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Generative SLA in the Age of Minimalism: Features, interfaces, and beyond
Edited by Tania Leal, Elena Shimanskaya and Casilde A. Isabelli
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 67] 2022
► pp. 11–40

Intervention effects in L1 and L2 English raising

Evidence from acceptability judgments and response times

| The Graduate Center
| City University of New York

We investigate L1 Italian-L2 English speakers using three types of subject raising constructions: Raising over lexical DPs, pronominal DPs, and topicalizations. We test locality constraints in L2 English, including how intervention effects affect the L2 processing of A-dependencies and whether exceptionality to certain locality constraints are learnable. Three main findings emerged: (i) L2 speakers are sensitive to intervention, yet exceptions to locality can be learned; (ii) intervening DPs elicited higher processing loads only for native controls; (iii) raising with topicalizations facilitated processing only for native speakers, even though topicalization is grammatical in the L2er’s L1. Results indicate that native and non-native grammars eventually converge, exceptionality to universal constraints is learnable, and differences between native and non-native speakers lies primarily in processing.

Keywords: relativized minimality, intervention effects, L1 Italian, L2 English, L2 grammatical representation, L2 processing, subject raising, A-dependencies
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Raising and minimality
    • 2.1Italian/English asymmetry on raising across DPs
    • 2.2Italian/English symmetry on raising with topic DPs
    • 2.3Smuggling approach to English raising (Collins, 2005)
  • 3.Intervention effects in the L2 acquisition research on raising
  • 4.The present study
    • 4.1Methods
      • 4.1.1Participants
      • 4.1.2Proficiency assessment
      • 4.1.3Materials
      • 4.1.4Procedure
      • 4.1.5Data analyses
    • 4.2Results
      • 4.2.1Acceptability judgments
      • 4.2.2Response times (RTs)
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Intervention effects in the representation of L1 and L2 English raising
    • 5.2Intervention effects in L1 and L2 processing of English raising
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 August 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.67.01fra
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