Feature assembly in early stages of L2 acquisition

Processing evidence from L2 French

Claire Renaud | Arizona State University

Based on the feature assembly hypothesis (e.g. Lardiere, 2009), and assuming a universal parser, early stages of second language (L2) acquisition are investigated in this paper. Using a methodology that combines reading time and acceptability judgment data, it is argued that L2 learners’ processing relies on a universal parser that allows the selection of uninterpretable features (even those that are not selected in the learners’ first language, such as uGender) based on a universal store. The data also suggest that these features are (re-)assembled, as shown by the asymmetries in the reading time data, which are taken to reflect different computational costs associated with different computations (i.e. feature checking and feature underspecification).

Published online: 15 December 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.53.06ren

Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Faber, Andie, Luiz Amaral & Marcus Maia

2021. Pronominal Feature Re-assembly: L1 and L2 Pronoun Resolution of Spanish Epicene and Common Gender Antecedents. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 14:2 ► pp. 281 ff.

Spinner, Patti

2013. The second language acquisition of number and gender in Swahili: A Feature Reassembly approach. Second Language Research 29:4 ► pp. 455 ff.

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