Morphological Uniformity and Null Subjects in Child Second Language Acquisition

Child L2 English acquisition of subject properties in an immersion bilingual context

“…Although the acquisition of subjects in adult L2 English has been extensively studied in a variety of L1s and mainly using cross-sectional experimental methodology in instruction acquisition settings in both English and non-English speaking countries (Phinney, 1987;Tsimpli and Roussou, 1991;Wakabayashi, 2002;White, 1985White, , 1986, among others) child L2 English subjects have been less widely explored and only using longitudinal data collection methods in naturalistic acquisition settings in English-speaking countries and mainly focusing on the production of null/overt subjects and inflection (Hilles, 1991;Lakshmanan, 1991Lakshmanan, , 1994Mobaraki et al, 2008;Park, 2004). Early research on the L2A of English subjects adopts the traditional version of the Null Subject Parameter outlined above.…”

“…This is the case in three of the most relevant accounts of adult English L2 subjects, namely White (1985White ( , 1986, Phinney (1987) and Tsimpli and Roussou (1991), which followed Rizzi (1982Rizzi ( , 1986. As for subjects in child L2 English, Hilles (1991) and Lakshmanan (1991Lakshmanan ( , 1994) study them on the basis of the Morphological Uniformity Principle (MUP) (Jaeggli and Safir, 1989), which states that null subjects are only licensed in languages with uniform verb paradigms and that the acquisition of the Null Subject Parameter should be related to the emergence of verbal inflection. Wakabayashi (2002), for adult L2 English, and Park (2004) for child L2 English, which compare the L2A of the non-allowed null subjects in English by Japanese and Spanish native speakers, adopt the Minimalist Program framework and its claim that language acquisition involves the learning of formal features and finally, Mobaraki et al (2008) discuss in relatively traditional terms whether child L2 English subject use indicates presence/absence of functional projections in early child grammars in comparison to child L1A.…”

Adult instructed SLA of English subject properties

“…The present study aims to explore how adult English L2 learners who have been exposed to instructed SLA acquire subject properties at three stages of development. 1 The L2 acquisition of subject properties has been thoroughly analyzed in both child (Hilles 1991;Lakshmanan 1991Lakshmanan , 1994Park 2004;Mobaraki, Vainikka, and Young-Scholten 2008;Pladevall Ballester 2010, 2012 and adult L2A (White 1985(White , 1986Phinney 1987;Liceras 1989;Tsimpli and Roussou 1991;Wakabayashi2002;Lozano 2002Lozano , 2006Montrul and Rodriguez Louro 2006;Iverson 2007a, 2007b; among others) and this has been done in naturalistic as well as in classroom setting contexts, longitudinally and cross-sectionally and in null and non-null subject languages.…”

Review

“…In the last section of the chapter, two studies of L2 acquisition of null subject phenomena are reviewed: Hdles (1989Hdles ( , 1991 and a 'preliminary' study carried out by Lakshmanan (1991), using data from three of the four subjects used in the analysis presented in chapter 4 (one of whom was used in Hilles' study). Hilles studied both child and adult Spanish learners of English and concluded that the development of the verb morphology system was highly correlated with the obligatory use of subject in the children, but not with the adults, which may be taken as support for the assumption that Morphological Uniformity is a principle of UG (assuming that children have access to UG, but adults do not).…”