IS IMPLICATIONAL GENERALIZATION UNIDIRECTIONAL AND MAXIMAL - EVIDENCEFROM RELATIVIZATION INSTRUCTION IN A 2ND-LANGUAGE

This study reexamined previous research and presented new data testing two predictions of the Implicational Generalization Hypothesis, a str ong form of Gass's (1981, 1982) proposal that instruction focused on o ne level of an implicational (i.e., markedness) hierarchy such as Keen an and Comrie's (1977) Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy may general ize to uninstructed hierarchy levels. Analyses of sentence combination data from 33 adult ESL learners instructed in sentence combination ta sks (a) yielded inconcclusive results as to whether implicational gene ralization (IG) is unidirectional to hierarchy levels implicated by th e instructed level, and (b) suggest that IG is clearly not uniformly m aximal to all such implicated levels. Moreover, these data suggest tha t IG is cumulatively constrained; that is, development via IG always i nvolves consecutive levels of the hierarchy (no levels may be skipped) . The ramifications of these findings on a theory of IG are discussed, including modifications to Eckman's (1992) explanation of IG in terms of inclusion relations. Additionally, the consequences for learnabili ty theory in SLA are explored, the data suggesting that learners may n ot be setting parameters according to the Subset Principle, though the y are observing the Cumulative Development Principle and the Continuit y Principle.