The Role of Functional Categories in L2 Spanish: Persistence of L1 CP Values in IL

Abstract

Abstract English irrealis modality is usually captured by syntactic structures that often exclude overt complementizers that and for and include indicative or infinitival morphology. The Spanish equivalents to English structures of irrealis modality, however, typically require the overt subordinate marker que (‘that’) followed by a [+finite] subordinate verb. These syntactic differences between English and Spanish produce asymmetrical surface structures caused by functional categories (FCs). The primary goal of this study is to examine the role of FCs, and more specifically, complementizers (CPs), in the syntactic development of L1 English speakers with L2 Spanish. The results of our data suggest that L1 CP properties (i.e. CP = Ø) persisted in learners’ interlanguage (IL) systems, following the work of Schwartz & Sprouse (1996). As a result, learners at all levels of instruction intuitively perceived English-like [-overt] CP structures as more grammatical than their [+overt] CP counterparts, even at advanced levels of acquisition.