The Lexicon Syntax Interface In The Acquisition Of English As A Foreign Language

The Lexicon-syntax Interface in the Acquisition of English as a Foreign Language

The Lexicon-syntax Interface in Second Language Aquisition

Second language acquisition has to integrate the totality of the SLA process, which includes both the learning of the core syntax of a language and the learning of the lexical items that have to be incorporated into that syntax. But these two domains involve different kinds of learning. Syntax is learnt through a process of implementing a particular set of universal structures, whereas the learning of lexis is characterised by the building up of associations (or connections). Yet these two systems must come together in the creation of a whole linguistic system in the mind of an individual. This book is designed to state the implications of these two paradigms in as clear a way as possible through examples of the research carried out within each paradigm and to examine how they can be made to inter-relate in a way which would enable us to explain better the overall process of SLA.

The Acquisition of Syntax in Romance Languages

This volume includes a selection of papers that address a wide range of acquisition phenomena from different Romance languages and all share a common theoretical approach based on the Principles and Parameters theory. They favour, discuss and sometimes challenge traditional explanations of first and second language acquisition in terms of maturation of general principles universal to all languages. They all depart from the view that language acquisition can be explained in terms of learning language specific rules, constraints or structures. The different parts into which this volume is organized reflect different approaches that current research has offered, which deal with issues of development of reflexive pronouns, determiners, clitics, verbs, auxiliaries, Inflection, wh-movement, rssumptive pronouns, topic and focus, mood, the syntax/discourse interface, topic and focus, and null arguments.