DEGREES OF RESILIENCY IN ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE*
Sandra K. Wood
University of Connecticut

1. Introduction
Recent research on the gestural system of homesigners and ‘young’ languages such as
Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) and Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) has
provided evidence of linguistic properties that are reflective of Universal Grammar (UG) suchas word order, subject/object, and lexical development (Goldin-Meadow 2005; Coppola 2002;
Senghas 1995; Senghas & Coppola, 2001; Sandler, Meier, Padden, & Aronoff 2005). There
are large populations of homesigners throughout the world and investigating their linguistic
systems provide us with a window into the development of language and the accessibility of
UG to these homesigners. In this study, we investigate the linguistic systems of Deaf
Brazilian homesigners, late learners of Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS- LSB) and native
signers of LSB. Former homesigners often become late learners of LSB (or any other given
sign language), which means the input has been greatly delayed or impoverished for thesesigners. Although, these signers do exhibit deficiencies in their grammar, they do learn thesigned language, even well past the age of puberty. The questions arise as to which propertiesof language are always available, regardless of input, and how are these properties acquired?
Research shows the importance of early linguistic input in such situations. Deaf childrenof Deaf parents who are fluent signers (DCDP) acquire ASL as a native language, in the samemanner as hearing children do with their languages (Newport & Meier 1985; Lillo-Martin
1999). Their milestones are passed at approximately the same ages and they go through thesame stages as hearing children. What about ‘early’ late learners (i.e. those who learn ASL asa first language between the ages of 4 and 6 years old) and ‘late’ late learners (i.e. those who
learn a Sign Language as a first language past the ages of puberty)?
Those who learn ASL as a late first language have difficulty mastering many aspects of
the language. Newport (1990, and other works) tested deaf adults, some in their 40s and 50s,
who learned ASL at the age of 4 to 6 years old, or after the age of twelve, on a series ofcomplex, morphological production and comprehension tasks. The ‘early’ late learners, ascompared to native signers of ASL, showed a significant reduction in accuracy on the tasks,*This study was supported in part by NIH, NIDCD Grant #DC000183. I would like to thank Diane
Lillo-Martin and William Snyder for their constructive feedback and guidance in the development of
this study. Much appreciation and gratitude goes to Ana-Regina Campellos for assisting withrecruiting the participants and the experiments. Most of all, many thanks to the Deaf Brazilian
participants who willingly gave up their time to participate in the experiments and provided insight for
further research and revision of the experiments.
Nanzan Linguistics; Special Issue 3, Vol. 1, 315-330© 2007 Sandra K. WoodNanzan Linguistics: Special Issue 3, Vol. 1even though many of them had been using ASL for well over 40 years. Those who acquired
ASL later, after the age of twelve, presented even more depressed accuracy. However, they
did not exhibit effects of age of acquisition on every test of ASL structure. On a test of basic
word order, all three groups performed about the same: over 95% correct. However, whentested on complex ASL morphology, including verb agreement and verbs of motion, there
was a correlation of -.6 to -.7 between age of acquisition and test score.
These findings are corroborated by studies by Berk (2003, 2004) and Lillo-Martin &Berk (2003), who investigated the acquisition of verb agreement and word order by two deaf
children who were first exposed to ASL as a first language at the age of approximately 6 years
old. They showed a significant amount of errors in their usage of verb agreement and, evenover time, these errors did not decrease. With respect to word order, the children mastered thebasic word order SVO for ASL and were at approximately the same stage as a native Deaf
two year old. However, unlike native two-year old Deaf children, they were not able to use
derived word orders that ASL allows in appropriate discourse and syntactic contexts1.
Boudreault & Mayberry (in press) also found that adults who acquired ASL as a latelearner showed a significant decrease in mastery of syntactic categories (simple, negative,
agreement, wh-question, relative clause and classifier sentences), which correlated with theage of exposure to ASL. The more pronounced the delay of exposure, the less accurate thesigners were. That is, syntactic knowledge of the target language is affected by the length ofdelay for the acquisition of that language as a first language.
Late first language learners of ASL also show processing limitations much greater thanthat of native signers (Mayberry & Eichen 1991; Mayberry 1993, 1994; Emmorey et al. 1995;
Morford 2003). For example, Emmorey et al (1995) conducted both on-line and off-line tests
with native, early, and late learners. In the off-line grammaticality judgment task, all threegroups were equally able to detect grammatical errors in verb agreement and temporal aspect.
However, only the native signers were sensitive to the verb agreement errors in on-line tasks.
Mayberry & Eichen (1991) found that age of acquisition was significantly related toperformance on a sentence recall task, concluding that lexical processing is affected bydelayed exposure. Mayberry (1993, 1994) also showed that such effects are specificallyassociated with late first language exposure, as participants who learned ASL at the same age,
but as a second language, performed better than the late first language learners.
What is known so far is that delayed linguistic input affects language acquisition inparticular ways, but additional research on the range of these effects is sorely needed. The
discrepancies found in previous studies between aspects of language which are more or lessaffected by delayed input leads to the question, which properties of language are what GoldinMeadow (2005) calls ‘resilient’, and which are ‘fragile’? Goldin-Meadow (2005) suggeststhat ‘resilient’ properties are those that all languages have and these properties will appear in
the gestural system of homesigners. ‘Fragile’ properties are those that have to be learned. In
1

