Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 58(3): 465–486, 2013
Adult instructed SLA ofEnglish subject properties
ELISABET PLADEVALL BALLESTER
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
1. INTRODUCTION
The present study aims to explore how adult English L2 learners who have been ex-
posed to instructed SLA acquire subject properties at three stages of development.1
The L2 acquisition of subject properties has been thoroughly analyzed in both child
(Hilles 1991; Lakshmanan 1991, 1994; Park 2004; Mobaraki, Vainikka, and Young-
Scholten 2008; Pladevall Ballester 2010, 2012) and adult L2A (White 1985, 1986;
Phinney 1987; Liceras 1989; Tsimpli and Roussou 1991; Wakabayashi 2002; Lozano
2002, 2006; Montrul 2004; Montrul and Rodríguez Louro 2006; Rothman and Iver-
son 2007a, 2007b; among others) and this has been done in naturalistic as well as
in classroom setting contexts, longitudinally and cross-sectionally and in null and
non-null subject languages.
However, more recently, the study of non-native subject properties has focused
on child L2A in educational immersion settings and adult L2A of null subject lan-
guages (NSLs) in study-abroad and classroom contexts (Isabelli 2004; Rothman and
Iverson 2007a, 2007b). The syntax of subjects in L2 English still constitutes an area
of difficulty for adult learners in a situation of minimal exposure in instructed set-
tings and no explicit teaching of subject properties is usually carried out in EFL
classrooms.
1Abbreviations used in this article include:
A′-position non-argument position Pers person
Asymp.sig asymptotic significance PersP person phrase
Agr agreement SLA second language acquisition
DP determiner phrase Spec-TP specifier tense phrase
EFL English as a Foreign Language Spec-vP specifier (small) verb phrase
EPP Extended Projection Principle sub subordinate
L1 first language T tense
L2 second language TP tense phrase
L1A first language acquisition UG Universal Grammar
L2A second language acquisition V verb
NSL null subject language vP (small) verb phrase
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466 CJL/RCL 58(3), 2013
In order to explore this, the present study attempts to revisit L2 English learn-
ers’ judgments on the main properties traditionally associated with the Null Sub-
ject Parameter (i.e., null/overt pronominal subjects in main and subordinate clauses,
null/overt expletive subjects, and pre/postverbal subjects).2 We will be able to see
how these properties are acquired as proficiency increases and how different they
are from target-like structures, contributing new data to the question of parameter-
resetting in adult L2A. Three groups of adult Spanish L2 learners of English in an
instructed setting are tested, representing the beginner, intermediate, and advanced
state of language learning. The three groups are statistically compared to a control
native group to determine if and how L2 English subject properties are acquired in
an instructed classroom environment.
The article is organised as follows: a brief summary of the syntactic properties
of English and Spanish subjets appears in Section 2. Section 3 reviews the most im-
portant studies related to the L2 acquisition of English subjects. Section 4 introduces
in detail the aims and research question of the present study. Section 5 summarizes
the methodology used. Section 6 presents the results. The discussion of the results is
found in Section 7. Section 8 concludes.
2. SYNTACTIC PROPERTIES OF SPANISH AND ENGLISH SUBJECTS
Early research on the L2A of English subjects adopted the traditional version of the
Null Subject Parameter (NSP) (Chomsky 1981; Jaeggli 1982; Rizzi 1982, 1986; Jaeg-
gli and Safir 1989). The traditional version of the NSP, which provided an account of
a cluster of phenomena present in null subject languages but absent in overt subject
languages, was formulated on the basis of parametric variation related to richness
of inflection as well as identification properties. The idea was that languages with a
positive null subject value (i.e., Spanish and Italian but not English or French) share
a number of properties that include null subjects, the absence of expletive pronouns,
subject–verb inversion, that-trace sequences, and rich verbal agreement.
Within Minimalism, the NSP is accounted for differently, which means the pu-
tative related clustered properties of subjects in English and Spanish are analyzed in
a different way. The present research follows Platzack’s (2004) syntactic account of
subjects: the Person Phrase Hypothesis, which provides a unified way of accounting
for subjects and agreement in both null and non-null subject languages according to
a minimalist view of parameters and the EPP.3 It excludes that-trace effects from the
cluster of properties.
Following Ritter (1995), Platzack (2004) argues that agreement (Agr) originates
as the head of a Person Phrase (PersP), which can take a DP as a complement that is
2That-trace effects, although present in some of the earlier studies on L2 subjects, will not
be included in the present study, as they have been given totally distinct syntactic accounts
(see Pesetsky and Torrego 2001, 2004).3Similar minimalist accounts of properties of the Null Subject Parameter include Alex-
iadou and Anagnostopoulou (1998), Manzini and Roussou (2000), Ordóñez and Treviño
(1999), among others.
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PLADEVALL BALLESTER 467
merged in a theta position, as the subject in Spec-vP. Depending on the element taken
from the lexicon to express Pers0 several possibilities arise. If the element expressing
Pers0 has grammatical but not phonological features, PersP will appear as a DP. This
could be the case of the DP ‘the girl’ in English, analyzed as in (1):
(1) [PersP [Pers0 G(rammatical features) [DP the [NP girl] ] ] ]
If the element merged as Pers0 has grammatical as well as phonological features,
this element can either be a free morpheme (in English and Spanish) or a bound
morpheme (only in Spanish). If it is a free morpheme, it will be a pronoun with or
without a DP complement, as in (2a) and (2b):
(2) a. [PersP [Pers0 he [DP the [NP handsome man] ] ] ]
b. [PersP [Pers0 he [DP G(rammatical features)] ] ]
If it is a bound morpheme (Agr), as it happens in languages with rich agreement,
such as Spanish or Italian, it should find a host outside PersP. T will assign Case to
PersP and the EPP feature in T will attract Pers0 (Agr) to T, projecting a new PersP.
