Missing Surface Inflection or Impairment in Second Language Acquisition? Evidence from Tense and Agreement.

Two accounts of the variable use of inflection in adult second language (L2) acquisition are examined: The Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH) and the Impaired Representation Hypothesis (IRH). These hypotheses make different predictions for adult L2 acquisition. Spontaneous production data from two adult learners of French and two adult learners of German are examined. (Author/VWL)