THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH RESTRICTIVE RELATIVE CLAUSES BY CHINESE, JAPANESE, AND KOREAN ADULT NATIVE SPEAKERS

Research on the acquisition of English restrictive relative clauses (ERRCs) among L1/L2 learners has shown that universal linguistic factors substantially determine the learning processes rather than the peculiarities of particular languages and learning situations (cf. Sheldon, 1974a, 1974b, and 1977; Houston, 1978; Sadighi, 1982, and 1986). To this end, this study examines the comprehension of ERRCs containing three universal factors - Interruption, Word Order Re-Arrangement, and Parallel function. The subjects are Chinese, Japanese, and Korean adult native speakers whose languages employ pre-nominal RC formation strategy, a sharp contrast with the post-nominal strategy of English. The findings of this study support the dominance of language universals in the course of language acquisition regardless of particular languages' specificities. Additionally, universals are seen to be accessible to both adults and children, and they remain intact maturationally (cf. Bley-Vroman, R. W., Felix, S. W., and Ioup, G. I., 1988; and duPlessis, J., Solin, D., Travis, L. and White, L., 1987).