These contexts include topicalization in which the object is fronted and negation.

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Degree of Resiliency in Acquisition of Language (S. K. Wood)

this paper, I extend the definition of ‘resiliency’ as a component of Universal Grammar (UG).
That is, there are degrees of resiliency that correspond to components of UG; principles andparameters.
The most fragile properties are those which require linguistic input at a very early age inorder to develop. Native learners display these properties, but late learners do not. Less fragile
properties are learned by late learners once their exposure to language has begun. The mostresilient properties are found even in extreme cases of stimulus poverty, as in GoldinMeadow’s extended studies of young homesigners, deaf children who generate their own
gestural linguistic system in the absence of accessible conventional language (GoldinMeadow & Feldman 1977, and many other articles, summarized in Goldin-Meadow 2003,
2005).
Previous research on homesigners (Goldin-Meadow 2003, Coppola 2002) indicates thatcertain properties of language appear without input – we take these to be fully accessible
properties of UG. ‘David’, a young homesigner studied by Goldin-Meadow, presented
evidence of ‘resilient’ properties, i.e. lexicon, word order, and recursion, among others. Other
young homesigners show similar properties, even across cultures as distinct as American andChinese (e.g., Goldin-Meadow & Mylander 1998, Goldin-Meadow & Saltzman 2000, Phillips
et al. 2001). Moreover, there are deaf people who are never exposed to a language, or
experience exposure at a very late age, in their 40s and 50s. These people have also developed
a linguistic system on their own that is language-like, but yet, falls short of a full language(Morford 1996, Coppola 2002).
Recent studies of the language that emerges after homesigners come together to form alinguistic community indicates that within a relatively short period, such a gestural-based
system develops into a full-fledged language (Senghas 1995; Senghas & Coppola, 2001;
Sandler, Meier, Padden, & Aronoff 2005). However, this requires a community of users andearly linguistic input. Even after many years of homesigning, adult homesigners show only
some of the properties of language (Coppola 2002). – that is, what Goldin-Meadow (2005)
would say are the most resilient ones.
This study investigates these issues with a look at recursion via Noun-Noun compounds
and structural dependency via Ā-movement (topicalization) in language, ranging from those
expected to be resilient to somewhat resilient, examining the ability of homesigners, latelearners of LSB and native signers of LSB to produce or comprehend these structures.
2. Theoretical BackgroundA central concept in the generative framework is Universal Grammar, which is ‘thesystem of principles, conditions, and rules that are elements or properties of all humanlanguages … the essence of human languages’ (Chomsky 1975). Universal Grammar is atheory of knowledge. The internal structure of the mind goes hand in hand with the problem
of how knowledge is acquired. The theory of UG contains the premise that the child knows a-317-

