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Article published In:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 3:2 (2013) ► pp.117–149

Existential quantifiers in second language acquisition

A feature reassembly account [*] *

| University of Sheffield
| University of York

Lardiere’s (2005, 2008, 2009) Feature Reassembly Hypothesis proposes that L2 acquisition involves reconfiguring the sets of lexical features that occur in the native language into feature bundles appropriate to the L2. This paper applies the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis to findings from recent research into the L2 acquisition of existential quantifiers. It firstly provides a feature-based, crosslinguistic account of polarity item any in English, and its equivalents — wh-existentials — in Chinese, Korean and Japanese. We then test predictions built on the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis, about how learners map target existential quantifiers in the L2 input onto feature sets from their L1, and how they then reassemble these feature sets to better match the target. The findings, which are largely compatible with the predictions, show that research that focuses on the specific processes of first mapping and then feature reassembly promises to lead to a more explanatory account of development in L2 acquisition.

Keywords: second language acquisition, features, existential quantifiers, polarity items, English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, wh-words, mapping, feature reassembly
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.‘Any’ in English, Korean, Japanese and Chinese
    • 2.1Polarity sensitive existential quantifiers
      • 2.1.1 English ‘any’
      • 2.1.2‘Any’ in Chinese
      • 2.1.3A proposal for licensing of polarity-sensitive existential quantifiers in English and Chinese
    • 2.2‘Any’ in Korean and Japanese: No distributional restrictions
    • 2.3Summary
  • 3.The L2 learnability problems
    • 3.1Step 1: Mapping
    • 3.2Step 2: Feature reassembly
    • 3.3Predictions
  • 4.L2 Studies of ‘any’
    • 4.1L2 Korean
    • 4.2L2 Chinese
    • 4.3L2 English
    • 4.4Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 May 2013
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.3.2.01gil
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