental stimuli (triggers) plus learnability theory
(development) and a theory of processing (use). This, by the
way, means that the FAH allows for the postulation of a UGconsistent L2 interlanguage grammar (ILG) that is identical neither to the LI nor to the L2, contra Whites interpretation. Given certain contemporary formulations
(which, of course, may well be incorrect), many of the
"decisions" the learner makes depend on the acquisition of
morphological features of lexical entries (e.g., is the [C°
+WH] in the L2 marked + or - strong?). It is critical
therefore that the learner have the right environmental
input and the ability to analyze it as a "triggering experience."4 These processes will indeed be time-sensitive and
data-dependent. A serious attempt must be made therefore
to link (or construct) principled theories of attainable
human linguistic knowledge-states, learnability, and parsing, and their significant points of interaction. The empirical burden placed on development will be characterized
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differently by different formulations of the relative contributions of these interacting empirical hypotheses.
R3.1. The FAH and the steady-state. An assumption several
commentators seem to make is that UG accessibility entails
reaching the target L2 steady-state. Is this so? Looking back
at the intergrammar models outlined in the target article, it
seems to us that UG accessibility entails only the following:
at no stage should the L2 learners knowledge-state violate
any principle(s) of UG. We note here that knowledge-state
(competence) should not be confused or conflated with, for
example, "utterances" or observed behavior. The question
of whether the L2 learner (and this holds for the LI learner
as well) reaches the target steady-state is not determined by
UG alone, but also by (at least) certain performance factors
(e.g., see Goodluck & Tavakolian 1982), learnability (the
hypothesis selection procedure), and environmental factors, that is, triggers in the input (see Gibson & Wexler
1994, and Lightfoot 1989 for recent discussions). To take
but one illustrative example, it is possible that input is not
processed linguistically (e.g., syntactic parsing) or nonlinguistically (e.g., developing cochlear function) in the
same way by children and adults. This could, in principle,
mean that the triggers (environmental factors) necessary to
"incite" the adult L2 learners hypothesis selection procedure to adopt a new knowledge-state are, in effect, missing.
All such possibilities are to be experimentally determined
by testing articulated learnability and performance theories
in interaction with UG, and if correct, the FAH. But
nothing posited within the theory of UG ensures the
attainment of the steady-state (even in the case of LI
acquisition), contrary to the perspective adopted by numerous commentators. Notice, however, that even if such
attainment were, in fact, an entailment of UG accessibility,
and therefore of the FAH, we would still need to investigate
the relationship between the attainment of the steady-state
and the attainment of full "proficiency" (see below).
R3.1.1. The necessity of specifying the hypothesis space.
The charge that the FAH fails as an explanation of L2
acquisition is perhaps most clearly exemplified in Gregg's
commentary (but see also Li), which seems to express
dissatisfaction at how little the FAH elucidates L2 acquisition. He writes that the FAH, as we articulate it, leaves
"untouched a raft of questions." This is certainly true; in
fact, an infinite number of questions is left untouched, as is
typical of circumscribed empirical inquiry in any field. For
example, Gregg points to the FAH's inability to guarantee
success in attaining the target grammar, noting that "restricting the hypothesis space restricts the learner's choices;
it does not guarantee that the choice will be correct. A
theory of L2 knowledge is distinct from a theory of L2
acquisition." Again, we concur, though we do not see this as
a shortcoming, but as a necessary distinction between
specifying the hypothesis space and specifying the hypothesis selection procedure(s).
If "theory of L2 acquisition" means a theory of how
knowledge of the L2 develops, the FAH itself is indeed not
sufficient, nor is it intended to be. It is formulated in such a
way, however, that, in concert with interacting theories of
(at least) processing and learnability, it can contribute
directly to explanations of what it is that develops; arguably,
the articulation of such explanations is methodologically
prior to questions about how it develops. Only if we first
construct explicit, formal empirical hypotheses about what
748
is acquired can we proceed to build models specifying how
this acquisition takes place.