V will also be attracted to T and then internally merged to PersP without projecting.
Finally, morphological merger will take place and Pers0+T will be realized as an
affix on V.
In languages without V-raising, such as English, agreement is not an argumental
affix and Pers0 is either a free morpheme (i.e., a pronoun) or it is not phonologically
realized and PersP is represented as an ordinary DP. In languages such as English,
PersP (i.e., the subject) would subsequently raise to Spec-T attracted by the EPP
feature in T.
To illustrate, consider now the Spanish subjectless sentence in (3) with the cor-
responding phrase marker:
(3) Compraron manzanas ‘(They) bought (some) apples.’
PersP
compra- PersP
-ron TP
compra- vP
PersP v′
Pers0 v0 VP
-ron compra- V0 DP
compra- manzanas
The derivation unfolds as follows: the subject is a PersP (with no DP complement)
appearing in Spec-vP, where it is assigned an Agent theta-role. T assigns Case to
PersP and the EPP feature in T attracts Pers0 (-ron) to T. The verb (compra-) is
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also attracted to T and then internally merged to PersP. After morphological merger,
Pers0+T is realized as an affix on V.
Importantly, under this approach, the existence of pro as a null subject is there-
fore unnecessary, as the EPP feature is already satisfied and Case and theta-role are
already assigned to PersP.
Turning now to structures where Pers0 has a complement DP, consider (4) and (5).
(4) llamaron mis padres ‘called my parents’
PersP
llama- PersP
-ron TP
llama- vP
PersP v′
Pers0 DP v0 VP
Agr D0 NP llama- V0
-ron mis padres llama-
(5) Mis padres llamaron. ‘My parents called.’
CP
Topic
DP
mis padres PersP
llama- PersP
-ron TP
llama- vP
PersP v′
DP Pers v0 VP
mis padres Pers0 DP llama- V0
Agr mis padres llama-
-ron
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PLADEVALL BALLESTER 469
The DP subject can either remain in situ (in Spec-vP), thus resulting in a postverbal
subject, as in (4), or can move out of the PersP to an A′-position in the C-domain,
presumably checking pragmatic features, as in (5). This overt DP can either be a full
DP or a focused pronoun in Spanish. When the subject is a pronoun, Pers0 will be
represented as a pronoun in English but still as Agr in Spanish and the pronoun will
be the complement DP. The DP subject mis padres is the complement of Pers0 in
Spec-vP.
Platzack assumes that PersP is a phase and as such, no element can move out
of it before being moved to Spec-PersP. He further assumes that such movement
within PersP must be an instance of A′-movement since, if it were an instance of
A-movement, we would expect the DP to bind Agr and Agr would be an anaphor.
As previously noted, Agr is pronominal in Spanish and hence does not need an
antecedent within the clause, as subjectless derivations such as (3) indicate. Be-
cause movement of the DP to Spec-PersP is an instance of A′-movement, Platzack
concludes that the movement of the DP out of PersP to the C domain must be A′-
movement as well.4 Thus, preverbal subjects cannot be in an argument position. Such
an approach to Spanish preverbal subjects is in line with previous accounts of Agr
as [+interpretable], such as Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (1998), Ordóñez and
Treviño (1999), among many others.
In sum, within the present approach, the contrast between Spanish and languages
with obligatorily overt subjects is captured by Platzack’s claim that “T with [uφ]EPP
can be satisfied either by PersP raising to Spec-TP (visible subject) or agreement
merging to TP (potential null subject)” (2004:107). That is to say, the way in which
T, which bears uninterpretable φ-features and the EPP-feature, satisfies and checks
all its features is parameterised. Spanish merges Agr to TP and languages such as
English raise PersP to Spec-TP. It follows then that English will only allow preverbal
overt subjects, whereas Spanish, by virtue of the fact that the EPP feature in T is
already checked by Agr merging, does not require preverbal overt subjects but allows
null and postverbal subjects.
The present study will attempt to find out whether adult learners of English
retain their L1 feature specifications with regards to subject use or are capable of
acquiring the new L2 features. In the next section, I summarize the literature on the
acquisition of L2 English subjects.
3. THE ACQUISITION OF L2 ENGLISH SUBJECTS
Early research on the L2A of English subjects adopted the traditional version of the
Null Subject Parameter outlined above. This is the case for three of the most relevant
accounts of adult English L2 subjects, namely White (1985, 1986), Phinney (1987),
and Tsimpli and Roussou (1991), which all followed Rizzi’s (1982, 1986) seminal
work on the topic.
4The exact position of the preverbal subject DP within the C domain is beyond the scope
of the present study. It suffices to say that preverbal subjects in NSLs do not raise for EPP
reasons to Spec-TP but for pragmatic reasons to an A′-position within CP.
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Both White (1985, 1986) and Tsimpli and Roussou (1991) explored missing
subjects, subject–verb inversion, and that-trace effects. White used grammaticality
judgments and analyzed five levels of proficiency from beginners to advanced in
Spanish and French L1 speakers (1985) and intermediate L1 Spanish, French, and
Italian speakers (1986), whereas Tsimpli and Roussou (1991) used grammaticality
judgments and a translation task with intermediate and post-intermediate Greek stu-
dents. Both studies examined an instructed acquisition setting. Only White (1985,
1986) carried it in an English-speaking country.
