Chapter 4
Functional Categories: their Role, Internal Architecture and Acquisition. 4.0.Introduction
In the previous chapter it was pointed out how the Minimalist Program (MP) places a special emphasis on the lexicon, seen as the driving force which triggers off the computational operations MERGE, AGREE/ATTRACT and MOVE. As explained in that chapter, MERGE is a function of features within lexical items which allows two objects to combine (an operation which is always binary). Thus, if the features contained in the two objects match, there are in principle no
obstacles preventing such an operation from taking place (Marantz 1997: 201).
AGREE/ATTRACT, in turn, makes the two combined objects enter in an agreement relation by prompting a probe to search for a goal with features still unvalued. Finally, MOVE applies again to the merged objects to produce new structures.
From the brief summary above, it is clear that in the MP language acquisition is a process which mainly consists of mastering the morpho-lexical features of words and setting the appropriate parameters for them. In this light, it seems to better cope with copiously debated and controversial issues in second language acquisition, such as those related to L2 learners’ (henceforth L2er/s) access to universal grammar and the impossibility for them of attaining the same level of language competence as the one native speakers attain. If, in fact, the principles that rule the computational system are universal, variability residing in the lexicon (more precisely, in the control of the internal features of functional items), then the acquisition of a second language is a process that takes place slowly and gradually over time. During such a period, the L2er learns to properly master the features of the items, both the substantive and the functional ones, which he/she is exposed to (Hershenshon 2000: 81).
In this chapter, I will focus on the latter items, both in order to better pinpoint the role they play in SLA and also to provide a rationale for their investigation in this dissertation.
I will proceed in the following way. First, I will report below in the form of questions on some key issues which are at stake in this research area, on which divergent hypotheses have been made and contrasting evidence has been provided and then I will move on by trying to give an answer to each of them. The starting questions are:
-1.Generative grammar assumes that parameterization resides in the lexicon, which is made up of functional and substantive items. To what extent, however, do the former differ from the latter?
-2.What kinds of Functional Categories (henceforth FCs) have been proposed in generative approaches to language acquisition?
-3.To what extent, if at all, do FCs have an independent syntactic and semantic representation and what does such an independence entail?
-4.If FCs have an independent syntactic representation, what is their underlying structure?
-5.What relation is held between FCs and the morphology that realises them in surface structures?
-6.What mechanisms trigger their acquisition by language learners?
The exploration of these questions is needed to pave the way for the central topic of this dissertation, which deals with the acquisition of functional categories in a second language. Studies on SLA, in fact, have benefited from similar ones carried out in FLA and I think that an introduction to the role, structure and internal architecture of FCs is needed to better grasp the terms of the general debate on this research area before exploring the specific issues related to their acquisition in the next chapter.
The chapter is organised as follows. In section 4.1, I will briefly introduce differences between functional and lexical categories (question 1). In section 4.2, I sum up the main functional categories as they have been posited within the
generative framework (question 2). Then, in section 4.3, I discuss the extent to which they have an independent syntactic and semantic representation from lexical items (question 3). Next, in section 4.4, I explore their internal
architecture by illustrating the various features which they have been hypothesised to possess (question 4). In section 4.5, I discuss the relationship between abstract
functional categories and the morphology that realises them in surface forms (question 5). Finally, in section 4.6, I explain the role they play both in first and in second language acquisition and the mechanisms that trigger the latter
(question 6).
4.1.Theoretical Preliminaries: The Functional VS Lexical Categories Contrast.
As mentioned above, in the MP the lexicon is seen as consisting of an array of functional and lexical items having different properties and internal structure. The latter, in fact, have a descriptive content that the former lack, their role only consisting of carrying out grammatical operations in derivations. By descriptive content one means the characteristic lexical items have of relating to specific objects, entities or events that posses well-defined conceptual and referential properties: for example, a word like table has four legs, a board and so on.
Conversely, functional items miss such a specific conceptual content and only possess certain formal features which serve to mark grammatical meaning (Hawkins 2001: 36). In the case of a determiner like a/an, it doesn’t describe an independent class of objects or entities, but only the grammatical concepts of singularity and indeterminacy. These grammatical meanings, however, are not realised by the determiner per se but through another component of the sentence that it modifies: e.g. a table.
This relationship of dependency also holds for the phonological properties of functional heads which have, in fact, to be attached to other components to be realized. The morpheme –s in the functional category T(ense), for example, which marks the third person singular present, needs a thematic verb onto which to be suffixed in order to receive a phonological spell out at PF: e.g.
speaks/talks/reads, etc. This, obviously, does not occur in lexical items, because they have full independent phonological realizations.
Roberts and Roussou (2003) hold that functional and lexical categories also differ in the way they realize the semantic and phonetic features they contain.
Substantive categories such as [Nouns], [Verbs], [Adjectives] and [Prepositions]
all have interpretable features both at LF (e.g. in that they have semantic content) and at PF (through the phonetic forms which map onto the semantic content)
interface. A word like egg, for example, has both a phonetic realization as /egg/
and a semantic one in terms of the object it denotes. Then, its values at LF and PF can be symbolised, respectively, as +l (LF) and +p (PF). A functional
category1 like a null C(omplementiser) (ø), instead, has a semantic representation at LF, since it gives the sentence or clause it heads either a declarative or an interrogative force, but not a phonetic realization at PF, since it remains
unpronounced. Its value, as a result, can be symbolised as [+l] at LF and [–p] at PF. On the contrary, a C(complementizer) like that, besides having a semantic representation at LF also has a phonetic form realised by the overt morpheme /that/. Unlike a null C, then, its values are [+l] at LF and [+p] at PF and this explains the difference between sentences like (1a-b) below:
1a I think [C that] John is coming.
2b I think [C ø ] John is coming.
In (1a) the overt complementizer that has the value [+1] both at LF and PF interface, while in (1b) the null complementizer ø has the value [+1] at LF, since it contributes to the declarative force of the sentence, but the value [ –1] at PF and, as a result, it receives no phonetic realization.
The properties illustrated above are lexically determined and appear in the entries of words (Roberts and Rousseau 2004: 28). Hence, substantive categories like [N] and [V], apart from the formal features (e.g.φ-features, tense, etc), also have features marking the value [+l] at both LF and PF, while functional
categories like (C), (T), (D) have the value [ +1] at LF and either [ +] or [-] at PF.
Contrary to Chomsky (1995, 2000, 2001), then, they hold that functional categories are always interpretable at LF.2 In short, the choice [±] is a matter of parametric setting, the value of which is listed in the lexical entries of morphemes.
