We document weak garden paths after intransitive verbs, modulated by intransitivity type, in the treatment of DP1 Vintransitive DP2 V2 sequences as in As the journalist arrived the editor postponed the meeting in first language (L1) and second language (L2) sentence processing. In a noncumulative moving-window experiment, 25 English native speakers and 22 low-intermediate Korean learners of English with no naturalistic exposure read critical items in which a subordinate clause was either headed by an intransitive verb (unaccusative vs. unergative) or by a copular predicate. A linear mixed model revealed greater processing loads evidenced in longer reading times on V2 after intransitive verbs than after copular predicates. This finding echoes post hoc observations in Juffs (2004). These asymmetries were driven by significantly greater loads after unaccusative verbs than after copular predicates and unergative verbs. These asymmetries, found in both L1 and L2, are unexpected on the basis of valence information only, as one-place predicates should rule out a second argument. However, we argue that they receive an explanation if parsing involves the interaction of lexically encoded intransitivity information with a transitivity prediction.

This article presents evidence that supports the claim that second language (L2) grammars arise in a domain-specific, informationally encapsulated module with contents provided by Universal Grammar and enriched by native language knowledge, as entertained by Schwartz (1986, 1987, 1999) contra Bley-Vroman (1990). I consider state-of-the-art evidence representative of a body of research on the poverty of the stimulus (POS) that argues for the domain-specificity of L2 representations, with a main focus on interpretation. Then I examine interpretive evidence relevant to the role of informational encapsulation and compositionality in SLA. I seek to demonstrate that the acquisition of syntax-linked interpretive properties where the POS is severe provides opportunities for a type of fingerprinting of mental organization that can inform a variety of epistemologically relevant questions.

This study investigates the manner in which syntax, prosody, and context interact when second- and fourth-semester college-level English-French learners process relative clause (RC) attachment to either the first noun phrase (NP1) or the second noun phrase (NP2) in complex nominal expressions such as le secrétaire du psychologue qui se promène (au centre ville) “the secretary of the psychologist who takes a walk (downtown).” Learners' interpretations were affected by the length of the RC, specifically its phonological weight. Effects of intonation contour were found only in a subset of learners. In a response time (RT) experiment that manipulated contexts, fourth-semester learners showed a final bias for NP1 attachment in interpretation but an initial RT bias for NP2 attachment. Second-semester learners also produced a NP2 attachment bias in RTs, but no asymmetry in interpretation was found. We argue that the processing of RC attachment by English-French learners requires a task-specific algorithm that implicates autonomous syntactic and prosodic computations and specific interactions among them.