Gender and number agreement

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

Abstract

The acquisition and processing of nominal inflectional morphology, such as number and especially, gender, have been shown to be notoriously difficult for second language (L2) leaners, especially for those exposed to the L2 during later childhood or adulthood. The reported difficulty in acquiring inflectional features and/or their morphophonological manifestation (e.g., gender attribution), as well as the dependencies that these features trigger (e.g., gender or number agreement), has given rise to an array of opposing theories about whether and how such nominal features are represented in the L2 learner’s mental lexicon or grammar, especially when they are absent from the L2 learner’s first language. They also raise important questions about what individual and linguistic factors modulate the real-time comprehension of these features. The present chapter reviews seminal and state-of-the art behavioural (production/comprehension/judgments), eye-tracking and neuroscientific studies on the acquisition of gender and number agreement by child and adult L2 learners. I adopt a crosslinguistic perspective by reviewing studies that examine the acquisition or processing of these features in languages with transparent and more opaque gender morphology, and/or with regular or irregular number morphology. I conclude with pointers for future directions in this field of inquiry.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, Morphosyntax, and Semantics
EditorsTania Ionin, Silvina Montrul, Roumyana Slabakova
Place of PublicationNew York
PublisherRoutledge
Chapter12
Pages154-166
Number of pages13
Edition1
ISBN (Electronic)9781003412373
ISBN (Print)9781032535005
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • L2 acquisition of gender
  • number
  • agreement
  • assignment

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