INTRODUCTION

Abstract

Typological linguistics has made important contributions to our understanding of SLA processes, especially in the early days of SLA research (e.g., Eckman, 1977; Hyltenstam, 1977; Rutherford, 1984). In particular, the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy (NPAH), originally proposed as a generalization based on typological work by Keenan and Comrie (1977), has served as a basis on which many SLA studies are conducted. The NPAH predicts the ease of relativization as a function of the grammatical role of the head noun phrase (NP) modified by the relative clause (RC) observed in languages of the world: subject (SU) > direct object (DO) > indirect object (IO) > oblique (OBL) > genitive (GEN) > object of comparison (OComp). If a language can relativize on a position on the hierarchy, then it follows that any other higher position (or position to the left in the given schematic) can also be relativized on. For example, if a language has an OComp relative (e.g., the man who I am taller than), then it has a GEN relative (e.g., the man whose father I know) and all of the others higher on the hierarchy (i.e., OBL, IO, DO, and SU).