Processing Long-distance Wh-dependencies in a Second Language
Alan Juffs, Guillermo A. Rodríguez · 2014
Since the seminal work of Ross (1967) and Chomsky (1973, 1977), wh-questions have been at the center of research in generative linguistics. The study of such constructions constitutes and remains a paradigm case for generative claims concerning an independent, language-specific module of the grammar (e.g., Freidin, 2009). As is well known, the basic claim is that knowledge of the limits on movement of wh-phrases, known as constraints, cannot have been learned from the input. This argument is known as the ‘poverty of the stimulus’ argument because the absence of external evidence for such knowledge is considered to dictate logically that the knowledge arises from internally defined cognitive structures that limit computations (Chomsky, 1986). From this point of view, an ability to parse such structures successfully will not be related to the function of parsing break down as a trigger in acquisition, but rather prima facie evidence for the role of abstract categories in L2 processing whose source is by definition internal.