English Morphosyntactic Features of Tense and Agreement

The acquisition of functional categories has been a major topic of debate in L1 and L2 acquisition research within the generative grammar framework. Over the years, generative research has examined the question of whether L2 acquisition is similar to L1 acquisition by determining the availability of Universal Grammar (UG) to the L2 learner. Various assumptions as to the L2 learners’ access to UG as well as the function of L1 in the process of L2 acquisition have also been the focal points of investigation. As the learning of grammar is crucial to the acquisition of L2 and due to the increasing demands for the use of the English in education, communication and various other fields, it is important that English language learners be competent in the language. Therefore, the present book aims to test three hypotheses with respect to the characterization of L2 acquisition in post-critical period non-native Interlanguage (IL) to provide characterizations of UG availability in adult L2 acquisition. The findings could shed more light on adult learners’ L2 acquisition process and contribute to the gap in the body of the L2 acquisition literature, particularly in the Yemeni Arabic context