The publication of this collection of original research studies on the acquisition of Portuguese is timely. Part 1 of the volume comprises six studies on child first-language (L1) acquisition and Part 2 consists of six studies on adult second- (L2) and third-language (L3) acquisition. As the editors state in their introduction to the volume (following the foreword by Lightfoot), Portuguese encompasses a number of geographical dialects and is uniquely positioned as a testing ground for linguistic theory; the contributions’ focus is on European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Notwithstanding the basis for categorization of the studies, as the editors and Quicoli (in his afterword) discuss, there are strong thematic links between them in terms of the linguistic aspects addressed and their implications for a theory of language acquisition.
The studies represent generative approaches to language acquisition, drawing upon recent advances in linguistic theory (e.g., principles and parameters and the Minimalist Program). The studies employ naturalistic speech as well as experimentally elicited production and comprehension data to address the logical and the developmental problems of language acquisition. The volume’s major strength is its skillful integration of the theoretical and the empirical or experimental aspects of language acquisition, to explore a range of issues in the acquisition of Portuguese syntax as well as issues relating to its interfaces with morphology, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. The contributions cover a range of properties. Nominal agreement is the focus of chapters by Iverson (SLA of BP by simultaneous Spanish-English bilinguals and successive English-Spanish bilinguals), Cabrelli-Amaro, Iverson, and Judy (adult L2 and L3 acquisition of BP), and Correa (child L1 acquisition of BP), who also examines children’s identification of finite verbal agreement inflection. Montrul, Dias, and Thomé-Williams focus on the adult SLA of null subjects in BP (which instantiates a hybrid pro-drop system due to its reduced agreement morphology), by learners with two different L1s (English and Spanish). Two chapters address the acquisition of clitics in EP, including clitic omission by children (Costa and Lobo) and clitic placement by adult L2 learners of EP from Germanic and Romance language backgrounds (Madeira and Xavier). Grolla’s contribution focuses on the development of wh-questions in children exposed to different dialects of colloquial BP (Sao Paulo and Bahia), which instantiate overt wh-movement as well as wh in situ. The Sao Paulo children acquired overt wh-movement prior to wh in situ, whereas the reverse was true in the case of the Bahia children, which has important implications for the role of economy principles in language acquisition. Three chapters examine learnability problems related to the interfaces between syntax, morphology, and discourse. These include Lopes’s study on object omission by BP children, Santos’s study on the early acquisition of the constraints on verb phrase (VP) ellipsis by EP-speaking children, and Bell’s study on the adult SLA of contrastive focus in EP. Two contributions that explicitly address the link among language acquisition, intradialectal variation, and language change in BP include Kato, Cyrino, and Correa’s study on clitics and Pires and Rothman’s study of infinitival agreement.
A unique feature of this book is its successful exploration of the interface among language acquisition, dialectal variation (at both the macro and micro levels), and language change. Although Portuguese has close structural similarities with other Romance languages, it also has certain unique features (e.g., infinitival agreement). At the same time, EP and BP also exhibit properties that set them apart; for example, EP is a pro-drop language, whereas BP, as a result of reduction in agreement morphology, exhibits a hybrid system with respect to the pro-drop value. There is variation along the vertical continuum as well, and colloquial BP differs in important ways from standard BP (e.g., infinitival agreement and clitics). In relation to the acquisition of Portuguese, as in other languages, multilingualism rather than monolingualism appears to be the norm. Language labels can be misleading, as they imply that the goal of the acquisition process is convergence upon a single homogenous grammar; in actuality, the process often involves the acquisition of multiple grammars. As the editors assert and as is convincingly demonstrated in the studies by Kato, Cyrino, and Correa and by Pires and Rothman, formal dialectal variants of the L1 may in fact be acquired at a later stage (beyond puberty). This has obvious implications for debates within language acquisition concerning access to Universal Grammar during adulthood. A criticism commonly leveled against generative linguistics is its idealization away from the empirical phenomena it considers for theory construction. The editors and the contributors are to be credited for their success in bringing both interdialectal and intradialectal variation and language change within the purview of generative approaches to language acquisition.
