Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online 2001-04
The Universal Parser and interlanguage: domain-specific mental organization in the comprehension of combien interrogatives in English-French interlanguage
From the perspective of Fodor’s (1983) theory of mental organization and
Chomsky’s (1995) Minimalist theory of grammar, I consider constraints on
the interpretation of French-type and English-type cardinality interrogatives in the
task of sentence comprehension, as a function of a universal parsing algorithm
(Universal Parser) and hypotheses embodied in a French-type vs. English-type
functional lexicon respectively. I argue on the basis of the interpretation of
cardinality interrogatives in English-French interlanguage that second language
comprehension appears to require this view of mental organization in which a
universal parsing algorithm interacts with an interlanguage lexicon. Specifically, I
argue that the Minimalist view of mental organization in the area of grammar
provides some insight into the basis of these constraints in mental functioning.
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