This volume is a collection of 15 papers selected from the 30th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, organized by the University of Florida. In the introductory chapter, Camps and Wiltshire summarize the main ideas of the 14 contributions that follow, along five main subtopics: (a) movement, which includes chapters by Boeckx, Stateva, and Stepanov and Boeckx on wh-movement in French as well as a chapter on Determiner Phrase (DP) movement analysis of obligatory control structures in Portuguese by Pires; (b) the DP and SLA, a section that discusses work by Gess and Herschensohn on the DP parameter in French, adjective placement and semantic interpretation in French by Anderson, and a study on the discourse constraints on the use of null and overt subjects in Spanish L2 acquisition within an Optimality Theoretic account by La Fond, Hayes, and Bhatt; (c) word order and other syntactic factors in SLA are addressed in chapters by Clements and by Sagarra; (d) adverbials are the topic of a chapter by Abeillé and Godard; and (e) the syntax-semantics interface is examined in several contributions, including chapters on the aspectual verb ficar in Portuguese by Schmitt, on the Spanish subjunctive by Villalta, on unaccusative verbs in French by Cummins, and on impersonal reflexives in Romance and Slavic by Rivero.

Of the entire volume, five papers focus on SLA in Romance languages. It is these contributions that will be at the center of the following review. Gess and Herschenson present an empirical study on the acquisition of the DP in French by English-speaking L2 learners of four different proficiency levels. On the basis of written production data, the authors conclude that the developmental facts support the predictions of the Full Functional Hypothesis, which claims that functional structure is available from the very beginning. This hypothesis is opposed to the Structure Building Hypothesis, according to which functional structure emerges incrementally.

Anderson looks at other elements of the French DP system—namely, word order and adjective interpretation by English-speaking learners of French. The focus is on the interpretation of postnominal adjectives, prenominal adjectives, and those adjectives that change meaning depending on their position within the DP. To arrive at the correct interpretation of adjectives, Anderson seeks evidence of a noun-movement analysis typical of French. Results of a truth value judgment task showed that L2 learners of French distinguished between the interpretations of adjectives in different positions, although not all learners appeared to have applied noun movement past adjectives at that stage.

Lafond, Hayes, and Bhatt present an experiment that tested syntactic and discourse properties of the null-overt subject pronoun distribution in Spanish. The researchers manipulated the discourse context and asked 98 second language (L2) learners of Spanish of different proficiency levels to complete 40 short dialogues that included sentences with null or overt pronouns. Results indicated a clear developmental pattern in the acquisition of the pragmatic conditions of subject expression. The authors offer an Optimality Theoretic account of their results.

The study by Clements reports on language change in the Portuguese-based creole language Korlai, which is in contact with Marathi. Data from oral narratives of 16 children who speak the two languages revealed that there was evidence for a four-stage shift in verb-object and verb-adjunct word order. Clements argues that these grammars contain elements with indeterminate status, which constitute a blend of the two systems.

Finally, the chapter by Sagarra presents an empirical study on the role of syntactic simplification in oral input to L2 learners in a classroom setting. More than 300 second-semester students at a large university were asked to listen to a passage and recall information. The variables manipulated were subordination, word order, and sentence length. Results showed that simplifying subordination did not make a difference in the number of idea units that students recalled. However, use of shorter sentences influenced learners' recall.

Because of their content and approach, these five chapters are the most relevant for SLA. However, due to the richness of data and analyses offered by all the other contributions in syntax and semantics of Romance languages, the entire volume is invaluable for researchers interested in formal approaches to SLA. Those chapters with a strong theoretical bent are particularly relevant for researchers investigating the role of Universal Grammar in SLA of Romance languages. Language teachers and material developers will most likely find the contribution by Sagarra highly informative.