Reports on an experiment in which high school and college students were tested to ascertain: (1) to what extent students learning French as a foreign language treat sentences with negative elements as native French speakers do and (2) to what extent students perform similarly in French and English. Offers two suggestions for teaching French…

Investigated the acquisition of narrow-range rules governing the dative alternation by adult learners of English as a Second Language, native English speakers, and Japanese and Chinese speakers. Suggests that the Japanese and Chinese learners' acquisition of the dative alternation in English is governed by the properties of an equivalent structure…