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L3 Syntactic Transfer: Models, new developments and implications
Edited by Tanja Angelovska and Angela Hahn
[Bilingual Processing and Acquisition 5] 2017
► pp. 173–194

Chapter 8
L3 morphosyntactic effects on L1 vs. L2 systems

The Differential Stability Hypothesis

This study investigates the extent to which L1 versus adult L2 syntactic systems resist influence from a third language (L3) via observation of the effect of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) on Spanish in L1 Spanish/L2 English and L1 English/L2 Spanish bilinguals that are advanced L3 BP speakers. We examine the phenomenon of raising across a dative experiencer out of a TP complement (TPExp), which is acceptable in BP and English but not Spanish. Spanish data from an acceptability judgment task indicate that although both experimental groups rate TPExp higher than the Spanish control, L2 Spanish speakers are more accepting of TPExp than L1 Spanish speakers and Spanish controls. We take these results to support our hypothesis of differential stability conditioned by age of acquisition.
Keywords: third language (L3) acquisition, multilingualism, morphosyntax, regressive transfer
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Regressive transfer
    • L1 morphosyntactic attrition
    • The Differential Stability Hypothesis
  • Subject-to-subject raising across a dative experiencer in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese
  • Research questions and predictions
  • Methodology
    • Participants
    • Acceptability judgment task
  • Results
    • Control data in Spanish and BP
    • Spanish control and learner comparison
  • Discussion
    • L1 Spanish versus L2 Spanish morphosyntactic representations
    • L1 versus L2 stability
    • Individual variation
    • The DSH across domains
    • Future directions
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bpa.5.09ama
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