The FAH is quite deliberate in distinguishing the target
of L2 acquisition from the process: it argues on conceptual
and methodological grounds against what Carroll calls the
collapse of the explanans and explanandum. Therefore, one
purpose of the target article was not, as Gregg and Sharwood Smith assert, to argue against a straw-man version of
the no-access position but rather to reveal the serious and
often unrecognized pitfalls of failing to separate distinct
theoretical constructs as illustrated in our detailed examination of the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis. The FAH,
as we construe it, rightly presumes that knowledge is
distinct from, but intimately related to, development and
use. This is, we believe, a necessary distinction, not different from the one maintained by generativists investigating
LI acquisition, or by cognitive scientists in general. In our
view, many of the objections raised by the commentators
stem from a failure to make this crucial distinction.
As correctly noted by, for example, Harrington, the
target article was not an attempt to present a "complete"
theory of L2, or of L2 development. Rather, we suggested
that the productivity of such theorizing is greatly enhanced
if we first make explicit our assumptions about what constitutes competence, performance, and development in L2
acquisition.
R4. Competence versus performance
The issues surrounding the competence/performance distinction are complex; they cut across a number of different
classes of commentaries as well as distinct but related
interdisciplinary areas of inquiry. One major misconception
in the commentaries related directly to the competence/performance distinction is that, by virtue of our
adopting the FAH, we were committed to the prediction
that LI and L2 acquisition are absolutely identical processes yielding identical products. However, the FAH itself
entails neither the prediction of developmental identity nor
of native-like "proficiency" (performance). We consider
this misconception about the predictive content of the FAH
to be one of the most prevalent detrimental misinferences
made in generative L2 acquisition research. We suspect
that this apparent confusion stems from a failure to maintain the crucial distinction between competence and performance. Indeed, one purpose of the target article is to
clarify precisely this point.
Another prevalent objection to the FAH consists of the
pervasive, but in many cases anecdotal, claim that L2
learners, unlike LI learners, often fail to achieve nativelike
proficiency (e.g., Borer, Grewendorf, Lieberman, Newmeyer). Statements to this effect range from Newmeyers
linguistically inexplicit pronouncement that adult L2 learning ends "in abject failure," to Gregg's equally inexplicit
assertion regarding the alleged "virtually universal failure of
adults to acquire an L2," to the entirely curious questions
concerning the FAH posed by Lieberman: "why can't we all
effortlessly 'acquire' Tibetan in six months or so? . . . Why
can't we all learn to speak Tibetan with native proficiency?"
It is, in our view and that of others, far from experimentally
established that even full proficiency never occurs. As
pointed out by Sharwood Smith, adult proficiency in more
than one language is not that uncommon in multilingual
settings (see also Bialystok & Hakuta 1994; Cook 1995;
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Flynn & Manuel 1994; Wode 1991). However, even if it were
the exception for L2 learners to achieve full L2 proficiency,
would this refute the FAH? Many commentators seem to
think so, although we suspect that this too is based on a
mistaken conflation of the steady knowledge-state (competence) and proficiency (performance). Although it is true
that we would not expect full proficiency without full
grammatical competence, the converse does not necessarily
hold (see Li 1995 and Martohardjono & Flynn 1995, among
others). Just as in LI acquisition (see, e.g., Crain 1991), it is
not at all clear that the failure to observe nativelike proficiency entails the absence of full syntactic component
competence or even full general competence.
Furthermore, the question of what constitutes "nativelike proficiency" is, we believe, fraught with a lack of clarity.
Controlled LI experimental studies are required to determine as precisely as possible the nature of "nativelike
proficiency." Moreover, once "nativelike" is (provisionally)
determined, it is not self-evident just how "nativelike" L2
learners' performance must be to legitimately suggest competence. 5 There is, first of all, the experimental difficulty of
deciding what constitutes sufficient behavioral evidence for
the principled postulation of underlying knowledge states.
