We investigate whether second language (L2) learners of English rely on first language (L1) transfer and atomicity in the acquisition of the count/mass distinction by examining L1-French and L1-Chinese learners of English. Atomicity encodes whether a noun contains 'atoms' or minimal elements that retain the property of the noun. As a semantic…

The current study investigates second language acquisition of Chinese object ellipsis to probe the development of features transferred from learners' native language without robust confirming or disconfirming evidence in the second language (L2) input. It is argued that Chinese allows object ellipsis licensed by a verb with a [VCase] feature but…

The aim of the paper is to present the results of a research project called 'Tell Me', conducted from October 2018 to March 2020. The project focused on Bengali children living in Venice, Italy, and aimed to describe (1) children's languages in the home environment and at school; (2) the quality and quantity of input they receive in every language…

Semantic variables enable L2 researchers and materials creators to quantify and control the effects of meaning on cognition. However, in recent years, many variables have been normed and published. Parsing the methods employed in norming this myriad of variables and which disparate theories informed their creation can be an opaque and arduous…

Using the lenses of bilingualism and social justice, I reflect on relevant conceptual and methodological issues encountered in the study of the linguistic development of heritage language speakers. Themes examined include the early but varying timing of heritage language learning; the surrounding linguistic environment, including the link between…

In this article, I argue that first language (L1), second language (L2) and third language (L3) acquisition are fundamentally the same process, based on learning by parsing. Both child and adult learners are sensitive to fine linguistic distinctions, and language development takes place in small steps. While the bulk of the article focuses on…

Heritage languages (HLs) are acquired in contexts of unbalanced input, or situations in which children receive primary exposure to the family/HL and experience an abrupt shift after the child begins formal schooling. As a consequence, HL speakers normally become more dominant in the environmental language, while the development of the HL is…

Adult second language (L2) learners often experience difficulty with novel L2 phonological contrasts, limiting their ability to establish contrastive lexical representations of L2 words. It has been demonstrated that the availability of orthographic input (OI), and variables interacting with OI, can shape the inferences learners make about L2…

We present a framework of second and additional language (L2/L"n") acquisition motivated by recent work on socio-indexical knowledge in first language (L1) processing. The distribution of linguistic categories covaries with socio-indexical variables (e.g., talker identity, gender, dialects). We summarize evidence that implicit…

Immersion programs have long been considered the gold standard for school-based language revitalization, but surprisingly little attention has been paid to the quantity and quality of the input that they provide to young language learners. Drawing on new data from three such programs (Kaqchikel, Western Subanon, and Maori), each with its own…

This study investigates the interpretation of disjunction words (English or) in negative sentences by Turkish- and German-speaking children. Both children and adults were asked to judge Turkish/German sentences corresponding to the English sentence "This animal did not eat the carrot or the pepper." Children acquiring both languages…

The interaction between input frequency and constructional interference receives little attention in second language (L2) research. Two studies were conducted to test the effect of this interaction. Study 1 examined effects of both Zipfian frequency (ZF) and balanced frequency (BF) on L2 learning of English subject-extracted relative clauses…

This article investigates near-native grammars at the syntax--discourse interface by examining the second language (L2) acquisition of two different domains of object movement in Dutch, which exhibit syntax-discourse or syntax-semantics level properties. English and German near-native speakers of Dutch, where German but not English allows the same…

We study the learnability problem concerning the dative alternations in English (Baker, 1979; Pinker, 1989). We consider how first language learners productively apply the double-object and to-dative constructions ("give the book to library"/"give the library the book"), while excluding negative exceptions ("donate the…

People differ in the size of their social network, and thus in the properties of the linguistic input they receive. This article examines whether differences in social network size influence individuals' linguistic skills in their native language, focusing on global comprehension of evaluative language. Study 1 exploits the natural variation in…