1. TLA: SYNTAX

2. THE BEGINNING
early 1990s
 Vogel 1992: one of the first studies on
the topic

3. VOGEL (1992)
 L1 Mandarin / L2 English speaker,
acquiring German as an L3
Chinese and German: verb final
languages (V fin)
 English is not (V nonfin )

4. VOGEL (1992): FINDINGS
 one of first studies to identify syntactic
transfer from a non-native language onto
an L3
evidence of L2 English influence on the
acquisition of L3 German: the subject in
the study produced [SV fin V nonfin O]
structures

5. ZOBL (1992)
One of the first studies to investigate
multilingualism from a generative
perspective.
MAIN QUESTION:
Does prior linguistic knowledge lead to
the creation of more or less conservative
grammars in multilinguals?

6. GENERAL ASSUMPTION AT THE TIME
ZOBL (1992)
wide grammars
multilinguals tend to overgeneralize
hypothesis about the language and
therefore have a higher acceptance rate
with respect to ungrammatical sentences

7. ZOBL (1992)
based on various judgment tests
Results:
multilinguals are in fact, less restrictive
in a new language (than monolinguals)
multilinguals seem to create less
conservative and therefore more
powerful grammars

8. KLEIN (1995)
further investigates whether multilingual
grammars are in fact different from
those of monolinguals
THE STUDY
acquisition of verbs and their
prepositional elements particularly the
case of preposition fronting and
stranding

9. KLEIN (1995)
English allows two options:
the preposition is stranded and fronted
Eg: [At what i] are you looking [ PP t i]?]
the preposition is stranded and only the
object is extracted and fronted
Eg: [What i] are you looking [ PPat [ti]]?

10. KLEIN (1995)
HYPOTHESIS
multilinguals would show an advantage
over monolinguals in the acquisition of
preposition stranding

11. KLEIN (1995): FINDINGS
multilinguals acquired this specific
characteristic of English faster than
monolinguals did, even though they had
not previously acquired a language with
this structure

12. KLEIN (1995): CONCLUSIONS
multilinguals benefit from higher
multilingual awareness
Multilinguals follow a less “conservative”
learning process (confirming Zobl, 1992)

13. MILESTONE IN L3 SYNTAX STUDIES
the 2001 conference on multilingualism
that took place in the Netherlands
Four key papers:
Bardel 2002;
Leung 2002;
Sjorgen 2002
 Vinnitskaya et al. 2002

14. VINNITSKAYA ET AL. (2002)
the acquisition of the English
Complementizer Phrase (CP) by three
different groups of learners:
1.L1 Kazakh and L2 Russian,
2.L1 Spanish
3.L1 Japanese

15. VINNITSKAYA ET AL. (2002)
The structure of the CP is dependent on
the head directionality of a language
English, Spanish and Russian are head-
initial languages and Kazakh and
Japanese are head-final languages.

16. VINNITSKAYA ET AL. (2002) FINDINGS
Groups (1) and (2) behaved in a similar
way
Group (3) behaved in a very different way

17. VINNITSKAYA ET AL. (2002) CONCLUSION
this difference was due to the fact that
the L1Japanese group had not yet
acquired the head-initial parameter
whereas the first two groups had done so
either in their L1 or their L2.

18. GENERATIVE L3: LEUNG (2002, 2005)
addressed the question of UG access and
transfer of morphosynax in L3
acquisition by studying features
associated with the Number and the
Determiner Phrase

19. LEUNG (2005)
continuation of the 2002 study with two
groups of learners of French:
1.One L1 Cantonese/L2 English group
2.one L1 Vietnamese with no L2 group

20. LEUNG (2005): RESULTS
transfer from both the L1 and the L2 in
L3 syntax

21. LEUNG (2006)
further extended the 2005 study to
include the acquisition of tense and
agreement features
TESTED
Full Transfer Full Access (FTFA)
hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse,
1996)

22. LEUNG (2006): FINDINGS
there is a difference between acquiring
French as a second language and
acquiring it as a third one.
 found transfer from L2 English into L3
French, but not transfer from L1
Cantonese onto L2 French

23. LEUNG (2006): CONCLUSIONS
this difference is due to typological
proximity between one of the
background languages and the target
language.
HOWEVER,
 if there is no evidence in the input of a
specific feature, it will not be transferred
from any background language.

24. NA RANONG AND LEUNG (2009)
challenge the findings of Leung (2006)
by looking at two different groups of
speakers:
L1 Thai, L2 English and L3 Chinese
L1 English and L2 Chinese.

25. NA RANONG AND LEUNG (2009):
FINDINGS
no clear instance of L2 transfer
CONCLUSION
L1 plays a privileged role in both L2 and
L3 acquisition of syntax
it might be the case that transfer from
the language that is typologically closer
to the target language is favoured

26. NA RANONG AND LEUNG (2009): NOTE
findings from this study are in
contradiction with those by Leung (2005,
2006) where the author found no
preference for L1 transfer.