Null-Prep as a systematic interlanguage phenomenon: Evidence from relative clauses, interrogatives, and sluicing constructions

Abstract

This study attempts to explain a systematic phenomenon that has been described in interlanguage grammars crosslinguistically: Null-Prep, which consists of omitting the obligatory preposition in certain movement constructions. We propose that Null-Prep is not related to lack of knowledge of wh-movement, as previously assumed, but to structural complexity; indeed, we consider Null-Prep a movement-derived structure. With evidence from prepositional relative clauses, wh-interrogatives, and sluicing constructions in first language (L1) and second language (L2) Spanish (English and Arabic L1s), we predict the potential appearance of the Null-Prep with a two-way complexity hierarchy that takes into account the syntactic position displaced, as well as its derivational complexity, in such a way that we calculate Null-Prep to occur more often in Relative Clauses, followed by Sluicing, and finally by Questions. This scalar phenomenon uniformly applies to all participants, native and L2 learners, emphasizing its universal nature.

Filler-gap dependencies in bi- and multilingual grammars: Findings, challenges, and unknowns

“…Although this treatment may hold for this particular island, it is unclear if this analysis would hold for all islands. Relatedly, this special issue also contains two articles devoted to the placement and parsing of prepositions in movement constructions (Espírito Santo et al, 2023; Perpiñán and Cardinaletti, 2022), with both sets of authors claiming that, despite defective morphology (missing Pied-Piping or even the obligatory preposition altogether), these structures involve movement and adhere to structural constraints. In a related sense, the contribution of Putnam and Søfteland (2022) is worth mentioning in this context as an example of restructuring wh -morphosyntactic elements encoding modality in the remaining North American Norwegian speakers.…”

“…Espírito Santo et al’s (2023) study investigated the acquisition of European Portuguese (EP) relative clauses, in particular prepositional relative clauses, which in EP instantiate wh -movement with preposition pied-piping (the preposition moves along with the relative pronoun). Additionally, oral EP also allows the omission of the obligatory preposition, a strategy termed as Null-Prep (also investigated in Perpiñán and Cardinaletti, 2022) and resumptive pronouns in colloquial EP contexts. Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), on the other hand, only allows prepositional relative clauses with resumptive pronouns.…”

“…Perpiñán and Cardinaletti (2022) also investigated oblique movement in Spanish prepositional relative clauses, interrogatives, and sluicing, focusing on the Null-Prep structure, a strategy recurrently found in L2 grammars. Null-Prep has been analysed as a ‘wild’ element that exists ‘outside’ of UG (Klein, 1995), or a non-movement (binding) derivation (Dekydtspotter et al, 1998).…”