We studied English-learning children's ability to learn the meanings of novel words from sentences containing truth-functional negation (Exp1) and to use the semantics of negation to inform word meaning (Exp2). In Exp1, 22-month-olds (n = 21) heard dialogues introducing a novel verb in either negative-transitive "("Mary didn't blick the…

The Imperfect/Preterite aspectual contrast is one of the most studied topics in Spanish as a second language research. However, there are few works focused on describing the acquisition of modal uses of the Imperfect by L2 speakers. This paper investigates the L1 Russian L2 Spanish speakers' mastery of politeness, evidential and nonfactual modal…

Languages vary according to which morphosyntactic forms of embedding are present in the grammar as well as to which of these forms allow recursive embedding. The present study examines how German-speaking children discover which forms of embedding are recursive. In German, possessive modifiers are expressed by several structural options (i.e.,…

Morphological variability in bilingual language production is widely attested. Producing inflected words has been found to be less reliable and consistent in bilinguals than in first-language (functionally monolingual) L1 speakers, even for bilingual speakers at advanced proficiency levels. The sources for these differences are not well…

One of the most intriguing questions in the investigation of second-language acquisition concerns the role of learners' first language (L1). Comparing learners of different backgrounds (L1 German vs. L1 Romance languages), we aim to explore the acquisition of tense and aspect features in Spanish as a second language (L2). Findings show that the L1…

This study addresses the question of how the main factors related to input--including the environment in which children are exposed to both languages, the relative timing of the onset of the exposure to them and the amount of input--affect bilingual language acquisition at primary-school age. We examined the data of 42 German Polish bilinguals who…

The Bottleneck Hypothesis argues that properties of inflectional morphology explain why second-language learners may face persistent difficulties in articulating meaning in target-language forms. In particular, the acquisition task proves even harder when first and second languages differ in the way they organize the mapping of functional features…

Considering the acquisition of past tense uses by L2 Spanish advanced learners with closely related L1s (French, Portuguese), this study attempts to identify factors associated with variability, such as negative transfer or interface integration. We report data on the acquisition, by adult L1 French and Portuguese learners at B2 and C1 CEFR…

This article presents a study of preschool-aged children's knowledge of the semantics of the negative polarity item (NPI) "any". NPIs like "any" differ in distribution from non-polarity-sensitive indefinites like "a": "Any" is restricted to downward-entailing linguistic environments (Fauconnier 1975, 1979;…

Through examining all instances of the nontarget "be" before verbs in the written interlanguage of Chinese learners at different proficiency levels, the present study reveals that nontarget "be" performs different functions, and there is a function shift from low to high proficiency levels. At the lowest levels, "be"…

English uses three types of generic NPs: bare plurals ("Lions are dangerous"), definite singulars ("The lion is dangerous"), and indefinite singulars ("A lion is dangerous"). These three NP types are not interchangeable: definite singulars and bare plurals can have generic reference at the NP-level, while indefinite singulars are compatible only…

The study investigates whether advanced second language (L2) learners can extend beyond the grammatical properties of the first language (L1) to successfully acquire tense and aspect. We examine the acquisition of the semantics of the imperfective marker "te-iru" in Japanese by native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, a language that…