The Syntax-Pragmatics Interface: Intransitivity and Word Order in L3 Spanish

Until fairly recently, most researchers assumed that the acquisition of a second language (L2) and of a third (or subsequent) (L3/Ln) language were indistinguishable. This is not the case, as knowledge of two or more previous languages adds complexity to non-native acquisition. This study addresses the issue of crosslinguistic influence between three languages in view of two theories: (a) the L2 will always be the cause of crosslinguistic influence in an L3 (Bardel & Falk, 2012); (b) the determining factor for transfer is typological similarity between the languages in question (Rothman, 2010). This study focuses on the L3 acquisition of Spanish by speakers whose L1 is Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and L2 is English. A comparison group consisted of learners of L2 Spanish whose L1 is BP. In particular, I examined the acquisition of the choice of word order in Spanish, subject-verb or verb-subject, which depends on two factors: the type of verb (morphosyntax), and the information structure of the sentence (pragmatics), whether focused or unfocused. The problem for learners consists of processing the interface of two linguistic modules: morphosyntax and pragmatics. Interfaces have been found to be difficult in acquisition (Sorace, 2011), adding an additional wrinkle to the problem faced by learners. The three languages chosen differ in relation to word order: Portuguese distinguishes between verb types, but pragmatics is not a factor; English exhibits fixed subject-verb order; and Spanish takes both verb class and pragmatics into consideration. Because of this, we are able to distinguish between possible influence from English, which predicts rejection of verb-subject order in all circumstances, and typology, which predicts learners using verb class to distinguish word order but not pragmatics. Participants completed a preference task (Lozano, 2006), a production task, a vocabulary quiz, and a linguistic profile questionnaire. Findings support the hypothesis that typology plays a role in L3 transfer, as learners are able to adjust their interlanguage to accept the inverted order in instances where the L2 is inflexible. However, both L2 and L3 learners also seem to integrate pragmatic constraints in their interlanguage showing that they are on their way to acquiring a Spanish native-like grammar