All behavior observed in experimental tasks is necessarily
influenced by numerous performance factors (see Martohardjono, in press). Before we conclude or simply assert
that L2 performance that diverges from "nativelike" standards is the result of competence deficit(s) (see Grewendorf), we must first investigate whether differences in
native and non-native performance might not be traceable
to a host of possible performance or processing factors, a
result consistent with the null hypothesis: the FAH. Experiments examining differences between LI and L2 processing (Fernandez 1995; Flynn 1995) suggest that this might
well be a fruitful line of inquiry. As in the natural sciences,
we need to devise more sensitive methods, in the case at
hand, diagnostics that can more reliably assess the formal
properties of L2 intergrammars. This is the problem Martohardjono (1993) attempts to address in her studies investigating knowledge of gradience in grammaticality and
systematiciry in L2 intergrammars, as described in the
target article. Sorace's (1993) research on near-native
grammaticality judgments is also directly relevant in this
regard.
At this point it seems necessary to specify some of the
ways we think the FAH might, in principle, interact with an
articulated theory of performance. Minimally, such a theory
would specify how knowledge is accessed in real-time
production and comprehension (behavior). We can posit a
model parallel to the ones in Figures 2-4 of the target
article depicting the course of the development of proficiency, proceeding from an explicit specification of an initial
state of no proficiency in the L2, through intermediate
stages, to perhaps full proficiency. Notice that although the
two models, one of competence the other of performance,
are parallel, it is nonetheless necessary to specify how
developing competence and developing performance are
temporally linked (bridge theories). Thus, if a learner is in
intergrammar knowledge-state n, this does not ipso facto
entail his being at any particular stage in his proficiency in
using the intergrammar n. Rather, this is an interesting and
important empirical question yet to be thoroughly investigated.
L2 acquisition theory has long suggested that the use of
the target language is even influenced by nonlinguistic
factors such as motivation, or competing cognitive structures (cf. Felix 1984). It is therefore entirely possible and
completely consistent with the FAH that a given L2 learner
has reached the steady state of the target grammar without
it ever being reflected in his use of the target grammar.
This, incidentally, constitutes our reply to the question
Newmeyer raises with his analogy to vision: If, for example, corneal degeneration were solely responsible for ubiquitous adult blindness, then we would indeed argue that the
remainder of visual competence is intact (or "accessible" by
perhaps yet-to-be-discovered noncomeal avenues) even
though the system is entirely unusable as a result of such
adult-onset corneal abnormalities. Similarly, if someone
were born with no eardrums, we would argue that the
innate capacity for language acquisition (UG) remains,
although the development of spoken language will be, by
hypothesis, adversely affected. (How it is affected and how
auditory linguistic development characteristically unfolds
are empirical matters.) Finally, if some adult native English
speakers (i.e., knower's) entire supraglottal vocal tract,
auditory processing mechanisms, and visual system were
(somehow) surgically removed, leaving them with no ability
to see, speak, or hear, we would not hypothesize that the
knowledge of language was simultaneously "excised."6
R5. Metalinguistic awareness: What is it and
what is its role in L2 acquisition?
One critical difference in the development of knowledgestates and of proficiency, it seems to us, is that the former is
apparently unconscious, whereas some aspects of the latter
may be uniformly and crosslinguistically registered at some
conscious level by the learner (which aspects being an
empirical issue). This brings us to another prevalent objection to the FAH expressed in the commentaries: the alleged
role of metalinguistic knowledge in L2 acquisition. For
example, Bickerton and Grewendorf object to our critique of the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis, which,
recall, posits that L2 learners' "expectations" influence the
L2 intergrammar attained. Both commentators assert that
L2 learners undeniably have expectations. The FAH does
not preclude this. However, if they do, then at least the
following critical questions arise: What metalinguistic
knowledge do L2 learners have, exactly? How does this
(experimentally investigated) metalinguistic knowledge influence the formal properties of the output knowledgestate^) that develop? These are entirely empirical and are
perhaps even currently experimentally investigable matters. For example, one commentator, Grewendorf, asserts,
without any empirical evidence, that the acquisition of "the
concept of a language" (which he altogether fails to define)
plays a central, metalinguistic role in L2 acquisition:
My claim is that L2 learners' knowledge and expectations
concerning a second language cannot be attributed to any
mysterious access to UG but have to do with the fact that L2
learners have acquired the concept ofa language (of a grammar)
as a result of having learned the meaning of the word by which
this concept is denoted in their native language.
