THE ACQUISITION OF SPANISH: MORPHOSYNTACTIC DEVELOPMENT IN MONOLINGUAL
AND BILINGUAL L1 ACQUISITION AND ADULT L2 ACQUISITION. Silvina A.
Montrul. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2005. Pp. xvi + 413. $150.00 cloth,
$49.95 paper.
This book presents and analyzes the morphosyntactic development of
Spanish in monolingual and bilingual first language (L1) acquisition and
in adult SLA. Based on the principles and parameters model of generative
grammar, the book addresses the nature of linguistic knowledge and
examines the development of grammatical aspects such as morphology,
syntax, and lexical semantics in monolingual, bilingual, and second
language (L2) learners. The author argues that the underlying linguistic
competence of L1 and L2 speakers is constrained by the nature of the
language the learners entertain, as guided by principles of Universal
Grammar. Throughout the book, the author considers different approaches
concerning the nature and development of linguistic knowledge such as the
continuity hypothesis—including both weak and strong
versions—(Pinker, 1989), the maturation hypothesis (Radford, 1990),
and the no continuity view. The author supports the continuity hypothesis
by arguing that principles and parametric options continue to be available
throughout the acquisition process in the monolingual, bilingual, and
adult grammatical systems. In other words, the author argues that
linguistic representation is fundamentally similar among the grammars of
child L1, child bilingual, and adult L2 learners, and that all of these
are similar to the adult target grammar.