Fossilized Second Language Grammars: The acquisition of grammatical genderThis monograph is a theoretical and empirical investigation into the mechanisms and causes of successful and unsuccessful adult second language acquisition.Couched within a generative framework, the study explores how a learner s first language and the age at which they acquire their second language may contribute to the L2 knowledge that they can ultimately attain. The empirical study focuses on a group of very advanced L2 speakers, and through a series of tests aims to discover what underpins their near mastery of grammatical gender and other grammatical properties.The book explores an account of persistent selective divergence based on the idea that child and adult learners are fundamentally similar, except that in adults the L1 plays the role of a fairly rigid filter of the linguistic input. The impossibility of representing the new target language other than by using the building blocks of the previously established L1 is argued to be the main reason why near but not totally native like language representations are formed and become established in adult L2 learners. |
Contents
1 | |
9 | |
43 | |
Gender | 69 |
The empirical study | 121 |
Discussion | 191 |
Notes | 207 |
References | 215 |
Appendices | 241 |
Name index | 283 |
Subject index | 287 |
The series Language Acquisition and Language Disorders | 289 |
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Common terms and phrases
acquired adjectives adult L2 learners agreement in contexts Anticanonical Appendix bilingual canonical Chinese Chomsky classification clitic cognitive critical period Critical Period Hypothesis definiteness difficulties Distributed Morphology effects of Factor English evidence example feminine find findings first French fucsia gen group gen L1 group gender agreement gender and number gender assignment gender clues gender features gender marking grammatical gender inflectional influence input interaction Iournal knowledge L1 and L2 L1 gen speakers L2 acquisition L2 grammar language learning lexical items linguistic main effects markers masculine morphology morphophonological nativelike NNSs noun class nouns NS/NNS null hypothesis parameter Past Tense PFFs phonological predictions proficiency Pron pronouns proposed representations Second Language Acquisition Second Language Research semantic sentences significant difference sing pl sing specific subjects syntactic clues syntax Table targetlike task Test 2 scores Test items Tsimpli ungrammatical Universal Grammar University of Essex variable verb word