In contrast to Grewendorf, many commentators fail even to
specify the nature of the purported metalinguistic contribution, let alone the linguistically significant impact it is
alleged to have on the L2 grammar. For example,
Sharwood Smith writes:
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The role of metalinguistic ability in L2 development is seriously
underestimated. It may be seen both (1) as a means of initiating
or boosting the flow of primary linguistic data and (2) as a
generator of substitute knowledge (derived, but epistemologically destinct from doman-specific knowledge) that may compete with or compensate for perceived gaps in the learner's
current underlying competence.
Finally, some commentators simply assert (with no supporting evidence) that certain metalinguistic factors are
self-evident, rendering the entire L2 empirical research
enterprise (in contrast to all other empirical inquiry) "easy,"
and (apparently) complete: "If we want to keep discussing
this problem as a question of empirical study, the goal to
specify the notion of'possible L2 grammar' can be achieved
rather easily: a possible L2 grammar is a "grammar" (a
steady-state) with which the L2 learner is satisfied" (Grewendorf). Once again, the specific forms of metalinguistic
L2 awareness and their influence on explicit aspects of the
L2 grammar (e.g., the acquisition of knowledge concerning
main clause German V2 by adult Turkish Llers) are empirical issues. Pronouncements, purported factual assertions
without any accompanying evidence, anecdotes, opinions,
and the like will not suffice. Rather, if one is interested, one
must carefully design and conduct controlled experiments
investigating explicit, testable hypotheses concerning the
nature of L2 metalinguistic awareness and its effects on
particular formal properties of the hypothesized L2 grammar (e.g., X'-theoretic LF representations of VPs in French
past-tense negated conditional clauses).
R6. The FAH, UG, and the initial state
Another prevalent criticism expressed in several commentaries (e.g., Bhatt & Hancin-Bhatt, Gregg, Kanno, Li,
Schwartz, and White) is that the FAH denies a significant
role for the LI in the L2 acquisition process, but this is not
the case. As stated in the target article, the FAH fully allows
a role for the LI, though it does not itself make any
predictions about the initial state of the L2 learner vis-a-vis
the LI. In the following, we hope to clarify this issue.7
To begin, the development of a principled theory of L2
acquisition requires an account of the role of the LI in
conjunction with an account of the contribution of UG.
Since the late 1970s, much empirical work in generative L2
acquisition research has attempted to articulate this union
in some way. For example, Flynn (1987) proposes
the following operational criteria for development of an explanatory theory of L2 acquisition. To meet the criteria set for a
creative component a theory must:
• formulate significant linguistic and abstract principles
• provide empirical evidence for the role of these principles
in LI acquisition
• provide empirical evidence of their predictive value in L2
acquisition.
To represent a contrastive component a theory must:
• lead to precise predictions of where knowledge of the LI
interferes in L2 acquisition and where it does not
• integrate an explanation of these interference phenomena
with the general principles of the creative component.
An important point to stress is that the theory must also be
internally consistent.
Constructing a principled theory of L2 acquisition has
proven a difficult and painstaking task, as one would imagine and indeed expect. As noted above and in the target
article, one of the greatest and most basic challenges in
developing such a theory has been in determining what
750
constitutes evidence for L2 competence. Reaching consensus among researchers is often difficult as exemplified in
many of the commentaries on the target article, although
this is not unique to the field of L2 acquisition. Indeed, one
of the goals of the target article was to raise critical questions about the nature of the evidence that is often advanced in support of a particular claim. As noted above and
in the target article, many performance factors may disguise
or distort the evidence that one needs to make a reasonable
inference about the linguistic competence of the L2
learner. Again, all empirical inquiry into human knowledge
and behavior must contend with the difficulties of separating evidence from interacting domains. In contrast to the
LI acquisition process, however, these distorting factors are
perhaps even more at issue. Although this is a difficult
problem, it certainly does not render the entire enterprise
otiose.