Nanzan Linguistics: Special Issue 3, Vol. 1

set of principles that apply to all languages, and parameters that vary within a set of
constraints from one language to another, i.e. these principles and parameters are part of thelanguage acquisition device that is present in the human mind (Chomsky 1981; Hyams, 1986;
Roeper & Williams, 1987; Chomsky & Lasnik 1993). Using the terminology of GoldinMeadow (2005) of ‘resiliency’, I suggest that principles are ‘resilient’ properties of language
and particular settings of parameters are less resilient. The most ‘fragile’ properties oflanguage would be language-particular, idiosyncratic properties. Resilient properties are
innately specified whereas fragile properties are language-specific and must be learned.
In the ‘parameter-setting’ model of language acquisition, the principles and parameters
guide the acquisition of language, preventing the learner from arriving at a grammar thatdeviates from possible adult grammars. Errors are expected to be of limited types, andcrucially, do not violate the universal constraints.
Given the theory of UG, what can be expected for cases of late learners of LSB or
homesigners as compared with native signers of LSB? We expect to see certain lexical
differences, as lexical information obviously must be learned. Properties such as the types of
movement allowed and which syntactic structures are present in the language are languagespecific properties of LSB, including the settings of parameters, and must be set on the basisof linguistic evidence. It can be expected that both late learners of LSB and homesigners willlack the LSB-specific aspects of these properties. However, since universal principles, such as
consistency of word order, recursion, and structural dependency, by hypothesis do not have tobe learned, they are expected to be present in all linguistic systems. That is, we expect to see alimited set of errors with respect to these components.
This discussion has focused on linguistic competence. However, it is well-known that
actual linguistic performance is affected not only by competence but also by factors such asprocessing efficiency, memory limitations, etc. Previous research with late learners has
demonstrated performance effects which may overlap with competence effects. Thus, in thisstudy we will examine posited resilient properties keeping in mind the possibility that greater
processing difficulty in late learners of LSB and homesigners would affect their performance
more than that of native signers of LSB.
2.1 Some Components of UG (Resilient Properties)
Central components of UG include recursion and structural dependency. Recursivity isreflected in the set of phrase structure rules (Chomsky 1976), understood in Minimalist terms
as repeated applications of the process Merge. PS rules can apply over and over throughrecursivity, because the rules can apply to their own output. More precisely, recursion occurs
with components of the same syntactic category. For instance, a PS rule that introduces
embedded sentences can introduce another embedded sentence inside the first, as in ‘Bob
believes that Mary thinks that Jim will dance with Sue’. Recursion is not limited to sentences
only. It may also manifest itself in the form of Noun-Noun compounds, since each Noun of
the compound can itself be composed of a Noun-Noun compound. Thus ‘dog house’ (which is-318-

Degree of Resiliency in Acquisition of Language (S. K. Wood)a lexical compound) can be a member of the recursive compound ‘dog house door’(which is a
novel compound). All languages are postulated to operate on the basis of recursivity because amechanism for expanding a sentence must be in place (Chomsky 1976, Hauser, Chomsky
Fitch 2002).
One well-known argument for UG comes from the poverty of the stimulus with respect
to structural dependency. In order to form a yes/no question corresponding to the declarativein (1a), a simple, structure-independent rule would suffice, i.e., ‘move the first auxiliary to thefront’ of the sentence, as shown in (1b).
(1)

a.

The man is tall.

b.

Is the man tall?

Other data, however, such as (2), show that the structure-independent rule does not suffice,and the more complex structure-dependent rule is needed, i.e., move the auxiliary that is in themain clause to the front of the sentence.
(2)a.

