Knowledge of Reflexives in a Second Language

Language Acquisition and Language Disorders #6

by Margaret Thomas

This study addresses the debate about whether adult language learners have access to the principles and parameters of universal grammar in constructing the grammar of a second language. The data are based on two related experiments. The first examines the interpretation of English reflexive pronouns by native speakers of Japanese and of Spanish. The second experiment examines the interpretation of the Japanese reflexive zibun by native speakers of English and of Chinese. Three hypotheses are evaluated: (a) that UG is unavailable, and that processing strategies or other non-linguistic principles guide second language acquisition; (b) that UG is available only in the form in which it is instantiated in the learner's native language; (c) that UG is fully available, including the ability to re-set parameters to UG-sanctioned values not instantiated in the learner's native language. The results show that learners observe constraints defined by Manzini and Wexler's parameterized version of Principle A of the binding theory and support the proposal that adult learners have access to universal grammar. A final chapter reviews the experimental data in the light of recent accounts of cross-linguistic variation in the grammar of anaphors which reject parameterization of the binding principles in favor of a "movement to INFL" analysis.

245 pages, ebook

First published July 1, 1993

About the author

After two years of trying to be useful as an investment analyst in the Monetary Authority of Singapore in the mid-1970s, Margaret Thomas found her calling in journalism. She spent some 25 years in the newsrooms of The Business Times, The Singapore Monitor, and TODAY, mostly in senior editing positions, and was also in the founding team of Singapore Press Holding’s Internet arm, Asiaone. She now works on book and related projects. Having inherited her father’s do-gooder genes, she is active in civil society. She was, in 1985, a founder member of AWARE (Association of Women for Action and Research) and in 2003 of TWC2, which promotes equitable treatment of migrant workers in Singapore.