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The present article provides an exploration of ultimate attainment in second language (L2) and its limitations. It is argued that the question of maturational constraints can best be investigated when the reference population is bilingual and exposed on a regular basis to varieties of their first language (L1) that show cross-linguistic influence. To this end, 20 advanced Dutch-English bilinguals are compared to 9 English native speakers immersed in a Dutch environment. All participants are teachers or students of English at a Dutch institution of higher education. The populations are shown to be at similar global proficiency levels. Two phonetic variables (voice onset time or VOT and vowel discrimination) and one grammatical variable (verb phrase ellipsis), which are assumed to present particular challenges to Dutch learners of English, are explored, and speakers are furthermore rated for their global nativeness. The findings show no differences between populations on VOT but some variance on the production of a vowel that has no correlate in Dutch (the English trap vowel). However, all but one of the L2ers are rated outside the range of the natives on perceived foreign accent. There are also differences between groups where acceptance of different sentence types with verb phrase ellipsis are concerned. We interpret these findings to indicate that there are areas of L2 knowledge and production that are persistently difficult to acquire even under circumstances that are highly favourable for L2 acquisition.

This paper investigates intonational pitch variations and pitch peak alignment in declarative sentences and is part of a larger study of declarative, interrogative and imperative grammatical constructions in the Frisian-Dutch contact situation. Frisian is a minority language spoken in the province of Fryslân in the Netherlands. Following Jun [19], we devised a reading task in which phrasal intonation could be analysed while cancelling out focus effects. The reading task contains nine sentences per language, each with three trisyllabic words (SVO): three with focus on the first word, three on the second, and three on the last. For each set of three sentences, lexical stress is equally divided across the syllables of the focused word. A subset of 20 of the study's 40 bilingual Frisian-Dutch native speakers performed the task in Frisian and Dutch. Pitch measurements were conducted according to the Melodic Analysis of Speech method and adapted MAS+ method, allowing for fine-grained phonetic analysis. Results suggest both Frisian and the local Dutch variety show delays in pitch peak alignment when compared to previous research, with Frisian showing a stronger delay in focus realisation. Additionally, an age effect in Frisian pitch production suggests a possible change in the language.

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