These difficulties aside, we nonetheless agree with our
colleagues (Schwartz, White, and Eubank), that one of
the next questions to be addressed concerns the nature of
the initial state of the L2 learner. We assert here again that
the FAH does not specify the entire nature of this state, nor
should it do so. It was not the intent of the target article to
discuss this, both because it was beyond the scope of the
central focus of accessibility and because research into the
L2 initial state has only recently begun (see Schwartz &
Eubank 1996).
To the extent that the field has been able to isolate certain
bodies of illuminating data, however, three major trends
seem to have emerged, providing us with some pretheoretic
information regarding the initial state of the L2 learner. For
illustrative purposes, let us consider the (idealized) case of a
Japanese and a Spanish speaker (all else being equal)
learning English as an L2. A body of empirical research
(e.g., Finer 1991; Flynn 1983; 1987 on Japanese and Spanish; Martohardjono & Gair 1993; Thomas 1991; Uziel 1993
for related trends with other language groups) suggests the
following:
(1) At all stages of acquisition, most notably at the earliest
stage,8 there are differences between the developmental
patterns of Japanese and Spanish speakers. From this type
of finding, we infer that the LI does indeed matter in
some way.
(2) As a partial corollary to (1) above, the differences we
observe between the Japanese and Spanish speakers cannot
readily be explained in terms of the L2 learner "superimposing" the formal properties of the LI grammar onto
the L2 grammar. That is, the L2 learner, in spite of some
of the claims made in the commentaries (White and
Schwartz), does not appear to attempt to construct the L2
grammar in total conformity with the LI grammar. As noted
in the target article, when discussing differences and similarities between the Japanese and Spanish speakers learning English as an L2, the Japanese speakers did not more
readily "acquire" those aspects of the target grammar that
"matched" those properties of the LI grammar. We would
not have expected this if the Japanese speakers were simply
constructing the grammar of English as if it were identical
in the relevant respects to the grammar of Japanese. In
addition, we found no evidence in the thousands of utterances elicited from the Japanese speakers that they, for
example, had any difficulty with the SVO word order
pattern of English; nor did we find any utterances (among
the thousands) of a Japanese speaker at any level of English
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competence "speaking English as if it were Japanese." That
is, we do not find the Japanese speakers trying to impose the
SOV word order pattern onto English. This is not the only
example of this kind but it serves as an important one.
(3) There are, in our view, profound similarities in the
developmental patterns "evinced" by the Japanese and
Spanish speakers learning English, as noted in the target
article. From this we again infer that the LI grammar does
not determine development of the L2 grammar in any
surface-matching manner.
How do we account, therefore, for these three patterns
of results and, consequently, what can we say about the
initial state? Assuming a Principles and Parameters framework, we are unable to argue that all L2 learners begin at So,
as is the case for a young child acquiring an LI grammar. We
also cannot argue, assuming that parameters have binary
values, that the initial state for an L2 learner is one in which,
for example, all settings revert to the unmarked/marked
setting. If this were the case, we would predict that patterns
of acquisition for the Japanese and Spanish learners would
be in relevant respects the same. But the evidence suggests
otherwise, as discussed above. At the same time, it appears
that L2 learners do not assume the target L2 grammar has
the same parametric settings as their LI. If this were the
case, we would expect evidence that L2 learners were
incorrectly imposing LI values onto the L2 grammar.
