This study examined individual-level variability in N400 and P600 ERP correlates of native and nonnative language sentence processing of semantic and grammar information. Twenty-six native English-speaking learners of Spanish as a second language were tested. Participants completed sentence reading tasks in English and Spanish during EEG…

In this study, neural representation of adult second language (L2) speakers' implicit grammatical knowledge was investigated. Advanced L2 speakers of Japanese living in Japan, as well as L1 Japanese speakers, performed a word-monitoring task (proposed as an implicit knowledge test) in the MRI scanner. Behavioral measures were obtained from…

We used event-related potentials to investigate how markedness impacts person agreement in English-speaking learners of L2-Spanish. Markedness was examined by probing agreement with both first-person (marked) and third-person (unmarked) subjects. Agreement was manipulated by crossing first-person subjects with third-person verbs and vice versa.…

Numerous studies have demonstrated that native Mandarin speakers have pervasive difficulties processing L2 English agreement morphology. However, less is known about the lexical and morphological cues that may modulate Mandarin speakers' sensitivity to English number agreement. To investigate this, we examined subject-verb agreement processing in…

Responds to L. Eubank and K. R. Gregg article (this issue), suggesting they have misinterpreted and misrepresented claims made by B. Jacobs and J. Schumann. Claims discussed include the micro- and macro-organization of neurobiology and language, the Explananda, Jacobs and Schumann's acquisition mechanism, and reductionism. The single acquisition…

Responds to L. Eubank and K. R. Gregg article (this issue), negating their rejection of neurobiological accounts of language acquisition because they are not based on Government and Binding theory and addressing their ideas on the explanatory power of associative learning. A discourse between neurobiology and linguistics is possible only if…

John Schumann and colleagues have argued for a neurobiological perspective on language acquisition that denies a role for a specifically linguistic mental module of the sort proposed by, for example, N. Chomsky (1986). This report challenges this perspective by offering evidence that such a mental module must be involved in the acquisition of…

Responds to L. Eubank and K. R. Gregg article (this issue), suggesting that they present a narrow view of language that they wish the field of language acquisition to share. It is suggested that Eubank and Gregg contend that the only thing to be explained is the human capacity for grammatical competence. This belief discounts, misrepresents, or…