Acquisition of the Japanese reflexive zibun and movement of anaphors in Logical Form

Abstract

Several recent accounts of crosslinguistic variation in the properties of anaphors have rejected Manzini and Wexler's (1987) parameterized binding principles. Pica (1987), Battistella (1989), Cole et al. (1990) and Katada (1991), among others, claim that anaphors move in Logical Form (LF) such that 'long-distance' binding can be reduced to a series of local relationships. This article looks at research on adult second language learning in the light of the proposal that reflexives move in LF. A first approach to the issue reanalyses data from earlier research on the acquisition of the Japanese long-distance anaphor zibun, research conducted under the assumption that the binding principles are parameterized. Secondly, a new study of 58 adult learners of Japanese is presented, showing that learners' knowledge of zibun at a high-proficiency level is largely consistent with a key prediction of the movement in LF approach. Although relatively few high-proficiency learners in the subject pool seem to have arrived at the full native-speaker grammar of zibun, there is little evidence that the grammars they construct violate principles of Universal Grammar. On the other hand, data from lower-proficiency learners are less readily accounted for from the perspective of movement in LF.