White (1985, 1986) found that the acceptance of missing subjects was initially
transferred (more in the Spanish and Italian groups than in the French group) but
decreasing with proficiency and that there was optionality of that in that-trace se-
quences that also decreased with proficiency. Acceptance of subject–verb inversion
was found to be low, which led the author to conclude that this property might not be
part of the cluster and, while acknowledging that resetting of the value of the param-
eter might be difficult, she stated that the observed gradual improvement indicated
that transfer errors would not persist.
Tsimpli and Roussou (1991) reported rejection of null referential pronouns and
of postverbal subjects, but also high acceptance of null expletive subjects and high
acceptance of that-trace sequences. The authors posited that the Greek positive null
subject value is transferred into English and impossible to reset, as parametric values
that are not part of the L1 are inaccessible to adult L2 learners. Correct rejection
of null referential subjects was accounted for by means of non-parameterized UG
principles, which are accessible and make the morphological and syntactic pro-drop
properties of English compatible with the Greek setting of the parameter. Subject–
verb inversion and the fact that learners correctly rejected all its instances are simply
not addressed in the analysis.
Phinney (1987) examined null and overt subject pronouns and subject–verb
agreement in advanced beginners and low intermediate Spanish learners of English
and English learners of Spanish in an instructed setting through their written pro-
duction. The author found that both groups displayed an accurate use of verbal
agreement and that Spanish learners of English omitted many more expletive subjects
than referential subject pronouns, which were never omitted in sentence-initial po-
sition. English learners of Spanish omitted most referential subject pronouns and all
expletive subjects in accordance with the target language. Leaving methodological
shortcomings aside, Phinney argues for the importance of directionality differences
and states that resetting the parameter from English, considered the marked value, to
Spanish, the unmarked value is easier and faster than the reverse process in which
L1 Transfer remains much longer.
Wakabayashithat-trace sequences. The authors posited that the Greek positive
null subject value is transferred into English and impossible to reset, as parametric
values that are not part of the L1 are inaccessible to adult L2 learners. Correct re-
jection of null referential subjects was accounted for by means of non-parameterized
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PLADEVALL BALLESTER 471
UG principles, which are accessible and make the morphological and syntactic pro-
drop properties of English compatible with the Greek setting of the parameter. Subject–
verb inversion and the fact that learners correctly rejected all its instances are simply
not addressed in the analysis.
Phinney (1987) examined null and overt subject pronouns and subject–verb
agreement in high beginners and low intermediate Spanish learners of English and
English learners of Spanish in an instructed setting through their written production.
The author found that both groups displayed an accurate use of verbal agreement and
that Spanish learners of English omitted many more expletive subjects than referen-
tial subject pronouns, which were never omitted in sentence-initial position. English
learners of Spanish omitted most referential subject pronouns and all expletive sub-
jects in accordance with the target language. Leaving methodological shortcomings
aside, Phinney argues for the importance of directionality differences and states that
resetting the parameter from English, considered the marked value, to Spanish, the
unmarked value is easier and faster than the reverse process in which L1 Transfer
remains much longer.
Wakabayashi’s (2002) minimalist account studied the acquisition of non-null
subjects in English by intermediate to advanced Spanish and Japanese adult learn-
ers in an instruction setting in an English-speaking country. Wakabayashi assumed
that L2 learners fully access UG mechanisms and only partially transfer L1 features.
Japanese learners of English, who do not transfer subject-related L1 features and
only have to learn a new L2 feature specification, were found to acquire the obliga-
toriness of subjects much more readily than Spanish learners, who transferred their
L1 feature specification and gradually de-learned it before acquiring the L2 feature
specification. The present study will provide new data to explore whether adult Span-
ish learners of English are capable of acquiring L2 features or simply use general
learning mechanisms and strategies to adopt target-like structures.
4. THE STUDY: AIMS AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Whether adult L2 learners can acquire L2 feature specifications from minimal ex-
posure to input and whether they can reset parameters already specified in their L1
in the way child L2 learners in immersion settings do, has been a central question
in generative L2A. Assuming that the initial state of L2 grammars is necessarily af-
fected by L1 Transfer, research has yet to determine if adult L2 learners have Full
Access to UG and can therefore successfully acquire L2 feature specifications not
present in their L1 in order to restructure their L1 transferred grammars (Schwartz
and Sprouse 2000; White 2003; Slabakova 2006a, 2006b; Jason and Rothman 2007a,
2007b; among others) or if adult L2 learners only partially access UG and cannot re-
set parameters (Liceras 1996, 1998; Hawkins and Chan 1997; Hawkins 2005; among
others).
Not being able to acquire new L2 feature specifications (i.e., to reset parameters)
does not imply that adult L2 interlanguage grammars are not constrained by UG.
Non-native adult grammars are indeed natural languages, which might locally re-
structure L1 linguistic representations through general learning explicit mechanisms
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and achieve superficial similarity to the target grammar. However, partial access to
UG cannot entail parameter-resetting in the L1A sense.
Recently, the Partial Access Hypothesis has been analyzed under the minimalist
Interpretability Hypothesis (Hawkins and Hattori 2006; Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou
2007; Tsimpli and Mastropavlou 2008; among others), by which uninterpretable fea-
tures are hypothesised to be inaccessible for the adult L2 learner. In this way, if these
uninterpretable features are not selected in the process of L1A, they are persistently
problematic for the L2 learner, which accounts for adult L2 learners’ permanent
variability or lack of convergence with respect to the native speaker. UG still con-
strains L2 adult grammars, as UG computational devices, their operating principles,
interpretable syntactic features, and uninterpretable features acquired in the learner’s
L1A process remain available to the adult L2 learner. If the L2 grammar presents
uninterpretable features that are not present in the learner’s L1, then these remain
unavailable. However, adult L2 learners might make use of the other UG options that
remain available to the learner’s general learning mechanisms to identify, analyze,
and produce L2 structures which involve uninterpretable features and diverge from
their L1. Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou (2007) suggest that L2 learners might make
use of interpretable features to “compensate” for the unavailability of uninterpretable
features and they can then create structures that are superficially native-like.
The present study assumes that the Interpretability Hypothesis accounts for the
fact that adult L2 learners might indeed be sensitive to grammaticality distinctions
in their L2 and might superficially learn L2 properties that diverge from their L1
and involve uninterpretable features. The goal is to determine how adult English L2
learners acquire subject properties at three stages of development, how they differ
from control native speakers, and if all properties examined develop in the same
way.
The present study will explore these issues by means of an untimed judgment
and correction task which, by virtue of the fact that it is untimed, will provide infor-
mation on the learners’ explicit knowledge of the linguistic items under analysis (see
Ellis 2009). At the same time, the fact that exposure is minimal (i.e., ≤ 4 hours per
week) and that L2 English subject properties are rarely explicitly dealt with in class,
but might be acquired implicitly, will be taken into account in the analysis.
In summary, three research questions guide the present research:
(i) How do Spanish adult L2 learners of English in their beginner, intermediate,
and advanced stages develop their acquisition of the three subject properties
traditionally associated together as a cluster under the Null Subject Parameter
(i.e., null/overt pronominal subjects in main and subordinate clauses, null/overt
expletive subjects, and pre/postverbal subjects)?
(ii) How do the learners’ judgments differ from those of the control native group?
(iii) Are the results coherent with the Interpretability Hypothesis (Tsimpli and
Dimitrakopoulou, 2007) proposed for adult L2A?
We hypothesize that the learners under consideration will be sensitive to gram-
maticality distinctions but their judgments will radically differ from those of the
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PLADEVALL BALLESTER 473
native control group, especially in the beginner group, where the presence of Span-
ish L1 transferred structures is assumed to take over.
As explained in Section 2, subject–verb agreement in English involves unin-
terpretable features, which are assumed to be inaccessible to L2 learners. These
learners are expected to accept instances of null subjects in main and subordinate
clauses as well as postverbal subjects and null expletive subjects, as they will still
assume that Agr is an argumental affix of the verb, as it happens with their L1, and
will hence merge Agr (i.e., PersP) to TP to satisfy the EPP feature on T. Yet, as
their proficiency increases, learners are predicted to accommodate L2 structures and
superficially restructure their L1 assumptions, although, under the Interpretability
Hypothesis assumed here, learners will continue using the L1 subject syntax and the
relevant interpretable features as a “compensatory” strategy. How and whether the
superficially restructured L1 assumptions are reflected in the learners’ judgments and
corrections will also be analyzed. In the next section, I turn to the methodology used.
5. METHODOLOGY
In order to study subject development in Spanish adult L2 learners of English, data
from three groups who attend the same language school were collected a month
after the start of the academic year, namely Pre-Intermediate (second year), First
Certificate (fifth year), and Proficiency (eighth year) classes. All students in the three
groups tested took the Oxford University Press placement test at the beginning of the
study in order to check that they had been placed in the right group. Table 1 shows
the OUP mean scores and the Standard Deviations for each group.
Table 1: Oxford University Press mean scores
Level Mean OUP SD
Beginners (80–104) 91.33 6.31
Intermediate (120–134) 125.92 4.91
Advanced (150–169) 158.38 6.17
The beginner group was exposed to approximately 150 hours of input. The in-
termediate group was exposed to approximately 570 hours of input. The advanced
group was exposed to approximately 990 hours of input. Except for the beginner
group, who had not had any previous exposure before starting classes in the lan-
guage school the previous year, the other two groups had started learning English at
school when they were teenagers and had retaken it in the language school. There-
fore, the intermediate and advanced groups had had previous exposure to English
before starting their classes in the language school.
The beginner group had 33 participants with an average age of 32.33, ranging
from 18 to 58. They were mainly professional graduates and students, although the
group also included four housewives and they had all been learning English for one
year. The intermediate group had 27 participants with an average age of 22.66, rang-
ing from 18 to 37. They were university students and professional graduates and they
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had all learnt some English at school and had been studying it again for two to three
years, since pre-intermediate or intermediate levels (i.e., second or third year in the
language school). The advanced group had 31 participants with an average age of
25.90, ranging from 19 to 45. They were university students and professional gradu-
ates and again they had all learnt some English at school and had studied it again for
more than seven years.
An untimed grammaticality judgment and correction task consisting of 26 sen-
tences was administered to the students of the three levels tested in sessions of 20–30
minutes. The task included 16 ungrammatical and 10 grammatical sentences which
displayed instances of null/overt pronominal subjects in main and embedded clauses
(including backward and forward anaphora), null/overt expletive subjects in weather,
raising, unaccusative, existential, and extraposed structures, and pre/postverbal sub-
jects in main and embedded clauses (Appendix).
The grammatical sentences were designed to act as counterparts of each un-
grammatical type of sentence and, at the same time, served as fillers to see whether
the informants were paying attention to the task.
The experimenter observed a number of classes of all the levels tested before
designing the task and carried out a pre-test consisting of sentences totally unrelated
to subject properties to familiarise the students with the format of the task.
Before the task was carried out, some vocabulary help was provided to the begin-
ner group so that the students could cope with the task without lexical interference.
The sentences in the task were presented in an order that could not create a pattern
for the informants, thus grammatical and ungrammatical sentences alternated and
sentences that tested the same linguistic phenomenon were obviously not presented
together. The students were told to imagine they were language teachers and to care-
fully and individually read the sentences and decide whether they sounded right or
wrong. They were also given the possibility of not being sure about the sentence,
although it was emphasised that they should leave this option as a last resort. It was
specifically clarified that they did not have to focus on the content of the sentences
but on their structure.
Once they had decided, they had to circle Right, Wrong, or Not Sure below the
sentence and if they had decided Wrong they were told to correct what they thought
had to be corrected. They were also told to imagine a context if that was easier
for them and to specify such a context in the space provided for the correction of
the sentence. It was also emphasized that the task was by no means assessing their
knowledge and that any kind of answer was equally relevant. They were allowed to
ask the experimenter if they had any doubts about the task or the sentences. After
the allotted time, the tests were collected. Informants were extremely interested in
knowing how well they did in the tests and what the expected responses should have
been. Therefore, after the tests were collected, students had a feedback session with
their teachers where they went over the sentences as a follow-up activity.
Control group data from monolingual adult English speakers were obtained from
monolingual English speakers living in an English-speaking country, who were nei-
ther linguists nor language teachers in order to avoid bias in the results. Thirteen
British informants who were aware of the study but had no relationship with the
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PLADEVALL BALLESTER 475
research field of language acquisition were contacted and asked to participate in the
control group task. The informants were first introduced to the task and given specific
instructions on how to carry it out. The test was sent to the native speakers and they
were specifically asked to complete the test in a 15-minute session. The informants
had an average age of 34.15 and were all university graduates working in a variety
of areas which were not related to linguistics. The general procedure of the task, the
sentences, the order of presentation, and the linguistic items to be tested were the
same as in the experimental group.
The data obtained from the experimental and control groups were transcribed,
coded, and statistically analyzed to compare the three stages of development in adult
L2A, to compare control native and non-native data at the three stages of develop-
ment and for each condition examined in the task, and to compare the development of
subject properties among themselves at each of the three stages. In the next section,
I turn to the results of the experiment.
6. RESULTS
As the sample size of participants in this study was rather small, the Kolmogorov–
Smirnov test of normality of distribution with the Lilliefors significance correction
was applied to all variables. The data were not normally distributed, as indicated by
the results (p < .05) and hence non-parametric tests, namely, Kruskal–Wallis tests,
Mann–WhitneyU tests, and Wilcoxon Z tests, were applied. The level of significance
was α = .05 all throughout the analysis.
In order to analyze the development of the learners’ judgments along the three
learning stages, a non-parametric one-way analysis of variance Kruskal–Wallis test
was first applied to the three groups with respect to their correct judgments, namely
rejection of ungrammatical sentences and acceptance of grammatical sentences. As
for rejection of ungrammaticality, all variables (i.e., referential null subjects in main
and subordinate clauses, null expletives and postverbal subjects) displayed signifi-
cant p-values, which indicates that at least one of the level groups had a significantly
different median in each variable. Regarding acceptance of grammaticality, only
overt expletives displayed a significant p-value (H 13.798, p = .001), which indi-
cates that in the case of overt and preverbal subjects all groups performed similarly.
In order to see where exactly the differences emerged, the Mann–WhitneyU test was
applied to each variable concerning ungrammaticality and only to grammatical overt
expletives.
Table 2 illustrates significantly different percentages of correct judgments of
ungrammatical sentences between the three levels in all variables, always following
an increasing tendency. In the case of judgments of grammatical sentences, Table 3
shows very high percentages of correct judgments except in overt expletives, where
the beginner and the intermediate groups obtained significantly lower percentages
than the advanced group (i.e., U 240.000, p= .003).5
5U is the value of the statistics test.
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Table 2: Rejection of ungrammatical sentences: Mann–Whitney U Test between
beginner/intermediate and intermediate/advanced groups
Variable/Levels N Median Mean Mann– Asymp.
% % Whitney U sig.
Null referential subjects:
Beginners 33 49.99 46.46 169.500 .000*
Intermediate 27 83.33 79.93 —————————
Advanced 31 100.00 96.23 231.000 .001*
Null expletives:
Beginners 33 50.00 47.06 162.000 < .001*
Intermediate 27 83.33 74.07 —————————
Advanced 31 100.00 92.25 185.000 < .001*
Postverbal subjects:
Beginners 33 50.00 46.97 257.500 .004*
Intermediate 27 75.00 67.59 —————————
Advanced 31 100.00 87.90 228.500 .002*
* means p-value is significant.
Table 3: Acceptance of grammatical sentences: Mann–Whitney U Test between
beginner/intermediate and intermediate/advanced groups
Variable/Levels N Median Mean Mann– Asymp.
% % Whitney U sig.
Overt subjects:
Beginners 33 100.00 93.74 — —
Intermediate 27 100.00 92.59 —————————
Advanced 31 100.00 98.92 — —
Overt expletives:
Beginners 33 80.00 75.62424.000 .730
Intermediate 27 80.00 78.51
Advanced 31 100.00 90.80 240.000 .003*
Preverbal subjects:
Beginners 33 100.00 90.62 — —
Intermediate 27 100.00 96.29 —————————
Advanced 31 100.00 95.16 — —
Our second comparative analysis contrasts non-native and native judgments in
each level group. As percentages of acceptance of grammaticality were generally
very high, the analysis focused on the judgments of ungrammatical sentences in the
experimental groups as opposed to those of the control group. As can be seen in Ta-
ble 4, the beginner group significantly differed from the control group in all variables.
Results from the intermediate group, displayed in Table 5, show a slight develop-
ment of the learners’ reaction to ungrammatical properties, but significant differences
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PLADEVALL BALLESTER 477
Table 4: Mann–Whitney U Test between the beginner and the control group
Variable/Levels N Median Mean Mann– Asymp.
% % Whitney U sig.
Referential null subjects:
Beginners 33 49.99 46.6618.500 .000*
Control group 13 100.00 96.15
Null expletives:
Beginners 33 50.00 47.062.000 < .001*
Control group 13 100.00 98.71
Postverbal subjects:
Beginners 33 50.00 46.9719.500 < .001*
Control group 13 100.00ca 100.00
ac is the constant value.
Table 5: Mann–Whitney U Test between the intermediate and the control group
Variable/Levels N Median Mean Mann– Asymp.
% % Whitney U sig.
Referential null subjects:
Intermediate 27 83.33 79.9398.500 .015*
Control group 13 100.00 96.15
Null expletives:
Intermediate 27 83.33 74.0740.000 < .001*
Control group 13 100.00 98.71
Postverbal subjects:
Intermediate 27 75.00 67.5945.500 < .001*
Control group 13 100.00c 100.00
between the groups still emerge in the three variables. Regarding the advanced group’s
judgments, Table 6 indicates that significant differences were still observed in two
of the three properties tested, namely in null expletives and postverbal subjects, al-
though percentages of correct judgments increased considerably in all variables.
The three variables under analysis (i.e., learners’ judgments of ungrammatical
sentences) were statistically compared to one another at each of the three proficiency
levels so as to explore whether the different subject properties tested in the task de-
veloped in a similar way. The variables including grammatical sentences were not
compared among themselves since, as already mentioned, their values were all sim-
ilarly high, indicating the learners’ sensitivity to the grammatical–ungrammatical
distinction in their L2. For each level group, paired comparisons of related sam-
ples were carried out using the non-parametric Wilcoxon Z test with the Bonferroni
correction to test equality of two related medians. Equality of medians could not
be rejected for any paired comparison in any of the groups (p > .005), suggesting
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478 CJL/RCL 58(3), 2013
Table 6: Mann–Whitney U Test between the advanced and the control group
Variable/Levels N Median Mean Mann– Asymp.
% % Whitney U sig.
Referential null subjects:
Advanced 31 100.00 96.23195.500 .826
Control group 13 100.00 96.15
Null expletives:
Advanced 31 100.00 92.25138.000 .040*
Control group 13 100.00 98.71
Postverbal subjects:
Advanced 31 100.00 87.90123.500 .010*
Control group 13 100.00c 100.00
similar development of the three subject properties examined. The next section dis-
cusses in detail the results of the experiments.
7. DISCUSSION
Results indicate that L2 subject development in adult L2 instruction can take place
in a minimal exposure situation and that percentages of correct judgments differ sig-
nificantly from one group to another in all variables and with an increasing tendency,
particularly in the case of ungrammatical sentences.
Percentages of correct judgments and accurate corrections are below chance-
level in the three variables in the beginner group, whereas they reach percentages
which are around 90% in the advanced group, indicating a clear and relevant devel-
opmental process in adult L2 English subject properties. In the case of grammatical
sentences, the three experimental groups obtained much higher and more uniform
results within and between groups. No clear development is observable in terms
of learners’ judgments of grammatical sentences, most of which are very accurate
already in the beginner group. Only overt expletives show a significant difference
between the beginner/intermediate groups and the advanced group, although per-
centages of correction are remarkably high in the lower groups. Hesitations about
judgments were also measured, although they were not statistically analyzed as they
were extremely low in both grammatical and ungrammatical sentences.
Such accurate judgments with respect to grammatical sentences already in the
beginner group and the lack of hesitations point to the fact that adult L2 learners in
this study are somehow sensitive to grammaticality/ungrammaticality distinctions.
Although development has been shown to occur through the three learning stages
under analysis here, learners’ judgments were found to clearly differ from those of
the native control group in all three groups. As for the beginner group, the learners’
percentages of correct judgments were significantly lower than those of the control
group in the three subject properties. Not surprisingly, after a year of being exposed
to L2 classroom instruction English in a minimal input situation and not actually
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PLADEVALL BALLESTER 479
receiving explicit instructions on how subjects are used in English, Spanish adult
learners allow a statistically significant percentage of null subjects in main and em-
bedded clauses, null expletive subjects, and postverbal subjects, which are the L1
properties derived from the way the EPP feature is satisfied on T, namely by merg-
ing Agr (i.e., PersP) to TP in Spanish (Platzack 2004). L1 feature specifications are
clearly transferred to the learners’ L2 English at this stage, as access to the L2 unin-
terpretable features of subject use is assumed not to be possible under the approach
adopted here. Since these L1 features are responsible for the three subject proper-
ties under consideration here, we would expect those properties to display similar
results in the beginner group and hence behave as a cluster of subject properties.
This was shown in Section 6, where the Wilcoxon Z test results were reported. The
paired comparisons between the results of the three subject variables in the beginner
group did not display any significant differences among them and the three vari-
ables significantly diverged from those of the native control group. This suggests
that adult beginner learners in this study found it similarly difficult to judge and cor-
rect ungrammatical null referential subjects, null expletives, and postverbal subjects,
confirming neither the advantage of null referential pronouns over expletives and
postverbal subjects reported by Phinney (1987) and Tsimpli and Roussou (1991) on
L2 English nor the low acceptance of postverbal subjects found in White (1985).
Learners’ judgments in the intermediate group improved considerably in the
three subject properties analyzed. However, results remained significantly different
from those of the control group in all variables. Development was observed but re-
sults were still non-native-like and the paired comparisons from the Wilcoxon Z
test indicate that all subject properties also behaved similarly at this stage. Although
learners apparently rejected more non-target structures they do not seem to have done
so in a native-like manner. Assuming that uninterpretable features are not accessible
to L2 learners, resetting the value of the parameter at hand is not possible in adult
L2A and learners are expected to keep the same feature specifications as in their L1.
The advanced group obtained higher percentages of correct judgments, although they
were a bit lower than those of the control group and significantly different from them
in two of the three properties, namely in null expletives and in postverbal subjects.
Again, the paired comparisons of the subject properties indicated that they were
non-significantly different from each other, suggesting that the three properties be-
haved similarly, although, as corroborated in other studies and even if it is not sta-
tistically significant, the fact that null referential subjects are not permitted seems to
be more easily learned than expletive subjects in adult L2 English (Phinney 1987,
Tsimpli and Roussou 1991). That results were remarkably high and accurate but
still non-native-like and significantly different from the control group in two of the
variables in the advanced group is in line with our assumption that adult learners of
English in an instructed minimal exposure setting have partial access to UG and can
therefore make grammaticality judgments but cannot reset L1 feature value specifi-
cations to those of the target language associated with uninterpretable features.
Spanish adult learners of English in the advanced group might still merge argu-
mental Agr to TP. Yet, resorting to learning strategies such as analogy or deduction
and using available interpretable features create, superficially, native-like structures,
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480 CJL/RCL 58(3), 2013
with the consequence that learners are able to interpret and judge some sentences
correctly. In other words, the L1-based interlanguage grammar will accommodate
L2 structures that are different from the L1.
Our results confirm the assumption that adult interlanguage grammars are unim-
paired and hence UG-constrained but L2 learners cannot acquire uninterpretable
feature specifications, which is consistent with the Interpretability Hypothesis as pro-
posed by Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou (2007).
Our reasoning is based on the fact that not even in the advanced group, with
almost 1000 hours of exposure in an instructed setting (plus previous exposure at
school when the informants were children) do we find results that are native-like in
all variables. Only judgments related to referential null subjects in main and subor-
dinate clauses were not significantly different from those of the native speakers.
It might be argued that it is not necessary to obtain native-like results in all
subject properties to claim that L2 parameter resetting is possible in a classroom
instruction context. As Rothman and Iverson argue in relation to the resetting of
the Null Subject Parameter by adult English learners of L2 Spanish, “it is not clear
that the L2 learner would need to demonstrate target-like knowledge of all these
properties [. . . ] for one to claim that the parameter has been reset” (2007b:199). The
authors justify this by stating that it might be the case that the Null Subject Parameter
does not include all the properties so far assumed. More specifically, they claim that
subject–verb inversion does not follow from the same parameter (Safir 1982, 1985;
Jaeggli and Hyams 1988).
However, in our study, this would leave the non-target results of the expletive
subjects unexplained. The authors also claim that clustering effects have been argued
not to hold in adult L2A, at least in adult L2 Spanish (Ayoun 1999, Isabelli 2004)
and that the cluster of properties of the parameter emerges gradually in L2 learners
and the least salient properties in classroom input, among which postverbal subjects
are included, would be best acquired with naturalistic input (e.g., in a study-abroad
context). In our study, this would explain why postverbal subjects are delayed with
respect to null subjects in main and subordinate clauses but again it would leave null
expletives with no explanation.
More importantly, one of the essential properties of a parameter is its clustering
effects. If properties of a parameter need to be learned one by one then it is unrea-
sonable to assume that the parameter still exists in the learners’ L2. In other words,
if clustering effects do not exist in adult L2A, as Isabelli (2004) seems to suggest
for L2 Spanish, it makes little sense to talk about parameter resetting. Adult learn-
ers, at least in classroom contexts and contrary to child L2A in immersion contexts
(Schwartz 2003, 2004), are not actually acquiring any L2 feature specification but
rather, are learning and accommodating target-like structures by means of the still
available UG learning mechanisms and strategies.
The data of the present study should also be discussed in relation to the fact
that L2 English subject properties are rarely taught in an explicit way in a class-
room context and that adult L2 learners have to learn them implicitly from the input
they receive. Since the learners under study receive minimal input (i.e., ≤ 4 hours
per week), implicit teaching might not be really effective and the learners’ strategies
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PLADEVALL BALLESTER 481
might not be enough to fully learn the four subject properties. As mentioned above,
the experimental task employed here measures explicit L2 knowledge (Ellis 2009)
and it seems that, especially in the cases of expletive subjects and postverbal subjects,
intermediate learners and to some extent also advanced learners did not manage to
turn their supposedly implicit knowledge into explicit judgments. It seems reason-
able to suppose that any L2 knowledge transmitted in class should be explicit in
minimal input situations and that only with more intensive exposure would implicit
teaching be more effective.