All in all, Roberts and Roussou’s view of the lexicon and of the elements it contains is illustrated below:
a.Lexical items, specified as ± V, ±N, with PF and LF properties given;
1 A full description of functional categories, their features and values is given on p. 52-53.
2 For studies showing how such categories are realized differently in child and adult grammar I refer to (Hyams 1986; Radford 1990).
b.Substantive universals encoded as interpretable features of functional heads;
c.* assigned in a language-particular fashion to (b). (Roberts and Roussou 2003: 29)
The diacritic * in c above expresses the relationship between functional features and their morphophonological realization, which can occur either in the form of an overt morpheme or a null one. In the light of this, diacritics are not assigned to substantive heads, since they are always morphophonologically realized at PF, while functional ones may not be so. Since all languages have a set of universal functional features from which they draw on, parametric differences are measured according to whether or not they are realized at PF and, in the case they are, how.
Functional and lexical items also differ in their selectional properties; the latter can choose a wide variety of complement clauses, while the former can select only a restricted one (in some cases just one complement). For example, the functional head T can have as its complement a VP, a vP or a NegP, while C can have just a TP.
Finally, the two categories are thought to belong to different word-classes:
lexical items to an open class, since they can add new members to it without any restriction; functional items, instead, belong to a closed class, because they are thought to resist new memberships.3 A further distinction on this point, is also made according to whether FCs head phrases or not. Hoekstra and Jordens (1994:
119-20), for example, group FCs like COMP (Complementizers), DET (Determiners), TENSE, AGR (Agreement) and NEG (Negation) in the former group and various kinds of modifying elements as Adjuncts or Adverbs in the latter group. The difference between them is that head-FCs can project their phrasal structure while non-head FCs can’t. Hoekstra and Jordens call non-head FCs Adjunct Expressions because, not being able to project their phrasal structure, they can only adjoin that of others.
FCs are attributed a crucial role in the MP, since they check the features of the items that enter derivations, a computational process triggered through the
3 Hudson for example claims that functional categories do not exist at all as a separate class. He rejects the notion of 'functional category' while preserving that of 'function' words and 'content' words. For example, he holds that there is not a word-class like “determiners”, but simply
“transitive” pronouns. Nor, he adds, can a word-class like “complementisers” be posited, since its members do not belong to a unique word-class being different from each other (Hudson 1997:
1).
operations Attract and Move (Chomsky 1995: 349). This explains why they have been attributed such a considerable importance within the generative framework, so much so that their role and even their number, as well as their formal and selectional properties, have been subjected to continuous investigation and revision from the earlier phases of the MP (Chomsky 1995) to its more recent developments (Chomsky 2000, 2001, 2002).
Chomsky acknowledges that postulation of functional categories is a slippery terrain to work on and, for this reason, their existence needs theory-internal proof to be justified. If, on the one hand, in fact, it is undisputable that the lexicon contains certain functional items, as for example C with its properties, on the other hand
the situation is more obscure in the case of other possible functional categories, in particular T, Agr, specific φ-features, a Case category K and so on, which is why theories about these matters have varied so over the years. Postulation of a functional category has to be justified, either by output conditions (phonetic and semantic interpretation) or by theory-internal arguments. It bears a burden of proof, which is often not so easy to meet. (Chomsky 1995: 240)
As a result, it is very difficult to disentangle among the various amendments, reinterpretations and further developments of studies on functional categories, let alone the wealth of issues related to them which are still open and subject to controversy. Thus, both for the sake of clarity and to illustrate the specific research area I tackle in this dissertation – the acquisition of FCs in SLA – I think it is worth providing an introduction to the various types of functional categories that have been posited and explain the role they play in language acquisition.
4.2. Functional Projections and Core Functional Categories (CFCs).
As a first step, I will try to account for Chomsky’s requirement about the necessity to justify the postulation of functional categories by trying to give evidence that they have an independent syntactic representation, disjointed from that of the lexical ones. In SL studies, evidence about this issue is of crucial importance in the light of the relationship which holds between acquisition of functional categories per se and acquisition of the forms that maps onto them in surface structures. In fact, if the former have an independent syntactic
representation, it ensues that they necessarily head lexical items through the morphemes that realize them, both the overt (e.g. –s, -ed, that, for, if and so on) and the null ones. An independent syntactic representation of functional
categories would allow such heads to be subject to operations like Merge and Attract through which they can be combined (Merge) and matched (Attract) within the space created by the syntactic objects that enter derivations (Roberts and Roussou 2003: 18-19). What is even more important, is the fact that if they have an independent representation, this fact, I assume, may provide empirical evidence to confirm the hypothesis that acquisition of functional categories is unrelated to the presence of the morphemes that realise them in surface structures and in this case, as suggested by Epstein et al (1996), ungrammaticality in L2 learners’ utterances might be due to lack of lexical knowledge, which is the position I hold in this work, rather than to absence of functional categories.
The issue at stake, then, is not so much to provide evidence of the existence of functional categories, which is undisputed (for studies on this topic I refer to works by Ross 1967; Bresnan 1972; Kayne 1984; de Besten 1982; Williams 1984), as to show the kind of syntactic representation they have; this in order to shed a light on the doubts that have been recently cast on their status as a separate category from lexical items (Hudson 1997). Such being the aim, I will attempt to exploit intuitions by Epstein et al (1996) and use them as evidence to show that functional categories have an independent syntactic representation.
To this purpose, let’s consider the Agreement features in the sentences below:
2.Mary likes flowers.
3.Does Mary like flowers?
In (2) the morpheme –s in “likes” marks an agreement relation between the verb
“likes” and the NP subject “Mary”, the internal features of which [3rd pers. sing]
match with those of the verb [3rd pers. sing]. Such a matching relation allows the two items to combine, their features providing the “glue” that links them together.
