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Second Language Acquisition of Turkish
Edited by Ayşe Gürel
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 59] 2016
► pp. 135–163

Someone judges every sentence

Third language acquisition of quantifier scope in Turkish

| Ankara University
| Ankara University

This study investigates the interpretation of distributive readings of universal quantifiers in third language (L3) Turkish by native Japanese speakers whose second language is English. The findings show that L3 speakers allow the subject-­wide interpretation in both SOV and OSV sentences, suggesting no cross-linguistic transfer. Native Turkish speakers, on the other hand, prefer surface scope readings over inverse scope readings in both SOV and OSV sentences. These findings suggest that there is no first or second language transfer in the acquisition of quantifier scope in L3 Turkish as evidenced by a clear preference for the subject-wide interpretation due to merging of the subject DP into the SpecTP position.

Keywords: cross-linguistic transfer, scope interpretation, third language acquisition, Turkish, universal quantifiers
Published online: 25 May 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.59.06ay
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