A collection of studies of second language acquisition in Swedish, Dutch, Spanish, French, German, and English is presented using a cross-linguistic perspective. The following topics are covered: (1) cross-linguistic first language perspectives on second language acquisition research; (2) use of typological markedness conditions in Swedish as predictors in second language acquisition (3) difficulties in acquisition of two word order rules by adult learners of Dutch; (4) the purposes of gender in Spanish; (5) the Spanish that Quechua speakers learn; (6) the relationship between L1 operating principles and language transfer in L2 development; (7) age as a factor in acquisition of French as a second language in an immersion setting; (8) adult Spanish speakers and the acquisition of French negation forms; (9) acquisition and use of French morphosyntax by native speakers of Arabic dialects; (10) acquisition of German word order; (11) semantic features of pidginized learner varieties of German; (12) input and residual L1 transfer effects in Turkish and Greek children's German; (13) developmental sequences and the copula's role in German second language acquisition; (14) negation and verb morphology in the Spanish-English and Japanese-English second language continuum; (15) nonsyntactic speech in the Spanish-English Basilang; (17) reference and pronominal syntax preference in young child L2 learners; and (17) cognate recognition and use. (MSE)