The verb movement parameter and adult L2 learners of Spanish

This study addresses the question of whether adult L2 learners of Spanish reset the V-movement parameter (Pollock, 1989) value from ($-$ raise) from their English L1 to (+ raise) in their L2. Numerous studies have addressed this question as it applies to L2 acquisition of French and English (Hawkins, Towell, & Bazergui, 1993: Hulk, 1991; Schwartz & Gubala-Ryzak, 1992; Trahey & White, 1993; White, 1990, 1991, 1992), but few have addressed this question in the acquisition of other second languages by learners whose V-movement parameter settings differ from their L1. Thus, the present study addresses the following two research questions: Do adult L2 learners of Spanish from different levels accept to the same degree sentences with the following surface level syntactic properties: adverbials between lexical verbs and their object noun phrases, subject/lexical verb inversion in yes/no question formation, and subject/lexical verb inversion in questions with fronted thematic Wh-phrases and Is there a developmental pattern in the degree of acceptance of the sentences with these three syntactic properties across second, fourth, and sixth semester, and fifth year and above levels of adult learners of Spanish?

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Spanish, Italian and Portuguese

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Mandell, Paul B.

Contributors dc:contributor

• VanPatten, Bill

• Education, Language and Literature
• Language, Linguistics
• Language, Modern
• Education, Adult and Continuing

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 1996 Mandell, Paul B.

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

9780591199321
AAI9712367
(UMI)AAI9712367

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/22557