Cover not available

Article published In: Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 4:4 (2014) ► pp.494–525

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Beyond interfaces

Pragmatic development vs. syntactic deficiencies in the L2 acquisition of reverse psychological predicates

 | University of Memphis
Published online: 8 December 2014
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.4.4.04gom
By analyzing the empirical data from two experiments that test Spanish psych-verb properties (e.g. gustar ‘to like’), this article assesses the empirical adequacy of the Interface Hypothesis (IH), which claims that external interfaces (i.e. interfaces between a linguistic module and a cognitive module) are more problematic for learners than internal interfaces/narrow syntax (Sorace & Filiaci, 2006; Sorace, 2011; inter alia). Because my findings were inconsistent with the IH (i.e. target-like pragmatics knowledge can precede syntactic awareness of the same construction), I turned to the Integrative Model of Bilingual Acquisition (Pires & Rothman, 2011), which accounts for non-native divergence by resorting to the interplay of a series of factors (i.e. formal complexity, L1-L2 parameter mapping, processing resources, and PLD). This more articulated model is not only able to account for the patterns in these experiments but it also constitutes a more integrated explanation for the intricacies of the acquisition process.
Article outline
  • 1.Background and motivation
    • 1.1Theoretical framework
    • 1.2Why psychological predicates?
      • 1.2.1 Spanish psych-verbs
      • 1.2.2 L2 Acquisition of psych-verbs
  • 2.The present study
    • 2.1Research questions and hypotheses
    • 2.2Participants
    • 2.3Methodology
      • 2.3.1 Methodology: Experiment 1
      • 2.3.2 Methodology: Experiment 2
    • 2.4Results
      • 2.4.1 Results: Experiment 1
      • 2.4.2 Results: Experiment 2
    • 2.5Discussion
  • 3.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (90)
References
Arnold, J., Wasow, T., Losongco, A., & Ginstrom, R. (2000). Heaviness vs. newness: The effects of structural complexity and discourse status on constituent ordering. Language, 76(1), 28–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, M. (1988). Incorporation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Belletti, A., & Rizzi, L. (1988). Psych-Verbs and θ-Theory. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 6(3), 291–352. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Belletti, A., Bennati, E., & Sorace, A. (2007). Theoretical and developmental issues in the syntax of subjects: Evidence from near-native Italian. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 25(4), 657–689. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bley-Vroman, R. (1990). The logical problem of foreign language learning. Linguistic Analysis, 20(1-2), 3–49.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2009). The evolving context of the fundamental difference hypothesis. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 31(2), 175–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bock, J. K., & Irwin, D. E. (1980). Syntactic effects of information availability in sentence production. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19(4), 467–484. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bock, K., & Warren, R. (1985). Conceptual accessibility and syntactic structure in sentence formation. Cognition, 21(1), 47–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bohnacker, U. (2010). The clause-initial position in L2 Swedish declaratives: Word order variation and discourse pragmatics. Nordic Journal of Linguistics, 33(2), 105–143. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bohnacker, U., & Rosén, C. (2008). The clause-initial position in L2 German declaratives: Transfer of information structure. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30(4), 511–538. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolinger, D. (1954). English prosodic stress and Spanish sentence order. Hispania, 37(2), 152–156. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bresnan, J. (2007). Is syntactic knowledge probabilistic? Experiments with the English dative alternation. In S. Featherston & W. Sternefeld (Eds.), Roots: Linguistics in search of its evidential base (pp. 77–96). