The Interpretation of Quantification at a Distance in English-French Interlanguage: Domain Specificity and Second-Language Acquisition

Abstract

In this article, we report results of an interpretive task showing that both native speakers of French and English-speaking classroom learners of French exhibit knowledge of the event sensitivity associated with quantification at a distance (QAD). We argue that such knowledge seems reliably acquirable only if both first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) acquisition are subject to domain-specific constraints. We consider two sources for such domain-specific knowledge: the native grammar and Universal Grammar. We also consider the acquisition of the interpretive properties of QAD under domain-general learning in which syntax is a categorial extension of interpretive operations to linguistic categories. Without syntax-specific computational principles restricting the application of such operations, it appears that, given the nature of the input, domain-general assumptions do not guarantee that the QAD word order maps to the interpretation it actually receives. We argue that in both L1 and L2 acquisition of French, the interpretation of QAD is constrained by (on the most parsimonious account, the same) domain-specific principles because in both cases the input the language acquirer receives grossly under-determines the grammatical knowledge attained. This suggests that syntax-specific computational principles must restrict the hypothesis space.