The emergence of complex syntax: A longitudinal case study of the ESL development of dependency resolution

This study investigated the second language acquisition of resolutions of the argument dependencies of verbs. The investigation adopted an emergentist approach, assuming that acquisition is item-based and construction-based. The paper investigated argument dependencies that are resolved in complex constructions and by pragmatic interpretation. The data were from a longitudinal case study of a 12-year-old Spanish learner of English, Ana, who wrote stories describing 15 different wordless picture books during a 201-day period. The findings indicate that Ana began by producing only a few types of complex constructions that were lexically-selected by a small set of verbs. Gradually, she produced an increasingly large range of constructions. Ana also gradually increased the complexity of her language in terms of the serial use of dependent clauses and phrases. By the end of the study, she may have developed linguistic abilities that can be described as grammaticalized, generalized linguistic constructions or automatic processing routines.