Overgeneralization of Causatives and Transfer in L2 Spanish and L2 English

Research on the L2 acquisition of argument structure has shown that beginner and intermediate L2 learners are strongly influenced by their L1 (Juffs 2000, White 2003). For example, studies on the dative alternation (Mary sent a book to John./Mary sent John a book.) indicate that L2 learners overgeneralize or undergeneralize this alternation according to the properties of their L1. At early stages of acquisition, L1 English speakers learning L2 French assume that double object constructions are allowed in French (White 1987, 1991), and L1 French speakers learning L2 English reject these constructions in English (Mazurkewich 1984). Overgeneralization (and undergeneralization) errors motivated by transfer of L1 knowledge are predicted by the Full Transfer/Full Access (FT/FA) hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse 1994, 1996), which states that the L1 in its entirety is the initial state of L2 acquisition. As for how learners recover from these errors, White (1991) proposes that undergeneralization errors are more easily unlearned since L2 learners can rely on positive evidence in order to broaden their grammar. Overgeneralization errors are presumably more difficult to overcome since L2 learners would need to rely on direct or indirect negative evidence to restrict their interlanguage grammars. Previous research on the L2 acquisition of the causative alternation (Peter broke the window./The window broke.) have found that L1 English speakers learning L2 Spanish (Montrul 1997, 1999; Cabrera and Zubizarreta 2003a) and L1 Spanish speakers learning L2 English (Moore 1993; Montrul 1997, 2001a) correctly accept/produce lexical causatives with alternating unaccusatives (Peter broke the window./Pedro rompió la ventana.). However, to some degree, these learners overgeneralize causatives, i.e. they incorrectly accept/produce lexical causatives with non-alternating unaccusatives (*Peter arrived Mary at school late./*Pedro llegó a María tarde a la escuela.) and unergatives (*Peter laughed Mary./*Pedro rió a María.). Montrul (1997, 1999, 2001a) claims that transfer is not the source of overgeneralized causatives because these structures are not acceptable in the L1. She proposes that these errors are motivated by the learner’s lack of knowledge of the lexico-semantic features that determine which verb classes alternate in transitivity. Given their incomplete L2 knowledge, learners resort to a default transitive lexico-semantic template (NP CAUSE NP BECOME verb) that they use irrespective of verb class. Moore (1993) and Cabrera and Zubizarreta (2003a), nevertheless, found that learners tend to overgeneralize causatives more with non-alternating unaccusatives than with unergatives. This preference suggests that L2 learners are sensitive to lexico-semantic verb properties that are relevant to the causative alternation in the L1. Therefore, lack of grammatical knowledge cannot fully explain responses. Cabrera and Zubizarreta (2003a) suggest that these findings are compatible with an L1 transfer analysis, in which learners generalize the properties of alternating unaccusatives to nonalternating ones. On the other hand, Montrul (2001b), a study on the acquisition of lexical causatives with verbs of manner-of-motion, which are acceptable in English (The general marched the soldiers to the camp.), but unacceptable in Spanish (*El general marchó a los soldados al campamento.), found clear transfer effects. L1 English speakers L2 learners of Spanish overgeneralized causatives with this verb class, whereas L1 Spanish speakers L2 learners of English undergeneralized causatives with it. Montrul (2001b) concludes that L1 transfer applies in some cases but not in others. Transfer does not apply in the case of overgeneralized causatives with non-alternating unaccusatives and unergatives, but it does