The boy who is singing is my father.

b. * Is the boy who singing is my father?
There are certain kinds of knowledge about grammar that are not expressly demonstrated in
the input for the learner. That is, ‘negative’ data (ungrammatical sentences) are not presented
to the child as a form of input. Thus, the child receives input about the grammaticality of (1),but not about the ungrammaticality of (2b). On the assumption that input such as (2a) would
rarely be provided, the structure-independent rule might be tempting. (See papers in thespecial issue of The Linguistic Review 19.1-2, 2002, for discussion of this issue).
Crain & Nakayama (1987) tested this issue by having children between the ages of 3 to 5
years old, “Ask Jabba if the man who is beating a donkey is mean”. If children follow a
structure-independent rule, they should sometimes produce questions such as ‘Is the man who
beating a donkey is mean’. They made errors of other kinds, but not once in this study did
they make this kind of error. The findings of this study provide support for UG, in particularthat structure dependence is available to learners from a very young age.
2.2 Linguistic Background2.1.1 Noun-Noun Compounds
This experiment examines recursion and structural dependency, central components of
UG. We investigate recursion by the use of Noun-Noun compounds, which involve amorphological operation in which the Noun-Noun compound has the properties of a ‘single,
complex word’ (Snyder 1995, 2001). In order to ensure that the participants are productively
using recursive compounding, the study elicits novel, productive N-N compounds. For
example, cat lady can be used to refer to someone who loves cats or someone who looks like-319-

Nanzan Linguistics: Special Issue 3, Vol. 1

a cat or someone who is an expert on cats, etc. That is, this compound does not have a fixed
meaning as a lexical compound would, such as toothbrush, lighthouse, or chalkboard.
In ASL, there is a difference in word order between lexical and novel compounds (Wood2004). Lexical compounds are in a strict order of modifier noun + head noun, whereas novelcompounds can be in either order. That is, a lexical compound such as DOG HOUSE mustremain fixed in order. If the order is reversed as in HOUSE DOG, the meaning changes to thatof ‘a dog that stays in the house’. However, a novel compound such as ELEPHANT BOOK
(with the meaning ‘book about elephants or a book that is in the shape of an elephant’) can
likewise be signed as BOOK ELEPHANT with the same meaning.
With respect to recursive noun-noun compounds such as PAPER FLOWER BOOK (‘abook with/about flowers made of paper’), there is a combination of both required fixed word
order for the embedded elements (PAPER FLOWER) and reversible word order for thisconstituent and the head BOOK. It is possible to have either PAPER FLOWER + BOOK or
BOOK + PAPER FLOWER with the same meaning both ways. However, PAPER FLOWER
is a constituent and it is ungrammatical to change the ordering for these two nouns as shownin (3a, b) below. Furthermore, it is also ungrammatical to interrupt the constituent PAPER
FLOWER with the noun BOOK, as in (3 c,d).
(3)a.

*FLOWER PAPER BOOK

b. * BOOK FLOWER PAPERc.

*PAPER BOOK FLOWER

d. * FLOWER BOOK PAPER
Thus, there is a clear structural dependency in the formation of recursive compounds. One cansee this from the structures given in (4) below. The N-N compound that is the modifier of thehead noun in the recursive compound can be ordered either prenominally or postnominally.
However, one cannot vary the order inside the deeper compound or insert a noun inside it.
(4)

a.

N

N
book
N
paper
*flower

b
N

N

c.

N
N
flower
paper

N
paper
*flowerN
N

N
N
flower book
paper

N
paper

N
book

N
flowerIn this study, we attempt to elicit novel recursive noun-noun compounds withhomesigners and late learners of LSB. LSB allows NNC, with a more strict (than ASL)
ordering. That is, the order must be Head + Modifier. We look at the order of the recursive NN compounds signed by each signer to determine whether structural dependency is being
manifested.

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Degree of Resiliency in Acquisition of Language (S. K. Wood)

2.1.2 Topicalization
In this study, we look at how SVO becomes O, SV in LSB, namely throughtopicalization, a common mechanism in LSB (and other sign languages) for prominently
displacing ‘old information’ to the front of the sentence (Liddell 1980, Aarons 1994, Braze
2004, Lillo-Martin & Quadros-Müller 2007). That is, syntactic movement of the constituent
undergoes topicalization. We focus on topicalization in LSB, which is marked by a distinctive
non-manual cue, as a “slight backward head tilt and a brow raise” (Quadros-Müller 2007;
Liddell 1980). Several examples of topicalization in LSB are given in (5 a-c).

