The present study uses event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate lexicosemantic prediction in native speakers (L1) of English and advanced second language (L2) learners of English with Swedish as their L1. The main goal of the study was to examine whether learners recruit predictive mechanisms to the same extent as L1 speakers when a change in the linguistic environment renders prediction a useful strategy to pursue. The study, which uses a relatedness proportion paradigm adapted from Lau et al. (2013), focuses on the N400, an ERP component that is sensitive to the ease of lexical access/retrieval, including lexical prediction. Participants read 800 prime–target pairs, presented word by word and divided into two blocks, while they searched for animal words. Unknown to them, some of the pairs were semantically associated, which is known to reduce the amplitude of the N400 via spreading semantic activation. Most importantly, the proportion of semantically related pairs increased in the second experimental block (via fillers), thereby increasing the reliability of the primes as predictive cues and encouraging prediction. Results from 36 L1-English speakers and 53 L2 learners showed an N400 reduction for related (remain-stay) relative to unrelated targets (silver-stay) across blocks. Crucially, this N400 reduction for related targets was significantly larger in the block that encouraged prediction, in both L1 and L2 speakers, consistent with the possibility that both groups recruited similar predictive mechanisms when the context encouraged prediction. These results suggest that, at high levels of proficiency, L2 speakers engage similar predictive strategies to L1 speakers.

This chapter reviews recent neurolinguistic evidence in the domain of L2 syntactic processing, focusing on how this research sheds light on critical issues in L2 acquisition, such as the role of transfer, the extent to which L2 processing is constrained by the grammar, and the extent to which L2 syntactic processing relies on mechanisms well-attested in native language processing, such as prediction. The chapter focuses on studies examining specific modules of syntax, such as basic phrase structure, word order, and wh-dependencies, discussing how this evidence contributes to our understanding of the conditions under which L2 processing is successful, both with respect to the characteristics of the learner (e.g., age of acquisition, proficiency) and properties of the grammar (e.g., L1–L2 differences). The chapter also makes suggestions for future research in this area. 

We used event‑related potentials to investigate how markedness impacts person agreement in English‑speaking learners of L2‑Spanish. Markedness was examined by probing agreement with both first‑person (marked) and third‑person (unmarked) subjects. Agreement was manipulated by crossing first‑person subjects with third‑person verbs and vice‑versa. Native speakers showed a P600 for both errors, larger for “first‑person subject + third‑person verb” violations. This aligns with claims that, when the first element in the dependency is marked (first‑person), the parser generates stronger predictions regarding upcoming agreeing elements via feature activation. Twenty‑two upper‑intermediate/advanced learners elicited a P600 across both errors. Learners were equally accurate detecting both errors, but the P600 was marginally reduced for “first‑person subject + third‑person verb” violations, suggesting that learners overused unmarked forms (third‑person) online. However, this asymmetry mainly characterized lower‑proficiency learners. Results suggest that markedness impacts L2 agreement without constraining it, although learners are less likely to use marked features top‑down.

The present study examines both properties of the language and properties of the learner to better understand variability at the earliest stages of second language (L2) acquisition. We used event-related potentials, an oral production task, and a battery of individual differences measures to examine the processing of number and gender agreement in two groups of low-proficiency English-speaking learners of Spanish who were tested in multiple sessions. The results showed an advantage for number, the feature also instantiated in the native language, as both groups showed a native-like P600 response to subject-verb and noun-adjective number violations across sessions. The more advanced group showed larger effects for number and marginal sensitivity to gender violations. These results suggest that native-like processing of shared features is possible even for novice learners, contrary to proposals suggesting that all morphosyntactic dependencies are initially processed in a non-native manner. Working memory (WM) was a predictor of P600 effects for number and also for gender (where the effect was marginal), suggesting that similar abilities may capture variability in the processing of both shared and unique features despite differences in overall sensitivity. Furthermore, whereas WM predicted performance on online tasks (P600 effects/oral production), verbal aptitude predicted performance on tasks examining morphosyntactic accuracy (grammaticality judgment task/oral production). Our results show that the linguistic properties of the L2, the individual characteristics of the learner, and the nature of the task at hand all play an important role in capturing the variability often observed in the L2 processing of agreement.

