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Second Language Acquisition and Language Universals Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2008

Bernard Comrie
Bernard Comrie
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
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Abstract

To the extent that language universals represent internal properties of human beings, one would expect them to manifest themselves in first language (L1) acquisition. Whether they should also manifest themselves in second language (L2) acquisition depends on whether or not language universals remain accessible to adults. The relation between L2 acquisition and language universals research is examined with respect to three phenomena: extraction, where the subset principle makes interesting predictions, although the second language data are far from clear; structure dependence, where there is evidence for the continuation beyond puberty of a general formal property of language; and the distribution of overt reflexives, which has a functional basis and therefore poses the interesting question whether or not this functional basis is accessible to language learners.

Type
Commentraies
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 209 - 218
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

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