The development of English as a second language

We will not review here the variously detailed descriptions of L2 English already offered by these and other authors. We will, instead, ground the theoretical changes proposed in chapter 1, this volume, by tracing the morphological and syntactic development of this configurational language using a detailed, longitudinal, case study. For the development of mophology, we will note three areas where our treatment of L2 English differs most from previous PT ones. First, we re-examine the categorial stage with reference to four structures, that is, –ing as a verbal marker, past –ed, plural –s, and possessive ‘s, a previously neglected area. We discuss possessive ‘s in some detail together with possessive determiners and pronouns, but we exclude both the latter from the PT schedule for English. Second, we place the unification of AUXs (be, have and modals) with lexical V within the VP in the phrasal stage, unlike Pienemann who since 1998 deals with English VP only in the context of questions. Third, we adopt for English the concept of ‘soft barriers’ (cf. ch. 1, § 5) within stage boundaries to deal with intrastage sequences, such as the very late acquisition of –ed within the category stage.