Article published in:
Language Acquisition Beyond Parameters: Studies in honour of Juana M. Liceras
Edited by Anahí Alba de la Fuente, Elena Valenzuela and Cristina Martínez Sanz
[Studies in Bilingualism 51] 2016
► pp. 99–124

L2 knowledge of gender and number agreement in Spanish noun ellipsis

| The University of Western Ontario
| The University of Western Ontario
This study focuses on second language knowledge of number and gender in Spanish using ellipsis as a point of departure. Eleven adult learners of Spanish as a second language (L2), and 9 native Spanish speakers were tested on a written elicited production task and a grammaticality judgment task. Results provided evidence that L2 speakers are able to access features not present in their L1, such as gender and number, and that they are then able to compare the relevant features to antecedents. It is argued that problems in the production of gender are not due to any underlying deficit.
Keywords: nominal ellipsis, gender, number, L2 acquisition, Spanish
Published online: 16 December 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.51.05bru
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