The morphosyntax-lexicon interface breakdown: an aspectual account of the L2 acquisition of ser and estar by L1 English speakers

Public Deposited

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
Request Version for Screen Reader
Last Modified
  • March 22, 2019
Creator
  • Gómez-Soler, Inmaculada
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Linguistics
Abstract
  • This thesis analyzes the L2 acquisition of ser and estar by L1 English speakers. My results showed the following patterns: overgeneralization of ser, omission of estar, difficulty with semantic constraints and with locations of events and better performance in the written task. These facts can be explained by means of the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis. I claim that the problems with ser and estar stem from processing difficulties and an impossibility to retrieve estar from the lexicon due to the difficulty that L1 English learners of Spanish have identifying its aspectual properties. Interestingly, L1 learners show the opposite pattern: they overgeneralize estar. This fact can be explained through the Aspect First Hypothesis, which proposes that children use inflectional morphology to mark aspect. So, the aspectual element seems to be the key to understanding both the L1 and the L2 processes of acquisition of ser and estar.
Date of publication
DOI
Resource type
Rights statement
  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Becker, Misha
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Language
Access right
  • Open access
Date uploaded
  • October 11, 2010

Relations

Parents:

This work has no parents.

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details The morphosyntax-lexicon interface breakdown : an aspectual account of the L2 acquisition of ser and estar by L1 English speakers 2019-04-09 Public Download