The acquisition of Italian morphosyntax in L2 settings
Maurizio Santoro
The City University of New York
This book provides a thorough analysis of how Italian morphosyntax develops in L2 grammars. Data drawn from several studies are interpreted within Chomsky’s minimalist framework, and in light of the most recent theories in Second language Acquisition. This approach is of great value in that it correlates the Italian acquisition phenomena with more widespread developmental issues. As such, it provides the reader with a more comprehensive picture of the second language acquisition process, in general.
The volume covers four important morphosyntactic domains of Italian language, namely, (i) the subject and (ii) object pronominalization paying particular attention to the Pro-Drop Parameter resetting and the cliticization of the object pronouns, (iii) the nominal and the verbal systems with special emphasis on Italian nominal modification and the aspect/tense distinction of Italian verbs. Students that are particularly interested L2 acquisition issues may find this book particularly helpful because of its theoretical breath, and its user-friendly language. It may be also used as a supplementary reading material for an introductory course in Second Language Acquisition.
ISBN 9783862885855. LINCOM Studies in Language Acquisition 33. 192pp. 2014.
