Abstract :
One of the main conclusions that we (Vainikka & Young-Scholten, 1994) make in
regard to the second language (L2) German development of uninstructed Korean
and Turkish adults was the resemblance of their morphosyntactic development to
that of the German children under study at the time by Harald Clahsen and colleagues
(see, e.g.,Clahsen, Eisenbeiss,&Vainikka, 1994; Clahsen&Penke, 1992).
Data from these L2 learners also indicated initial transfer of the headedness of
their native language verb phrases (VPs), a claim then strengthened by research on
L2 learners whose first language (L1) headedness differed from German, namely,
Italian and Spanish (Vainikka & Young-Scholten, 1996).