We assessed monolingual Spanish and bilingual Spanish-Basque toddlers’ sensitivity to gender agreement in correct vs. incorrect Spanish noun phrases (definite article + noun), using a spontaneous preference listening paradigm. Monolingual Spanish-learning toddlers exhibited a tendency to listen longer to the grammatically correct phrases (e.g., la casa; “the house”), as opposed to the incorrect ones (e.g., *el casa). This listening preference toward correct phrases is in line with earlier results obtained from French monolingual 18-month-olds (van Heugten & Christophe, 2015). Bilingual toddlers in the current study, however, tended to listen longer to the incorrect phrases. Basque was not a source of interference in the bilingual toddler’s input as Basque does not instantiate grammatical gender agreement. Overall, our results suggest that both monolingual and bilingual toddlers can distinguish between the correct and incorrect phrases by 18 months of age; however, monolinguals and bilinguals allocate their attention differently when processing grammatically incorrect forms.

The present study uses event-related potentials to investigate how crosslinguistic (dis)similarities modulate anticipatory processing in the second language (L2). Participants read predictive stories in English that made a genitive construction consisting of a third-person singular possessive pronoun and a kinship noun (e.g., his mother) likely in an upcoming continuation. The possessive pronoun?s form depended on the antecedent?s natural gender, which had been previously established in the stories. The continuation included either the expected genitive construction or an unexpected one with a possessive pronoun of the opposite gender. We manipulated crosslinguistic (dis)similarity by comparing advanced English learners with either Swedish or Spanish as their L1. While Swedish has equivalent possessive pronouns that mark the antecedent?s natural gender (i.e., hans/hennes ?his/her?), Spanish does not. In fact, Spanish possessive pronouns mark the syntactic features (number, gender) of the possessed noun (e.g., nosotros queremos a nuestra madre ?we-MASC love our-FEM mother-FEM). Twenty-four native speakers of English elicited an N400 effect for prenominal possessives that were unexpected based on the possessor noun?s natural gender, consistent with the possibility that they activated the pronoun?s form or its semantic features (natural gender). Thirty-two Swedish-speaking learners yielded a qualitatively and quantitatively native-like N400 for unexpected prenominal possessives. In contrast, twenty-five Spanish-speaking learners showed a P600 effect for unexpected possessives, consistent with the possibility that they experienced difficulty integrating a pronoun that mismatched the expected gender. Results suggest that differences with respect to the features encoded in the activated representation result in different predictive mechanisms among adult L2 learners.

The present article examines the proposal that typology is a major factor guiding transfer selectivity in L3/Ln acquisition. We tested first exposure in L3/Ln using two artificial languages (ALs) lexically based in English and Spanish, focusing on gender agreement between determiners and nouns, and between nouns and adjectives. 50 L1 Spanish-L2 English speakers took part in the experiment. After receiving implicit training in one of the ALs (Mini-Spanish, N = 26; Mini-English, N = 24), gender violations elicited a fronto-lateral negativity in Mini-English in the earliest time window (200-500 ms), although this was not followed by any other differences in subsequent periods. This effect was highly localized, surfacing only in electrodes of the right-anterior region. In contrast, gender violations in Mini-Spanish elicited a broadly distributed positivity in the 300-600 ms time window. While we do not find typical indices of grammatical processing such as the P600 component, we believe that the between-groups differential appearance of the positivity for gender violations in the 300-600 ms time window reflects differential allocation of attentional resources as a function of the ALs' lexical similarity to English or Spanish. We take these differences in attention to be precursors of the processes involved in transfer source selection in L3/Ln.

The present study uses event-related potentials to investigate the role of prediction in the processing of information structure, a domain of language that belongs to the level of the discourse. Twenty-three native speakers of English read short contexts including three Noun Phrases (NPs) (e.g., Either an adviser or an agent can be helpful to a banker), followed by a wh-question that established the discourse role of each referent (In your opinion, which of the two should a banker hire?). The NP that the question was about (banker) was the Topic, and the two NPs that could fill the slot opened by the wh-question (adviser, agent) were the Focus NPs. The participants’ brain activity was recorded with EEG while they read the responses to the wh-questions, which differed along two dimensions: (1) the availability of the it-cleft construction (In my opinion, [it is] an agent…), a Focus-devoted device that makes Focus assignment predictable in the response; and (2) the discourse role of the target noun (Focus, Topic), which corresponds to the first referent in the response (In my opinion, [it is] an agent/a banker…). Crucially, we manipulated the phonological properties of the Focus and Topic nouns such that, if the Topic noun began with a consonant (e.g., a banker), both nouns that could fill the slot opened by the wh-question began with a vowel (e.g., an agent, an adviser) (counterbalanced in the overall design). This allowed us to measure effects of prediction at the prenominal article, before the integration of semantic and discourse information took place. The analyses on prenominal articles revealed an N400 effect for articles that were unexpected based on the phonological properties of the Focus nouns, but only in the conditions with the it-cleft. This effect emerged between 250 and 400 ms, with a frontal bias. The analyses on the noun revealed that violations of information structure (i.e., cases where the it-cleft was followed by the Topic noun) yielded a broadly distributed P600 effect, relative to appropriately clefted (i.e., focused) nouns. A similar (but numerically less robust) effect emerged for Topic relative to Focus NPs in the conditions without the it-cleft, suggesting that, in the absence of a constraining cue, comprehenders still assigned Focus to the first referent in the response. Overall, these results suggest that, when reading answers to wh-questions, comprehenders use information structure constraints (i.e., prior context + the it-cleft) to anticipate the form that the response should take (i.e., how information should be packaged).