Referring back to our word order examples above, we
would expect to have found that the Japanese speakers
"postulated" that English was a head-final language, like
Japanese. Again, this does not seem to be the case. At the
same time, it appears that there are still differences between the Japanese and Spanish speakers in their patterns
of development of English. What do these patterns suggest? Theoretically, the above tripartition perhaps suggests
that the theory of binary parameters is inadequate in this
regard. This might instead suggest that we have not yet
isolated or properly interpreted the critical data set. We
simply do not yet have any firm answers here as the field is
just beginning to formulate the next set of questions to be
asked and has only recently begun to address them experimentally.
It was not our intent in the target article to review the
incipient data collected or the argumentation thus far
advanced. Rather, our intent was to both argue for the role
of the FAH in L2 acquisition and to examine, in perhaps
unprecedented detail, an important and, we think, representative study. In this way, we sought (i) to illustrate the
theoretical complexity of contemporary L2 acquisition research, and (ii) to examine carefully experimental issues
(e.g., questions concerning the nature of evidence and its
interpretation), so that as we proceed to questions at the
next level, we might be in a position to develop more
revealing modes of inquiry.
R7. Methodology
Another criticism advanced by several commentators concerned the methodology employed in our experimental
study from which it was concluded that our case for full
access should be dismissed (e.g., Birdsong, Eubank,
Gregg, and Li). Experimental methodology is, as we note
in the target article, a very complex issue in all empirical
inquiry, including cognitive science in general, and linguistic research in particular. Experimentally based infer-
ence from observed behavior to attributed knowledge is not
deductive. As in all empirical research, the object of inquiry
(be it physical laws or knowledge of language) is not directly
observable. On the other hand, on the assumption that
performance does indeed involve competence, the former
is perhaps the only (albeit imperfect) way to investigate the
latter.
We assume that methods of data elicitation can be evaluated
with regard to their accessibility to experimental method. The
strength of such methods can be evaluated in terms of their
effectiveness in evidencing various hypothesized factors of
language competence. Their reliability can be assessed in terms
of their replication across behaviors within a task. Their validity
can be assessed in terms of converging evidence across different
tasks, and in terms of the theoretical significance of the factors
evidenced by the task. (Lust et al. 1987, p. 274.)
No one experimental task is a priori, better (or, in this case,
worse) than any other, although we would reiterate the
point made in the target article that more controlled experimental tasks stand a better chance of eliciting relevant data.
R7.1. Elicited imitation. Some methodological questions
were raised about the elicited imitation task, in the experimental study reported in the target article (e.g., Eubank).
To begin, we needed production data as a basis of comparison with the data gathered by Vainikka and YoungScholten. As noted in the target article, they elicited production data from their subjects by means of a number of
different production tasks such as descriptive narration.
One of our criticisms of the Vainikka and Young-Scholten
study was that their methodologies were nonoptimal for
supporting the hypotheses they advanced. A principal criticism we made was that the absence of an acoustic-phonetic
"instantiation" of a particular functional syntactic category
in the utterances elicited from their subjects did not, in our
view, entail the absence of that functional category in the
developing syntactic-category inventory of their subjects.
The subjects may not have had the opportunity to utter an
instantiation of a particular functional syntactic category
simply because it was not required by the task. This is not a
novel observation on our part - it is one that has been made
elsewhere (see Hyams & Safir 1991) - but it is a potentially
serious drawback inherent in such "naturalistic" production
studies. In addition, we thought that Vainikka and YoungScholten's overall experimental design was nonoptimal in
several ways (e.g., the number of subjects is very low).
These factors, we believe, challenge the experimental support for their hypotheses.
To test our hypothesis that functional categories are a
part of the developing grammars from early stages of
acquisition, we needed: (1) production data for a basis of
comparison with the Vainikka and Young-Scholten data and
(2) carefully controlled experimental design, that is, a
methodology that would allow us to control precisely the
factors relevant to determining the existence (or nonexistence) of functional categories in the categorial inventory of
the syntactic component of the early developing grammars
of L2 learners. The elicited imitation (El) task satisfies both
criteria. El accesses specifically grammatical aspects of
language knowledge in a manner that can be precise,
scientifically controlled, and amenable to experimental
method.