In (3) the morpheme –s shifts from the thematic verb to the do-support and agreement is established between the latter and the subject (plus inversion, which I will not consider here). In the light of such a shift, it is evident that the
agreement morpheme -s is detached from the stem of the verb it suffixes. As a corollary to this, it is also evident that it can change position in different syntactic structures: in the case of (2) it is on the right of the NP “Mary”, in the case of (3) on its left. Let’s suppose, from (3), that the position of the morpheme ‘s’ is located above the NP “Mary” (for the sake of simplicity, FP stands here for Functional Phrase).4 This yields the syntactic structure below:
4. FP
Agr Do+(e)s VP
Mary V’
like flowers
This structure, clearly, contrasts with what happens in (2), where the functional head seems to be suffixed to the lexical verb “like”, thus yielding (5) below:
5. VP
Mary V’
V NP Like +s flowers
Even though we posited that the morpheme -s is attached to the verb in V, this does not explain how it can move higher when do-support is inserted. Thus, a more plausible (and economic) solution - also taking into consideration Merge over Move (Chomsky 1998) - would be to place the agreement morpheme on a higher, independent node. Also, since items consist of features which can have [±
strong] values, we can hypothesise that the functional head T where –s is merged, which, as shown above, has an affixal nature, is located above the VP and has a
4 This formalization was elaborated from a model proposed by (Roberts and Roussous 2003:19)
[±strong] feature. Let’s call this position TP.5 This allows the affix in it, when [- strong] to lower to VP to check number and person on verbs by Affix Hopping (Chomsky, 1961) and, conversely, to attach to auxiliary verbs and to do-support by Affix Attachment (Radford 2004) if [+strong]. More so, being a functional head, T has a complement, the VP on its right, and a specifier above it (spec-TP) where the NP subject moves after being initially Merged in spec-VP. The two movements are captured in the structure below. In (1) the affix lowers to V, while in (2) it attaches itself to do when it is merged: 6
6. FP
T
(2) Do+(e)s VP
Mary V’
Like +s flowers (1)
In the introduction to this chapter, I hinted at the fact that functional categories are assumed to lack descriptive content: this, however, does not mean that they do not contribute to the interpretation of expressions. As a matter of fact, they have both semantic and referential properties but no θ-marking ones (Chomsky 1995:
54). For example, T(ense) expresses [± finiteness]; C(omplementisers) are indicators of mood or of interrogative/declarative force; D(eterminers) are the locus of what may be broadly defined as referentiality and so on. In addition to this, functional categories also have phonological properties: C may be realized as
5As a matter of fact, such a position was thought to be occupied in pre-MP framework by AGR.
Further developments dispensed with AgrP (e.g. both AgrO and AgrS) since they were not considered conceptually indispensable. A Tense Phrase (TP), instead, was thought to carry out the Agreement (and Tense) function (Chomsky 1995).
6 I have grossly oversimplified the representation of Agreement above just to limit myself to what is barely necessary to illustrate the syntactic structure of the two sentences.
that/if/for/whether; T can have a dental sound, as in the verb missed, which marks it as a finite past tense (Chomsky 1995: 240).7
In truth, the architecture of Functional Categories is much more complex and varied than the few members mentioned above can show, due to contributions from various researchers that have continuously proposed finer and finer grained solutions to capture all the nuances implied in their representations. Thus, each category has been further divided into more refined components, each explaining unique phenomena. Rizzi (1997, 2001, 2003), for example, has proposed a “Split CP” analysis according to which CPs are broken up into a series of sub-
projections accounting for syntactic phenomena as well as discourse ones.
Starting from an analysis of clause structure in which three layers are envisaged:
1.a Lexical layer (headed by a verb θ-marking its complements); 2.an Inflectional layer (headed by a full or null morpheme responsible for agreement operations);
3, finally, a Complementizer layer (headed by a free morpheme and containing interrogative, declarative, force marking operators), Rizzi argues that the latter layer conveys two kinds of information. One, which is internal to the CP and interfaces the propositional level (corresponding to the Inflectional layer) and one which interfaces a higher, superordinate level (corresponding to the discourse layer). This division into two structures, one internal and one external, explains the definition “Split CP” in which both kinds of information need to receive adequate interpretation at the respective interface (Rizzi 2003: 243). Thus Rizzi posits a series of sub-levels that account for phenomena such as force
(declarative/interrogative/imperative), topicalisation, focalisation and finiteness (Vs non-finiteness), each having its own projections and heads as schematically displayed below in a top-down fashion:
7 As regards this point, Chomsky (1995:349) maintains that Agreement is a case of its own since, unlike other functional categories, it does not appear to have any semantic property. In truth, as a functional category AGR has been considered redundant by Chomsky (1995: 349-354) and eliminated in that its role in syntactic structure was thought to overlap with that of category T, as already explained in note 6.
7. ForceP
Force TopicPhrase
Topic FocusP
Focus FiniteP
Fin.
Just to give an example which shows how such a scheme captures objects in the sentence which otherwise would be hard to account for in a bare CP analysis, consider the sentence below:
8.He said that silly complaints like his, no longer will he care about.
The phrase “that silly complaints likes his” is topicalised, thus yielding the following (simplified) structure:
9. ForceP
Force TopP That
DP Top’
silly complaints like his
Top
ø FocP
AdvP Foc’
no longer.
Foc TP
will He will no longer care about silly complaints like his
Obviously, if sentences do not have topicalised or focused components, the corresponding projections do not appear in the syntactic structure, since they are not needed (Rizzi 2003;248). In such cases, the remaining ForceP, which signals the declarative, interrogative or imperative force of the phrase, and the FiniteP are syncretised so as to produce the classical, basic CP node.
Rizzi’s analysis follows similar split analysis of other projections which had been proposed in the 1980s. Pollock (1989) for example, suggested a split
Inflectional Phrase (IP) to better account for the agreement and tense features that it was assumed to contain. Thus the IP was divided into two finer grained
projections, Agreement Phrase (AgrP) and Tense Phrase (TP) each capturing both kinds of features better. More so, the same AgrP was divided, in turn, into two further projections according to whether it conveyed information about the agreement of the subject (AgrS) or of the object (AgrO). This because, if agreement checks nominative-case relations between verb and subject, it can’t at the same time check relations between the verb and the object. Also, since the accusative case is a property of the verb associated with its transitivity, the AgrO projection, as Belletti (1998: 487) points out, must be located above the VP. Thus another projection which could carry out such a function was proposed.
Like CPs and IPs, nominals have also been split into finer-grained projections to capture information enclosed in complex structures. Accordingly, the basic DP has been interpreted as consisting of an internal core NP and an outer nP. Such an nP, then, is split into further projections that host adjectives, possessives, determiners and modifiers (Abney 1987, Cinque 1994, Longobardi 1994, 1996, 2001). In the light of this new configuration, a complex DP like that in (10):
10.Italy’s import of oil from Eastern Countries
yields the following (simplified) representation:
11. [nP [DP ø Italy [n’ [n ø+ import [NP [PP of oil [N’ [N import [PP from Eastern Countries]]]]]]]]]8
8 The formalization in (11) is adapted from Radford (2004:368).
In the structure above, the noun ‘import’ is the head of the complex DP, having as its arguments the theme ‘oil’ - introduced by the preposition of - and the locative ‘Eastern Countries’ - introduced by the preposition from. The noun
‘import’ is initially merged with the locative ‘Eastern Countries’ and is successively moved to the nP position, which has a strong affixal feature.
