Is there a critical period for grammatical features? Foucart et al

Is there a critical period for grammatical features? Foucart et al

1. French has grammatical gender system

   • Natives systematically acquire grammatical knowledge of gender assignment + rules at young age - affects syntactic processing

2. English relies on semantic gender + agreement more limited to pronouns

   • So can English natives acquire grammatical gender when learning French in native-like manner?

3. NO

   • Schwartz + Sprouse - full transfer full access model
     • During initial stages of L2 acquisition, rep of grammatical features based on those in L1. Throughout life span, learners have access to underlying UG.
       • = new, even uninterpretable features can be native-like acquired any age

4. YES

   • Several observational studies concluded that after critical period, no longer able to acquire abstract grammatical features not in their L1
   • Failed Functional Features Hypothesis - Hawkins et al
     • new interpretable features can be acquired, new uninterpretable features can't. Patty example.

5. Compared French natives to English-French adult learners - proficiency high enough for learning French at uni

   • Age at start of instruction 10-18

6. ERP data recorded + eye movements by electrodes, and questionnaire

   • questionnaire - natives rejected more sentences with gender violations (95%) than L2 learners (40%)

7. L2 learners elicited P600 effect similar to native's but reduced amplitude

8. = highly proficient L2 learners can reach native-like processing levels even if learned L2 late in life