Pragmatic consequences of P-movement and focus fronting in L2 Spanish: unraveling the syntax-discourse interface

Méndez, Tania and Slabakova, Roumyana (2011) Pragmatic consequences of P-movement and focus fronting in L2 Spanish: unraveling the syntax-discourse interface. GASLA 11: The 11th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference, Seattle, United States. 25 - 27 Mar 2011.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

At ultimate L2 attainment, Sorace's (2006) Interface Hypothesis predicts that narrow syntactic properties can be fully acquired whereas properties at the external interfaces will inevitably result in non-native optionality. The present study tests the Interface Hypothesis as it pertains to the acquisition of Focus Fronting (FF) and P-movement (type 1 and 2) with their ensuing pragmatic consequences by English natives learning Spanish (n=90 advanced, intermediate and low intermediate plus n=47 native controls). The syntactic analysis used was Lopez (2009). Group results indicate that these properties can be successfully acquired, although not all to the same extent. While Rheme and P-movement type 1 posed no problems for the learners, Focus Fronting was more problematic. The native data on P-movement type 2 indicate the need for further testing, as it did not confirm the linguistic predictions.

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