L2 Data: Their Relevance for Language Universals

This article examines the relationship between language universals and language acquisition. To investigate this relationship we compared data from a) Sheldon's (1974) study of the acquisition of relative clauses by children learning their first language, b) Goodson and Greenfield's (1975) study of cognitive development in children as it relates to the results of Sheldon's study, c) Gass's (1979) study of the acquisition of relative clauses by adults learning a second language and d) universals of relative clause formation. We found that within the domain of relative clauses first language acquisition appears to be strongly affected by factors rooted in cognitive development, while second language acquisition is either completely immune to these factors or at least is much less affected by them. Thus, what surfaces for second language acquisition data are factors based primarily on language universals. Hence we claim that second language acquisition data provide a clearer window for the investigation and verification of language universals. One of the primary implications of the present study is that data from second language acquisition can be crucial to the construction of an adequate theory of language.