Acquisition of Zibun in L2 Japanese |
The acquisition of zibun, one of the referentially dependent nouns, has been investigated rather extensively in L2 Japanese. However, no study has examined whether L2 learners can construe zibun and zibun-tachi as bound variables. While the results of thezibun experiment with the truth value judgment task clearly showed that American learners of Japanese (JFL learners) were able to interpret zibun as a bound variable, the results of the zibun-tachi experiment were not as clear as those in the zibun experiment at first glance. However, once JFL learners acquire the plural marker -tachi, they can construe zibun-tachi as a bound variable. Because the language instruction they received was not likely the source of such subtle grammatical knowledge, it is argued that the acquisition of variable binding must be guided by UG. Further, an implication of this interpretation of the L2 findings will be discussed with special reference to both L1 and L2 acquisition of zibun. |