Generalization is the ability to apply regularities to novel instances, for example, correctly guessing that the plural for the novel English word 'wug' should be 'wugs'. Early language learners make overgeneralization errors like 'mouses', applying regularities beyond their attested uses. Theories concerned with the question of how learners learn…

This thesis examines whether native, heritage, and L2 speakers of Spanish engage a morphological layer of representation in the processing of inflected words, and whether they do so with both regularly- and irregularly-inflected words. Also examined is whether this tendency towards compositional (i.e. morphological rule-based) processing is…

We examined sources of morphological variability in second language (L2) learners of Spanish whose native language (L1) is English, with a focus on L1-L2 similarity, morphological markedness, and knowledge type (receptive vs. expressive). Experiment 1 uses event-related potentials to examine noun-adjective number (present in L1) and gender…