L1/L2 Spanish grammars and the pragmatic deficit hypothesis

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11655796
AutoresJuana M Liceras (0000-0002-7909-2651, University of Ottawa, autor de correspondencia), Elena Valenzuela (0000-0002-2764-029X, McGill University), Lourdes Díaz Rodríguez (0000-0002-7707-808X, Universitat Pompeu Fabra), L Díaz (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
Año1999
Volumen15
Número2
Páginas161-190
Fecha de publicación1999-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSecond language Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0267-6583 • E-ISSN: 1477-0326
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1191/026765899675128586
OpenAlexW2039127789
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas29

In recent research on primary (L1) and non-primary (L2) acquisition,special attention has been given to whether syntactic development is subject to a continuity condition. While it has been proposed that the continuity condition applies to both L1 and L2 syntactic growth,the changes that take place in developing grammars have sometimes been attributed to other cognitive systems. Specifically, it has been proposed that child grammars are ‘underspecified’ because they lack a pragmatic principle which determines the range of indices available for establishing verbal and nominal coreference. According to this proposal, a grammar which is underspecified for Number has null subjects and bare NPs only with non-inflected verb forms. Assuming that adults will not have a pragmatic deficit of the kind proposed for children, we have analysed data from child L1 Spanish and adult L2 Spanish. The results of our analysis show that: (1) in child L1 Spanish, the feature Person may encode Number so that when Person is distinctively implemented, root infinitives and bare NP subjects will cease to occur. However, the pervasive morphology of Spanish verbs conspires against the possibility of providing clear-cut evidence for underspecification in the case of child Spanish; (2) the different nature of L1 and L2 root infinitives may provide partial evidence for underspecification in the case of L1 Spanish; and (3) in the case of L2 learners, the distribution of null and overt subjects seems to be partially determined by their L1 rather than by underspecification

Cognitive psychology · Grammar · Linguistics · Root (linguistics · Rule-based machine translation · Syntax · Underspecification · Verb · Computer Science · Language Development and Disorders · Philosophy · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Writing and Handwriting Education