Apart from the one above, another projection has also been posited within DPs which can account for number features. This piece of information is captured by a Number Phrase (NumP) placed between DP and nP. In short, any overt or covert functional item occupies a specific position in the syntactic structure it
participates in. Thus, we have positions for items that mark aspect (AspectP); for those that mark negation (NegP); for functional projections (FP) which house adjectives; for items that mark auxiliaries (AuxP) and so on.9
Another element of connection between the structure of DPs and that of IPs derives from the similar function finite morphology in the former phrase and definite determiners in the latter, play as anchors between the sentence itself and the discursive plan in which they are inserted. The definite determiner, in fact, highlights familiar references or entities within the discourse boundaries the sentence refers to, while tense morphology locates the event or action denoted by the latter at a specific time within the former (Hyams 1996: 93). Again, in language acquisition, these similarities have led to conclude that optionality of DPs and IPs in children’s syntax in the first stages of language acquisition is an effect of the pragmatic principles mentioned above.
To add to this, similarity between the two structures have been proposed also in terms of clausal projections, whereby the head of DPs, as for example the
determiner the which heads DPs, behaves is a similar way to the complementizer that which heads CPs, so much so that N raising to D has been paralleled to V raising to C (Hoekstra (1996:140-141). 10
9 A distinct place is occupied by adverb phrases (AdvP) which are hosted in the intermediate V’
position; this is due to the fact that adverbs function as adjuncts and are not directly merged in derivations like the other items. Adjunction, in fact, expands a constituent into a larger projection of the same type so that if an adverb is added to a VP it extends it into a larger VP constituent, while by merging V with a complement extends it into a VP (Radford 2004: 341).
10 See also Longobardi (1996) for a thorough investigation into the syntax of raising nominals.
Since it is well beyond the scope of this dissertation to give a full account of all the proposals made to account for the structure of DPs in L1, I refer to the specific studies mentioned above for a more comprehensive investigation into this
research area. What is worth stressing here is only the fact that the analysis of DPs in L1 has raised important implications in L2 acquisition studies. For example, the sequence below, which refers to the stages L2ers of English go through in
mastering DPs:
(bare NP) → specificity in the NP (marked by the) → hearer knowledge in the NP (marked by a/ø) → possessive ‘s
(from Hawkins 2001: 245) resembles the sequence
(bare V) → VP →IPs e.g. AspectP, TP, AgrP (as soon as copular be is introduced)
which the same learners follow before being able to fully grasp IPs in English.
Within the complex apparatus illustrated above, a central role is played by a more restricted inventory called Core Functional Categories (CFCs). These are C, T and v (Chomsky 2001: 102). C heads clauses introduced, as already pointed out, by words like that/for/if/whether; T is the landing site both of finite auxiliaries (or non finite to) and the locus of abstract affixes (e.g. tense, number and person) which serve for checking operations; finally, v is the (causative) light verb containing an abstract affix to which a noun, adjective or verb is attached to.11 The causative nature of v is explained in the following way. Let’s consider a verb like ‘start’, in sentences like The boy started the engine. ‘Start’ is interpreted as a causative verb having the structure ‘make+start the engine’ and thus it seems to be composed of two verbs (corresponding to the Italian ha fatto + verbo). The verb
‘makes’ has a causative status and in the vP structure mentioned above – called Split-VP – it occupies a higher position than V and has a strong affixal nature.
11 The role of v pointed out above is what can be considered the default one. In truth its functions vary according to the kind of verb that it attracts. It is then symbolised as v* for transitive verbs like eat; v# for unergative verbs like run; and, finally, bare v for unaccusative verbs like sleep.
Such a distinction is not considered above; what is used, instead, is v for all its variants.
Such an affix is null, because it is not realised phonetically, and it is symbolised as ø. Thus in (12a) below the functional position v in vP is occupied by ø [make], while V is occupied by ‘start’. Due to its strong affixal nature, v triggers
movement of ‘start’, yielding the vP structure:
12a [vP [v ø [make] + start [VP [V start]]]].
It will be remembered that in the latest developments of minimalist syntax, derivations are assumed to take place cyclically through phases; after each phase has been completed, no syntactic changes can occur, neither at LF nor at PF interface because of the Phase Impenetrability Condition.12 Thus, the central role played by CFCs derives from the fact that they head these phases. Apart from this function, Grohmann (2003) also suggests that CFCs serve to mark off three specific domains (which he calls prolific domains) within a tripartite clause structure: 1.the thematic domain, headed by vP; 2.the inflectional domain, headed by T; 3.the discourse domain, headed by C. Computations within each clause structure take place hierarchically, starting from the vP-domain, which licenses thematic relations such as argument structures and θ-role, to the T-domain, which licences grammatical properties such as case, agreement, verbal morphology and, finally, to the C-domain, which licences discourse relationships such as topic, focus etc.
As will be clear from the brief introduction above, the syntactic representation of functional categories has a hierarchical structure. Such a structure plays a crucial role in the way they are acquired. Recent studies both in FL and SL acquisition have, in fact, agreed that learners are sensitive to such an implicational scaling, which proceeds from the bottom layer to the top layer and from the lexical layer to the discourse layer. Rizzi (1996: 162-163), for example, maintains that speakers normally express themselves through propositions, not fragments of propositions.
Such an assumption is formalised in the principle:
Root=CP.
12 See chapter 3.
whereby the CP is the canonical root category of any (unmarked) proposition, according to the scheme in (12b) below:
12b CP
SpecCP C’
C TP
Spec TP T’
T vP
SpecvP v’
v VP
V DP
.
Such a hierarchical structure, however, is subject to maturation and is not present in the early stages of language acquisition due to developmental
constraints. This implies that children can truncate it at any point so as to produce a wealth of alternative root clauses like simple NPs, PPs, APs, VPs and so on (Rizzi 1996:165).
A similar structure is posited in Wexler’s (1994) Optional Infinitive (OI) hypothesis, according to which children’s sentences are characterised by the possibility of optionally having or not having a finite main verb in matrix clauses.
This because in the early phases of language acquisition the functional category T(ense) is underspecified.
Similar representations have been proposed and put to test also in various SLA studies. Just to give an example, Vainikka and Young-Sholten’s (1994, 1996a,
1996b) Minimal Trees hypothesis holds that L2ers’ early grammars lack functional projections (e.g.the CP and IP layer) since only lexical verbs are projected. In the next chapter a detailed account of all the hypotheses made about this point will be given.
4.3.The Internal Architecture of Functional Categories: Interpretable and Uninterpretable features.
All CFCs carry bundles of features as well as value and selectional properties.