(5)

a.

t
CHASE CAT, BOB‘As for chasing the cat, Bob did.’

b.

___t_
CAT, BOB CHASE‘As for the cat, Bob chased (it).’c.

t
BOB, CHASE CAT‘As for Bob, (he) chased the cat.’In this study, we focus on the topicalization with regard to object topicalization. It is moredifficult to determine from the word order alone which constituent is being topicalized. One isrequired to know the rules for using non-manuals and Ā-movement in LSB in order to set theparameter for topicalization.
3. Hypotheses
In this proposal, we take an investigative look into the ‘resilient properties’ of UG by
testing native signers, late learners, and homesigners. There are certain components that we
hypothesize to be resilient, in concurrence with Goldin-Meadow (2005) and Coppola (2002).
These should show up even in homesigners and late learners. The candidates for the mostresilient properties are structure-dependence, recursion, and consistency of word order. In thisstudy, we hypothesize that evidence of structure-dependence and recursion (i.e. production ofnovel, recursive NNCs will be produced in all three groups.
Moreover, there may be certain aspects of UG that require input from a full-fledged
language. In this regard, the late learners of LSB, who presumably started out as homesigners
but later learned LSB around the ages of 14 years old and older, should perform better thanchance. However, the homesigners are not expected to show competence in these areas. One
candidate for this type of structure is topicalization. UG allows for ‘movement’ as a generalmechanism, but the particular aspects of syntactic movement are contingent on the language-321-

Nanzan Linguistics: Special Issue 3, Vol. 1(Chomsky 1995). The language may or may not allow a certain syntactic operation of Āmovement, such as topicalization.
As noted earlier, topicalization in LSB involves movement of ‘old information’ to thefront of the sentence (Liddell 1980). In Goldin-Meadow’s (2005) study of ‘David’, a childhomesigner, she found no preference for new information or old information in the sentenceinitial position. Following her proposal that the absence of a language property indicates‘fragility’ (i.e. the property is not accessible from UG), it is hypothesized that topicalization
requires input from a full-fledged language for a signer to perform above chance. We
hypothesize that topicalization in LSB is also dependent on early linguistic input, but notnecessarily before the critical period ends. Homesigners are hypothesized not to display
competence in this area. Along with Goldin-Meadow (2005), we conclude that the ‘absence ofa language property in the gestural system suggests that the property is fragile (i.e. requires
input from a full linguistic system)’.
Recall our discussion earlier of ‘Simon’ and his parents, Newport (1999) found that
Simon’s parents (who had learned ASL in their late teens) consistently misinterpreted
sentences with topicalized objects and verb phrases, but not subjects. Simon, however,showed perfect mastery of topicalization in ASL, despite the fact that he had impoverishedinput with respect to topicalization from his parents. Thus, we hypothesize that topicalization
is a ‘less resilient’ property of LSB and that the late learners of LSB may or may not acquire
this successfully.
4. Experiment 1: Noun-Noun Compounds
The goal of this experiment is to test whether each participant is able to produce at least
three novel three-sign NNC.
4.1. Participants
Fourteen Deaf Brazilian adults were recruited (23-53 years old), through a Deaf
Brazilian local who also assisted in the experiment. Five were native signers of LSB, six werelate learners of LSB, and three were homesigners. Assistance with recruitment was provided
by Ana-Regina Campellos who works extensively with the Deaf community in primarily thesouthern region of Brazil, but has worked in many other regions of Brazil with the Deaf
population there. Ana-Regina is a near-native Deaf signer of Brazilian sign language and amember of the Deaf Brazilian community. She also served as a consultant and coexperimenter in this project with respect to data collection and transcription.
4.2. Procedure and Materials
The subject was shown a series of different items, all of which have been designed toelicit a recursive Noun-Noun compound (NNC). (This method was successfully used to elicit
Noun-Noun compounds from young Deaf children by Wood 2004.) Initially, we ascertain-322-

Degree of Resiliency in Acquisition of Language (S. K. Wood)each subject’s sign for the lexical items involved (e.g. SOFA, BLANKET, etc…)2. For
training, we show the subject three items that have two characteristics, and show the subject
how to express the particular item as a N-N compound. First, we sign the characteristics
separately and then combine them together in a N-N compound, as shown below in (6)3.
(6)

Practice Items:a.

