The status of CP and the tensed complementizer that in the developing L2 grammars of English

Abstract

In this article we examine the development of the complementizer system in child L2 grammars of English, and we show that C and its maximal projection CP are operative from the very beginning. Next, we focus on the development of the tensed complementizer that. We provide evidence which suggests that the tensed complementizer in embedded declaratives may be treated as an obligatorily null complementizer by these child L2 learners. We then examine restrictive relative clauses produced by our subjects. The evidence indicates that the tensed complementizer is first realized overtly as that in the relative clause domain. We speculate on the possible reasons as to why the relative clause domain should trigger the emergence of the overt tensed complementizer and we argue that recent proposals by Rizzi (1990) for a typology of complementizer types enable us to account for these child L2 developmental facts.

Production and on-line comprehension of definiteness in English and Dutch by monolingual and sequential bilingual children

“…R Hawkins andChan, 1997 vs. Haznedar andSchwartz, 1997;Lakshmanan and Selinker, 1994). Studies with adult L2 learners have provided mixed results regarding the nature of their grammatical representations (Grüter et al, 2012;Montrul et al, 2008).…”

Gradual development of L2 phrase structure

“…If we look at evidence for the development of the CP by the two children, as discussed in Lakshmanan and Selinker (1994), we see that they do not produce any embedded clauses during the first two sessions. Table 5 shows that in the first four or five sessions for both children, they produce far fewer CP elements than they do in subsequent Lakshmanan and Selinker (1994). sessions.…”

“…Rather, around session 5 for Muriel and 6 for Marta, a CP-related projection emerges. As pointed out by Lakshmanan and Selinker (1994), these children's CP has the characteristics of the English CP -namely, that omission of the tensed complementizer is allowed in the children's L2 English, just like in adult English -rather than a transferred French or Spanish CP; in the Lls of both children the tensed complementizer is overt in embedded declaratives. Finally, in our view since neither the embedded clauses nor the relative clauses in L2 English involve an overt complementizer, the rarity of such clauses in the children's earliest files cannot be the result of problems in acquiring a lexical item.…”

“…2 Evidence from child L2 English (Ll Romance) Like Grondin and White (1993;, Lakshmanan (1993/94) and Lakshmanan and Selinker (1994) also argue on the basis of child L2 data that the functional projections of the learner's Ll constitute the initial state of L2 acquisition and offer evidence that IP and CP are present from the start of acquisition. Their data come from a 4-year-old Spanish girl, Marta (Cazden et al, 1975) and a 4-year-old French girl, Muriel (Gerbault, 1978), both acquiring English.…”

“…Table 5 shows that in the first four or five sessions for both children, they produce far fewer CP elements than they do in subsequent Lakshmanan and Selinker (1994). sessions. In addition, neither child produces any relative clauses until the point that we claim CP is acquired (Marta's first relative clauses are in session 7; Muriel produces three such clauses in sessions 5-8).…”