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Callies, Marcus, & Konrad Szczesniak. (2008). Argument realization, information status and syntactic weight – A learner-corpus study of the dative alternation. In Maik Walter & Patrick Grommes (Eds.), Fortgeschrittene Lernervarietäten. Korpuslinguistik und Zweitspracherwerbsforschung (pp. 165–187). (Linguistische Arbeiten, 5201). Tübingen: Niemeyer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carroll, M., & Lambert, M. (2003). Information structure in narratives and the role of grammaticised knowledge. In I. C. Dimroth & M. Starren (Eds.), Information structure and the dynamics of language acquisition (pp. 267–287). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Choi, H.-W. (2009). Ordering a left-branching language: Heaviness vs. givenness. Korean Society for Language and Information, 131, 39–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Hong, U. (1995). Agreement and null subjects in German L2 development: New evidence from reaction-time experiments. Second Language Research, 5(1), 1–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cohen, J., MacWhinney, B., Flatt, M., & Provost, J. (1993). PsyScope: An interactive graphic system for designing and controlling experiments in the psychology laboratory using Macintosh computers. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 25(2), 257–271. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Contreras, H. (1976). A theory of word order with special reference to Spanish. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cook, V., & Newson, M. (1996). Chomsky’s Universal Grammar: An introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Donaldson, B. (2011a). Left-dislocation in near-native French. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33(3), 399–432. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2011b). Nativelike right-dislocation in near-native French. Second Language Research, 27(3), 361–390. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2012). Syntax and discourse in near-native French: Clefts and focus. Language Learning, 62(3), 902–930. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eubank, L. (1994). Optionality and the initial state in L2 development. In T. Hoekstra & B. D. Schwartz (Eds.), Language acquisition studies in generative grammar (pp. 369–88). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ferreira, V., & Yoshita, H. (2003). Given-new ordering effects on the production of scrambled sentences in Japanese. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 32(6), 669-692 . Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flynn, S. (1987). A parameter-setting model of L2 acquisition. Dordrecht: Reidel. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Franco, J., & Huidobro, S. (2003). Psych verbs in Spanish leísta dialects. In S. Montrul & F. Ordóñez (Eds.), Linguistic theory and language development in Hispanic languages (pp. 138–157). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gómez Soler, I. (2012). Acquiring Spanish at the interfaces: An integrative approach to the L2 acquisition of psych-verbs. s Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Gundel, J. K. (1985). Shared knowledge and topicality. Journal of Pragmatics, 9(1), 83–107. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1999). Topic, focus and the grammar pragmatics interface. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, 6(1), 185–200.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haznedar, B., & Schwartz, B. (1997). Are there optional infinitives in child L2 acquisition? In E. Hughes, M. Hughes, & A. Greenhill (Eds.), Proceedings of the 21st Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 257–268.). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hertel, T. J. (2003). Lexical and discourse factors in the second language acquisition of Spanish word order. Second Language Research, 19(4), 273–304. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hopp, H. (2010). Ultimate attainment in L2 inflection: Performance similarities between non-native and NSs. Lingua 120(4), 901–31 Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hualde, J. I. (2005). The Sounds of Spanish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ivanov, I. (2009). Topicality and clitic doubling in L2 Bulgarian: A test case for the interface hypothesis. In M. Bowles, T. Ionin, S. Montrul, & A. Tremblay (Eds.), Proceedings of the 10th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (GASLA 2009) (pp. 17–24). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1990). Semantic structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jackson, Kyuseek H. (2008). The effect of information structure on Korean scrambling. Doctoral dissertation, University of Hawai‘i, Honolulu, HI.