A blanket for the sofa

BLANKET-SOFAb.

A table for the computer

TABLE-COMPUTER

Then, we commence with elicited production of recursive noun-noun compounds, using thesame method that we used for the training items. A total of 10 test items were given to eachsubject. Examples of test items are shown below in (7). A list of the test items is presented inPart A of the Appendix.
(7)a.

A picture frame with a pig on front

FRAME-PIG-PICTUREb.

A necklace with a pen with a frog on its cap

FROG NECKLACE PEN

4.3. Results
One late learner (L5) and one homesigner (H1) produced two 3-sign NNCs. All othersigners produced at least three 3-sign NNCs, passing the criteria for production of recursive
NNCs. An illustration of the results appears in Figure 1.
NNC
10
9

Number produced

87
6

2- Sign NNC

53- Sign NNC

4
3
2
1
0
N1

N2

N3

N4

N5

L1

L2

L3

L4

L5

L6

H1

H2

H3

Subject

FIGURE 1 Total number of 2-Sign and 3-Sign NNC produced for Native
Signers and Late Learners of LSB, and Homesigners

Native signers and late learners produced more 3-sign NNCs than HS. An average of 6.4
NNCs were produced by NS. Some of the late learners were less consistent, with L1
producing five NNCs, and L2 and L4 producing four NNCs, L3 produced the most withseven NNCs. L5 produced three NNCs and L6 produced two NNCs. Two of the homesigners
produced three or more NNCs. H2 produced four NNCs and H3 produced three NNCs.
2

With native and late learners of LSB, we used LSB signs for the objects in the test items. However,with homesigners, we asked them for their own gesture/sign for the item.
3

Recall from the earlier discussion that the ordering for NNC in LSB is Head + Modifier.

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The results from Experiment show that most of the signers can produce a novel,
recursive NNC, producing at least three 3-sign NNCs.
5. Experiment 2: Topicalization
The goal of this experiment is to test whether the participants are able to correctly
comprehend instances of topicalization, when signed to the individual.
5.1. Participants
Fourteen Deaf Brazilian adults were recruited (23-53 years old), as discussed inExperiment 1. Five were native signers of LSB, six were late learners of LSB, and three werehome-signers. They all also participated in the previous experiment discussed in this paper.
5.2. Procedure and Materials
Each native signer and late learner was shown a picture with some activity and theexperimenter signs one sentence. The signer has to determine whether the signed sentence is‘correctly’ or ‘incorrectly’ matching the picture. An example of the task given to the native
signer and late learner of LSB is presented in (8). The correct response to this item is‘correct’.
(8)

Picture A: A cat is chasing a mouse.

Experimenter:t
MOUSE, CAT CHASE‘As for the mouse, the cat is chasing (it).’Due to the homesigners’ difficulty with answering test questions as ‘correct’ or‘incorrect, we revised the experimental stimuli slightly. Instead of showing one picture, eachsubject was shown a set of two pictures that were in contrast to each other, which can be seenin the Appendix. The experimenter signs one sentence and asks the subject to choose which
picture matches the signed sentence. An example of the task that was given to thehomesigners is presented in (9). The correct response to this item is to select picture A.
(9)

Picture A: A cat is chasing a mouse
Picture B: A mouse is chasing a cat.

