Second language acquisition of complex structures: The case of English restrictive relative clauses

Abstract

This paper examines the formation of Restrictive Relative Clauses (RRC) in Greek and English and investigates the acquisition of English RRCs by advanced Greek learners. On the assumption that L1 Greek and L2 English exhibit parametrically different choices as regards RRC formation which are associated with abstract syntactic features, the current experiment addresses the question of whether parameter resetting is possible in adult L2 acquisition. The results have shown that non-native speakers (NNSs) fared significantly less successfully than native speakers (NSs) in the relevant grammaticality judgement task. The conclusion is that advanced Greek learners fail to acquire the feature specification of the English relative C. The obtained data lends additional support to recent L2 theories which maintain that syntactic divergence between L1 and L2 is associated with prolonged acquisitional problem © 2012 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.