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Article published In: Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 3:2 (2013) ► pp.117–149

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Existential quantifiers in second language acquisition

A feature reassembly account

 | University of Sheffield
 | University of York
Published online: 17 May 2013
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.3.2.01gil
Lardiere, D. (2005). On morphological competence. In L. Dekydtspotter, R.A. Sprouse, & A. Liljestrand (Eds.), Proceedings of the 7th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (GASLA 2004) (pp. 178–192). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . (2008). Feature assembly in second language acquisition. In J.M. Liceras, H. Zobl, & H. Goodluck (Eds.), The role of formal features in second language acquisition (pp. 106–140). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . (2009). Some thoughts on the contrastive analysis of features in second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 251, 173–227. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) Feature Reassembly Hypothesis proposes that L2 acquisition involves reconfiguring the sets of lexical features that occur in the native language into feature bundles appropriate to the L2. This paper applies the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis to findings from recent research into the L2 acquisition of existential quantifiers. It firstly provides a feature-based, crosslinguistic account of polarity item any in English, and its equivalents — wh-existentials — in Chinese, Korean and Japanese. We then test predictions built on the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis, about how learners map target existential quantifiers in the L2 input onto feature sets from their L1, and how they then reassemble these feature sets to better match the target. The findings, which are largely compatible with the predictions, show that research that focuses on the specific processes of first mapping and then feature reassembly promises to lead to a more explanatory account of development in L2 acquisition.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.‘Any’ in English, Korean, Japanese and Chinese
    • 2.1Polarity sensitive existential quantifiers
      • 2.1.1 English ‘any’
      • 2.1.2‘Any’ in Chinese
      • 2.1.3A proposal for licensing of polarity-sensitive existential quantifiers in English and Chinese
    • 2.2‘Any’ in Korean and Japanese: No distributional restrictions
    • 2.3Summary
  • 3.The L2 learnability problems
    • 3.1Step 1: Mapping
    • 3.2Step 2: Feature reassembly
    • 3.3Predictions
  • 4.L2 Studies of ‘any’
    • 4.1L2 Korean
    • 4.2L2 Chinese
    • 4.3L2 English
    • 4.4Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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