27.912, Review: Lang Acq; Ling Theories; Morphology; Syntax: Santoro (2014)

Fri Feb 19 17:11:11 UTC 2016

LINGUIST List: Vol-27-912. Fri Feb 19 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.912, Review: Lang Acq; Ling Theories; Morphology; Syntax: Santoro (2014)

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Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2016 12:10:51
From: Valeria Buttini-Bailey [valeria.buttini at unibas.ch]
Subject: The acquisition of Italian morphosyntax in L2 settings

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-4322.html

AUTHOR: Maurizio  Santoro
TITLE: The acquisition of Italian morphosyntax in L2 settings
SERIES TITLE: LINCOM Studies in Language Acquisition 33
PUBLISHER: Lincom GmbH
YEAR: 2014

REVIEWER: Valeria Buttini-Bailey, Universität Basel

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

INTRODUCTION

“The acquisition of Italian morphosyntax in L2 settings,” by Maurizio Santoro
describes the process of acquisition of four morphosyntactic aspects of
Italian grammar: (i) subject pronominalization; (ii) object pronominalization;
(iii) the nominal system, with emphasis on Italian nominal modification; (iv)
the verbal system, with emphasis on the aspect and tense distinction of
Italian verbs. Data come from extensive research on the acquisition of Italian
as a second language, and are analyzed within the generativist theoretical
framework (Chomsky 1981, 1995, 2000, 2004). 

The volume is organized into a preface and six chapters; it also includes an
appendix with a list of abbreviations, and references. The chapters share a
similar organizational structure, as they all start with an overview of the
way a certain morphosyntactic structure has been described within the
generativist theoretical background. Results from current L2 research are then
presented, compared with those coming from research on other languages, and
finally discussed. 

SUMMARY

The Preface explains the book’s focus and organization, and briefly describes
each chapter. 

The first chapter, “Theoretical background”, serves as introduction to the
generativist theoretical background. Notions such as parameter setting and
resetting, functional projection activation, feature values identification and
feature-checking operations are explained. The chapter also describes two
contrasting positions and their discrepant hypotheses regarding the L2 initial
and final acquisition state, namely the Full Access Hypothesis and the
Differential Difference Hypothesis. 

The second chapter, “L2 acquisition of Italian subject pronouns”, focuses on
the acquisition of Italian subject pronouns. This is described as a gradual
and quite slow process that appears to be strongly influenced by the
complexity of the Italian subject pronominal system. Even at advanced levels,
in fact, and regardless to their L1 grammar, learners often have difficulty in
using null arguments in pragmatically appropriate contexts. The author
explains that this is consistent with Sorace’s Interface Theory (2003),
according to which acquiring operations that involve several linguistic
modules is more problematic than acquiring operations comprising only one
component. 

The third chapter, “L2 acquisition of Italian object pronouns”, describes how
learners of Italian use the clitic object pronouns. The author shows how the
Italian clitics system involves a series of complex operations that implicate
different linguistic modules and are acquisitionally problematic to L2
learners. He also shows that ''although Italian accusative and dative clitics
both present an impoverished internal structure, they are quite different from
a morphological and semantic perspective'' (p. 67). This interestingly
reflects in their acquisition patterns, with the dative pronouns being
acquired faster and better. Contrary to what is claimed by many syntacticians,
this seems to be proving that the morphological features of Italian clitics do
not develop uniformly. 

Chapter four, “L2 acquisition of Italian DPs”, deals with the acquisition of
Italian determiner phrases, such as definite articles, possessive and
demonstrative pronouns, and descriptive adjectives. It is shown that the
morphological features of gender and number displayed by Italian determiners
''are acquirable, but follow a slow and gradual acquisition process'' (p.
116). Furthermore, ''they do not develop uniformly'', and ''this irregularity
is noticeable at any proficiency level'' (p. 116). This struggle in the
acquisitional process ''may be attributed to an interface problem, resulting
from a failure in applying the acquired syntactic knowledge'' (p. 119). 

The fifth chapter, “L2 acquisition of Italian verbal system”, focuses on the
acquisition of the morphologically rich Italian verbal system. This also
proves to be ''a quite difficult (but not impossible) task to attain since it
involves mastery of many linguistic components ranging from morphology to
semantics'' (p. 155). Learners seem to be able to produce verbal morphology
quite early in their acquisitional process, but keep struggling with the
aspectual distinction of Italian tenses and relying on their L1 even when they
have reached advanced and near-native levels. 

