Abstract
This paper addresses the issue of whether negative sentences containing auxiliary do in L1 and L2 English share the same underlying syntactic representation. To this end, I compare the negative sentences produced by 77 bilingual (Spanish/Basque)L2 learners of English with the corresponding data available for L1 acquirers reported on in Schütze (Carson, The status of he/she don't and theories of root infinitives, 2001), under the assumption that L1 and L2 grammars may be underspecified for Tense and/or Agreement features. I conclude that, despite similarities in the type of errors children and L2 learners produce, the L2 data do not show evidence of underspecification. Rather, it appears that L2 learners use a lexical strategy whereby they adopt don't as an independent preverbal negative marker.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: IRAL - International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
