Interpretation of null arguments in L3 acquisition of Japanese

Abstract In the UG-based framework of third language acquisition research, there has been limited investigation into the acquisition of East Asian languages compared to European languages. This paper focuses on the acquisition of East Asian languages, specifically examining interpretation of null arguments in Japanese. By taking into account the variation in agreement across languages, it is possible to predict how learners interpret null arguments in Japanese, given that Japanese null arguments exhibit argument ellipsis (AE). Interestingly, although Chinese is an agreement-less language like Japanese, Chinese null subjects behave differently from Japanese null subjects. This paper investigates crosslinguistic influence (CLI) in interpretation of null arguments in L3 Japanese grammar of L1-Chinese L2-English speakers. The findings indicate that L3 Japanese learners, regardless of their proficiency levels, interpret null subjects in a similar manner to those of L1 Japanese speakers. Our results allow us to address the most important issues in contemporary L3 acquisition theory; namely, the source, type and manner of CLI.