The UG paradox in L2 acquisition* Harald Clahsen University of Disseldorf and Pieter Muysken University of Amsterdam There is a considerable amount of recent evidence that stable principles of Universal Grammar (UG) are available to adult second language (2) learners in structuring their intuitions about the target language grammar. In contrast, however, there is also evidence from the acquisition of word order, agreement and negation in German that there are substantial differences between first language (L1) and L2 learners. In our view, these differences are due to UG principles guiding L1, but not L2 acquisition. We will show that alternative ways Of actounting for the L1/L2 differences are not successful. Finally we will deal with the question of how our view can be reconciled with the idea that L2 learners can use UG principles to some extent in the evaluation of target sentences. I The UG paradox The present state of research in L2 acquisition, in our view, presents us with a paradox. This paradox results from two conflicting observations: i) Onthe one hand, we perceive clear differences between L1 and L2 develop- ment, differences that can plausibly be attributed to the fact that LI learners make more abstract, grammatically-informed analyses than L2 learners, who rely more on surface strategies. In an earlier paper (Clahsen and Muysken, 1986) we took this to mean that UG grammatical principles are not available to L2 learners (cf. also Clahsen, 1988a; 1988b). ii) On the other hand, a number of authors have convincingly argued that this can simply not be true, taken in an extreme sense: L2 learners do have recourse to such fundamental UG notions as structure dependency from the very beginning. There are different ways to solve this paradox: (a) The contrast sug- gested in (i) between L1 and L2 is not related to the availability of UG: Address for correspondence: Harald Clahsen, Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Universitat Disseldorf, Universitatsstr. 1, 4000 Dusseldorf 1, West Germany. *November 1988. We are grateful to René Appel, Lynn Eubank, Sascha Felix, Bill Rutherford, Bonnie Schwartz, Lydia White and a reviewer for this journal for comments on an earlier draft, and to Frans Hinskens for providing us with space to work at the University of Nijmegen.the same learning mechanisms are at work. Differences between L1 and L2 development are due to the fact that either L2 learners know a language already, or other mechanisms override UG in L2 acquisition; (b) the contrast between L1 and L2 development is real and fundamen- tal, but due to the fact that UG is operant as a learning device in L1, but not in L2 acquisition. What is available in L2 acquisition is full knowledge of the properties of the L! grammar, including more general properties. Here we will take position (b). Consequently, our prediction is that the grammatical systems constructed by L2 learners can only differ from the learners’ L1 grammar in ways which can be determined through non-UG learning strategies. We begin by examining the evidence for the UG in L2 position (Section II). In section III we briefly survey some of the differences between child L1 acquisition and adult L2 acquisition; here we will rely on our previous research on the acquisition-of word-order, subject-verb agreement and negation in German. In section IV we will discuss counter arguments that have been made against our analysis and a number of alternative accounts that have been suggested for the word order data. We will argue that they fail to explain the difference between L1 and L2 acquisition sequences. In section V we explore possible ways in which these differences may be explained. II UG features of L2 Adult second language learners are capable of making grammaticality judgements about sentences in their second language. As Bley- Vroman (1987) points out, this by itself does not mean access to UG on the part of L2 learners: learners may have judgements about correct- ness in many cognitive domains. The problem arises when it can be shown that these intuitions involve complex grammatical principles such as the Empty Category Principle, Subjacency, etc. (Chomsky, 1981), and that parameter setting operates in the same way in L2 as in LI learning. This is what several recent papers try to accomplish. We will briefly discuss some of these as representative of the UG in L2 position. Flynn’s (1987; 1988) work contains thestrongest claim that success- ful parameter resetting is involved in L2 acquisition; this work merits detailed discussion here. Flynn tried to show that sensitivity to the head-initial parameter of English influenced the performance of Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese L2 learners of English on repetition tasks. In a recent rather critical review of Flynn’s (1987) monograph, Bley-Vroman and Chaudron (1987) propose to reinterpret Flynn’s evidence for parameter resetting. Their critique can be summarized in three points:Se a) Flynn’s grammatical model is an attempt to integrate the Principal Branching Direction model of Lust (e.g. in Lust and Mangione, 1983) within the directionality of government model of Stowell (1981) and later work, and this has yielded a theoretically incoherent result. As an example, adverbial clauses, the structure Flynn studied, cannot be regarded as complements with the main clause (S) being the head. Therefore, adverbial clauses are irrelevant with respect to directionality of government. b) Flynn’s research design and methodology are problematic for a number of reasons. ©) Flynn shows a general tendency, independent of language background, for forward pronominalization and postposed adverbial clauses. Apparent effects of parameter resetting are due to different levels of proficiency. There is no strong evidence for L2-based parameter resetting. Given these problems in Flynn’s account, we would maintain our position that in so far as UG plays a role in L2 acquisition, itis through the interaction of fixed principles with the processing of the input, rather than through parameter resetting. Perhaps the strongest actual evidence for UG in L2 comes from the article by White (1988). White studied 43 adult and.23 adolescent native speakers of French learning English in a school setting, and presented them with judgement and comprehension tasks involving English sentences which contained specific errors due to violations of Subjacency and the ECP. The subjects were sensitive to instances of grammatical deviance in various degrees: strongest were violations of the Complex Noun Phrase Con- straint and of the prohibition against extracting out of subjects. Weakest were sensitivity to that t violations and to the Wh-Island Constraint. Even though White tentatively tries to interpret some dis- crepancies in her results on the Wa-Island Constraint as evidence for parameter resetting on the part of one of the groups of L2 learners, this interpretation is by no means necessary. Much more specific com- parative research would be needed to establish this point. Felix (1988) presents evidence comparable to that of White: a set of grammaticality judgements by 48 German L2 learners of English in a school setting. The English test sentences involved violations of fairly abstract principles of the grammar, violations that do not show upin the same way in comparable German sentences. The principles involved included the Case Filter, the Specified Subject Condition, Superiority, the Empty Category Principle, and Subjacency. The subjects showed a surprising awareness of which of the English sentences were grammatical. Felix argues that this awareness can only be due to the access that L2 learners have to UG principles, not to explicit instruction. The success of the subjects’ rating of the English sentences did not correlate with their years of training in English. Several arguments can be made against Felix’s claims. First, in some