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Why is learning the gender of nouns so difficult for some bilinguals? We test the hypothesis that different language learning backgrounds or life experience with Spanish determine how learners follow different morphosyntactic cues for gender assignment in Spanish by testing learners with early and late language experience in an experiment with invented nouns. A total of 44 monolingually raised native speakers, 44 heritage speakers, and 44 L2 learners of Spanish were trained to learn 24 nonce words in Spanish presented in four input conditions that manipulated the number and type of cues to gender marking (determiner, word marker, adjective). After the learning sessions, the participants completed a word naming task, an elicited production task, and a debriefing questionnaire. The L2 learners were different than native speakers and heritage speakers in learning nonce nouns. They used morphosyntactic cues differently, relying on adjectives as their most-used strategy to assign gender, unlike native speakers and heritage speakers who used all cues. Our findings confirm processing differences between L2 learners and heritage speakers and suggest language learning background determines how learners discover reliable morphosyntactic cues to the gender of nouns in the input. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish monolingual speakers often produce recipient (Pedro le da un lápiz a María) and nonrecipient constructions (Antonio le lava la camiseta a Carmen) doubled by a dative clitic. Second language speakers and heritage speakers usually avoid clitics. This study examined whether structural priming could effectively increase the production of clitics in monolingual speakers (N = 23), L2 speakers (N = 28), and heritage speakers (N = 24). Participants completed a baseline study that measured the use of clitics in a picture description task, followed by a priming treatment, an immediate posttest, and a posttest a week later. Results showed that priming increased clitic production for all groups, and that the increase was still significant a week later in L2 speakers and heritage speakers. These findings support the view that structural priming may implicate implicit language learning and considers its pedagogical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses that language attrition and language acquisition must be related at some level. It mentions a formal model of grammatical attrition integrates formal principles of generative grammar; and also mentions that Language 1 (L1) attrition in a bilingual context starts off as minor, but perceptible changes in language use can lead to loss of linguistic competence and performance.

The obligatory use of the preposition 'a' with animate, specific direct objects in Spanish (Juan conoce a María "Juan knows Maria") is a well-known instance of Differential Object Marking (dom). This study investigates the acquisition of dom by native speakers of Romanian learning Spanish. Spanish and Romanian have dom lexicalized in the prepositions 'a' (Spanish) and in 'pe' (Romanian). In the two languages dom is regulated by animacy and specificity. Thirty-two native speakers of Spanish and 36 Romanian-speaking learners of Spanish with advanced proficiency completed a written production, a written comprehension, and an acceptability judgment task. The results show that, in general, and unlike what has been found for English-speaking learners of Spanish, advanced Romanian learners of Spanish are successful at acquiring the feature specification and distribution of dom in Spanish. The findings are discussed with respect to the nature of ultimate attainment as a function of language transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the difficulty involved in the learning of a second language by child learners which helps shape the principles of language acquisition. It talks about the grammar rules involved in languages which is equivalent to math equations and problems. It tells about the comparison between monolingual and bilingual child learners. It speaks about the difference in the learning styles between adults and young children learning a second language.

The article focuses on developmental continuity in morphosyntactic attrition. Topics discussed include empirical and theoretical relationship between first and second language acquisition; association of lexical access, phonetics, and sequential bilinguals with the same; and development of heritage language acquisition in childhood.

This study investigated how previous linguistic experience and universal strategies guide the acquisition of phonology in the classroom. More specifically, it focused on the possible advantages that bilingual children have over monolingual children. Thirty-four children completed a picture-naming task: 9 Spanish native speakers, 19 English native speakers acquiring Spanish as L2 and 6 Korean-English bilinguals acquiring Spanish as L3. Results indicated that in general the children rapidly acquired native-like pronunciation of the Spanish rhotics, but the Korean-English bilinguals outperformed the English-speaking children. We propose that although previous linguistic knowledge plays a role in L2 and L3 acquisition, children are able to overcome transfer errors because they are guided by universal developmental strategies from the initial stages of acquisition. We suggest that if L3 learners have an advantage over L2 learners, this may be due to their complex linguistic knowledge and higher metalinguistic competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global age of acquisition of L1 and L2 in individual speakers has been investigated as a deterministic factor in nativelikeness of grammatical knowledge and lexical processing. The age of acquisition of individual words has also been shown to affect both native and nonnative lexical access. Given the centrality of the lexicon to language acquisition and use, this study investigated which of these variables is most relevant and how these two variables may potentially interact during lexical access of the less dominant language in bilinguals. A group of English-speaking late L2 learners of Spanish and a group of early bilingual speakers who were exposed to Spanish as an L1 at home and learned English in childhood (heritage speakers) completed a lexical decision task in Spanish and an English–Spanish translation decision task. The performance of the two groups, which vary on global age of acquisition of Spanish, but not on language dominance, was compared. The results indicated no differences in the overall accuracy of lexical access according to global age of acquisition of L1 and L2, though the L2 learners responded more quickly than the heritage speakers in both tasks. The results differed within each participant group depending on word age of acquisition, with heritage speakers showing a speed and accuracy advantage for words learned early in