Selective deficits at the syntax-discourse interface: evidence from the CEDEL2 corpus

Cristóbal Lozano

Previous research shows that English-speaking learners of Spanish show (i) early sensitivity to the syntactic mechanisms licensing overt and null pronominal subjects, yet (i) persistent and long-lasting deficits when pronominal distribution is constrained by topic/focus at the syntax-discourse interface. It has been assumed that such vulnerability affects the whole set of phi-features of the pronominal paradigm, but I will use near-native corpus evidence to show that the observed deficits are selective, i.e., they do not affect the whole set of phi-features in the pronominal paradigm but rather a subset: due to their representational nature (which is constrained by Universal Grammar), only third person singular animate pronouns are targets for vulnerability, while the rest of the paradigm remains rather stable.

Published online: 14 January 2009
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.47.09loz

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