Juffs, A. (1996). Semantics-syntax correspondences in second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 12(2), 177–221. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaiser, E., & Trueswell, J. C. (2004). The role of discourse context in the processing of a flexible word-order language. Cognition, 94(2), 113–147. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lardiere, D. (2011). Who is the interface hypothesis about? Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1(1), 48–53. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lipski, J. (1986). Reduction of Spanish word-final /s/ and /n/. The Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 31(1), 139–156. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lozano, C., & Mendikoetxea, A. (2010). Interface conditions on postverbal subjects: A corpus study of L2 English. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13(14) 475–497. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marefat, H. (2005). The impact of information structure as a discourse factor on the acquisition of dative alternation by L2 learners. Studia Linguistica, 59(1), 66–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meisel, J. (1991). Principles of universal grammar and strategies of language learning: Some similarities and differences between first and second language acquisition. In L. Eubank (Ed.), Point counterpoint: Universal grammar in the second language (pp. 231–76). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1997). The acquisition of the syntax of negation in French and German: Contrasting first and second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 13(3), 227–263. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2011). First and second language acquisition: Parallels and differences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Montrul, S. (1998). The L2 Acquisition of dative experiencer subjects. Second Language Research, 14(1), 27–61. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Montrul, S., Foote, R., & Perpiñán, S. (2008). Gender agreement in adult second language learners and Spanish heritage speakers: The effects of age and context of acquisition. Language Learning, 58(3), 503–553. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Montrul, S., & Polinsky, M. (2011). Why not heritage speakers. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1(1), 58–62. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Grady, W. (2011). Interfaces and processing. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1(1), 63–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Park, K.-S. (2011). Information structure and dative word order in adult L2 learners. In J. Herschensohn & D. Tanner (Eds.), Proceedings of the 11th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (GASLA 2011) (pp. 101–109). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Park, K.-S., & Schwartz, B. (2012). L1 Korean L2ers’ sensitivity to givenness in the English dative alternation. In A. K. Biller, E. Y. Chung, & A. E. Kimball (Eds.), Proceedings of the 36th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 414–426). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parodi-Lewin, C. (1991). Aspect in the syntax of Spanish Psych-Verbs. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
Pérez-Leroux, A. (2011). What I don’t understand about interfaces. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 1(1), 71–73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pires, A., & Rothman, J. (2011). An integrated perspective on comparative bilingual differences. Beyond the Interface problem? Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1(1), 74–78. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Prada Pérez, A., & Pascual y Cabo, D. (2011). Invariable gusta in the Spanish of heritage speakers in the U.S. In J. Herschensohn & D. Tanner (Eds.), Proceedings of the 11th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (GASLA 2011) (pp. 110-120). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Prévost, P., & White, L. (2000). Missing surface inflection or impairment in second language acquisition? Evidence from tense and agreement. Second Language Research, 16(2), 103–133. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reinhart, T. (1981). Pragmatics and linguistics: An analysis of sentence topics. Philosophica, 27(1), 53–93. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rothman, J. (2009). Pragmatic deficits with syntactic consequences? L2 pronominal subjects and the syntax-pragmatics interface. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(5), 951–973. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rothman, J., & Iverson, M. (2008). Poverty of the stimulus and L2 epistemology: Considering L2 Knowledge of aspectual phrasal semantics. Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 15(4), 270–314. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rothman, J., & Slabakova, R. (2011). The mind-context divide: Language acquisition at the linguistic interface. Lingua 121(4), 568–576. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwartz, B., & Sprouse, R. (1996). L2 cognitive states and the full transfer/full access model. Second Language Research, 12(1), 40–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Serratrice, L, Sorace, A., & Paoli, S. (2004). Crosslinguistic influence at the syntax-pragmatics interface: Subjects and objects in English-Italian bilingual and monolingual acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7(3), 183–205. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slabakova, R., Kempchinsky, P., & Rothman, J. (2012) Clitic-doubled Left Dislocation and Focus Fronting in L2 Spanish: A case of successful acquisition at the syntax-discourse interface. Second Language Research, 28(3), 319–343. