The acquisition of L2 pronominal reference by Ewe speakers of L2 Spanish

This dissertation investigates a multi-faceted approach to the acquisition of the null and overt subjects as well as the generic interpretation of third person plural morpheme on predicates as a result of the crosslinguistic influence of the Ewe logophoric pronoun by native speakers. A logophoric pronoun refers back to the subject of a verb of saying It tests the validity of the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2006), which proposes that connections between central and peripheral linguistic modules (syntax, semantics, phonology, morphology, pragmatics etc.) are the locus of residual optionality. Residual optionality refers to the alternation between target-like and non-target-like behaviors in terms of production. 91 participants from the University of Ghana and a control group from Rutgers University were selected and administered tests spanning the categories under investigation. Results showed that Ewe speaking L2 learners of Spanish were able to interpret the logophoric pronoun (subject of the immediate clause) as co-reference with the null subject in embedded clauses with short distance and in constructions involving the Overt Pronoun Constraint. However, they could not express genericity in Spanish nor were they able to interpret the use of the logophoric pronoun as co-referent with the clausal subject constructions due the different structural differences between Ewe and Spanish.