This article reports on an experimental investigation of knowledge of distributivity in nonnative (L2) Japanese learners whose first language (L1) is English or Korean. The availability of distributive scope in Japanese is modulated by word order and the semantic features of quantifiers. For English-speaking learners, these subtle interpretive…

The nature of the initial state in second-language (L2) acquisition is a much debated but still unresolved issue, due in part to the empirical problem of obtaining production data from L2 learners at very early stages in development. In an attempt to circumvent this problem, this article presents evidence from a comprehension-based experiment…

In this article I provide evidence that despite frequently cited differences between child first language (L1) and adult second language (L2) speakers in overt behavior (performance) during grammatical development, the nature, source, and limits of implicit knowledge (competence) in native and second language grammars are equivalent (i.e., they…