The El task provides a test of language production. It
involves a direct request for the subject to repeat a sentence
presented as a model for the learner. El data consist of the
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References/Epstein et al.: Second language acquisition
L2 learners attempted repetition of the stimulus in response to this request. These data are measured by comparing the L2 learners utterance to the model utterance with
respect to specific features of the stimulus sentence that
may be systematically varied. As discussed extensively elsewhere (see, e.g., references in Lust et al. 1987), the underlying assumptions concerning El include the assumption
that the learners' attempted repetition reflects their ability
to construct the model sentence. The utterance reflects a
mapping between the target grammar and the learners
grammar. This, in turn, allows quantitative evaluation of
variance. Thus, El is reconstructive, and as demonstrated in numerous studies, not simply rote. Consequently,
El does reveal aspects of grammatical competence to a
significant degree.
Contrary to the claim that El does not provide us with a
measure of linguistic competence, the El task, when
adapted to experimental method, is a comparatively reliable measure of linguistic competence in both LI and L2
acquisition. As noted in Lust et al. (1987), Chomsky (1964a,
p. 39) speculated that "the child's ability to repeat sentences
and nonsentences . . . might provide some evidence as to
the underlying system that he is using." The correctness of
Chomsky's speculation has been supported by large bodies
of controlled experimental data in both LI and L2. The
outright dismissal of all such El data seems to us unwarranted. As we stated in the target article, ultimately and
ideally we would not only rely on El data, but we would
seek converging data from a number of different controlled
methodologies. Needless to say, in all empirical inquiry,
including linguistic research, the potentially relevant data is
never exhausted (K. Hale).
NOTES
1. We simply disagree with Vainikka and Young-Scholten's
claim, expressed in their commentary, that the target article
"misapprehends Vainikka and Young-Scholten's research methodology." Concerning their claim that "partial access" is a misnomer, we agree that the nomenclature may not be optimal, but
we nonetheless maintain all the claims we made in the target
article regarding their hypotheses. Finally, we would like to note
here that Vainikka and Young-Scholten 1994, 1995, 1996a, and
1996b, each cited in their commentary, all postdate the original
submission of the target article to Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
2. Chomsky (1964d) Current issues in linguistic theory. In: The
structure of language: Readings in the philosophy of language, ed.
J. A. Fodor & J. J. Katz. Prentice Hall.
3. Among his many other works, see, e.g., Chomsky (1986).
4. See also Vainikka & Young-Scholten (1995) as cited in their
commentary.
5. For a specific example, see again the discussion of the L2
acquisition of German V-second in the target article. See also
Grimshaw and Rosen (1990) for a different type of argument that,
in certain LI studies, relatively imperfect performance does not
necessarily indicate incompetence.
6. For a very recent discussion of failures to adhere to the
competence/performance distinction in the context of contemporary phonological theory, see Reiss and Hale (1996).
7. See also Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono (in preparation).
8. There are important questions concerning the notion "earliest stage." We are crucially concerned with L2 learners who have
begun to construct the L2 syntactic component. Although we
cannot give a ready metric for determining this, we hope to avoid
focusing on a "learner" who is not engaged in linguistically significant L2 grammar formation.
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Letters "a" and ur** appearing before authors* initials refer to target
article and response respectively.
The FAH is not a comprehensive model of second language
acquisition, but rather a research program based on the null
hypothesis that all human natural language acquisition, and
therefore second language acquisition, derives from the
language faculty. Although it is a working empirical hypothesis, it has direct consequences for the way in which explicit
questions concerning at least development and use are
posted and addressed in an emerging theory of second
language acquisition: that is, as domains that are tightly
linked to, but crucially separate from, the language faculty
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We are indebted to Geoffrey Poole, Madelyn Kissock, Mark Hale, and
Steve Peter for invaluable feedback on our response to the commentaries.
We are also grateful to Mary Violette for her help with this response.
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