Features can be either interpretable or uninterpretable (symbolised as [u]), valued or unvalued and it is this characteristic of theirs, together with their selectional properties, that triggers the parsing process (in which uninterpretable features have to match interpretable ones and be deleted). Features are uninterpretable if they do not play a semantic role in the interpretation of expressions, interpretable if they do. For example, in sentences (13a) and (13b) below:
13a. She goes swimming every day;
13b. I would like her to go swimming every day.
the φ-features in She in (13a) are interpretable at LF because they restrict the denotation of the referent they qualify to a single female human being (and not, for, example to a male) who is neither the speaker nor the person the speaker is directly addressing. These pieces of information are thus relevant at a semantic level. Conversely, the nominative/accusative case alternation from She to her in (13b) is an uninterpretable feature at LF, because there is no difference between them at a semantic level: both items, in fact, address the same person and both function as subjects of go. Thus, the case shift they go through is relevant only at a syntactic level.
As regards the verb goes, it has an interpretable [present] tense feature, which is semantically relevant since it contrasts with a [past] one. Conversely, its number and person features, plus the requirements that the specfier it projects is 3rd person singular in nominative case, are relevant only at a syntactic level for checking reasons.
The opposition interpretable Vs uninterpretable features, like the hierarchical structure of FCs, has been thoroughly investigated over the last few years for the deep impact it has had on language acquisition processes, both in L1 and L2 (Sorace 2000, Bouba et al 2002, Tsimpli 2001, Hawkins et al 2003). In particular, as regards SLA, Hawkins (1998), Hawkins and Franceschina (2002), Hawkins et al (2003) and Tsimpli (2001) hold that uninterpretable features both resist
resetting and trigger off different learning processes from those activated by interpretable features. More so, if the L2er’s native language has not instantiated parameters which are instead present in the target language, the former features can not be acquired after the ‘critical period’.
In a study Hawkins et al (2003) conducted to test the hypothesis mentioned above, they drew from previous works by Déchaine and Manfredi (2000,
henceforth D&M)), who investigated the interpretable V uninterpretable contrast in relation to the tense/aspect system in verb raising and verb non-raising
languages. Certain languages, D&M suggest, only have an uninterpretable categorial feature [V] in T (like Fongbe and Igbo, two languages of the
Niger/Congo group they analysed), while others, like Italian and English, have both an uninterpretable [V] and an uninterpretable [Agr] feature in T. The presence or absence of these features produces two different parameters which account for cross-linguistic variation in the tense/aspect system according to whether:
1.T can be interpreted either in terms of the lexical-aspectual properties contained in the VP-complement or on its own terms. In the former case, the eventive nature of the verb yields a perfective interpretation, as happens with the Niger/Congo languages hinted at above; in the latter case, instead, T is interpreted regardless of the aspectual properties contained in the VP-complement;
2.languages either allow or don’t allow raising of thematic verbs from v to T, as happens in Italian and Igbo but not in English and Fongbe. Such a possibility can either generate a further interpretation (e.g. an imperfective one), as it does in Italian compared to English, or reduce the number of interpretations (e.g. from simple past + present perfect to only simple past), as it does in Igbo compared to Fongbe.
Let’s consider more closely the interpretive contrast these two parameters produce in the Italian vs English T systems, which is one of the primary concerns of this dissertation. Both languages, D&M claim, have an uninterpretable
categorial feature [V] in T yielding an aspectual interpretation which is instantiated by the lexical-aspectual properties of the thematic verb. Both, however, also have an uninterpretable feature [Agr] in T blocking the aspectual interpretation of the thematic verb. As a result, only the habitual interpretation is triggered off. For example, the sentences John eats an apple in English and Giovanni mangia una mela in Italian afford the habitual/generic interpretation of the event denoted.
Yet, Italian, but not English, also allows thematic verbs to raise from v to T, due to a strong feature in T. This adds, in D&M’s view, a further interpretive
possibility whereby an aspectual reading is allowed next to a habitual one:
Giovanni mangia una mela= habitual/generic + imperfective interpretation. In English, on the contrary, thematic verbs do not raise and, accordingly, they can not have the aspectual interpretation Italian yields, but only the generic one: John eats an apple=habitual interpretation;.
To sum up, the uninterpretable features [V] and [Agr] give rise to a
configuration according to which if the latter is present in T, an imperfective interpretation is blocked and a habitual one is activated. To add to this, if a feature allowing movement of thematic verbs from v to T is also present, as it happens in Italian, it prompts an imperfective interpretation next to a habitual one.
Conversely, if no uninterpretable feature triggering thematic verb raising is present, as is the case with English, the imperfective interpretation is blocked and only a habitual/generic one is allowed.
Drawing from such suggestions, Hawkins et al (2003) conducted a study on L2ers of English from various L1s - either not allowing verb raising (e.g. Chinese and Japanese) or allowing it (e.g. Arabic, French, German and Spanish) – to test if, according to the L1 considered, they were sensitive to the habitual (present and past) and progressive interpretation of English constructions. More specifically, they tested whether L2ers of L1s not allowing verb raising could grasp the difference between the habitual interpretation of an English sentence like I go to
school every day, in which the thematic verb does not raise, and the imperfective interpretation of a sentence like I am going to school now, in which the auxiliary be raises (see also Slabakova in this chapter for a different approach to the same issue).
The two contrasting interpretations, Hawkins et al claim basing their hypothesis on D&M, are generated by the presence of an uninterpretable vs interpretable feature interaction in the configuration of the T-vP system. More specifically, they hold that: 1. v to T movement occurs in ‘narrow syntax’ and thus it is semantically relevant; and 2. that such a movement is triggered off by ‘Agree’, which affects the interaction between interpretable and uninterpretable features.
The syntactic representation of the T-vP system they assume as a starting point is that proposed by Adger (2003), to whom I refer for the detailed account he gives of the interpretable vs uninterpretable configuration in T and the way it drives Agree and v-to-T-raising operations.
What is important to point out here, instead, is that Hawkins et al stress the fact that Chinese and Japanese miss the uninterpretable feature allowing them to grasp the two different intepretations that the English constructions reported above yield, while verb-raising languages like Spanish and Italian possess such a feature. As a result, in the experiment they conducted, speakers of the former languages resulted to be less proficient than speakers of the latter languages in grasping the habitual vs imperfective interpretation of English sentences containing raising be and non-raising thematic verbs.
However, what is even more crucial in terms of SLA is the answer to a question like: what features do L2ers need to acquire and how to be able to grasp such an interpretive difference?
