First language attrition of constraints on wh-scrambling: Does the second language have an effect?

This paper examines the effects of English as a second language (L2) on Turkish as a first language (L1) in the domain of wh-scrambling, as formulated in the generative framework. Unlike English, Turkish allows wh-extractions out of islands under certain morphological conditions. The data come from 27 native Turkish speakers, who have immigrated to an English-speaking country at an adult age and used English as a dominant language. The results of an acceptability judgment task revealed the same tendencies in the attrition and monolingual control group towards rejection of certain grammatical wh-extractions. Thus, the findings implicate no L2 influence in L1 change.