engleski

Testing the Interface Hypothesis: The case of auxiliary change under restructuring in L2 Italian

This paper investigates whether the purely syntactic aspect of auxiliary change under restructuring in Italian can be fully acquired in the L2. Restructuring constructions in Italian involve modal, aspectual or motion verbs that take infinitival complements. The main verb in these constructions normally takes avere (‘have’). However, when the embedded verb is unaccusative and requires essere (‘be’), the main verb can shift to essere. In the presence of clitic climbing, the shift from avere to essere is obligatory. Constructions with the clitic in situ exhibit optionality as well. The optionality or obligatoriness of auxiliary change in restructuring constructions with embedded unaccusatives thus hinges on a purely syntactic factor: clitic presence and placement. In the paper, findings are reported of an experimental study in which a group of highly proficient (possibly near-native) adult L2 learners, who are native speakers of Croatian (a language with clitic climbing, but without auxiliary selection), and a group of adult native speakers expressed their auxiliary preferences in restructuring constructions with unaccusative complements by means of Magnitude Estimation. The L2 learners proved not to know under which syntactic conditions auxiliary change is obligatory and under which it is optional. Contrary to the native speakers, they exhibited optionality in auxiliary choice in all cases, revealing incomplete knowledge of the phenomenon. Such findings do not support the hypothesis that purely syntactic properties are fully acquirable in the L2. Possible reasons for the incomplete acquisition of auxiliary change under restructuring in L2 Italian are discussed in the paper.

L2 acquisition; Italian; Interface Hypothesis; narrow syntax; auxiliary selection; unaccusative verbs; restructuring constructions

nije evidentirano