This article investigates verb placement, especially Verb second
(V2), in post-puberty second language (L2) learners of two closely
related Germanic V2 languages: Swedish and German. Håkansson,
et al. (2002) have adduced data from first language (L1) Swedish-speaking
learners of German in support of the claim that the syntactic
property of V2 never transfers from the L1 to L2 interlanguage
grammars. Regardless of L1, learners are said to follow a hypothesized
universal developmental path of L2 German verb placement,
where V2 is mastered very late (only after Object–Verb, OV, has
been acquired), if ever. Explanations include the notion of
Subject–Verb–Object (SVO) being a more basic, ‘canonical’ word
order (e.g. Clahsen and Muysken, 1986), so-called ‘vulnerability’
of the C-domain (Platzack, 2001), and ‘processability’, according
to which SVX and Adv–SVX (i.e. V3) are easier to process (i.e.
produce) than XVS (i.e. V2) (e.g. Pienemann, 1998). However, the
empirical data comes exclusively from Swedes learning German as
a third language, after substantial exposure to English. When these
learners violate V2, syntactic transfer from English, a non-V2 language,
cannot be ruled out. In order to control for this potential confound,
I compare new oral production data from six adult Swedish
ab initio learners of German, three with prior knowledge of English
and three without. With an appropriate elicitation method, the
informants can be shown to productively use non-subject-initial V2
in their German after four months of exposure, at a point when their
interlanguage syntax elsewhere is non-targetlike (VO instead of
OV). Informants who do not know English never violate V2 (0%),
indicating transfer of V2-L1 syntax. Those with prior knowledge of
English are less targetlike in their L3-German productions (45% V2
violations), indicating interference from non-V2 English. These
results suggest that, contra Håkansson et al. (2002), learners do
transfer the property of V2 from their L1, and that L2 knowledge of
a non-V2 language (English) may obscure this V2 transfer. The
findings also suggest that V2 is not difficult to acquire per se, and
that V2 is not developmentally dependent on target headedness of
the VP (German OV) having been acquired first.
2006. Vol. 22, nr 4, s. 443-486