Hawkins et al’s proposal is that, in the first place, L2ers have to grasp the fact that in English v carries an uninterpretable inflectional feature (e.g.[uInfl]), which can be checked and valued by the interpretable features in c-commanding heads like T and AspectP (e.g. ([Present], [Past], [Progressive]. Once they have
acquired such a property they can grasp the habitual interpretation of the simple and past tense of English verbs. This interpretation is elicited by agreement between T and v. In the second place, L2ers have to grasp that the Progressive in
English has a strong uninterpretable inflectional feature (e.g. [uInfl:*]) that forces its raising to T. As they grasp such a property, they are able to master the event-in-progress interpretation of the English progressive aspect. The operation which controls the relationship between T and v in English is Agr, whereby the interpretable features [Present], [Past] in T and [Prog] in AspectP check, value and delete the uninterpretable feature [uInfl] in v.
Hawkins et al also suggest that acquisition of interpretable features follows different patterns from that of uninterpretable features. The former are accessible throughout life, since they are provided by UG; the latter, instead, if not
instantiated in the first language, can not be acquired in the L2 due to maturation constraints. If these features are not available, L2ers use other, UG driven resources to overcome difficulties. Despite this, persistent effects due to L1 interference on the L2 remain. Hawkins et al’s position, as well as that of others who make different hypotheses, will be extensively illustrated in chapter five.
Going back once again to the discussion of functional categories proper they have, as hinted above, value and selectional properties.13 This means that C can select a TP and be selected in turn by a substantive category like a Wh-word, that, for or if. T can select a verb as a complement and be selected by C or VP.
When selected by C it has a full complement of φ-features while when selected by VP it is defective.14 Finally, v can select a VP as a complement and be selected by a functional category like T (Chomsky 2000: 102).
As regards value, the term is used to refer to case assignment properties. T for example values the nominative case on a nominal-goal which it searches as a probe, while v does the same to value the accusative case.
13 Such an assumption has given rise to a controversy about the extent to which the MP has rejected a lexicalist stance (which it was thought to have) in favour of an anti-lexicalist one. More specifically, the point of contention revolves around the issue of where exactly affixation takes place: whether in the lexicon or in the syntax. As a matter of fact, affixes in the MP are connected with specific syntactic positions; when an affix A containing a Feature F is attached to a stem X which carries that feature, it licenses a lexical item Y formed by X+af (F) (Williams 200: 223- 224): Ex. A (es; [F] past) + X (go) = Y (goes). When such a lexical item enters the derivation is attracted by a syntactic node with which it shares the same set of features in order to check then, as shown in a simplified form below:
[CP [C [TP [T 3rd sing [VP [NP [V goes NP]. Here the lexical item goes originates in the VP, but through affix hopping T lowers its tense and affix –s features to V to check those in the verb. So, in derivations, affixation is assigned by syntax and coincides with specific syntactic positions.
14Φ-features in T are incomplete (e.g. defective: Tdef) in non-finite, raising and control clauses and in long distance passives. In such situations T only carries person features.
The table below may help sum up CFCs’ features, with their selectional properties and value assignment:
CFCs Uninterpretable features
Interpretable features Value Selectional properties
c/C15 [EPP]; [φ-]; [Wh]; [Q]; TP
T [φ-]; [Affixal];
[EPP]; [accCase];
[Tns] [NomCase] vP; V
vP [φ-]; [EPP]; [Affixal] [AccCase] VP
To better clarify:
-[φ-features] contain information about number, person (and gender in the languages that posses it).
-[EPP] feature (Extended Projection Principle) allows a CFC to extend onto a specifier position. For example, in English v has and EPP feature which attracts nominals to spec-vP; T has an EPP feature that triggers movement of subjects from VP to spec-TP; C has an EPP feature that moves wh-words into the spec- CP position it projects.
-[nomCase] on T assigns nominative case to the nominal it attracts to its position;
-[accCase] on v, triggers object shifting;
-[±wh] feature on C allows it to move wh-words to it -[Q] feature on SpecCP marks interrogative force;
Features can be either strong or weak: if they are strong they trigger movement, while if they are weak they don’t. As an example, consider the light verb v and the Tense category T. v has a strong affixal feature through which it attracts the lexical verb to it from its original position in V, while T has a weak affixal tense and φ-features, which requires it to lower to the first lexical verb which it c- commands to check the corresponding tense and φ-features it carries. As an example to show how [±strength] of features behave, consider the following sentence:
15 Lower case c stands for complementisers having declarative force, while upper-case C for complementisers having interrogative force.
14. He likes coffee.
In (14), the verb likes is merged with the object coffee to yield the phrase “likes coffee”:
15.[VP [V likes [NP coffee]]]
Let’s assume that, according to the Verb Phrase Internal Subject Hypothesis (VPISH) ( Huang 1993), the pronoun He is initially placed in the specifier
position of VP which the verb projects. The phrase “likes coffee” is merged with He to produce “He likes coffee”. Then, the functional item T, carrying the abstract tense feature [present] and the φ-features [3rd pers. Sing.], is merged in the phrase. In English these features are weak16 and thus can’t move the verb like from V to T to check its inflections. They lower, instead, through Affix Hopping onto the verb to check likes. Since also features in likes have values [3rd person singular present], the derivation is said to converge.
16. [T Tns+ 3rd per. sing [VP [V like+s [NP coffee]]]]
T also contains an EPP (Extended Projection Principle) feature, requiring it to project an extra-specifier position in TP. This spec-TP contains unvalued [φ- features] which serve to check the same valued features in the subject He. Unlike T, TP has strong affixal features allowing it to attract the subject He to its
specifier position. He then moves to spec-TP to have its features checked off, leaving a trace back in its original position (which is later deleted, as symbolised by the strikethrough He) as shown in (17):
16 Evidence for the weakness of lexical verbs in English is provided by verb/adverb position and negation/verb position in sentences like: He often goes to the cinema or He doesn’t go to the cinema. Such positions differ from those they have in Italian sentences like Va spesso al cinema, where the verb, unlike English, also precedes the adverb (see Belletti 1990) or in French sentences like Je ne vais pas au cinema, where the verb precedes the negator. In Italian and French, then, lexical verbs are said to raise (e.g. they move to a higher position than adverbs or negators) while in English they don’t, because they remain in situ (e.g. in their original position).
17.[TP (3rd pers. sing) He [T (EPP Tns + 3rd per. sing) [VP He [V likes [NP]]]]
Also in this case, features in the functional and lexical items coincide. They can thus be deleted and the expression is grammatical.
From what has been illustrated above, movement appears to be triggered off by the strength or weakness of morphological features of functional heads If they are strong, checking takes place before Spell-out (when features are sent to the PF and LF interface to be processed), because otherwise derivations, containing objects unreadable at PF, would crash. Conversely, if they are weak, they are invisible at PF and can be checked also after Spell-out. Weakness or strength of features, to conclude, is what accounts for parametric differences among languages, as will be shown in the next section.
