Prediction underlies many life’s situations including language. Monolinguals and advanced L2 learners use prosodic cues such as stress and tone in a word’s first syllable to predict the word’s suffix. To determine whether the same findings extend to words with non-morphological endings, we investigate whether Spanish monolinguals and advanced learners of Spanish with and without interpreting experience use stress (stressed, unstressed) and syllabic structure (CV, CVC) in a word’s initial syllable to predict its ending. This is crucial to understand whether associations underlying prediction are morphophonolexical associations or purely phonolexical. Interpreters were included due to their extensive experience predicting incoming speech. Participants completed an eye-tracking study where they listened to a sentence while seeing two words and selected the word they heard. Results revealed that monolinguals and interpreters predicted word endings under all conditions, but non-interpreters only predicted in the CVC oxytone condition. These findings are relevant for (1) prediction accounts, showing that phonolexical associations trigger prediction; (2) phonological models, revealing that stress and syllable information in the initial syllable are key for accessing and predicting meaning; and (3) L2 processing models, indicating that L2 learners with interpreting experience use suprasegmental information to access and predict lexical items similar to monolinguals.

Native speakers use suprasegmental information to predict words, but less is known about segmental information. Moreover, anticipatory studies with non-native speakers are scarce and mix proficiency with anticipatory experience. To address these limitations, we investigated whether Spanish monolinguals and advanced English learners of Spanish use suprasegmentals (stress: oxytone, paroxytone) and segmentals (syllabic structure: CVC, CV) to predict word suffixes, and whether increased anticipatory experience acquired via interpreting will facilitate anticipation in non-interpreting L2 situations. Eye-tracking data revealed that: (1) the three groups made use of the linguistic variables, and L2 groups did not anticipate in CV paroxytones; (2) everybody anticipated better with the less frequent conditions (oxytones, CVC) having fewer lexical competitors; (3) monolinguals anticipated earlier than L2 learners; and (4) interpreters anticipated at a faster rate in some conditions. These findings indicate that less frequent suprasegmental and segmental information and anticipatory experience facilitate native and non-native spoken word prediction.

Adult learners have persistent difficulty processing second language (L2)inflectional morphology. We investigate associative learning explanations thatinvolve the blocking of later experienced cues by earlier learned ones in thefirst language (L1; i.e., transfer) and the L2 (i.e., proficiency). Sagarra(2008) and Ellis and Sagarra (2010b) found that, unlike Spanishmonolinguals, intermediate English-Spanish learners rely more on salient adverbsthan on less salient verb inflections, but it is not clear whether thispreference is a result of a default or a L1-based strategy. To address thisquestion, 120 English (poor morphology) and Romanian (rich morphology) learnersof Spanish (rich morphology) and 98 English, Romanian, and Spanish monolingualsread sentences in L2 Spanish (or their L1 in the case of the monolinguals)containing adverb-verb and verb-adverb congruencies or incongruencies and choseone of four pictures after each sentence (i.e., two that competed for meaningand two for form). Eye-tracking data revealed significant effects for (a)sensitivity (all participants were sensitive to tense incongruencies), (b) cuelocation in the sentence (participants spent more time at their preferred cue,regardless of its position), (c) L1 experience (morphologically rich L1 learnersand monolinguals looked longer at verbs than morphologically poor L1 learnersand monolinguals), and (d) L2 experience (low-proficiency learners read moreslowly and regressed longer than high-proficiency learners). We conclude thatintermediate and advanced learners are sensitive to tense incongruenciesand—like native speakers—tend to rely more heavily onverbs if their L1 is morphologically rich. These findings reinforce theoriesthat support transfer effects such as the unified competition model and theassociative learning model but do not contradict Clahsen and Felser’s(2006a) shallow structure hypothesisbecause the target structure was morphological agreement rather than syntacticagreement.

Dual-route models of second language (L2) morphology (Clahsen & Felser, 2006; Ullman, 2004) argue that adult L2 learners rely on full-form retrieval, and therefore cannot use combination to produce inflected forms. We tested this prediction with learning of Spanish verb conjugations. Beginning (Experiment 1) and intermediate (Experiment 2) learners (total N = 816) completed 80–90 minutes of web-based training, conjugating regular and subregular verbs in present and preterite tense. Tests of generalization items showed that training led to substantial improvement, equally for metalinguistic and analogical feedback. Comparison with an untrained group showed that gains were maintained 18 weeks after training. In contrast with dual-route model predictions, pre-test accuracy and learning gains were strongly predicted by conjugation pattern, showing that full-form retrieval was insufficient to explain learner performance. Results indicate that adult L2 learners apply compositional analysis, and that conjugation patterns are learned on the basis of their relative cue validity.

