MARÍA MARTÍNEZ AZDRIÁN

Universidad País Vasco

Syntactic optionality in L2 grammars

Sintaxis / Lingüística Aplicada

The existence of optionality is well attested in natural languages. Pre-theoretically, it can be defined as the coexistence within an individual grammar of two or more variants of a given construction, which:
1) make use of the same lexical resources, and
2) express the same meaning.

The existence of optionality within both stable (native and non-native) and developing grammars poses a challenge for contemporary formal models of generative grammar, which assume competition for well-formedness and rule out optional syntactic operations. In the Minimalist Program (MP), syntactic optionality is excluded within the computational system because of economy principles which require an optimal realization of interface conditions (Chomsky 1995). As a result, movement which is possible but not necessary is not permitted.

It has been argued that optional constructions are a necessary part of language change. Lightfoot (1999) has pointed out that if language were a perfect system, that is, a pure instantiation of invariable Universal Grammar principles and binary parameters, diachronic language change would not be possible. Similarly, Cook (1992) has argued that if the computational system is a perfect system without the possibility of optional representations, the knowledge representations of bilingual or multilingual speakers would be impossible to describe.

In this article we present evidence of optional constructions in the Interlanguage of learners of German as a second foreign language. We focus on the acquisition of the verb raising parameter by two groups of adolescents who are in their fourth year of secondary education in schools of the Basque Country. Our data come from a written production task and from a grammaticality judgement task. We analyse the acquisition of word order in the German sentence (SVO, SOV and VSO) in light of the Minimalist proposals (Chomsky 1994, 1995; Zwart 1997ab). In contrasting data coming from these groups, we conclude that the learners´ Interlanguage show optionality of verb movement at least in intermediate stages of acquisition since they fluctuate between different orders, that is, different Phonetic Form (PF) representations with the same Logical Form (LF).

Our study supports some of the most discussed studies of optionality in the literature to date (Beck 1998; Eubank 1993/94; Lardiere 2000; Prévost and White 2000; Robertson and Sorace 1999; Vainikka and Young-Scholten 1994, 1996). In our study, as in Robertson and Sorace (1999), the effects of optionality are visible in the syntax. Students seem to have lexical/functional categories and the strength features in their lexicons. But there may be occassions when these are not accesible for processing reasons. In other words, there seems to be a temporary breakdown between the syntax and the lexicon

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