Genitive non-head nouns in L2 English compounds: The effect of LI formal properties

Abstract

This is a cross-sectional study on the acquisition of English compounds, e.g. 'a bell designer' and 'truck industry', by Greek adults. Despite the structural similarity between the LI and the L2 forms, due to a difference they have at PF it was hypothesized that learners misanalyse the L2 items as complex DP phrases and that, consequently, the interlanguage forms would exhibit the effect of LI formal properties involved in phrasal noun combination. As a result, the learners would differ from the natives concerning the possibility of genitive non­head noun in compounds, e.g. *'a bell's designer' and trucks' industries'. The participants were 30 intermediate and 30 advanced learners, as well as 20 English natives. The empirical data, elicited through picture-naming, gramma- ticality judgements and referentiality judgements, seem to verify our hypothesis. Moreover, they indicate that while the interlanguage compound structure is UG-constrained, parameter resetting of formal properties may not be possible in adult language acquisition.