This paper investigates the limited attainment of adult compared to child language acquisition in terms of learned attention to morphological cues. It replicates Ellis and Sagarra in demonstrating short-term learned attention in the acquisition of temporal reference in Latin, and it extends the investigation using eye-tracking indicators to determine the extent to which these biases are overt or covert. English native speakers learned adverbial and morphological cues to temporal reference in a small set of Latin phrases under experimental conditions. Comprehension and production data demonstrated that early experience with adverbial cues enhanced subsequent use of this cue dimension and blocked the acquisition of verbal tense morphology. Effects of early experience of verbal morphology were less pronounced. Eye-tracking measures showed that early experience of particular cue dimensions affected what participants overtly focused upon during subsequent language processing and how this overt study resulted in turn in covert attentional biases in comprehension and in productive knowledge.

This study investigates associative learning explanations of the limited attainment of adult compared to child language acquisition in terms of learned attention to cues. It replicates and extends Ellis and Sagarra (2010) in demonstrating short- and long-term learned attention in the acquisition of temporal reference in Latin. In Experiment 1, salient adverbs were better learned than less salient verb inflections, early experience of adverbial cues blocked the acquisition of verbal morphology, and, contrariwise—but to a lesser degree—early experience of tense reduced later learning of adverbs. Experiment 2 demonstrated long-term transfer: Native speakers of Chinese (no tense morphology) were less able than native speakers of Spanish or Russian (rich morphology) to acquire inflectional cues from the same language experience where adverbial and verbal cues were equally available. Learned attention to tense morphology in Latin was continuous rather than discrete, ordered with regard to first language: Chinese < English < Russian < Spanish. A meta-analysis of the combined results of Ellis and Sagarra and the current study separates out positive and negative learned attention effects: The average effect size for entrenchment was large (+1.23), whereas that for blocking was moderate (–0.52).

The current study investigates the limited attainment of adult language acquisition in terms of an associative learning phenomenon whereby earlier learned cues attentionally block those that are experienced later. Short- and long-term blocking are demonstrated in experimental investigations of learned attention in the acquisition of temporal reference in a small set of Latin phrases. In Experiment 1, previous experience with adverbial cues blocks the acquisition of verbal tense morphology, and, in contrast, early experience with tense blocks later learning of adverbs. Experiment 2 demonstrates long-term transfer effects: Native speakers of Chinese languages, which do not exhibit verb tense morphology, fail to acquire inflectional cues when adverbial and verbal cues are equally available.

This study investigates the impact of an online workbook on the attitudes of 245 second language (L2) Spanish learners toward this pedagogical tool over two consecutive semesters. The treatment consisted of four hours of classroom instruction and one set of online homework per week, during two consecutive semesters. Students' attitudes toward the electronic workbook were measured by means of a survey administered after eight months of exposure to the workbook. The qualitative data of the survey was compared to quantitative data from two different language assessment tests. The results of these tests indicated a significant increase in grammar scores. These results are consonant with the positive findings of student perceptions about the online workbook obtained in this and previous studies, emphasizing its benefits in terms of accessibility to the material, user-friendliness, and instant error feedback. More importantly, most students praised the usefulness of the online workbook for language learning, particularly in the areas of grammar and vocabulary acquisition. Despite participants' mostly positive attitudes, the survey also revealed some negative aspects of the use of the online workbook, such as the amount of time needed to complete the online exercises. This paper addresses these issues, and provides suggestions to overcome this type of problem.

An eye tracking experiment examined how exposure to a second language (L2) influences sentence parsing in the first language. Forty-four monolingual Spanish speakers, 24 proficient Spanish–English bilinguals with limited immersion experience in the L2 environment and 20 proficient Spanish–English bilinguals with extensive L2 immersion experience read temporarily ambiguous constructions. The ambiguity concerned whether a relative clause (RC) that appeared after a complex noun phrase (NP) was interpreted as modifying the first or the second noun in the complex NP (El policía arrestó a la hermana del criado que estaba enferma desde hacía tiempo). The results showed that whereas the Spanish monolingual speakers and the Spanish–English bilinguals with limited exposure reliably attached the relative clause to the first noun, the Spanish–English bilingual with extensive exposure attached the relative to the second noun. Results are discussed in terms of models of sentence parsing most consistent with the findings.