| This dissertation discusses the design, administration and findings of a study with intermediate and advanced Chinese- and Spanish-speaking learners of English, and English-speaking learners of Chinese and Spanish on the acquisition of several properties of reflexives. The goal of this research is to investigate the accessibility of Universal Grammar to adult second language learners.;The design incorporates two tasks, an acceptability judgment and picture identification task, which force subjects to evaluate a given interpretation rather than soliciting judgments based on preferences. The data are evaluated against two theoretical proposals--Wexler and Manzini's (1987) parameter setting approach (PSA), which views reflexive properties, incorporated into two parameters (the GCP and PAP) as independent, and Cole and Sung's (in press) head movement analysis (HMA), according to which a reflexive's morphological complexity determines its binding domain and orientation.;The results provide disconfirming evidence for the HMA, as no correlation between the different properties of reflexives can be established. But evidence is also found of wild grammars, and a closer examination of the premises behind UG hypotheses show them to be unfalsifiable in crucial aspects, questioning the viability of the PSA. It is argued that more definitive answers about access to UG necessitate the development of more carefully crafted, falsifiable UG hypotheses and more refined experimental designs. |
