Some remarks on the subset principle in second language acquisition

Abstract

In his stimulating paper, 'Configurationality and the subset principle: the acquisition of V' by Japanese Learners of English' (to appear) Zobl concludes on the basis of experimental evidence that, as currently defined, the so-called 'subset principle' - which has recently been proposed for first language acquisition (see Berwick, 1985; Wexler and Manzini, 1986; Manzini and Wexler, 1987) - is inapplicable to second language acquisition. He also concludes that, given certain adaptations, it may have a role to play in second language acquisition. This latter conclusion is potentially of considerable importance to the study of second language acquisition if only because 'principles' are rather thin on the ground in this field of research. However, in what follows I shall argue that the conclusion in question is unwarranted in the theoretical context in which it is drawn. For the sake of brevity I shall refer to Zobl's paper as CSP.