Universal grammar in child second language acquisition : null subjects and morphological uniformity

174 Pages·1994·15.64 MB·English

by  Usha Lakshmanan

UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
IN CHILD SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
NULL SUBJECTS AND MORPHOLOGICAL UNIFORMITY
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & LANGUAGE DISORDERS
EDITORS
Harald Clahsen William Rutherford
University of Essex University of Southern California
EDITORIAL BOARD
Melissa Bowerman (Max Planck Institut fur Psycholinguistik, Nijmegen)
Patricia Clancy (University of California at Santa Barbara)
Werner Deutsch (Universität Braunschweig)
Kenji Hakuta (Stanford University)
Kenneth Hyltenstam (University of Stockholm)
Peter Jordens (Free University, Amsterdam)
Barry McLaughlin (University of California at Santa Cruz)
Jurgen Meisel (Universität Hamburg)
Anne Mills (University of Amsterdam)
Csaba Pleh (University of Budapest)
Michael Sharwood Smith (University of Utrecht)
Catherine Snow (Harvard University)
Jurgen Weissenborn (Max Planck Institut fur Psycholinguistik, Nijmegen)
Lydia White (McGill University)
Helmut Zobl (Carleton University, Ottawa)

Volume 10
Usha Lakshmanan
Universal Grammar in Child Second Language Acquisition
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
IN CHILD SECOND
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
NULL SUBJECTS AND
MORPHOLOGICAL UNIFORMITY
USHA LAKSHMANAN
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of Ameri
can National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lakshmanan, Usha.
Universal grammar in child second language acquisition / Usha Lakshmanan.
p. cm. -- (Language acquisition & language disorders : ISSN 0925-0123; v. 10)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
1. Second language acquisition. 2. Grammar, Comparative and general. I. Title. II. Series.
P118.2. L35 1994
401'.93-dc20 94-26067
ISBN 90 272 2475 7 (Eur.) / 1 55619 247 9 (US) (Hb; alk. paper) CIP
ISBN 90 272 2486 2 (Eur.) / 1 55619 783 7 (US) (Pb; alk. paper)
© Copyright 1994 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any

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John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements viii
1. Syntactic Theory and Child Second Language Acquisition 1
1.0. Introduction 1
1.1. The Logical Problem of Language Acquisition 3
1.2. UG and Parameterized Grammars 5
1.3. The Developmental Problem 8
1.3.1. Triggering Data 9
1.3.2. Non-Linguistic Maturation Factors 11
1.3.3. Linguistic Maturation Factors 12
1.3.4. Learning Procedure 13
1.3.5. Critical Period for Language Acquisition 14
1.4. UG and SLA 17
1.4.1. Previous L2 Research 18
1.4.2. UG and Child SLA 19
1.5. A Note on Methodology 23
Notes to Chapter 1 24
2. Theoretical Framework 27
2.0. Introduction 27
2.1. The Structure of INFL 29
2.2. Null Subjects an d Rich Agreement 31
2.3. The AG/PRO Parameter 33
2.4. Null Subjects in Languages without Rich Agreement 34
2.5. The Morphological Uniformity Principle 37
2.6. Identification of Null Subjects 41
2.7. Summary 45
Notes to Chapter 2 45
3. Null Subjects in Developing Grammars 47
3.0. Introduction 47
3.1. Parameter Setting Accounts of the Null Subject Phenomenon 49
3.2. Morphological Development and Null Subjects in Early Grammars 51
3.3. Predictions of the MUP for SLA 59
3.4. Null Subjects in Developing L2 Grammars 61
3.5. Summary 66
Notes to Chapter 3 67
4. Morphological Uniformity and Null Subjects in Child 71
L2 Grammars
4.0. Introduction 71
4.1. Research Questions 72
4.2. Methods 73
4.2.1. Subjects 73
4.2.2. The Data 75
4.2.3. Data Analysis 77
4.3. Results 82
4.3.1 Relations between Null Subjects and Verb Inflections 82
4.3.1.1. Null Subjects 82
4.3.1.2. Null Subjects versus Verb Inflections 86
4.3.1.3. Relations between Inflection Acquisition and Type 90
of Verb Morphology
4.3.2 Relations between Null Subjects and Ts-Contexts' 93
4.3.2.1. Developmental Relations between Null Subjects and 97
'Is Constructions'
4.4. Summary 101
Notes to Chapter 4 102
Appendix A 104
Appendix B 108
Appendix C 110
Appendix D 114
5. Discussion and Conclusions 118
5.0. An Overview 118
5.1. Discussion 119
5.1.1. Implications of the Findings for the MUP 120
5.1.2. Perpetual Factors and the L1 129
5.1.3. Individual Differences 138
5.1.4. Implications for Access to UG and Child SLA 141
5.2. Conclusion 144
Notes to Chapter 5 146
References 148
Index 159
Acknowledgements
This book is a revised version of my Ph D dissertation (Lakshmanan 1989) that
was submitted to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Thanks foremost to
the Co-Chairs of my dissertation committee Susan Gass and John Swales and the
two other members of my dissertation committee Marilyn Shatz and Madhav
Deshpande for their invaluable advice and tremendous support throughout. I am
indebted to Larry Selinker for the many invaluable discussions of the issues
addressed in this book. I am grateful to Jiirgen Weissenborn and Lydia White for
their very helpful comments on the manuscript submitted for review.
The revisions to the manuscript were completed at the Department of
Linguistics in Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. I am grateful to Paul
Angelis, Chair of the Department of Linguistics and my colleagues in the
department for their support and encouragement.
Several other individuals have contributed directly and indirectly to the
shaping of this work from its incipient stages to its completion. In particular I
thank:
Herlinda Cancino, Kenji Hakuta and John Schumann for making the data from
the four child L2 subjects available for the study.
Renu Gupta for undertaking the mammoth task of photocopying numerous
transcripts of the child L2 data and making them available to me.

John Warner and Jyothi Sarkar for their help with the analysis and interpretation
of the statistical data.
Chang and James Lenze for their help with the graphics.
Sarah Briggs, Sharon Hilles, Nina Hyams, Carolyn Madden, K.P. Mohanan, and
India Plough and Bill Rutherford for their very useful discussions.
Patsy Aldridge for her help in tracking down books and articles.
Takae Tsujioka for her tremendous help with the indexing and the formatting of
the camera-ready version.
Cornells Vaes and Lise Winer for their very helpful comments on the formatting
of the camera-ready version.
My parents, sisters, brother and Piet Hein for their support and encouragement
throughout.
The research reported here was partially funded by a Rackham Block Grant
awarded by the Program in Linguistics at the University of Michigan.