Perceptual salience has been presented as a vital factor in the order in which divers linguistic phenomena are learnt. This inquiry explores its impact on the acquisition sequence of a sole construction, which is the Arabic construct state. Mapping certain English constructions to the definite Arabic construct state entails restructuring head direction (a feature of high salience) and the position of the definite marker (a feature of low salience). Results from a prompted sentence completion task proposed that early English‐speaking learners of Arabic were sensitive to head direction but not definiteness. Assay of intermediate and advanced groups captured the acquisition sequence of the Arabic construct state, working in two gradual phases. During the first phase, English‐speaking learners restructure head direction. Only later do they adapt definiteness.