The acquisition of focus by adult English learners of Hungarian : evidence of optionality in mature and developing grammars
The process of second language acquisition is usually assumed to be affected by differences between the source language (L 1) and the target language (L2). Within the Minimalist approach (Chomsky 1995) crosslinguistic variation is accounted for in terms of differences in the values of features of functional categories instantiated in specific languages. Mature English differs from Hungarian in that its Tense category does not carry the [+f] feature characteristic of Hungarian focused sentences. Also, English lacks an additional functional projection dominating IP, namely F(ocus)P(hrase), which hosts focused, wh-, and negative operators in Spec,FP and attracts the verb or adjectival predicate into its head in order to satisfy spec-head agreement. It follows that English learners of Hungarian will have . to instantiate a new functional category FP and reset the values of the Tense category in their IL grammar. In this thesis we account for the difficulties faced by adult English learners of Hungarian by adopting the hypothesis that the two main classes of features have distinct learnability properties. It has been suggested that interpretable features (among them phi-features of nouns as well as [+wh] and [+f]
Papp, Szilvia
Second language acquisition ; Hungarian language
The acquisition of focus by adult English learners of Hungarian : evidence of optionality in mature and developing grammars. The process of second language acquisition is usually assumed to be affected by differences between the source language (L 1) and the target language (L2). Within the Minimalist approach (Chomsky 1995) crosslinguistic variation is accounted for in terms of differences in the values of features of functional categories instantiated in specific languages. Mature English differs from Hungarian in that its Tense category does not carry the [+f] feature characteristic of Hungarian focused sentences. Also, English lacks an additional functional projection dominating IP, namely F(ocus)P(hrase), which hosts focused, wh-, and negative operators in Spec,FP and attracts the verb or adjectival predicate into its head in order to satisfy spec-head agreement. It follows that English learners of Hungarian will have . to instantiate a new functional category FP and reset the values of the Tense category in their IL grammar. In this thesis we account for the difficulties faced by adult English learners of Hungarian by adopting the hypothesis that the two main classes of features have distinct learnability properties. It has been suggested that interpretable features (among them phi-features of nouns as well as [+wh] and [+f]
acquisition focus adult english_learner hungarian evidence optionality mature develop grammar process second_language_acquisition usually assume affected difference source language target_language within_minimalist chomsky crosslinguistic variation account term difference value feature functional_category instantiate specific language mature english differs hungarian tense category carry feature characteristic hungarian focus sentence also english lack additional functional_projection dominate namely host focus negative operator spec attract verb adjectival predicate head order satisfy spec_head agreement follow english_learner hungarian instantiate new functional_category reset value tense category grammar account difficulty face adult english_learner hungarian adopt hypothesis two_main class feature distinct property suggest interpretable feature among features nouns well