4.4.Syntactic and Semantic representation of Functional Categories Going back to the idea that functional categories have a purely checking function without any semantic content, such an assumption has been recently questioned both in FLA research (Borer and Rohrbacher 2002; Roberts and Roussou 2003) and SLA research (Slabakova 2003).
Roberts and Roussou (2003: 28), for example, in a diachronic study on the behaviour of modals and auxiliaries (e.g. have, be, need, will etc., which head the functional nodes T or C during derivations), explain how, until the sixteenth century, they were to all intents and purposes pure lexical verbs, with a full set of formal inflected features (person, number and to-infinitive) and semantic content (e.g. argument structure).
During the centuries, however, a process of descriptive reduction, which they call “semantic bleaching” (Robert and Roussou 2003: 222) took place, which caused them to gradually loose both their set of formal features and part of their semantic content; in particular, the part associated with argument structure. What modals have retained in contemporary English, instead, is their logical content.
Again, it is well beyond the scope of this dissertation to provide a thorough investigation of how such a phenomenon actually took place, but for the sake of
clarity I will just give a brief example which can help illustrate the role functional heads play in SLA.
Let’s consider a modal like would. In the sixteenth century it was a full lexical verb and, as such, it had a full set of φ-features and an argument structure:
18.would god (that) you would leave your mighty heaven...17
In the example above, the auxiliary would appears both as a thematic verb having a NP complement and as an auxiliary. In contemporary English, instead, would has lost most of the properties it had in the past, such as inflectional affixes, infinitivisation, interactive properties and argument structure but has retained its logical content of insistence, hypothetical past, polite volition or predictability.
Thus, the basic difference between lexical and functional verbs is that the latter are defective at the interface levels. Roberts and Roussou (2003: 229) call this condition the Interface Defective Hypothesis (IDH).
The contention about whether functional categories have an independent syntactic and semantic representation has given rise to important implications in acquisition studies. Borer and Rohrbacher tackle this issue by asking:
how does the learner know that universal semantic categories are syntactically instantiated through a categorial projection but others (e.g. flexible vs rigid; pets vs other animals) are not? (Borer and Rohrbacher 2002: 6)
The only possibility, they suggest, is to posit that the child has an a priori knowledge of which specific semantic categories can be projected, and such a knowledge allows him/her to discard the possibility that a lexical item like cat, or dog can project into a CatPhrase or a DogPhrase. This also implies that, being able to carry out such a mental operation, the child knows that FCs exist and through such a knowledge he/she can grasp the fact that inflectional morphemes like –s, -ed, -ing, etc, have specific functions in the representation of grammar and not the other way round. Within the framework of the Full Competence Hypothesis that Borer and Rohrbacher advocate, according to which FCs are
17 Example kindly provided by Gabriella Mazzon, from Ludus Coventriae, or The Plaie called Corpus Christi, ed. by K.S. Block, EETS Extra series CXX, Oxford, OUP, 1922.
present from the beginning of language acquisition, the developmental path children follow in acquiring them basically consists of two steps:
1a FP present but no knowledge of corresponding functional morpheme(s) 2a Acquisition of morpheme(s), adult performance.
(Borer and Rohrbacher 2002: 7)
This proposal clearly differs from the antipodean Gradual Development Hypothesis, which instead maintains that FCs are not present in the early phases of language acquisition. Accordingly, supporters of the latter envisage a step preceding 1a above:
1b FP absent
2b FP present but no knowledge of corresponding functional morpheme(s) 3b Acquisition of morpheme(s), adult performance
(Borer and Rohrbacher 2002: 7)
The idea that FCs lack semantic content has also been challenged in SLA. In an experimental study, Slabakova (2003) tested the acquisition by Bulgarian L2ers of English of the semantic properties associated with the inflectional morphology that marks the “viewpoint aspect”.18 Drawing from work by Vendler (1967), Slabakova lists four different aspectual verb categories:
1.states; 2.activities; 3.accomplishements; 4.achievements.
States lack internal structure, as in verbs like know, be, etc; activities reveal processes going on without an inherent endpoint. Verbs like run, bake, drink beer, etc. belong to this category. Accomplishments involve a process going on in time and also have an inherent culmination point; examples of this category are verbs like run a mile, bake two cakes, and so on. Finally, achievements have an inherent culminating point, but the process leading to it is instantaneous, as happens with verbs like realise, die and others (Slabakova 2003: 45). Languages, Slabakova
18 Following Smith (1991, 1997), by “viewpoint aspect” Slabakova means an aspect that is grammatically marked by inflectional morphology, such as perfective or progressive morphemes, which is different from the “lexical aspect” (also called Aktionsart), which is encoded in the lexical classes of verbs. The latter, Slabakova adds, is a semantic property that depends on the properties of verbs and the internal arguments they contain. Quoted in (Slabakova 2003: 47).
(2003: 46) points out, vary not only in the strength of features of functional categories but also in the semantic features of the morpho-syntactic elements that realise them.
Slabokova links the categorization above to intuitions by Giorgi and Pianesi (1997) on the nature of aspect in English verbs to investigate into the semantic properties of the latter. Giorgi and Pianesi argue that many English verbs are categorially ambiguous since they can be identified either as objects or events, cry, play, drive and others being examples of such kinds of verbs. These kinds of verbs, they propose, can be disambiguated thanks to an aspectual feature
[+perfective]) contained in their lexical entry that makes them all perfective. This means that through such a feature eventive verbs in English encode both the process and the culmination point of the action they denote. During the acquisition process, children can distinguish between verbs and nominals thanks to this categorial [+perf] feature which, obviously, the latter lack.
When contrasted with English, languages like Bulgarian, Italian, French, Spanish and others reveal a richer inflectional morphology which distinguishes verbs in terms of person, number and tense. Therefore, these languages do not need the [+perf] feature in their lexical entry to be disambiguated from nominals.
Giorgi and Pianesi also hold that the present tense implies a reference point which is simultaneous or instantaneous with the speech event. Here a paradox appears evident: how is it possible to reconcile the clash between the [+perf]
feature in English eventive verbs which also entails (apart from process) closure of an action and the simultaneity of events with the speech act they refer to expresses through the simple present? Such a clash is formulated in the form of a constraint Giorgi and Pianesi call the Punctuality Constraint (e.g. punctual=
instantaneous):
The Punctuality Constraint: a closed event cannot be simultaneous with a punctual event (Giorgi and Pianesi 1997; quoted in Slabakova 2003: 47).
