This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (4) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Tsimpli, I. M. Articles by Dimitrakopoulou, M. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

The Interpretability Hypothesis: evidence from wh-interrogatives in second language acquisition

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, imt{at}enl.auth.gr

Maria Dimitrakopoulou

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

The second language acquisition (SLA) literature reports numerous studies of proficient second language (L2) speakers who diverge significantly from native speakers despite the evidence offered by the L2 input. Recent SLA theories have attempted to account for native speaker/non-native speaker (NS/NNS) divergence by arguing for the dissociation between syntactic knowledge and morpho(pho)nology. In particular, Lardiere (1998), Prévost and White (2000), and Goad and White (2004) claim that highly proficient learners have knowledge of the abstract syntactic properties of the language but occasionally fail to associate them with the correct morphological or phonological forms. On the other hand, theories that support partial availability of Universal Grammar (UG) (Tsimpli and Roussou 1991; Hawkins and Chan, 1997) argue for a problem in the syntax: while UG principles and operations are available in SLA, the formal features of the target language that are not instantiated in the L1 or have a different setting, cause learnability problems. This article discusses acquisitional data in the light of the Interpretability Hypothesis (Tsimpli and Mastropavlou, 2007), which is a reformulation of the SLA theory suggested by Tsimpli and Roussou (1991) in minimalist terms. It is argued that a minimalist approach to SLA can be implemented to specify the status of the features that are least accessible to re-setting in the SLA process, given (1) constraints on their learnability and (2), their setting in the L1 grammar. The phenomenon discussed concerns the use of the resumptive strategy in wh- subject and object extraction by intermediate and advanced Greek learners of English. It is proposed that the acceptability rate of pronouns in the extraction site is conditioned by the Logical Form (LF) interpretability of the features involved in the derivation. Hence, the interpretable features of animacy and discourse-linking are hypothesized to be involved in the analysis of English pronouns by Greek L2 learners, while the first language (L1) specification of resumptive pronouns as clusters of uninterpretable Case and Agreement features resists resetting.

Second Language Research, Vol. 23, No. 2, 215-242 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0267658307076546


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				D. Lardiere Further thoughts on parameters and features in second language acquisition: a reply to peer comments on Lardiere's `Some thoughts on the contrastive analysis of features in second language acquisition' in SLR 25(2) Second Language Research, July 1, 2009; 25(3): 409 - 422. [PDF]

				D. Lardiere Some thoughts on the contrastive analysis of features in second language acquisition Second Language Research, April 1, 2009; 25(2): 173 - 227. [Abstract] [PDF]

				D. Birdsong Uninterpretable features: psychology and plasticity in second language learnability Second Language Research, April 1, 2009; 25(2): 235 - 243. [Abstract] [PDF]

				L. Dekydtspotter and C. Renaud On the contrastive analysis of features in second language acquisition: uninterpretable gender on past participles in English--French processing Second Language Research, April 1, 2009; 25(2): 255 - 267. [Abstract] [PDF]

				S. Montrul and J. Yoon Putting parameters in their proper place Second Language Research, April 1, 2009; 25(2): 291 - 311. [Abstract] [PDF]

				S. Wakabayashi Lexical learning in second language acquisition: optionality in the numeration Second Language Research, April 1, 2009; 25(2): 335 - 341. [Abstract] [PDF]

				L. White Some questions about feature re-assembly Second Language Research, April 1, 2009; 25(2): 343 - 348. [Abstract] [PDF]

				J. Rothman Knowledge of A/A'-dependencies on subject extraction with two types of infinitives in non-native Portuguese adult bilingualism International Journal of Bilingualism, March 1, 2009; 13(1): 111 - 140. [Abstract] [PDF]

				S. Montrul Review article: Second language acquisition welcomes the heritage language learner: opportunities of a new field Second Language Research, October 1, 2008; 24(4): 487 - 506. [PDF]