On Structural Constraint on the distribution of reflexive pronouns in the interlanguage grammar of selected grade 8-10 students of Lucena Dalahican National High School

This research is concerned with the availability of Principle A of the binding theory in the interlanguage grammar of the Selected Grade 8-10 students of Lucena Dalahican National High School. It also covers the consideration for Universal Grammar accessibility as the source of Principle A. The theory of Universal postulates the existence of a language acquisition device or LAD to bridge the gap between the linguistic input and the grammar that the child attains. The theory claims that UG provides a child universal principles that are invariant, and parameters, features and operations whose value is set by linguistic input. In the second language acquisition, the same logical problem of language acquisition occurs. This happens when the interlanguage grammar exhibits complex principles that cannot be accounted for by mere exposure. This prompts generative theorists to claim that UG is still active during the second language acquisition. However, White (2003) claims that second language learners might resort to L1’s grammar and that the principles exhibited in the ILG is an instance of transfer. To remove the possibility of transfer, White (2003) set two criteria that constitute a genuine Logical Problem of Language Acquisition. • The phenomenon in question must be underdetermined by 12 input. That is, it must not be something that could have been acquired without resource to universal principles, by simple observation of the L2 input, by frequency effects, or on the basis instruction, analogical reasoning, etc. • The phenomenon in question should work differently in the L1 and the L2. If L2 learners show evidence of subtle and abstract knowledge, we want to exclude, as much as possible, the possibility that such knowledge is obtained via the L1 grammar alone. The researcher attempted to answer the following sub-problems: 1. What is first language of the students? 2. Is Principle A of the binding theory available in the students’ First Language? 3. Is Principle A available in the interlanguage grammar of the students? 4. Is the availability of Principle A in interlanguage grammar an instance of transfer or UG accessibility based on the second criterion set by White (2003)? The researcher employs the mixed method known as embedded design. This type of research method places one set of data as secondary or supporting and another set of data as primary. The supporting data can help answer the main problem of the study. The statistical treatment employed in this research is frequency count, and difficulty index to determine which sentence constructions ( Items ) seem to be problematic to the students. %F/N x 100 Where F=Number of students who choose the correct sentence, N= total number of the students. Findings: 97% of the students are Tagalog native speakers. The other 3% answer Biyasa and English. According to Blust (2013), Tagalog or Filipino is a language that belongs to Austronesian family. Like other Austrenesian languages particularly the Formosan subgroups, Tagalog is predicate initial or VSO in word order. The Sentence-Picture matching task indicates that 100% of the items are easy.Item 4 and 9 receive the highest percentage of correct response while item 10 receives the lowest. The Grammaticality Judgment task reveals that 20% of the items are easy while the 70% are average. Item 3 receives the highest correct response with 86.4 while item 3receives the lowest with 37.2 %. Conclusions: Based on the findings above, the researcher is lead to come up with the following conclusions: Most students are Tagalog native speakers. Principle A of the Binding theory is available in the students’ L1 grammar. Principle A of the Binding theory is available in the interlanguage grammar of the students. The availability of Principle A of the Binding theory is an instance of language transfer since Universal Grammar accessibility is dispensed by the second criterion set by White (2003)