Experimenter:t
MOUSE, CAT CHASE

A training session was administered initially with each subject by asking them questions
such as “She’s a boy, right?” and pointing to the female co-experimenter. Once the subject
understands the procedure and that it’s permissible to correct the experimenter, we proceed-324-

Degree of Resiliency in Acquisition of Language (S. K. Wood)with the experimental task. A total of sixteen test items was administered with each subject.
The test items were divided into eight SVO sentences and eight OSV sentences, with four‘incorrect’ and four ‘correct’ in each group. A list of the test items is provided in Part B of the
Appendix.
5.4. Results
Using an exact binomial, one-tailed test for individual differences, the analysis revealed
a significance for all native signers and all (but two) late learners of LSB. Each native signer
performed significantly above chance (p < .002). Four late learners performed significantly
above chance (p < .05). Two late learners did not perform significantly above chance (L5- p =.105; L6- p = .40). None of the homesigners performed significantly above chance (H1- p =.23; H2- p =.40; H3- p = .40). An illustration of the results appears in Figure 2.
TOPICALIZATION
16
14

Number Correct

12
10
8
6
4
2
0
N1

N2

N3 N4

N5

L1

L2

L3

L4

L5

L6

H1

H2

H3

Subject

Figure 2 Total of correctly matched pictures with test item for Native Signers
and Late learners of LSB, and Homesigners

There was a significant difference between groups by one-way ANOVA (F (2,9) = 54.67, p <.001), which is illustrated in Figure 3. Post-hoc Tukey tests reveal that the HS weresignificantly different than the other two groups, but there was no significant difference
between the LS and the NS (NS vs LS nonsignificant; NS vs HS, p < .01, LS vs HS, p < .05).
A concern was raised about the large variance in the late learners group, due to L5 and L6. A
follow-up analysis with a single-sample t-test, using the mean score of the native signers (15.4
correct) as the baseline, was performed. The homesigners’ performance was significantly
below the baseline (two-tailed p = .008). The late learners’ performance was not significantly
different from the baseline (two-tailed p = .123 NS).

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TOPICALIZATION by group
16

Average number correct

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Na tive Signe rs

La te Le a rne rs

Home Signe rs

Group

Figure 3 Mean correct by Group

Experiment 2 shows that native signers and late learners of LSB were clearly able tocomprehend all or most instances of topicalization in the tasks. Homesigners were not able tocomprehend the topicalized sentences and performed by chance on the tasks. They also did
not significantly perform below chance on either SVO or topicalized sentences.
6. Discussion and Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to determine whether homesigners, very late learners of
LSB and native signers of LSB were able to produce at least three novel, recursive NNCs andcomprehend instances of topicalization. We predicted that all three groups would be able toproduce at least three novel, recursive NNCs. Although this prediction was not fully borne
out, we still believe that evidence of recursion is still apparent in their system due to the factthat all three groups were able to robustly produce two-sign NNCs. One thing that has to be
kept in mind while we interpret the results for the NNC is that not all languages allow NNC(Snyder 1995, 2001). For instance, French does not allow novel, recursive NNC, but it does
allow lexical compounding. Also, French does allow special instances of novel, recursive
NNC with respect to borrowing from other languages. It may be possible that these twosigners (L5 and H1) may be using the French strategy in their grammar.
There are other possible reasons for the inability to create more than two 3-sign NNC.
One may be short-term memory and another may be processing limitations. As discussed
earlier in this paper, processing limitations have been observed in late learners of ASL(Mayberry & Eichen 1991; Mayberry 1993, 1994; Emmorey et al. 1995; Morford 2003) inways that second language learners of ASL do not exhibit (Mayberry 1993, 1994). We
suggest that recursion as a mechanism is available even to these signers, as well as to theother signers. If this is correct, then recursion can only be assumed to be provided via UG,
since there is no other input providing them with the means for recursion. Also, whatever therequirement for acquiring NNC is, it apparently can be acquired by the homesigners.
Being that the premise of this paper is there are ‘degrees of resiliency’ in the acquisitionof language, we expected to see results with the topicalization experiment that would
correspond with the degree of input received by the signer, especially with regard to the very-326-

