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)

It is argued that the correct placement of sentential negation with respect to model auxiliaries in Swedish is an example of delayed acquisition resulting from a parametric preference in Universal Grammar. A syntactic analysis is proposed for four recognized stages in the acquisition of negative word order in Swedish. (Contains 41 references.)…

Argues that children's OV utterances cannot be related transformationally to VO utterances because children initially acquire OV and VO with different sets of verbs, and also argues that L2 acquisition data can be accounted for within a model of L1 structural transfer, without requiring adult learner access to Universal Grammar. (Author/LMO)

Defends the full transfer/full access (FT/FA) model, which hypothesizes that the initial state of second-language (L2) acquisition is the final state of L1 acquisition (full transfer) and failure to assign a representation to input data will force subsequent restructuring. The article considers two other competing hypotheses as well as several…