Cambridge University PressEditorial Office of BLC: 1 (804) 289-8125 F o r P e e r R e v i e w• L1 feature combinations influenced initial L2 mapping (Feature Reassembly H.);• L2 learners successfully reassembled features into L2 bundles (off-line task);• L1 representations might have a longer-lasting impact on language processing;• L2 learners' reactions to the mismatching input delayed compared to natives.

sentence with a pronoun "Bad" and replaced the pronoun by a DP/PP (less than 1%): (4.7) *Amanda rit de la. 'Amanda laughs at her' Participant corrected: Amanda rit de la tomate. 'Amanda laughs at the tomato' Category 6: "Bad"/No correction Category 7: "Bad"/Attempt to correct preposition-participants judged an (un)grammatical sentence "Bad" and attempted to correct the preposition (4%): (4.8) Julien compte sur Amandine. 'Julien counts on Amandine' Participant corrected: *Julien compte d'Amandine. 'Julien counts of Amandine' Category 8: "Bad"/Attempt to correct pronoun's position-participants judged an (un)grammatical sentence "Bad" and attempted to correct pronoun's position with respect to the verb (2%): (4.9) *Alexis regarde elle sans intérêt. 'Alexis looks her without interest' Participant corrected: *Alexis elle regarde sans interet. 'Alexis her looks without interest.' Category 9: "Bad"/Attempt to correct pronoun's form-participants judged an (un)grammatical sentence "Bad" and attempted to correct pronoun's form (1%): (4.10) *Valentin cherche elle partout. 'Valentin (is) looking (for) her everywhere' Participant corrected: *Valentin cherche lui partout. 'Valentin (is) looking (for) her everywhere.' Category 10: "Bad"/Attempt to correct pronoun's form and positionparticipants judged an (un)grammatical sentence "Bad" and attempted to correct pronoun's form and position (2%):

In this article, we address the issue of targeted instruction on interpretive contrasts between native and second-language grammatical meanings. Such mismatches are predicted to create challenges for learners. We illustrate this with French and English pronouns. In French, clitic pronouns ( le, la) point to human as well as inanimate referents, while English pronouns distinguish between human ( him, her) and inanimate ( it) referents. While other grammatical differences between English and French pronouns are taught, this interpretive mismatch attracts less attention in instructional materials. We review the pedagogical literature and report the results of a study investigating this knowledge in Anglophone learners of French as a second language (L2). We document that the mismatch is indeed challenging, particularly to beginning learners, and propose ways to overcome this difficulty.

The present study investigated the L2 acquisition of French clitic and strong object pronouns by adult Anglophone learners. While most previous research has focused on French object clitics and acquisition of their placement, the current study reports on two experiments comparing acquisition of clitics with acquisition of strong pronouns, investigating how L2 knowledge of pronominalization is connected to knowledge of argument structure. A grammaticality judgment task with corrections was used to examine learners’ interlanguage in each experiment. Emerging knowledge of clitics appears not to be delayed when compared to knowledge of strong pronouns complements of prepositions. Additionally, acquiring target-like associations between argument structure and pronominalization in L2 French proved as challenging (if not more) as acquiring clitics’ non-canonical sentential position.

This study examined the acquisition of a linguistic property that is underrepresented in the input available to second language (L2) learners, namely, interpretation of French strong pronouns as [–animate]. To understand how pronouns are used and interpreted and how this topic is treated in pedagogical grammars, three types of analyses were conducted: corpus analysis, review of pedagogical materials, and experimental study with native and L2 speakers of French. Corpus data suggested that French strong pronouns were not inherently specified as [+animate] and that native speakers used these forms to refer to inanimate objects, at least when strong pronouns were used as objects of prepositions. Additionally, experimental data revealed that advanced L2 speakers also accepted inanimate interpretations. Taken together, the findings suggested that targetlike interpretation of pronouns can be acquired despite the scarcity of input, negative transfer from learners’ first language, and lack of explicit instruction of the target property.