Designing Second Language Teaching Experiments

Second Language Research http://slr.sagepub.com/ Structural Minimality, CP and the initial state in second language acquisition Rakesh M. Bhatt and Barbara Hancin-Bhatt
Second Language Research 2002 18: 348
DOI: 10.1191/0267658302sr210oa
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Second Language Research 18,4 (2002); pp. 348–392

Structural Minimality, CP and the initial state in second language acquisition Rakesh M. Bhatt and Barbara Hancin-Bhatt University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This article considers the current debate on the initial state of second language acquisition (L2) and presents critical empirical evidence from
Hindi learners of English as an L2 that supports the claim that the CP
(complementizer phase) is initially absent from the grammar of L2 learners.
Contrary to the predictions of Full Transfer (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994;
1996), the data we present suggest that L2 learners start out without a CP and then graduate to a stage where overt expressions of CP (complementizer phase) are in fact manifest. Although the lack of evidence of CP appears to support the Minimal Trees / Partial Transfer (MT/PT) hypothesis (Vainikka and Young-Scholten, 1996a; 1996b), we show that the MT/PT hypothesis also fails to honour all the empirical facts. To account for the patterns in our data, we propose Structural Minimality – that clausal

Citations: http://slr.sagepub.com/content/18/4/348.refs.html >> Version of Record - Oct 1, 2002 What is This? Downloaded from slr.sagepub.com at University Library Utrecht on March 19, 2012 Second Language Research 18,4 (2002); pp. 348–392 Structural Minimality, CP and the Contrary to the predictions of Full Transfer (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994; 1996), the data we present suggest that L2 learners start out without a CP support the Minimal Trees / Partial Transfer (MT/PT) hypothesis (Vainikka and Young-Scholten, 1996a; 1996b), we show that the MT/PT hypothesis also availability of functional categories and the role of the first language (L1) grammar (Eubank, 1993/94; 1996; Lakshmanan and Selinker, 1994; Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994; 1996; Epstein et al., 1996; Grondin and White, 1996; White, 1996; Vainikka and YoungScholten, 1996a; 1996b; Prévost, 1997; Paradis et al., 1998) (compare Eubank and Schwartz, 1996). Two proposals in particular represent contrasting perspectives on the role of the L1 in the Address for correspondence: Rakesh M. Bhatt, Department of Linguistics, University of Illinois, 4088 FLB, 707 S Downloaded from slr.sagepub.com at University Library Utrecht on March 19, 2012 R akesh M (MT) hypothesis (Vainikka and Young-Scholten, 1994; 1996a; 1996b), claims that only lexical projections, such as verb phrase Transfer / Full Access (FT/FA) hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994; 1996), claims that the entire L1 grammar, including functional status of CP remains unclear (see Kaplan, 1993; Lakshmanan, 1993/94; Lakshmanan and Selinker, 1994; Epstein et al., 1996; Grondin and White, 1996; Vainikka and Young-Scholten, 1996a), making the research base on functional projections incomplete (= Inversion) to Comp (compare Rizzi, 1996). If the learners fail either to invert (subject–auxiliary verb inversion) or to move w hphrase to the Spec-CP, or both, then we have evidence to support There is also a third position, according to which ‘transfer is not part of the acquisition model’ (Epstein et al., 1996)