A leading hypothesis in the study of the L2 acquisition of aspect-related verbal morphemes is the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (LAH) (Andersen, 1989, 1991; Andersen & Shirai, 1994) which claims that learners’ use of these forms is determined by the lexical properties of events. Reviews of major… read more
The Scalpel Model (SM) (Slabakova, 2017) argues that neither the L1 nor the L2 has a privileged status in L3 acquisition so transfer can occur from either the L1 or the L2 and on a property-by-property basis. We tested these predictions by examining the acquisition of Chinese null and overt… read more
This study re-examines the L2 acquisition of referential and pragmatic properties of null and overt subject pronouns by advanced English learners of Spanish under the assumption that both forms display levels of complexity at the syntax–pragmatics interface. Our main hypothesis is that null… read more
Recent developments in linguistic theory have successfully reconciled diachronic syntactic change (Biberauer & Roberts, 2006; Breibarth, Lucas, & Willis, 2008; Roberts, 2007) and intra-speaker variation (Adger & Smith, 2005, 2010; Henry, 1995; Barbiers, 2005) with Minimalist models of the language… read more
This paper investigates the L2 acquisition of Spanish object clitics by L1 English learners. Spanish clitics are analyzed as bundles of agreement and referential features morphologically marked for number and gender. We examine the relationship between morphology and syntax in L2 learners’ grammars… read more
The contribution of Spanish to the field of SLA continues to grow (Lafford & Salaberry 2003; Montrul 2004), and the need for good L2 Spanish datasets is becoming increasingly evident. In this paper we introduce a newly created database titled Spanish Learner Language Oral Corpus (SPLLOC),… read more