V2 in Adult L2 German: analysing the inter-language grammars

This paper focuses on adult second language acquisition of German Verb Second by native speakers of Italian. We will investigate original L2 German data collected from a group of Italian adults learning German at the university, analysing their inter-language grammars with respect to an area where the two languages involved differ, specifically the position of the finite verb within the clause. It will be shown that the learners have not yet acquired the V2 parameter at this stage of acquisition; rather they use a representation based on their L1 grammar.