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slabakova, R., Rothman, J., & Kempchinsky, P. (2011) Gradient competence at the syntax-discourse interface. In L. Roberts, G. Pallotti, & C. Bettoni (Eds.), EUROSLA Yearbook 111 (pp. 218–243). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sorace, A. (1999). Initial states, end-states and residual optionality in L2 acquisition. In A. Greenhill, H. Littlefield, & C, Tano (Eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 666–674). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2011). Pinning down the concept of interface in bilingualism. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1(1), 1–33. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sorace, A., & Filiaci, F. (2006). Anaphora resolution in near-native speakers of Italian. Second Language Research, 22(3), 339–368. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sorace, A., & Serratrice, L. (2009). Internal and external interfaces in bilingual language development: Beyond structural overlap. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13(2), 195–210. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sorace, A., Serratrice, L., Filiaci, F., & Baldo, M. (2009). Discourse conditions on subject pro-noun realization: Testing the linguistic intuitions of older bilingual children. Lingua, 119(3), 460–477. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Toribio, J., & Nye, C. (2006). Restructuring of reverse psychological predicate in bilingual Spanish. In J. Montreuil & C. Nishida (Eds.), New perspectives in romance linguistics (pp. 263–277). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I., & Dimitrakopoulou, M. (2007). The Interpretability hypothesis: Evidence from wh-interrogatives in second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 23(2), 215–242. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I., & Sorace, A. (2006). Differentiating interfaces: L2 performance in syntax-semantics and syntax-discourse phenomena. In D. Bamman, T. Magnitskaia, & C. Zaller (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 653–664). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I., Sorace, A., Heycock, C., & Filiaci, F. (2004). First language attrition and syntactic subjects: A study of Greek and Italian near-native speakers of English. International Journal of Bilingualism, 8(3), 257–277. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Valenzuela, E. (2006). L2 end state grammars and incomplete acquisition of the Spanish CLLD constructions. In R. Slabakova, S. Montrul, & P. Prévost (Eds.), Inquiries in linguistic development: In honor of Lydia White (pp. 283–304). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vainikka, A., & M. Young-Scholten. (1998). Morphosyntactic triggers in adult SLA. In M.-L. Beck (Ed.), Morphology and its interfaces in second language knowledge (pp. 89–113). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
vonStutterheim, C. (2003). Linguistic structure and information organisation: The case of very advanced learners. In S. Foster-Cohen & S. Pekarek Doehler (Eds.), EUROSLA Yearbook 31 (pp. 183–206). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, L. (2011a). Second language acquisition at the interfaces. Lingua, 121(4), 577–590. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2011b). The Interface hypothesis. How far does it extend? Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1(1), 108–110. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, L., Brown, C., Bruhn-Garavito, J., Chen, D., Hirakawa, M., & Montrul, S. (1999). Psych verbs in second language acquisition. In E. Klein & G. Martohardjono (Eds.), The development of second language grammar: A generative approach (pp. 173–199). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, L., Montrul, S., Hirakawa, M., & Chen, D. (1998). Zero morphology and the T/SM restriction in the L2 acquisition of psych verbs. In M. Beck (Ed.), Morphology and its interfaces in second language knowledge (pp. 257–282). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, L., Valenzuela, E., Kozlowska-MacGregor, M., & Leung, I. (2004). Gender agreement in non-native Spanish: Evidence against failed features. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25(1), 153–182. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zeger, S. L., Liang, K. Y., & Albert, P. S. (1988). Models for longitudinal data: A generalized estimating equation approach. Biometrics 44(4), 1049–1060. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zubizarreta, M. L. (1998). Prosody, focus and word order. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Gonzalez, Becky
2023. A lexical semantic approach to the L2 acquisition of Spanish psych verbs. Second Language Research 39:3 ► pp. 731 ff. DOI logo
Gonzalez, Becky
2025. Exploring factors that influence the accusative/dative experiencer alternation in Spanish psych verbs: data from three types of Spanish–English bilinguals. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 18:2 ► pp. 425 ff. DOI logo
Zhang, Shu
2021. La adquisición del español como L3 por estudiantes chinos: las construcciones con gustar. Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación 88 ► pp. 255 ff. DOI logo
Gómez Soler, Inmaculada & Diego Pascual y Cabo
2018. On focus and weight in Spanish as a heritage language. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics 31:2 ► pp. 437 ff. DOI logo
Kanwit, Matthew & Margaret Lubbers Quesada
2017. Learner and native-speaker differences in the acceptability of gustar-type psychological verbs in Spanish. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 0:0 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue