Abstract
Most of the studies in these volumes focus on the acquisition of anaphora by children learning English as a first language (L1). The present study examines the acquisition of anaphora by adults acquiring English as a second language (L2). The incorporation of the present study in these volumes rests not on a loose commonality of subject, but on the hypothesis, articulated here, that the two acquisition processes, consistent with a theory of Universal Grammar (Chomsky, 1980, 1981, 1982), share common underlying principles. The discovery of such principles would be productive both in refining our model of L 1 acquisition and in formulating the investigation of L2 acquisition within a shared theoretical framework.
I thank Barbara Lust, Jack Carroll and Catherine Chvany for their time and help in providing constructive and insightful comments and suggestions for this paper. I also thank Estelle Torrego (UMass/Boston) for discussions concerning Spanish anaphora and Mamoru Saito (MIT) for discussions concerning Japanese anaphora. Appreciation is also extended to Diane Massam (MIT) for numerous discussions concerning adjunct clauses in English. Research conducted in this paper was supported by a graduate research supplement from the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Cornell University and in part upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number BNS-7825115.
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Flynn, S. (1987). Second Language Acquisition of Pronoun Anaphora: Resetting the Parameter. In: Lust, B. (eds) Studies in the Acquisition of Anaphora. Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3387-3_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3387-3_10
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