Cover not available
Part of
Language Acquisition in Romance Languages
Edited by Vicenç Torrens
[Bilingual Processing and Acquisition 18] 2024
► pp. 86–113

Chapter 4
The acquisition of object drop in L2 Spanish by German speakers

| University of the Balearic Islands

This study investigates the use of null objects in adult L1 German-L2 Spanish speakers. Spanish null objects are licensed under two conditions: (i) semantically, null objects must be [-definite, -specific] (Franco, 1993; Sánchez, 2004), and (ii) syntactically, null objects cannot be generated within an island or Phase Impenetrability in recent minimalist conceptions (Chomsky, 2001), as they involve A’-movement (triggered by [+ Top] feature). Object topic drop in German, on the other hand, does not exhibit the same semantic restrictions as Spanish (Müller & Hulk, 2001). Using a production task, the predictions of two competing models of L2 acquisition are tested. While the Interpretability Hypothesis (e.g., Hawkins & Hattori, 2006; Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007) claims that interpretable features can be fully acquired by adult L2ers, uninterpretable features not instantiated in the L1 are no longer available to adult learners, the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2009) proposes that L2 speakers transfer features that share the same morpholexical expressions in the L1 and L2, and when they do not, learners must (re)assemble them into new configurations. Unlike the IH, FRH does not predict special difficulties with uninterpretable features. The results from the native speaker group show that they respect the semantic constraints in great measure, but show some variability with the syntactic restrictions by producing (unpredicted) null objects under some of the islands tested. Moreover, the results from the L2ers show sensitivity to the semantic constraint, although it is not as categorical as in the native group. Similarly, L2ers show sensitivity to the syntactic constraints in that they generally prefer explicit objects when these are generated inside islands, but it varies by island (not in the same way as in the NS group) and by speaker (group). In light of our results, we conclude that the results are more in line with the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis. Ultimately, these results show that adult L2ers are able to make distinctions which would not be expected if second language acquisition were fundamentally different from L1 acquisition and UG were inoperative in this population.

