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The Interpretability Hypothesis again: a partial replication of Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou (2007)

The Interpretability Hypothesis again: a partial replication of Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou (2007)
The Interpretability Hypothesis again: a partial replication of Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou (2007)
Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou (2007) propose the Interpretability Hypothesis (IH), according to which uninterpretable features present an insurmountable difficulty in adult second language acquisition. The experimental study supporting the IH examines Greek native speakers’ knowledge of gaps versus resumptive pronouns in English wh-movement. A crucial assumption is that Greek allows resumptives optionally. Alexopoulou and Keller’s (2002, 2007) findings confirm that assumption. In our replication of Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou’s study, we divide Spanish native speakers into those who accept resumptives and those who do not; then we look at their acceptance of gaps and resumptives in English. The results indicate that both groups of advanced learners, those that do and those that don’t have resumptives in their individual grammars, have acquired the ungrammaticality of resumptives in English, although there may be lingering native language effects. The effects of d-linking, animacy, syntactic function of the resumptive/gap (subject vs. object), and presence of the complementizer "that" are also examined.
1367-0069
1 -21
Leal Mendez, Tania
02c996af-8c06-4244-bd7a-f297e2e5c4d0
Slabakova, Roumyana
1bda11ce-ce3d-4146-8ae3-4a486b6f5bde
Leal Mendez, Tania
02c996af-8c06-4244-bd7a-f297e2e5c4d0
Slabakova, Roumyana
1bda11ce-ce3d-4146-8ae3-4a486b6f5bde

Leal Mendez, Tania and Slabakova, Roumyana (2012) The Interpretability Hypothesis again: a partial replication of Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou (2007). International Journal of Bilingualism, n/a, 1 -21. (doi:10.1177/1367006912448125).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou (2007) propose the Interpretability Hypothesis (IH), according to which uninterpretable features present an insurmountable difficulty in adult second language acquisition. The experimental study supporting the IH examines Greek native speakers’ knowledge of gaps versus resumptive pronouns in English wh-movement. A crucial assumption is that Greek allows resumptives optionally. Alexopoulou and Keller’s (2002, 2007) findings confirm that assumption. In our replication of Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou’s study, we divide Spanish native speakers into those who accept resumptives and those who do not; then we look at their acceptance of gaps and resumptives in English. The results indicate that both groups of advanced learners, those that do and those that don’t have resumptives in their individual grammars, have acquired the ungrammaticality of resumptives in English, although there may be lingering native language effects. The effects of d-linking, animacy, syntactic function of the resumptive/gap (subject vs. object), and presence of the complementizer "that" are also examined.

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e-pub ahead of print date: 10 September 2012
Organisations: Modern Languages and Linguistics

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 353329
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/353329
ISSN: 1367-0069
PURE UUID: 8797966f-a174-4834-a1d6-aa79b0bebb8b
ORCID for Roumyana Slabakova: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5839-460X

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Date deposited: 05 Jun 2013 10:40
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:48

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Author: Tania Leal Mendez

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