Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part ISituating the Discipline
- Part IIInternal Factors
- Part IIIExternal and Social Factors
- Part IVProfiles of Bilinguals
- Part VProperties of Interlanguage Systems
- 21Phonology and Phonetics
- 22The Lexicon
- 23Morphosyntax
- 24Semantics and the Conceptual Component in L2 Acquisition
- 25Linguistic Pragmatics
- Part VIModels of Development
- Index
23 - Morphosyntax
from Part V - Properties of Interlanguage Systems
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 May 2026
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part ISituating the Discipline
- Part IIInternal Factors
- Part IIIExternal and Social Factors
- Part IVProfiles of Bilinguals
- Part VProperties of Interlanguage Systems
- 21Phonology and Phonetics
- 22The Lexicon
- 23Morphosyntax
- 24Semantics and the Conceptual Component in L2 Acquisition
- 25Linguistic Pragmatics
- Part VIModels of Development
- Index
Summary
This chapter provides an overview of major theoretical approaches to morphosyntax in second language acquisition. The chapter starts with an overview of major data collection measures that are used to study morphosyntactic phenomena, including production data, judgment data, and online tasks, self-paced reading in particular. The applications and limitations of the different data collection measures are addressed. The chapter subsequently considers the debate between representational deficit approaches vs. missing surface inflection approaches to difficulties with inflectional morphology in the second language, examining these approaches in the domain of verbal inflection. The chapter then moves on to approaches that consider feature reassembly and morphological (in)congruency and discusses studies in these two frameworks in the domain of number marking on nominals. The chapter concludes with a summary and suggestions for future research.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition , pp. 560 - 579Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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