From number agreement to the subjunctive: Evidence for Processability Theory in L2 Spanish
Abstract
This article contributes to typological plausibility of Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998, 2005) by providing empirical data that show that the stages predicted by PT are followed in the second language (L2) acquisition of Spanish syntax and morphology. In the present article, the PT stages for L2 Spanish morphology and syntax are first hypothesized after a brief description of PT theory. The results of a corpus of conversational data by L2 Spanish learners ( n = 21) are then presented. Implicational scaling confirmed the five stages for the syntax and morphology with 100% scalability. Evidence was also found for the existence of discrete stages 1,2, 3 and 5 for the syntax as well as stages 1–4 for the morphology. Syntax was also found to emerge before morphology for all learners.
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Developmental sequences have been documented in a variety of typologically different L2s.
“They have been documented in a variety of typologically different L2s (e.g., Bettoni & Di Biase, 2015;Bonilla, 2015;Johnston, 1997;Pienemann, 2005)”
From In Defense of Tasks and TBLT: Nonissues and Real Issues (2016) · cites this paper as Bonilla, 2015
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In Defense of Tasks and TBLT: Nonissues and Real Issues
Long, M. H. (2016) · Annual Review of Applied Linguistics · doi:10.1017/s0267190515000057 · Cited by 359 · see citing works
L2 language development in oral and written modalities
Son, M. (2024) · Studies in Second Language Acquisition · doi:10.1017/s0272263124000329 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
- Authors
- Bonilla, C. L.
- Affiliations
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- Corresponding author
- Bonilla, Carrie L
- ORCID
- Bonilla, Carrie L
- Venue
- Second Language Research
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2014-07-14
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 53-74
- ISSN
- 0165-9960 (ISSN-L)
- 0267-6583
- 1477-0326
- OpenAlex
- W2116963747
- Cited by
- 51
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 6
- FWCI
- 63.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Second language Research (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Southampton
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Second Language Acquisition and Learning
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Keywords
- processability theory, Spanish syntax, Spanish morphology, number agreement, subjunctive mood
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