TLA: SYNTAX

early 1990s

Vogel 1992: one of the first studies on the topic

THE BEGINNING

L1 Mandarin / L2 English speaker, acquiring German as an L3

Chinese and German: verb final languages (Vfi n)

English is not (Vnonfi n)

VOGEL (1992)

one of first studies to identify syntactic transfer from a non-native language onto an L3

evidence of L2 English influence on the acquisition of L3 German: the subject in the study produced [SVfi n Vnonfi n O] structures

VOGEL (1992): FINDINGS

One of the first studies to investigate multilingualism from a generative perspective.

MAIN QUESTION:Does prior linguistic knowledge lead to the creation of more or less conservative grammars in multilinguals?

ZOBL (1992)

wide grammars

multilinguals tend to overgeneralize hypothesis about the language and therefore have a higher acceptance rate with respect to ungrammatical sentences

GENERAL ASSUMPTION AT THE TIME ZOBL (1992)

based on various judgment tests

Results:multilinguals are in fact, less restrictive in a new language (than monolinguals)

multilinguals seem to create less conservative and therefore more powerful grammars

ZOBL (1992)

further investigates whether multilingual grammars are in fact different from those of monolinguals

THE STUDYacquisition of verbs and their prepositional elements particularly the case of preposition fronting and stranding

KLEIN (1995)

English allows two options:

the preposition is stranded and fronted Eg: [At what i] are you looking [PP ti]?]

the preposition is stranded and only the object is extracted and fronted

Eg: [Whati] are you looking [PPat [ti]]?

KLEIN (1995)

HYPOTHESIS

multilinguals would show an advantage over monolinguals in the acquisition of preposition stranding

KLEIN (1995)

multilinguals acquired this specific characteristic of English faster than monolinguals did, even though they had not previously acquired a language with this structure

KLEIN (1995): FINDINGS

multilinguals benefit from higher multilingual awareness

Multilinguals follow a less “conservative” learning process (confirming Zobl, 1992)

KLEIN (1995): CONCLUSIONS

the 2001 conference on multilingualism that took place in the Netherlands

Four key papers:Bardel 2002; Leung 2002; Sjorgen 2002 Vinnitskaya et al. 2002

MILESTONE IN L3 SYNTAX STUDIES

the acquisition of the English Complementizer Phrase (CP) by three different groups of learners:

1.L1 Kazakh and L2 Russian, 2.L1 Spanish 3.L1 Japanese

VINNITSKAYA ET AL. (2002)

The structure of the CP is dependent on the head directionality of a language

English, Spanish and Russian are head-initial languages and Kazakh and Japanese are head-final languages.

VINNITSKAYA ET AL. (2002)

Groups (1) and (2) behaved in a similar way

Group (3) behaved in a very different way

VINNITSKAYA ET AL. (2002) FINDINGS

this difference was due to the fact that the L1Japanese group had not yet acquired the head-initial parameter whereas the first two groups had done so either in their L1 or their L2.

VINNITSKAYA ET AL. (2002) CONCLUSION

addressed the question of UG access and transfer of morphosynax in L3 acquisition by studying features associated with the Number and the Determiner Phrase

GENERATIVE L3: LEUNG (2002, 2005)

continuation of the 2002 study with two groups of learners of French:

1.One L1 Cantonese/L2 English group 2.one L1 Vietnamese with no L2 group

LEUNG (2005)

transfer from both the L1 and the L2 in L3 syntax

LEUNG (2005): RESULTS

further extended the 2005 study to include the acquisition of tense and agreement features

TESTEDFull Transfer Full Access (FTFA) hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1996)

LEUNG (2006)

there is a difference between acquiring French as a second language and acquiring it as a third one.

found transfer from L2 English into L3 French, but not transfer from L1 Cantonese onto L2 French

LEUNG (2006): FINDINGS

this difference is due to typological proximity between one of the background languages and the target language.

HOWEVER, if there is no evidence in the input of a specific feature, it will not be transferred from any background language.

LEUNG (2006): CONCLUSIONS

challenge the findings of Leung (2006) by looking at two different groups of speakers:

L1 Thai, L2 English and L3 Chinese L1 English and L2 Chinese.

NA RANONG AND LEUNG (2009)

no clear instance of L2 transfer

CONCLUSIONL1 plays a privileged role in both L2 and L3 acquisition of syntax

it might be the case that transfer from the language that is typologically closer to the target language is favoured

NA RANONG AND LEUNG (2009): FINDINGS

findings from this study are in contradiction with those by Leung (2005, 2006) where the author found no preference for L1 transfer.

NA RANONG AND LEUNG (2009): NOTE