L1 Spanish and L2 learners showing an advantage for words learned early in L2 Spanish. Based on these findings, it is argued that it is the language experience along with word age of acquisition that determines lexical processing of the weaker language, whether in L1 or L2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined whether type of early language experience provides advantages to heritage speakers over second language (L2) learners with morphology, and investigated knowledge of gender agreement and its interaction with diminutive formation. Diminutives are a hallmark of Child Directed Speech in early language development and a highly productive morphological mechanism that facilitates the acquisition of declensional noun endings in many languages (Savickienė and Dressler, 2007). In Spanish, diminutives regularize gender marking in nouns with a non-canonical ending. Twenty-four Spanish native speakers, 29 heritage speakers and 37 L2 learners with intermediate to advanced proficiency completed two picture-naming tasks and an elicited production task. Results showed that the heritage speakers were more accurate than the L2 learners with gender agreement in general, and with non-canonical ending nouns in particular. This study confirms that early language experience and the type of input received confer some advantages to heritage speakers over L2 learners with early-acquired aspects of language, especially in oral production. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study investigates dominant language transfer (from English) in adult Spanish second language (L2) learners and Spanish heritage speakers. We focus on contrasting properties of English and Spanish definite articles with respect to generic reference ('Elephants have ivory tusks' vs. Los elefantes tienen colmillos de marfil) and inalienable possession ('Peter raised his hand' vs. Pedro levantó la mano). Thirty adult Spanish heritage speakers and 30 L2 learners of Spanish completed four written tasks (acceptability judgment, truth-value judgment, picture-sentence matching, and sentence-picture acceptability judgment). The results show that the heritage speakers and the L2 learners exhibited dominant language transfer from English with the interpretation of definite articles in generic contexts; transfer effects were not as pronounced in the inalienable possession construction. We discuss the implications of these findings for heritage language research and teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many heritage speakers (bilinguals in a minority language context) turn to the second language (L2) classroom to expand their knowledge of the heritage language. Critical questions arise as to how their linguistic knowledge compares to that of post puberty L2 learners. Focusing on recent experimental research on grammatical domains typically affected in both L2 learners and heritage speakers, this article addresses whether exposure to the family language since birth even under reduced input conditions leads to more native-like linguistic knowledge in heritage speakers as opposed to L2 learners with a later age of acquisition of the language, how differences in input and language learning experience determine the behavioral manifestations of linguistic knowledge, and whether formal instruction in the classroom is beneficial to heritage speakers. I argue that the extension of theoretical frameworks and methodologies from SLA has significantly advanced the field of heritage language acquisition, but deeper understanding of these speakers will also need more fruitful integration of the psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic factors that contribute to the acquisition and maintenance of heritage languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English uses three types of generic NPs: bare plurals ( Lions are dangerous), definite singulars ( The lion is dangerous), and indefinite singulars ( A lion is dangerous). These three NP types are not interchangeable: definite singulars and bare plurals can have generic reference at the NP-level, while indefinite singulars are compatible only with sentence-level genericity. This study investigates whether L1-Russian and L1-Korean L2-English learners, whose article-less L1s do not morphologically encode the distinction between the two types of genericity, can distinguish between the different types of English generics. The results of a written acceptability judgment task with intermediate/advanced L2-learners showed that the learners exhibited sensitivity to the two types of genericity. They were target-like on their interpretation of bare plural and indefinite singular generics, but had not acquired the interpretation of definite singular generics. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: In recent years, explanations and predictions of developmental delays or inability to reach native-like attainment in specific areas of grammatical knowledge have been linked to the architecture of the language faculty. A recurrent claim is that linguistic properties at interfaces are inherently more “complex” than linguistic properties internal to a specific domain (syntax, phonology, semantics) due to the integration of different levels of linguistic knowledge/analysis. Even within interfaces, not all interfaces are created equal; some have been claimed to be even more complex, vulnerable, or more problematic than others. claims that properties at the syntax–semantics interface are largely unproblematic in adult L2 acquisition, but functional morphology (the morphology–syntax interface), by contrast, is the bottleneck of acquisition. Drawing on the distinction between internal and external interfaces, and have also argued that the syntax–semantics interface (an internal interface) is eventually acquired at the near-native level, while, the syntax–discourse interface (an external interface) presents prolonged difficulty in both L2 acquisition and L1 attrition. In this article I question these recent claims about vulnerability of specific interfaces based on empirical evidence from recent studies on incomplete acquisition in L2 and heritage language acquisition. I discuss examples of grammatical properties involving multiple interfaces and show how the concept of internal and external interfaces is problematic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study examines second language (L2) acquisition of the interpretation of plural noun phrases. Languages with articles differ in whether they use bare plurals (English) or definite plurals (Spanish) to express generic interpretation (; ; among others). It is hypothesized that Spanish-speaking learners of English transfer the interpretation of definite plurals from their native language. Results of a truth-value judgment task provide support for this hypothesis: Spanish speakers ( N= 24) overaccepted the generic interpretation of English definite plurals to a greater extent than proficiency-matched