Extended Auxiliary Selection in the Present Perfect by L2 Students of German

Auxiliary selection in L1 German is sensitive to the degree of transitivity of a clause. This study focuses on the most basic parameter of transitivity, number of participants, and shows that as students become more proficient in German, they are more accurate in auxiliary selection. First year students do not reflect in their writing that they are aware that the number of participants affects auxiliary selection. Upper-division students reflect this awareness in their writing. In this study, students were also asked to recite the rule they had learned and this did not correspond to accuracy in auxiliary selection.