Keywords: object drop, subjacency, L2 Spanish, L1 German
Article outline
  • 1.General introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background: Comparing the Spanish and German systems
  • 3.Previous L2 research findings
  • 4.Study: Design and methodology
    • Participants
    • Instruments
    • Analysis
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Group results
    • 5.2Individual results
  • 6.Discussion and concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
References
Boeckx, C.
(2007) Understanding minimalist syntax: Lessons from locality in long-distance dependencies. Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bruhn de Garavito, J., & Guijarro-Fuentes, P.
(2002) L2 acquisition of indefinite object drop in Spanish. In J. Costa & M. J. Freitas (Eds.), Proceedings of the GALA 2001 Conference. Associação Portuguesa de Linguística.Google Scholar
Campos, H.
(1986) Indefinite object drop. Linguistic Inquiry, 17, 354–359.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N.
(1973) Conditions on transformations. In S. R. Anderson & P. Kiparsky (Eds.), A Festschrift for Morris Halle (pp. 232–286). Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
(1977) On wh-movement. In P. Culicover & T. Wasow (Eds.), Formal syntax (pp. 71–132). Academic Press.Google Scholar
(1981) Lectures on government and binding, The Pisa lectures. De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
(1982) Some concepts and consequences of the theory of government and binding. The MIT Press.Google Scholar
(1986) Barriers. The MIT Press.Google Scholar
(1995) [URL]. The MIT Press.Google Scholar
(2000) The architecture of language. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2001) On nature and language, A. Belletti & L. Rizzi (Eds.). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cuza, A., Perez-Leroux, A. T., & Sánchez, L.
(2013) The role of semantic transfer in clitic-drop among Chinese L1-Spanish L2 bilinguals. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 35(1), 93–125.Google Scholar
Di Venanzio, L., Schmitz, K., & Rumpf, A. L.
(2012) Objektrealisierungen und -auslassungen bei transitiven Verben im Spanischen von Herkunftssprechern in Deutschland. Linguistische Berichte, 232, 437–461.Google Scholar
Di Venanzio, L., Schmitz, K., & Scherger, A. L.
(2016) Objects of transitive verbs in Italian as a heritage language in contact with German. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 6(3), 227–261.Google Scholar
Duffield, N., & White, L.
(1999) Assessing L2 knowledge of Spanish clitic placement: Converging methodologies. Second Language Research, 15, 133–160.Google Scholar
Epstein, S., Flynn, S., & Martohardjono, G.
(1996) Second language acquisition: Theoretical and experimental issues in contemporary research. Brain and Behavioral Sciences, 19, 677–758.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E., MacKay, I. A., & Piske, T.
(2002) Assessing bilingual dominance. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 567–598.Google Scholar
Franco, J.
(1993) Conditions on clitic-doubling: The agreement hypothesis. Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca ‘Julio de Urquijo,’ 27, 285–298.Google Scholar
García-Mayo, M. P., & Slabakova, R.
(2013) Object drop in L3 acquisition. International Journal of Bilingualism, 19, 483–498.Google Scholar
Guijarro-Fuentes, P., Pires, A,. & Nediger, W.
(2017) Delay in the acquisition of Differential Object Marking by Spanish monolingual and bilingual teenagers. International Journal of Bilingualism, 21, 159–177.Google Scholar
Hawkins, R., & Chan, C.- Y.
(1997) The partial availability of universal grammar in second language acquisition: The “failed functional features hypothesis.” Second Language Research, 13, 187–226.Google Scholar
Hawkins, R., & Franceschina, F.
(2004) Explaining the acquisition and non acquisition of determiner-noun gender concord in French and Spanish. In P. Prévost & J. Paradis (Eds.), The acquisition of French in different contexts: Focus on functional categories (pp. 175–205). John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Hawkins, R., & Hattori, H.
(2006) Interpretation of English multiple wh -questions by Japanese speakers: A missing uninterpretable feature account. Second Language Research, 22, 269–301.Google Scholar
Huang, J.
(1984) On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry, 15, 531–575.Google Scholar
Lardiere, D.
(2009) Some thoughts on the contrastive analysis of feature in second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 25, 171–225.Google Scholar
Lenneberg, E.
(1967) Biological foundations of language. John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Masullo, P.
(2017) La interfaz sintaxis-pragmática: Caída de objeto acusativo definido sin clítico en el español rioplatense. Saga Revista de Letras, 7, 53–72.Google Scholar
Montrul, S., & Slabakova, R.
(2003) Competence similarities between native and near-native speakers: An investigation of the preterite/imperfect contrast in Spanish. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25, 351–398.Google Scholar
Müller, N., & Hulk, A.
(2001) Crosslinguistic influence in bilingual language acquisition: Italian and French as recipient languages. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4, 1–21.Google Scholar
Müller, G.
2012 Constraints on displacement: A phase-based approach. John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Nediger, W., Pires, A., & Guijarro-Fuentes, P.
(2019) Integrating linguistic theory and experimentation in L2 acquisition: Learning of Spanish differential object marking by Portuguese and English speakers. Applied Linguistic Review, 10, 219–239.Google Scholar
Rothman, J., & Iverson, M.
(2013) Islands and null objects in l2-Spanish of Brazilian Portuguese natives: Do you know the learners who drop___? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 35, 589–618.Google Scholar
Sánchez, L.
(1999) Null objects in contact varieties of Spanish. In J. M. Authier, L. Reed, & B. Bullock (Eds.), Formal perspectives on Romance linguistics (pp. 227–242). John Benjamins.Google Scholar
(2004) Object agreement and the checking of focus in Spanish (Unpublished manuscript). Rutgers University.
Sánchez, L., & Al-Kasey, T.
(1999) L2 acquisition of Spanish direct objects. Spanish Applied Linguistics, 3, 1–32.Google Scholar
Schwartz, B. D., & Sprouse, R. A.
(1996) L2 cognitive states and the full transfer/full access model. Second Languagee Researc., 12, 40–72.Google Scholar
Tsimpli. I- M., & Mastropavlou, M.
(2008) Feature interpretability in L2 acquisition and SLI: Greek clitics and determiners. In J. H. Liceras & H. Goodluck (Eds.), The role of formal features in second language acquisition (pp. 143–183). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I. M., & Dimitrakopoulou, M.
(2007) The Interpretability Hypothesis: Evidence from wh -interrogatives in second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 23, 215–242.Google Scholar
White, L.
(2003) Second language acquisition and universal grammar. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zyzik, E.
(2008) Null objects in second language acquisition: Grammatical versus performance models. Second Language Research, 24, 65–110.Google Scholar