The Contraction Phenomenon and L2 Acquisition : An Experimental Study by Korean Learners of English

Abstract

In English, as is well known, want to can be contracted to wanna, but not invariably. The following examples illustrate the contrast of contraction possibility. Contraction of want to to wanna is pennitted in Ob), Object Extraction Question (OEQ), but not in (2b), Subject Extraction Question (SEQ). (1) Object Extraction Question (OEQ) a. Who do you want PRO to kiss t? b. Who do you wanna kiss t? (2) Subject Extraction Question (SEQ) a. Who do you want Lto kiss Bill? b. *Who do you wanna kiss Bill? (3) Declaratives a. I want to kiss Bill. b. I wanna kiss Bill. There are numerous proposals for resolving this question. Traditionally, the trace theory of movement rules has been the dominant account(Chomsky 1976, 1977; Lightfoot 1976, 1977, 1980; Chomsky and Lasnik 1977, 1978; Rotenberg 1978; Chomsky 1980; Fiengo 1980; Jaeggli 1980, Aoun and Lightfoot 1984; Barss 1995; Uriagereka 1998). Although detailed accounts are slightly different among the authors, they substantially share the assumption that the intervening trace blocks contraction and that structural adjacency is sufficient to trigger contraction. Jaeggli (1980) proposed, perhaps in the most well-known analysis, that only PRO intervenes in (la) and that since PRO is not Case-marked it does not interfere with the application of the rule. In (2a), on the other hand, the presence of the Case-marked trace of who means that the verb and to are not adjacent, so contraction is blocked. In declaratives like (3), there are no traces of wh-movement. The constraint is therefore irrelevant and contraction is not inhibited.