Abstract:
Processability Theory (PT, Pienemann, 1989, 2005) accounts for the emergence order of morpho-syntactic structures during Second Language Acquisition on the basis of the cognitive processing demands that different structures place on the learner. We discuss its applicability to Samoan, which has some relatively rare characteristics - V-initial word order and split ergativity. Unplanned speech was elicited by way of picture description tasks, from 18 University students learning Samoan as a second language, in Auckland. Six students from the first and third semester of study were recorded once, and six from the second semester of study were recorded twice, several weeks apart. The criterion for emergence was two distinct tokens of a structural type within a single sample. An implicational hierarchy based on the learners' output indicates that the predictions of PT do largely hold true for Samoan. The following order is indicated (from earlier to later) lexical morphs > gapped relative clauses > phrasal agreement > resumptive relative clauses > verbal agreement > case-marking. Two anomalies await an explanation: the early emergence of V-initial structures, and the relatively early emergence of relative clauses run counter to PT's predictions. We consider possible explanations.