抄録
The purpose of this study is to examine whether Universal Grammar and the Subset Principle are relevant to second language(L2) acquisition and furthermore whether three acquisitional stages claimed by Hirakawa(1990) can be observed. To do this, the present study focuses on the acquisition of English reflexives that requires two parameters to be set: the Governing Category Parameter and the Proper Antecedent Parameter. Subjects were 287 Japanese senior high school students learning English as a foreign language(EFL). They were required to point out the antecedents of English reflexives contained in 31 sentences. The results indicate that only the parameter setting is relevant and that the claim in Hirakawa(1990) is valid. The findings also suggest the need for negative evidence and contrastive language teaching to promote the successful L2 acquisition.
