Morphology and syntax dissociation in SLA

A study on clitic acquisition in Spanish

María J. Arche | University of Greenwich and University of Southampton

Laura Domínguez | University of Southampton

This paper investigates the L2 acquisition of Spanish object clitics by L1 English learners. Spanish clitics are analyzed as bundles of agreement and referential features morphologically marked for number and gender. We examine the relationship between morphology and syntax in L2 learners’ grammars in order to assess two current acquisition hypotheses: the Impaired Representation Hypothesis (IRH) and the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH). Data from a production and a comprehension task suggest that learners have an unimpaired narrow syntax, despite apparent inflectional variability. We propose that absent or inaccurate morphology can be explained by a deficit in the mapping to PF. This supports a dissociation between syntactic representation and surface inflection.

Published online: 17 August 2011
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.178.16arc

Cited by

Cited by 7 other publications

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2013. THE ROLE OF SEMANTIC TRANSFER IN CLITIC DROP AMONG SIMULTANEOUS AND SEQUENTIAL CHINESE-SPANISH BILINGUALS. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 35:1 ► pp. 93 ff.

Madeira, Ana

2016. In The Handbook of Portuguese Linguistics, ► pp. 578 ff.

Mayer, Elisabeth & Liliana Sánchez

2019. Feature variability in the bilingual-monolingual continuum: clitics in bilingual Quechua-Spanish, bilingual Shipibo-Spanish and in monolingual Limeño Spanish contact varieties. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 22:7 ► pp. 883 ff.

Olsen, Michael Kevin & Alan Juffs

2020. The effect of animacy on object pronoun distinctions in L2 Spanish. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism

Perpiñán, Silvia

2018. On Convergence, Ongoing Language Change, and Crosslinguistic Influence in Direct Object Expression in Catalan–Spanish Bilingualism. Languages 3:2 ► pp. 14 ff.

Rothman, Jason & Diego Pascual y Cabo

2013. In The Handbook of Spanish Second Language Acquisition, ► pp. 46 ff.

Sessarego, Sandro

2019. In Language Contact and the Making of an Afro-Hispanic Vernacular,

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