Chapter six, “Conclusion and suggestions for future research”, summarizes the
results and lists a series of suggestions for future research. As the author
states, the acquisition scenario that comes out in the book ''appears to
support a modular view of language acquisition, according to which linguistic
modules develop independently from one another'' (p. 163). Some findings, such
as the precocious appearance of forms (i.e. clitics, null pronominal forms and
morphological endings on Italian determiners and verbs) that need a syntactic
apparatus non-existent in learners’ L1 grammars, appear to be proof of the
possibility to access the universal linguistic knowledge even in SLA (p. 165).
Following White (2003), Santoro also suggests a Partial Transfer/Full Access
Hypothesis: according to this, ''the initial state of L2 acquisition is
partially determined by learners’ first language. L1 properties may affect the
development of some linguistic components, especially if these modules are
particularly complex and include properties that are complex and include
properties that are fundamentally different from L1. L2 leaners, however,
still have full access to their universal linguistic knowledge so that
features and projections that are unspecified in their L1 can still be
activated with the help of UG in response to L2 input'' (p. 166). 

EVALUATION

Overall, I find Santoro’s book a pleasant and interesting reading that brings
together a wealth of information on its topics of focus, and offers quite a
good picture of the second language acquisition process from a generativist
perspective. 

However, a few inaccuracies sometimes undermine this general good impression,
and substitute it with a feeling of lack of attention to details. In a few
cases, it is a matter of typographical errors or forgetfulness: see for
instance the use of an acute accent instead of a grave one on Italian words at
page 70 and 92, or the missing reference for Chomsky 2004 cited at page 4.
Elsewhere, the contents is more at stake. I will give here just three
examples. 
In chapter two, at page 36, while discussing the higher preference for lexical
preverbal shown in matrix sentences by learners when compared to Italian
natives, Santoro gives the following example: 

Exper.:  Chi parlerà?
  Who speak-FUT?
  ‘Who will speak?’
Subject  -?? Gianni parlerà.
  John speak-FUT
  ‘John will speak’

The author explains that “this answer will be appropriate in English, but
awkward in Italian, which would prefer the lexical subject, Gianni, in post
verbal position”. While I certainly agree that a native would often prefer a
post verbal subject in this context, I find the term “awkward” insufficient
and hardly scientific. Since it was an oral exercise, it should have been
observed that the acceptability of the sentence is actually a matter of
prosody: with a prosodic focalization, the preverbal subject is correct and
acceptable. 

In chapter three, the author cites the results of one of his researches
(Santoro 2008), where English native speakers learning Italian were tested on
their use of Italian clitics. The participants were divided into three
different groups according to the amount of instruction received. The author
states that “the use of a pre-testing procedure to determine students’
proficiency levels became unnecessary because the completion of a language
course provides an accurate indication of the L2 knowledge attained” (p. 68).
This statement is, in my opinion, also unscientific. The completion of a
language course can only offer a very rough idea of a student’s proficiency
level. If this were not the case, language certifications would not exist. 

As a last example, I will cite a wrong translation in chapter four, page 95.
Here, both phrases “Le sue tre sorelle” and “Tre sue sorelle” are translated
into English as “His three sisters”, while “Tre sue sorelle” should have been
translated with “Three of his sisters”. It may seem trivial, but it is not,
since the author is discussing the rising of determiners such as numerals and
articles and the differences between Italian and English.

As the back cover states, ''because of its theoretical breath and
user-friendly language'' the volume is intended as a tool for ''students that
are interested [in] L2 acquisition issues'' and ''as a supplementary reading
material for an introductory course in Second Language Acquisition''. This
goal is certainly attained, but I personally find that in order to completely
fulfill the expectations of such a public, extra care should have been
observed. For instance, a few more key terms in the generativist framework
could have been explained (see for example the term ‘c-command’, p. 14). I
also find unfortunate that the book has almost no footnotes, because they
could have helped in giving an impression of attention to details. A footnote
would have been appreciated, for instance, when in Chapter Two the author
mentions ''two additional functional categories labelled as Topic and Focus''
(p. 31). The two terms should have been explained, since they do not primarily
belong to the generativist framework. 

Despite my criticisms, the volume remains a valuable source and I would still
recommend it as a complementary reading for courses in Second Language
Acquisition. 

REFERENCES

Chomsky, Noam 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.

Chomsky, Noam 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Chomsky, Noam 2000. Minimalist inquiries. In Step by step: Essays on
minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik, R. Martin, D. Michaels, and J.
Uragiereka (eds.), 89-155 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 

Santoro, Maurizio 2008. 

Sorace, Antonella 2003. Near-nativeness. In Handbook of second language
acquisition, M. Long and C. Doughty (eds.), 130-151. Oxford: Blackwell. 

White, Lydia 2003. Second language acquisition and Universal Grammar.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Valeria Buttini-Bailey is currently lecturer and postDoc in Italian
linguistics at the University of Basel. Her research interests lie in the
fields of applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, second language acquisition,
text linguistic, and syntax. She also teaches Italian as a second language at
the University of Zurich.

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