The syntax-semantics of bare and definite plural subjects in the L2 Spanish of English natives

Cuza, A., Guijarro Fuentes, P., Pires, A. and Rothman, J. (2013) The syntax-semantics of bare and definite plural subjects in the L2 Spanish of English natives. International Journal of Bilingualism, 17 (5). pp. 634-652. ISSN 1756-6878 doi: 10.1177/1367006911435594

Abstract/Summary

This study investigates the extent to which advanced native-English L2 learners of Spanish come to acquire restrictions on bare plural preverbal subjects in L2 Spanish (e.g. gatos “cats” vs. definite plurals such as los gatos “the cats”). It tests L2 knowledge of available semantic readings of bare plurals and definite plurals in Spanish, where [+specific] and [+generic] interpretations are syntactically represented differently from English. Assuming L1 transfer, and in view of a potential subset/superset relationship of the two grammars, the learning task in this domain is not a straightforward one. Target acquisition requires both grammatical expansion and retraction; Spanish definite plural subjects require the addition of an L1-unavailable [+generic] reading, while a loss of an L1-available [+generic] reading for preverbal subject bare plurals is required. The results and analysis show that advanced L2 learners of Spanish (English L1) can circumvent a superficial subset/superset learnability problem by means of feature resetting in line with the Nominal Mapping Parameter.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/33072
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Clinical Language Sciences Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Language and Cognition
Publisher	Sage
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