Amaral and Roeper (this issue; henceforth A&R) argue that all speakers -- regardless of whether monolingual or bilingual -- have multiple grammars in their mental language representations. They further claim that this simple assumption can explain many things: optionality in second language (L2) language behaviour, multilingualism, language…

Optionality is a central phenomenon in second language acquisition (SLA), for which any adequate theory must account. Amaral and Roeper (this issue; henceforth A&R) offer an appealing approach to it, using Roeper's Multiple Grammars Theory, which was created with first language in mind but which extends very naturally to SLA. They include…

This article clarifies some ideas presented in this issue's keynote article (Amaral and Roeper, this issue) and discusses several issues raised by the contributors' comments on the nature of the Multiple Grammars (MG) theory. One of the key goals of the article is to unequivocally state that MG is not a parametric theory and that its…

This article offers the author's commentary on the Multiple Grammar (MG) language acquisition theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper in the present issue and touches on other second language acquisition research. Topics discussed include the concept of second language (L2) optionality, a hypothesis regarding the acquisition of the…

This paper presents an extension of the Multiple Grammars Theory (Roeper, 1999) to provide a formal mechanism that can serve as a generative-based alternative to current descriptive models of interlanguage. The theory extends historical work by Kroch and Taylor (1997), and has been taken into a computational direction by Yang (2003). The proposal…

This article examines the Multiple Grammars (MG) theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper in the present issue and presents a critique of the research that went into the theory. Topics discussed include the allegation that the bilinguals and second language learners in the original article are primarily students in an academic setting, Amaral…

In English and Chinese, questions with a "wh"-object and a universally quantified subject (e.g. "What did everyone buy?") allow an individual answer ("Everyone bought apples.") and a pair-list answer ("Sam bought apples, Jo bought bananas, Sally bought..."). By contrast, the pair-list answer is reportedly unavailable in Japanese and Korean. This…

Researchers who assume that Universal Grammar (UG) plays a role in second language (L2) acquisition are still debating whether L2 learners have access to UG in its entirety (the Full Access hypothesis; e.g. Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994; 1996; White, 1989; 2003) or only to those aspects of UG that are instantiated in their first language (L1) grammar…

Addresses the issue of second language (L2) epistemology assuming Chomsky's (1995) discussion of the place of universal grammar in mental design. Discusses interaction of adjectival restriction in interrogative expressions, contrasts plausibility of nativist and non-nativist approaches to the etiology of such grammatical knowledge, an reports…

Discusses the scarcity of research on the characterization of the second-language (L2) initial state, where "L2 initial state" refers to the starting point of nonnative grammatical knowledge. The article emphasizes that exploring the mechanisms of "development" of interlanguage requires an understanding of what a particular stage changed "from."…

Responds to a reanalysis of study findings that refute the claim that negative evidence can lead to parameter setting in second-language acquisition, presenting empirical evidence from French learners of English, suggesting that positive second-language acquisition data do not guarantee the loss of native language parameter settings. (26…

We discuss the results of an experiment that investigates English-French learners' interpretation of quantifiers with detachable restrictions. Such quantifiers are ungrammatical in English. We investigate aspects of interpretation that rely on a highly idiosyncratic interface between grammar and general principles of conversational cooperation in…

Discusses the theoretical implications of an experimental pilot study on the acquisition of word order properties in the French spoken by Dutch native speakers. Results provide support for the universal grammar approach to second-language acquisition. (Author/CB)

Presents a detailed study of the second-language (L2) acquisition of English aspect by native speakers of Slavic languages. Results bring new evidence to bear on the theoretical choice between direct access to the L2 value or starting out the process of acquisition with the first-language value of a parameter, supporting the latter view.…

Reports an experimental study on the acquisition of English reflexives by adult Japanese-speaking learners of English. Consonant with a review of previous studies on binding in second-language acquisition, results of the experiment yield no evidence of an interlanguage grammar that is illicit with respect to universal grammar. (Author/ER)