Second Language Acquisition and Language Universals Research

Abstract

To the extent that language universals represent internal properties of human beings, one would expect them to manifest themselves in first language (L1) acquisition. Whether they should also manifest themselves in second language (L2) acquisition depends on whether or not language universals remain accessible to adults. The relation between L2 acquisition and language universals research is examined with respect to three phenomena: extraction, where the subset principle makes interesting predictions, although the second language data are far from clear; structure dependence, where there is evidence for the continuation beyond puberty of a general formal property of language; and the distribution of overt reflexives, which has a functional basis and therefore poses the interesting question whether or not this functional basis is accessible to language learners.