speakers of Korean ( N= 29), an articleless language. Results of a follow-up study further show that with advanced proficiency and increased immersion in the target language, Spanish-speaking learners of English ( N= 11) were as targetlike as Korean-speaking learners of English ( N= 9) on the interpretation of definite plurals, which suggests that recovery from first language transfer is possible. Implications of these findings for theories of L2 acquisition are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates knowledge of gender agreement in Spanish L2 learners and heritage speakers, who differ in age and context/mode of acquisition. On some current theoretical accounts, persistent difficulty with grammatical gender in adult L2 acquisition is due to age. These accounts predict that heritage speakers should be more accurate on gender agreement than L2 learners, because their Spanish language acquisition started in infancy. Sixty-nine heritage speakers, 72 second language (L2) learners, and 22 native Spanish speakers were tested on their oral production, written comprehension, and written recognition of Spanish gender agreement. Results showed advantages for L2 learners in written tasks but advantages for heritage speakers in the oral task. We discuss the significance of these findings for SLA and heritage language acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have reported that L2 learners have persistent problems with unaccusative verbs in English, Japanese, Italian, French, and Chinese. Oshita (2001) proposed the ‘‘unaccusative trap hypothesis’’ (UTH) to account for the observed developmental trends crosslinguistically. According to the UTH, initially, L2 learners assume that all intransitive verbs are unergatives. At intermediate and advanced stages, learners realize that unaccusative and unergative verbs have different representations, and typical errors become common. Depending on the robustness of the target language input, advanced L2 learners may or may not reach native-like knowledge. This study tested the UTH with 71 English-speaking learners of Spanish of advanced, intermediate, and low-intermediate proficiency using a grammaticality judgment task. Results partially support the UTH: the lower proficiency group did not discriminate between unaccusatives and unergatives in most constructions; intermediate learners distinguished between unaccusatives and unergatives with most constructions, but also incorrectly accepted passives with unergative verbs, while advanced learners behaved like the native speakers. Analysis by semantic subclasses of unaccusative and unergative verbs indicated that the low level learners were not sensitive to lexical semantics either. Such sensitivity appears to emerge at the intermediate level, a result that lends further empirical support to Sorace’s (2000) ‘‘unaccusativity hierarchy.’’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this experimental study, we focus on the following semantic universal: if a habitual clause reading, then generic pronominal subject; if an episodic clause reading, then specific pronominal subject. We argue that although this set of two conditionals is a universal property of all natural languages, English-speaking second-language (L2) learners of Spanish must access it through the mediation of aspectual morphology. Because habitual and episodic readings are encoded by different functional morphemes in English and Spanish, the L2 acquisition of this semantic universal necessitates a significant restructuring of the native form-to-meaning mappings. Even more problematic from a learnability point of view is the negative constraint on generic pronominal subjects in sentences with the Preterite. We compare the acquisition of the universal computational mechanism and the negative constraint with acquisition of the prototypical habitual and episodic meanings of the Spanish Imperfect and Preterite with dynamic predicates. Our findings indicate that advanced and even intermediate English-speaking learners of Spanish are significantly more accurate on the generic and specific subject interpretation purportedly regulated by a semantic universal and on the negative constraint requiring specialized syntactic computation than the prototypical habitual and episodic meanings usually taught in language classrooms. We argue that L2 learners have access to semantic universals and how these interact with movement at the syntax-semantics interface even before full acquisition of target form-to-meaning mappings. Our conclusion is that L2 acquisition of aspectual syntax and semantics is regulated by domain-specific constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experimental study investigates the relationship between lexical semantics and derivational morphology in the acquisition of causative/inchoative-related verbs in Turkish as a second language (L2) by Spanish and English speakers. Results of a picture judgment task show that although L2 learners have largely acquired the correct lexico-syntactic classification of verbs in Turkish, they were constrained by the morphological patterns of their first language (L1) when learning derivational morphology, especially with causative/inchoative verbs. Results also show failure to reject transitivity errors and inappropriate derivational morphology with unaccusative, unergative, and noncausative/inchoative transitive verbs. The transitivity errors documented are analogous to the overgeneralization errors reported in the L1 and L2 acquisition literature of English and other languages. It is suggested that L2 learners incorrectly adopt the lexico-syntactic representation of change-of-state verbs (the semantic template of an accomplishment) when they are not clear about the event-type classification of a particular verb. In this study, I also suggest that L2 learners are atuned to the rich morphology of Turkish and that the acquisition of derivational morphology and lexical semantics are not dissociated in these interlanguage grammars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cunnings’ keynote article outlines a novel approach to native/non-native differences in on-line language comprehension by proposing that L2 speakers are more susceptible to cue-based retrieval interference than natives. Cue-based, parallel access approaches to processing have been prominent in monolingual studies for around 15 years now, but have barely been applied to L2/bilingual processing. We are particularly excited about the possibilities that this approach offers for understanding L1, L2 and bilingual processing, as well as individual differences. In this commentary, we focus on two issues: 1) whether the existing evidence for cue-based retrial mechanisms in L2 processing support a deficit model, as Cunnings seems to claim, and 2) how individual differences may explain both similarities and differences in L1 and L2 processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]