Cross-linguistic influence at the discourse–syntax interface: Insights from anaphora resolution in child second language learners of Italian

Abstract

This paper reports the results of an experimental study on the resolution of intra-sentential anaphora in Italian by two groups of 13–14-year-olds: monolingual native Italian speakers and highly proficient child second language (L2) learners of Italian whose native language is Croatian. In a picture selection task the participants were asked to identify antecedents of null and overt subject pronouns in ambiguous forward and backward anaphora sentences. Our assumption in the paper was that Italian and Croatian do not differ with respect to the antecedent biases of null and overt subject pronouns in the contexts under investigation. As predicted, the L2 learners expressed pragmatically appropriate antecedent preferences in all conditions. They even selected the pragmatically inappropriate subject antecedent for the overt pronoun less often than the native speakers, especially in backward anaphora. The L2 learners’ antecedent preferences closely mirror those established in previous research for their age-matched monolingual Croatian peers. We take this as evidence for our position that cross-linguistic influence is operative at the discourse–syntax influence in child L2 acquisition and that it might be the main cause of non-target-like behaviour of some groups of highly proficient bilinguals concerning certain properties pertaining to this interface.