Existential quantifiers in second language acquisition : a feature reassembly account

Lardiere's (2005, 2008, 2009) 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

Quantifier scope in non-native Japanese : a comparative interlanguage study of Chinese-, English- and Korean-speaking learners

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Religion, Media and Security

In 2004 Robert A. Seiple and Dennis R. Hoover’s edited volume Religion & Security: The New Nexus in International Relations accurately identified the key issue facing international relations scholars in the early twenty-first century. Throughout much of the twentieth century political scientists and international relations scholars treated religion as irrelevant to understanding the discipline. Along with other social scientists, international relations scholars bought into the secularization thesis, which placed religion firmly in the private sphere and stated that religion would diminish in importance as higher levels of education and prosperity undermined dependency on the transcendent

Polarity-item anything in L3 English:Where does transfer come from when the L1 is Catalan and the L2 is Spanish?

This study explores the source of transfer in third language (L3) English by two distinct groups of Catalan–Spanish bilinguals, simultaneous bilinguals and late bilinguals. Our study addresses two research questions: (1) Does transfer come from the first language (L1), the second language (L2), or both? and (2) Does age of acquisition of the L2 affect how transfer occurs? We compare beginner and advanced English speakers from both L3 groups with beginner and advanced L1-Spanish L2-English speakers, and find that, on an acceptablity judgment task that investigates knowledge of the distribution of polarity item anything, the two L3 groups demonstrate a different response pattern from the L2 group. The results suggest that both L3 groups transfer from Catalan, and not from their L2, Spanish. Additionally, the cross-sectional nature of the study shows that negative transfer from the initial stages of acquisition is overcome to different extents by the L3 vs. the L2 groups. We conclude that the results show strong evidence against the L2 status factor (Bardel and Falk, 2007, 2012) and the cumulative enhancement (Flynn et al., 2004) models of L3 acquisition, while they can be accounted for by the typological primacy model (Rothman, 2010, 2011, 2015), although other models that predict L1 transfer in L3 acquisition are not ruled out. Further, our findings show no effect of age of acquisition of the L2 on L3 development

Distributive Quantifier Scope in English-Japanese and Korean-Japanese Interlanguage

This article reports on an experimental investigation of knowledge of distributivity in nonnative (L2) Japanese learners whose first language (L1) is English or Korean. The availability of distributive scope in Japanese is modulated by word order and the semantic features of quantifiers. For English-speaking learners, these subtle interpretive phenomena are underdetermined in both the input and the L1. However, for Korean speakers, target-like knowledge could arise via L1 transfer. The results yield clear evidence of distinct developmental paths in the two L1 groups, testifying to L1 influence on the syntax-semantics interface. Nonetheless, some English-speaking learners exhibit target-like distributive readings despite the lack of direct evidence. This development of target-like knowledge in the absence of evidence is accounted for by integrating Sprouse's (2006) lexical transfer account of L2 acquisition and a Universal Grammar model (Beghelli 1995) of distributive scope