Degree of Resiliency in Acquisition of Language (S. K. Wood)late learner of LSB. The results from the topicalization experiment support the hypothesis that
topicalization is ‘less resilient’. Almost all of the native signers and very late learners of LSB
performed significantly above chance in their comprehension of topicalization. However, twovery late learners did not, L5 and L6. The participant L5 was a late learner of LSB, having
learned LSB when she was approximately 21 years old. At the time of the testing, she was 29
years old. She has had very limited contact with the Deaf LSB community. This obviously
affects the consistency and continuity of LSB input for L5. We suggest that she had not had
the requisite input in order to set the parameter value for topicalization in LSB. In contrast,
L1, who started learning LSB at the age of 18 years and was 29 years old at the time oftesting, performed significantly above chance. L1 had extensive contact with the Deaf LSB
community, being very involved in activities and events, and maintained close relationships
with other Deaf members of the LSB community. Clearly, L1 had enough input from LSB,
which allowed him to set the parameter for topicalization for LSB.
The other participant who performed by chance with topicalization was L6, who was aprevious homesigner. She had only been learning LSB for less than a year and half at the timeof testing. Her lexical production was dominantly LSB, but her results with NNCs andtopicali-zation pattern more with the homesigners than with the other very late learners (whowere not previous homesigners). It seems clear that topicalization must be learned with acertain amount of linguistic input, hence topicalization is ‘less resilient’. That is, properties oflanguage that are ‘less resilient’ will evince a variability in the degree of resiliency, requiring
sufficient input in order to set the parameter. This relates to parameters that are set very early,
such as Head-Complement order which seem to require a minimal amount of input in order tobe set (Wexler 1998) and other parameters such as NNC in ASL (Wood 2004) and Japanese(Miyoshi 1999; Sugisaki & Isobe 2000) which require more input and are set later.
Future research is needed in order to confirm the validity of these claims. More researchwith other homesigners in other cultures will provide a deeper look cross-linguistically. Also,
next on the list is a study for ‘fragile’ properties of language, i.e. verb agreement. As noted
earlier, verb agreement is very sensitive to errors by late language learners even when they
have been using ASL for forty years or more. In contrast to topicalization, it would seem thatverb agreement has to be acquired before a certain age in order to be set properly. Thus, therange of ‘resiliency’ needs to be fully explored in order to understand its role within UG.

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APPENDIXA.

Test items used for Experiment 1

Test items
Possible LSB Noun-Noun Compounds
1.) (pig picture frame)
PICTURE FRAME PIG
2.) (fish keychain holder)
HOLDER HOOK FISH
3.) (cd case looks like bear) BEAR CD CASE
4.) (cat food bag)
BAG CAT FOOD
5.) (dog keychain)
KEY CHAIN DOG
6.) (silver bracelet box)
BOX BRACELET SILVER
7.) (catdog puppet)
PUPPET CAT DOG
8.) (dog photo book)
BOOK PICTURE DOG
9.) (frog necklace pen)
PEN NECKLACE FROG
10.)(toy car star box)
BOX STAR TOY CAR
B.

Test items used in Experiment 2

SVO items:
Picture of activity
1) Picture of mouse chasing cat:2) Picture of cat licking dog:3) Picture of girl kissing boy:4) Picture of cat biting dog:5) Picture of little frog hugging bear:6) Picture of boy kissing girl:7) Picture of girl giving book to boy:8) Picture of elephant scaring the mouse:

Signed test items
CAT CHASE MOUSE (W)CAT LICK DOG (R )BOY KISS GIRL (W)DOG BITE CAT (W)
FROG HUG BEAR (R)BOY KISS GIRL (R)
GIRL GIVE BOY BOOK (R)MOUSE SCARE ELEPHANT (W)

Topic (OSV) items:
9) Picture of dog biting cat:CAT, DOG BITE (R)10) Picture of cat chasing mouse:
MOUSE, CAT CHASE (R)11) Picture of boy tapping dog on shoulder: DOG, BOY TAP-ON-SHOULDER (R)12) Picture of monkey giving ball to boy: BALL, BOY GIVE MONKEY (W)13) Picture of cat licking dog:
CAT, DOG LICK (W)14) Picture of horse kicking sheep:
SHEEP, HORSE KICK (R)15) Picture of boy kissing girl:
GIRL, BOY KISS (R)16) Picture of mouse scaring elephant:
ELEPHANT, MOUSE SCARE (W)-330-