Edited by Tania Leal, Elena Shimanskaya and Casilde A. Isabelli
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 67] 2022
► pp. 41–66
This study explores the L2 acquisition of quantifier scope in English, a notably difficult property to acquire by speakers of a scope-rigid language like Japanese. This study examines the knowledge of universal quantifiers in English that Japanese Learners of English (JLEs) have, focusing on the distributivity and collectivity of the quantifiers. Results of a picture-based acceptability judgment task showed that JLEs had problems with scope judgments and interpreted every NP as a distributive/collective quantifier akin to all NPPL in the grammar of English native speakers. Thus, this study implies that issues with the L2 acquisition of scope ambiguity are rooted in a problem with the reassembly of quantificational features of universal quantifiers, in accord with Lardiere (2008, 2009).