The mere fact that null subjects are not permitted in English has been somehow
easier for the L2 learners under analysis, although this has not been evident until the
advanced group and the difference is not statistically significant. This might be due
to the fact that, despite not being explicitly taught, pronominal (and lexical) subjects
are more salient or frequent in the input they receive. In addition, the learners in this
study are assumed to make use of interpretable features associated with subject use,
which are available in L2A and help them create superficially native-like structures.
This is also shown in the learners’ corrections of the ungrammatical sentences, where
sometimes in order to correct a sentence with a null expletive or a postverbal subject
they inserted a pronominal or lexical subject or simply an element that would fill a
preverbal position, making some of these sentences still ungrammatical and hence
not counting as correct responses. Some strategies used by both intermediate and
advanced learners are illustrated in (6)–(11).
(6) a. Sentence 6: Has just come my sister from the United States.
b. Target sentence: My sister has just come from the United States.
c. Learners’ strategies and corrections: *Today has just come my sister from the
United States/*Has just come my sister from the US?/*It has just come my sis-
ter from the united States.
(7) a. Sentence 8: Surprised me that everyone came to the meeting.
b. Target sentence: It surprised me that everyone came to the meeting.
c. Learners’ strategies and corrections: I’m surprised that everyone came to the meet-
ing/That everyone came to the meeting surprised me.
(8) a. Sentence 9: Is said that rainforests are in danger.
b. Target sentence: It is said that rainforests are in danger.
c. Learners’ strategies and corrections: People said that rainforests are in danger/They/He/It
said that rainforests are in danger.
(9) a. Sentence 10: They didn’t know when finished the class.
b. Target sentence: They didn’t know when the class finished.
c. Learners’ strategies and corrections: *They didn’t know when did they finish the
class/*They didn’t know when they finished the class.
(10) a. Sentence 16: Appeared a dinosaur in the playground.
b. Target sentence: There appeared a dinosaur in the playground.
c. Learners’ strategies and corrections: A dinosaur appeared in the playground/*It
appeared a dinosaur in the playground/*In the playground appeared a dinosaur.
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482 CJL/RCL 58(3), 2013
(11) a. Sentence 25: She didn’t explain why complained the students.
b. Target sentence: She didn’t explain why the students complained.
c. Learners’ strategies and corrections: *She didn’t explain why she complained the
students/*She didn’t explain why did complain the students.
Learners beyond the beginner group are aware that some sentences are incom-
plete but since they have not reset the value of the parameter (i.e., they have not
acquired the L2 uninterpretable feature specification by which L2 English subjects
need to be raised to Spec-TP positions and hence be overt and preverbal) they can
only rely on learning strategies which do not always result in superficially target-like
structures.
8. CONCLUSION
The present research has contributed new data to adult instructed SLA in relation to
the syntax of subjects of L2 English. Results from a grammaticality judgment and
correction task, carried out with three level groups of Spanish L2 learners of English
minimally exposed to the target language, indicate that adults are indeed capable of
judging sentences in their L2. However, their responses are far from being native-
like, even in the advanced group.
After initial L1 transfer, the data show learning development of the L2 subject
properties, since learners reject more null pronominal and expletive subjects and
postverbal subjects. However, their progress does not result from parameter resetting
but from an approximation to the input with the help of interpretable features, which
are assumed to be accessible by general learning mechanisms, as is postulated by the
Interpretability Hypothesis approach to adult L2A.
It was also been found that learners’ strategies and mechanisms that would com-
pensate for the lack of availability of L2 uninterpretable features are not enough in
cases of minimal exposure in instructed settings where the properties to be acquired
are not explicitly taught. If L2 explicit knowledge is to be measured it might be the
case that L2 explicit teaching is necessary in minimal input situations to help reach
target-like interlanguage and that implicit teaching is only effective when exposure
is more intensive.
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APPENDIX:
SENTENCES AND LINGUISTIC ITEMS IN THE ADULT L2 ENGLISH TASK
Linguistic Grammaticalitems Sentences feature
Null referential subjects:
11 Jane likes football. Plays in a team every
day.
15 Walks to school every morning at 8.30.
21 Finally decided to go to the party and had a
lot of fun.
3 My sister is always tired because works a
lot.
23 If don’t finish the homework we will not go
home.
19 Our French teacher said had a dog.
Null expletives:
1 Are five American students in my class. existential
5 Seems that our students are working well. raising
8 Surprised me that everyone came to the
meeting.
extraposed
16 Appeared a dinosaur in the playground. unaccusative
9 Is said that rainforests are in danger. raising
26 Is raining a lot these days. weather verb
Postverbal subjects:
6 Has just come my sister from the United
States.
24 Cried the baby all night long.
10 They didn’t know when finished the class.
25 She didn’t explain why complained the stu-
dents.
Grammatical sentences:
2 My cousins came over for the vacation. postverbal subj. main clause
4 There are two music teachers in the school. existencial expletive
7 They went to a birthday party and had a lot
of fun.
null pron. subj. main clause
12 It snowed very little last winter. weather expletive
22 It surprised Mike that she couldn’t pass the
exam.
extraposition it
13 My sister loves apples so she eats one every
day.
null pron. subj. main clause
17 It seems that we are going on a trip next
week.
raising expletive
20 There arrived two new students. unaccusative expletive
18 We will be late if we don’t take the train. null pron. subj. sub. clause
14 He didn’t know when the class started. postverbal subj. sub. clause
©c Revue canadienne de linguistique / Canadian Journal of Linguistics 58(3): 465–486, 2013