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Questioning Theoretical Primitives in Linguistic Inquiry: Papers in honor of Ricardo Otheguy
Edited by Naomi Shin and Daniel Erker
[Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics 76] 2018
► pp. 269–290

An incomplete disquisition against ‘incomplete acquisition’

With particular reference to changes in the distribution of the subjunctive in Spanish

| Eötvös Loránd University | Hungarian Academy of Sciences

This chapter presents a multi-pronged argument, from a generative syntactic perspective, against the notion of ‘incomplete acquisition,’ centered on subjunctive usage by Spanish heritage speakers in New York City. Special attention is paid to the distribution of the subjunctive in futurate cuando clauses and in causative and permissive constructions with hacer and dejar. It is argued that the distribution of the subjunctive in second-generation speakers of Spanish in New York City is different from that seen in monolingual Spanish speakers; but it has not been in completely acquired. The paper also contains relevant discussion of English let’s hortatives, and the acquisition of subject–auxiliary inversion in root wh-questions by first- and second-language learners of English.

Keywords: incomplete acquisition, subjunctive, cuando clauses, causative/permissive constructions, let’s hortatives, subject–auxiliary inversion, Spanish, English, generative syntax
Article outline
  • 1.Primitive prolegomena
  • 2.Changes in the use of the subjunctive in the Spanish of New York City
  • 3.The subjunctive in futurate adverbial clauses introduced by cuando
  • 4.The subjunctive in finite clauses embedded under causative hacer
  • 5.Changes in the use of the subjunctive in monolingual Spanish: dejar
  • 6.English hortatives with let’s
  • 7.On the acquisition of subject–auxiliary inversion in wh-questions
  • 8.Closing remarks on ‘incomplete acquisition’
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sfsl.76.12dik
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