English and Japanese Tense Realizations in Subordinate Clauses
スポンサーリンク
概要
- 論文の詳細を見る
In spite of advances in linguistic theory, current second language (L2) research is still often couched in deterministic terms, expecting difficulty or impossibility (apparent failure) in L2 acquisition where there are parametric differences between the first (native) language (L1) and second (target) language (L2). This deterministic approach adopts transfer of L1 or availability of Universal Grammar (UG) to account for the L2 phenomena such as `apparent failure'. This deterministic approach has recently been modified by incorporating a more fully specified understanding of both Language and Learnability of functional properties from the minimalist perspective. This paper explores specification of some parametric differences between English and Japanese, related to `tense' within the minimalist feature-matrix. Although both English as a second language (L2) and Japanese as a first language (L1) have the so-called `tense features`, overt tense realization constraints vary. Presenting an analysis that both languages embrace the same functional properties of `tense', but that their syntactic constraints on tense realization in subordinate clauses vary, I then suggest that a more explicit analysis of what parametric differences are may in turn lead to more specific and principled predictions about success and failure or about available / unavailable part of UG in L2 acquisition. Thereby we can easily test not only the previous L2 hypotheses which are variants of the deterministic parameter-setting model, but also the newly proposed L2 hypotheses within the minimalist framework.
- 名古屋商科大学の論文
著者
関連論文
- English and Japanese Tense Realizations in Subordinate Clauses
- Assessment of the Full Transfer Account