This study investigates how L2 learners acquire ellipsis and, particularly, what kind of input in a target language serves as a trigger for the acquisition of ellipsis. According to Oku (1998), argument ellipsis is permitted in languages like Japanese but not in languages like English. To account for this cross-linguistic difference, he proposes that the parameter of a verb's θ-feature strength governs both the type of ellipsis and the availability of scrambling. Based on this parameter, it is assumed that the input of scrambling in a target language serves as a trigger for parameter resetting. If so, L2 learners with the knowledge of ellipsis also have the knowledge of scrambling, but the converse is not true.
21 adult L2 learners who were never taught the ellipsis in their target language were tested. They were asked to judge the elliptical sentences and scrambled sentences in each target language through the picture judgment task and acceptability task, respectively.
The results show that while all the participants who passed in the ellipsis condition also passed in the scrambling condition, not all the participants who passed in the scrambling condition passed in the ellipsis condition. These findings indicate that the input of scrambling in a target language is a necessary but not a sufficient trigger for parameter resetting.

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