On the “vulnerability” of syntactic domains in Swedish and German

• Thispaper investigates the L2 acquisition of clausal syntax in post-puberty learnersof German and Swedish regarding V2, VP headedness and verb particleconstructions. The learner data are tested against L2 theories according towhich lower structural projections (VP) are acquired before higher functionalprojections (IP, CP), VP syntax is unproblematic (invulnerable), but where grammatical operations related to thetopmost level of syntactic structure (CP) are acquired late (e.g. Platzack’s(2001) vulnerable C-domain). It willbe shown that such theories do not hold water: native speakers of Swedishlearning German and native speakers of German learning Swedish both master V2from early on. At the same time, these learners exhibit a nontargetlike syntaxat lower structural levels: residual VO in the case of the Swedish-L1 learnersof German, and persistent nontarget transitive verb particle constructions inthe German-L1 learners of Swedish. I argue that these findings are bestexplained by assuming full transfer of L1 syntax (e.g. Schwartz & Sprouse 1996).

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Jämförande språkvetenskap och allmän lingvistik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Language Studies and Linguistics (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Studier av enskilda språk (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- Specific Languages (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

particle

particle verb construction

Swedish

German

word order

transfer

second language learner

input

V2

OV

VO

corpus

syntax

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)