The influence the native language exerts on the learning of another language has long been debated by both language teachers and second language acquisition (SLA) researchers although the main area of focus was, initially, the implications this influence had on pedagogical issues. In this regard, earlier research, including traditional contrastive analysis, never made any specific claims on the exact nature and extent to which the first language (L1) influences second language (L2) acquisition especially the very early L2 linguistic mental representation. However, recent research has made very clear and specific claims regarding the aspects of the L1 which characterise the initial L2 mental representation. Although researchers working in this area are all agreed that L1 specified lexical categories filter into the L2 initial grammar, there is disagreement regarding the extent to which the L1 specified functional architecture forms part of the L2 initial grammar. Of the three L2 "initial state" views, only two of these (namely; the minimal tree hypothesis and full transfer/full access hypothesis) will be put to test by investigating whether the functional category COMP is represented in the initial grammars of native speakers of English learning Zulu as a second language. On the basis of the results on the acquisition of obligatory declarative complementizer insertion in L2 Zulu, it is argued that although initial L2 grammars lack lexical complementizers, this is not evidence of a comp-less grammar. Instead, it is argued that COMP contains a null complementizer which, although it has no phonological matrix, has sufficient syntactic content to generate subordination in the learners' Zulu IL grammar. Regarding the nature of initial L2 grammars, it is argued that the initial Zulu L2 grammar neither differs from mature state grammars with respect to the availability of syntactic positions (as the minimal tree hypothesis predicts) nor do they develop from an initial grammar with optionality of expression to one with obligatoriness of expression.
To download this paper, please return to Proceedings of the 1997 Postgraduate Conference