This book provides a broad view of second language acquisition, from initial to final stages. It does so within a comparative perspective that addresses results concerning adult and child learners across a variety of languages, in order to assess the relative weight of cognitive and typological determinants during language learning.

This volume aims to provide a broad view of second language acquisition within a comparative perspective that addresses results concerning adult and child learners across a variety of source and target languages. It brings together contributions at the forefront of language acquisition research that consider a wide range of open questions: What are the precise mechanisms underlying acquisition? How can we characterize learners’ initial state and predict their degree of final achievement? What role do specific (typological) properties of source and target languages play? How does fossilization occur? How does the relative complexity of cognitive systems in adult and child learners affect acquisition? Does language learning influence cognitive organization? Can language learning shed light on our general understanding of human language and language processing?

Introduction-Marzena Watorek, Sandra Benazzo & Maya Hickmann: New Comparative Perspectives in the Study of Language Acquisition – Clive Perdue’s Legacy

Part I. Second Language Acquisition: From Initial to Final Stages

1. Wolfgang Klein: From the Learner’s Point of View

2. Rebekah Rast: L2 Input and the L2 Initial State: The Writings of Clive Perdue

3. Angelika Becker: Finiteness and the Acquisition of Negation

4. Sara Schimke, Joshe Verhagen & Giusy Turco: The Different Role of Additive and Negative Particles in the Development of Finiteness in Early Adult L2 German and L2 Dutch

5. Giuliano Bernini: Lexical Categories in the Target Language and the Lexical Categorisation of Learners: The Word Class of Adverbs

6. Jili Sun: Is it Necessary for Chinese Learners to Mark Time? Reflexions about the Use of Temporal Adverbs with Respect to Verbal Morphology Relations

7. Pascale Trévisiol: The Development of Reference to Time and Space in L3 French: Evidence from Narratives

8. Alexandra Vraciu: Accounting for Verbal Morphology in Advanced Varieties of English L2: Aspect or Discourse?

9. Inge Bartning: High-level Proficiency in Second Language Use: The Case of French

10. David Singleton: Ultimate Attainment and the CPH: Some Thorny Issues

11. Sandra Benazzo: Learner Varieties and Creating Language Anew: How Acquisitional Studies can Contribute to Language Evolution Research

12. Ivani Fusellier: Multiple Perspectives on the Emergence and Development of Human Language: B. Comrie, C. Perdue and D. Slobin

Part II. L1 and L2 Acquisition: Learner Type Perspective

13. Dan Slobin: Child Language Study and Adult Language Acquisition: Twenty Years Later

14. Natasha Müller & Nadine Eichler: Mixing of Functional Categories in Bilingual Children and in Second Language Learners.

15. Suzanne Schlyter & Anita Thomas: L1 or L2 Acquisition? Finiteness in Child Second Language Learners (chL2), Compared to Adult L2 Learners (adL2) and Young Bilingual Children (2L1)

16. Rosmary Tracy & Vytautas Lemke: Young L2 and L1 Learners: More Alike than Different

17. Christine Dimroth & Stefanie Haberzettl: The Older the Better, or More is More: Language Acquisition in Childhood

18. Sandra Benazzo, Clive Perdue, Marzena Watorek: Additive Scope Particles and Anaphoric Linkage in Narrative and Descriptive Texts: A Developmental Study in French L1 & L2

19. Patrizia Giuliano: Discourse Cohesion in Narrative Texts: The Role of Additive Particles in Italian L1 and L2

20. Henrëtte Hendriks & Marzena Watorek: The Role of Conceptual Development in the Acquisition of the Spatial Domain by L1 and L2 Learners of French, English and Polish

21. Ewa Lenart: The Grammaticalisation of Nominals in French L1 and L2: A Comparative Study of Child and Adult Acquisition

Part III. Typological Variation and Language Acquisition

22. Anna Giacalone-Ramat: Typology Meets Second Language Acquisition

23. Rainer Dietrich, Chung Shan Kao & Werner Sommer: Linguistic Relativity…Another Turn to the Screw

24. Annie-Claude Demagny: Path in L2 Acquisition: The Expression of Temporality in Spatially Oriented Narratives

25. Carmen Muñoz: A Cross-linguistic Study of Narratives with Special Attention to the Progressive: A Contrast between English, Spanish and Catalan

26. Tatiana Aleksandrova: Reference to Entities in Fictional Narratives of Russian/French Quasi-Bilinguals

27. Cecilia Andorno: The Cohesive Function of Word Order in L1 and L2 Italian: How V-S Structures Mark Local and Global Coherence in the Discourse of Native Speakers and of Learners

28. Christiane Von Stutterheim, Ute Halm & Mary Carroll: Macrostructural Principles and the Development of Narrative Competence in L1 German: The Role of Grammar in 8-14 Year Olds

29. Michèle Kail: On-line Sentence Processing in Children and Adults: General and Specific Constraints: A Crosslinguistic Study in Four Languages

Closure-Sir John Lyons: A Personal Tribute