In short, the contrast lies in the obvious fact that a verb can not express both a finished and an unfinished action. To reconcile this dichotomy Giorgi and Pianesi
propose that both the habitual and the ongoing interpretation of English eventive verbs entails a close event.
In the case of the present tense they suggest that it has a quantificational feature connected with a generic operator which attributes to it its habitual interpretation.
Such a quantificational generic operator, supplied by the morphology marking the present tense, prevents the interpretation of closure implied by the feature [+perf]
in the (eventive) verb from clashing with the habitual interpretation it receives when used in the simple present. For example, a sentence like Mary goes to school every day consists of a series of single actions (e.g. the quantificational generic operator) that are repeatedly started and finished (e.g. [+perf] feature) in an open ended time. In this case the two features [+perf] and [+habitual] are both satisfied without clashing.
As regards the progressive aspect, Giorgi and Pianesi propose that the morpheme –ing contains an intensional19 operator, whereby events that are in progress can be considered to have a concluding point in a possible world.
Accordingly, the presence of the inherent [+perf] feature (which, as pointed out, also implies closure of an action) is compatible with the [+prog] feature that eventive verbs contain when they express ongoing actions. Thus, to sum up, a syntactic analysis of Apect Phrase yields the following representation:
19 To clarify the difference between “extensional” and “intensional”, consider the following sentence: The children were drawing houses and trees on their drawing-books. The verb draw is
“extensional” since it implies the very existence of the object it denotes, that is to say a drawing. In the sentence above, however, the existence of such an object is no implied because the latter has not actually come into existence, the action not having been concluded. Yet, it does exist in a possible world which will come into existence if the action above is concluded. Sentences referring to possible worlds are called “intensional”. In the light of this, the progressive
morphology –ing contributes to such a “intensional” meaning because it denotes events that refer to possible words which, however, have not come into existence at the moment of speaking. From (Slabakova 2003).
19.
TP
AspP
Asp’
Asp VP [+perf]
[+prog]
[+gen op]
(Giorgi and Pianesi 1997; quoted in Slabakova 2003:48)
The [+perf] feature is contained in all English dynamic verbs; the [+progr]
feature is conveyed by the –ing affix (without clashing with the former for the reasons explained above) and the [+gen op] feature is contained in the present tense affix. When, however, the values [+progr] and [+gen op] are not available in the bundle of features of verbs, the conflict between closure and simultaneity of action can not be solved. As a consequence, the ongoing interpretation of the English simple present tense is not possible (Slabakova 2003: 49), as shown in the sentence below:
20.Mario always arrives late at school.
In (20), the verb goes lacks the [+progr] feature because it has an extensional meaning, the action being completed (every day) in the real world and not in the possible one to which the –ing morpheme refers to, as previously illustrated.
In Bulgarian, instead, verbs have no progressive tense (and thus no [+prog]
feature). To add to this, the simple present tense ambiguously lends itself either to a habitual interpretation or to an ongoing one. Like the Italian “presente indicativo” it can be disambiguated through the insertion in the sentence of an adverbial corresponding to the Italian sempre, tutti i giorni and son on, without, however, changing its form. More so, not having an inherent perfective feature [+perf] inserted from the lexicon, due to the rich morphology which can
disambiguate between nominal and verbs, Bulgarian, Slabakova argues (2003:
50), does not need not check the internal feature [+perf] of a functional Aspect Phrase in derivations.
Slabakova’s study put to test whether Bulgarian L2ers of English were capable of grasping the semantic differences between ongoing events, realised by the progressive aspect, and habitual actions, realised by the simple present morphology, a difference which is not grammaticalised in Bulgarian. As as pointed out above, in fact, in the latter language there is no present progressive tense expressing ongoing events and the present tense is ambiguous between habitual and ongoing interpretation of events or states:
21a. Maria sega jade jabəlka → simulteneous event ‘Maria now eat-Pres apple’
(Maria is eating an apple right now)
21b.Maria jade jabəlka vseki den → habitual activity ‘Maria eat-Pres apple every day’
(Maria eats and apple every day)
21c. Maria e mərzeliva → characteristic state
‘Maria is-Pres lazy (Maria is lazy)
21d. Maria v momenta e mərzeliva → temporary state ‘Maria at this moment is-Pres lazy’
(Maria is being lazy) (Slabakova 2003: 49)
Slabakova found that learners who mastered aspectual functional categories in their interlanguage grammar were also capable of grasping the semantic properties associated with them (Slabakova 2003: 45).20 The task learners had to carry out consisted in grasping that:
-English eventive verbs are marked in the lexicon with a [+perf] feature which needs to be checked in the AspectP projection;
- the present tense in English is associated with a quantificational feature and a generic operator, which is checked in the same ApectP;
-the progressive morphology is associated with a simultaneous interpretation of events (an inflection which Bulgarian does not have);
20 Such properties can be captured by learners through the input from the language data they are exposed to, as triggered by inflectional morphology. Learners are thus prompted to derive the evidence that “verbal forms are marked by the features [+perf] in the lexicon” (Slabakova 2003:
53).
-stative verbs contrast with eventive verbs as regards the present aspectual tense:
unlike eventive verbs, stative verbs can have a habitual interpretation in the simple present, while the progressive state entails a temporary state (Slabakova 2003: 52).
Slabakova administered three tests to 112 eighteenth-year-old Bulgarian students of English as L2 in the United States, consisting of a Proficiency Test (The Michigan Test), an Elicited Production Task (ELT) and a Truth Value Judgement Task (TVJT). In the MT, learners had to complete 40 multiple-choice sentences; in the ELT they had to write short compositions describing two
pictures devised to elicit present simple vs present progressive morphology. In the TVJT, instead, they had to read short stories and mark as either True or False sentences which summed up their context.
Results revealed that all learners were aware of the functional morphology marking simple and progressive aspect in English (90% target-like use of –s, -ed, -ing inflections). This finding makes Slabakova claim that all participants in the study had correctly mapped the semantic features of the functional category AspP onto its morphological realizations. Also, she proposed that this acquisition process is independent from instructional effects, since the study involved both structures that were taught and structures that were not taught in classroom activities. Slabakova, concludes by pointing out that knowledge of morphology shortly precedes semantic knowledge (Slabakova 2003: 68).
4.5 The syntax first-morphology last Vs morphology first-syntax last contrast in First and Second Language Acquisition..
A crucial question, at this point, need be asked: how do learners acquire the feature-values associated with FCs? Also in this area of study different positions have emerged both in SL and in FL acquisition.
Some researchers hold that FCs (and the features they contain) are learnt exclusively from exposure to the morphological forms of the target language. As evidence for such a position they quote experimental works showing that learners in the early stages of language acquisition concentrate more on lexical items than
