This study investigates the adult second language (L2) acquisition of nonnominative, non-agentive subjects, a particular feature of the Spanish language also shared by other Indo-European and South Asian languages. The existence of nonnominative elements in Spec, lP with subject-like properties is well-documented in the literature. One of the first attempts to account for this phenomenon in Romance languages is Belletti and Rizzi (1988) on Italian. Masullo (1992, 1993) extends the analysis to Spanish, proposing the Non-Nominative Subject (NNSub) Parameter, whereby a language allows NNSubs as part of its core grammar only if nominative case is assigned in situ. Spanish NNSubs can appear in unaccusative, dethematized, as well as impersonal constructions, and can be dative, accusative, or locative. These constituents are shown in Masullo (1992, 1993) not to occupy an A-bar position above lP, like topics and left-dislocated constituents, but rather Spec, IP, moving from the VP to satisfy the Extended Projection Principle. Languages like English and French, in which nominative case is checked in Spec, lP, disallow NNSubs. The aim of this study is to understand the processes~ involved in· the acquisition of this particular characteristic of Spanish and to determine the role of the learner's first 2 language (L 1) in the process of acquisition. A study involving three groups of adult English L2 learners of Spanish at a British university and a control group was carried out to determine ifL2 learners with a [ -NNSub] Ll setting can reset the parameter to the Spanish [ +NNSub] value. The learners belonged to one of three language levels: Intermediate, Advanced and Advanced+ according to the number of years spent at university and their contact with Spanish in a Spanish speaking country. The test battery involved an aural preference task, an elicited imitation task, and a picture description task. Hypothesis A predicted that Intermediate L2 learners would show clear Ll effects on their data and that the NNSub parameter would not show resetting. Hypothesis B predicted that the more advanced L2 learners would be able to reset the NNSub parameter to accommodate NNSubs and dative case in their Interlanguage. Results from the aural preference and the elicited imitation tasks show correspondence between the results per category in both tasks. Knowledge of unaccusativity and NNSubs develops steadily up to the Advanced level but it suffers a decline with the Advanced+ learners. Results from the picture description task show that competence increases from the Intermediate to the Advanced level but that the percentage of non-target forms either stays at the same level or goes up with respect to the Advanced+ group. This regression seen in the Advanced+ data might be explained by the recent exposure to naturalistic input that the Advanced learners had just had. The L2 data do not show enough evidence that the NNSub parameter has been reset. Most of the grammatical utterances contain the verbs gustar 'like' and doler 'hurt', verbs which are part ofthe teaching curriculum. On the other hand, grammatical utterances involving other unaccusative verbs with NNSubs are rare. The fact that 3 teaching of these verbs is insufficient does not help the L2 learners overcome the leamability problem posed by the input. This problem stems from the L2 input not showing clear-cut signals to tell learners which verbs require a NNSub. In addition to this, native speakers' use of optional structures to substitute the constructions with NNSubs makes NNSubs even less salient in the input. 

If you ask students taking Spanish as a foreign language which grammar point they find most challenging, many of them will probably say the subjunctive. This may be because the more common use of the subjunctive in English is captured by non-subjunctive structures like infinitival or null CP [+indicative] structures. From a generative perspective, the present study investigates second language (L2) syntactic and semantic development of the Spanish subjunctive at the University level. The results of the study reveal that learners at all levels of instruction continued to transfer first language (L1) syntactic rules of English irrealis to L2 structures during acquisition.

For this study, a total of 160 English-speaking learners studying Spanish as a second language were recruited. Magnitude Estimation (ME) was used to gage learners’ syntactic intuitions about the Spanish subjunctive by requiring them to analyze a series of structures in L2. We found that in their judgment of the sentences, learners transferred the [+ optional] overt CP rule in English to Spanish. In addition to these syntactic analyses, we used a guided production task which measured learners’ semantic performance as well. The data showed that learners were less successful at identifying epistemic modality (+/- reality, existence, etc.) in nominal clauses, as sentences using deontic modality (+/- obligation, desire, influence, etc.) received substantially higher scores.

The data were also analyzed in terms of learnability and second language grammatical capabilities as well as in terms of implications for the L2 classroom. The pedagogical implications of this study include the need to capitalize on learners’ ability to access functional categories in nominal clauses and make the [-optional] overt CP rule in Spanish more salient to learners.

La presente tesis aborda la problemática en el uso del "artículo determinado" en la enseñanza del español como 2/L. El artículo definido encierra una complejidad que se hace evidente en los desacuerdos que tienen los gramáticos en cuanto a su estatus categorial, sus valores y sus funciones. En este trabajo, desde un aspecto general, se estudia el estado de la cuestión del artículo determinado en perspectiva diacrónica y sincrónica actual, enfocado en resolver las dificultades que se presentan en la enseñanza de este elemento lingüístico en los estudiantes persas. En base a un corpus, se analizan los errores frecuentes y las estrategias de la lengua persa que interfieren en el uso correcto del artículo. Para resolver estas cuestiones se desarrolló una nueva teoría integrada y, la cual es el aporte central de la tesis y se ha denominado "Escenarios del artículo determinado". Allí, se exponen los tres escenarios donde participa el artículo en su forma más prototípica: Formal, Comunicativo y Funcional. Este nuevo enfoque intenta mostrar que el artículo se comporta como una variable lingüística en español, donde el valor del mismo puede establecerse en el momento de la enunciación. El artículo puede presentarse como un elemento formal para anunciar el nombre (escenario formal), para determinar el nombre (escenario comunicativo), o para cumplir un papel análogo al sustantivo (escenario funcional). La teoría de ''los escenarios'' es la herramienta lingüística que permite diferenciar e identificar el rol del artículo en cada situación de uso concreto. Así, mediante esta integración teórica, donde se delimitan los valores y las funciones del artículo, se pretende aportar soluciones en la enseñanza del estudio de esta categoría gramatical en los estudiantes nativos persas.