The present study uses event-related potentials to examine subject-verb person agreement in Spanish, with a focus on how markedness with respect to the speech participant status of the subject modulates processing. Morphological theory proposes a markedness distinction between first and second person, on the one hand, and third person on the other. The claim is that both the first and second persons are participants in the speech act, since they play the speaker and addressee roles, respectively. In contrast, third person refers to whomever is neither the speaker nor the addressee (i.e., it is unmarked for person). We manipulated speech participant by probing person agreement with both first-person singular subjects (e.g., yo...lloro *I...cry-1ST PERSON-SG") and third-person singular ones (e.g., la viuda...llora "the widow...cry-3RD PERSON-SG"). We also manipulated agreement by crossing first-person singular subjects with third-person singular verbs (e.g., yo...*llora "I...cry-(3RD PERSON-SG)") and vice versa (e.g., la viuda...*lloro "the widow...cry-1ST PERSON-SG"). Results from 28 native speakers of Spanish revealed robust positivities for both types of person violations, relative to their grammatical counterparts between 500 and 1000 ms, an effect that shows a central-posterior distribution, with a right hemisphere bias. This positivity is consistent with the P600, a component associated with a number of morphosyntactic operations (and reanalysis processes more generally). No negativities emerged before the P600 (between 250 and 450 ms), although both error types yielded an anterior negativity in the P600 time window, an effect that has been argued to reflect the memory costs associated with keeping the errors in working memory to provide a sentence-final judgment. Crucially, person violations with a marked subject (e.g., yo...*llora*I...cry-3RD PERSON SG") yielded a larger P600 than the opposite error type between 700 and 900 ms. This effect is consistent with the possibility that, upon encountering a subject with marked features, feature activation allows the parser to generate a stronger prediction regarding the upcoming verb. The larger P600 for person violations with a marked subject might index the reanalysis process that the parser initiates when there is a conflict between a highly expected verbal form (i.e., more so than in the conditions with an unmarked subject) and the form that is actually encountered.

We used event-related potentials to investigate morphosyntactic development in 78 adult English-speaking learners of Spanish as a second language (L2) across the proficiency spectrum. We examined how development is modulated by the similarity between the native language (L1) and the L2, by comparing number (a feature present in English) and gender agreement (novel feature). We also investigated how development is impacted by structural distance, manipulating the distance between the agreeing elements by probing both within-phrase (fruta muy jugosafruit(-FEM-SG) very juicy(-FEM-SG)) and across-phrase agreement (fresa es acida strawberry(-FEM-SG) is tart(-FEM-SG)). Regression analyses revealed that the learners' overall proficiency, as measured by a standardized test, predicted their accuracy with the target properties in the grammaticality judgment task (GJT), but did not predict P600 magnitude to the violations. However, a relationship emerged between immersion in Spanish-speaking countries and P600 magnitude for gender. Our results also revealed a correlation between accuracy in the GJT and P600 magnitude, suggesting that behavioral sensitivity to the target property predicts neurophysiological sensitivity. Subsequent group analyses revealed that the highest-proficiency learners showed equally robust P600 effects for number and gender. This group also elicited more positive waveforms for within- than across-phrase agreement overall, similar to the native controls. The lowest-proficiency learners showed a P600 for number overall, but no effects for gender. Unlike the highest-proficiency learners, they also showed no sensitivity to structural distance, suggesting that sensitivity to such linguistic factors develops over time. Overall, these results suggest an important role for proficiency in morphosyntactic development, although differences emerged between behavioral and electrophysiological measures. While L2 proficiency predicted behavioral sensitivity to agreement, development with respect to the neurocognitive mechanisms recruited in processing only emerged when comparing the two extremes of the proficiency spectrum. Importantly, while both L1-L2 similarity and hierarchical structure impact development, they do not constrain it.