Focus and split-intransitivity: the acquisition of word order alternations in non-native Spanish

Cristobal Lozano (1)

1 UAM - Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Recent unrelated studies reveal what appears to be a common acquisitional pattern in second language acquisition (SLA). While some findings show that advanced learners can indeed achieve convergent, native-like competence with formal syntactic properties (even when these are underdetermined by the input), other findings suggest that they can display divergent and even optional competence at the syntax-discourse interface with discursive properties like focus and topic. These apparently contradictory observations are not coincidental, as they can also be traced in other acquisitional studies on L1 acquisition, L1 attrition in bilinguals, child SLA and SLI (specific language impairment).

Mots clés: Social Sciences & Humanities

Cristobal Lozano. Focus and split-intransitivity: the acquisition of word order alternations in non-native Spanish. Second Language Research, 2006, 22 (2), pp.145-187. ⟨10.1191/0267658306sr264oa⟩. ⟨hal-00572097⟩