The acquisition of causative structures in English and Spanish as second languages

This dissertation provides evidence in favor of the view that transfer is developmentally constrained, i.e. different properties of the first language (L1) are transferred at different levels of proficiency. The focus is on lexical and periphrastic causative structures. Two experimental studies were conducted with L1 English learners of L2 Spanish, and L1 Spanish learners of L2 English. Different properties of these structures were teased apart, and their role in the L2 acquisition process was investigated.; English and Spanish lexical causatives share constructional properties. The causative construction can be instantiated by verbs encoding change of state or location (alternating unaccusatives, but not by unergatives). In both languages, there is a subset of unaccusatives that, although encode change, cannot appear in lexical causatives (non-alternating unaccusatives) since they are lexically marked for the non-realization of their causative form. English and Spanish are different in that in the former, but not in the latter, manner-of-motion verbs can modify the causative construction in the context of a goal prepositional phrase. Learners overgeneralized causatives at the beginner level, but mostly with predicates encoding change. At the advanced level, overgeneralization was restricted to verb classes allowed in lexical causatives in the L1. Learners made selective use of their L1 knowledge: constructional properties were used at the beginning, and lexical specific properties, later.; Periphrastic causatives in English and Spanish are not restricted to a specific verb class, but they have different word orders. Those derived from alternating unaccusatives express direct causation in English, but not in Spanish. Some beginners rejected periphrastic causatives due to word order, while others accepted them with a direct causation interpretation. Advanced L1 Spanish learners clearly rejected this interpretation, but the L1 English group still accepted it. Learners made use of different L1 properties at different levels: word order properties were used first, and causation types, later.; In conclusion, L2 learners transfer different properties of their L1 depending on their proficiency. Less marked syntactic properties seem to be used in early stages, while more language specific ones are used later on. Processability issues are considered as a possible motivation for selective transfer.