We document weak garden paths after intransitive verbs, modulated by intransitivity type, in the treatment of DP1 Vintransitive DP2 V2 sequences as in As the journalist arrived the editor postponed the meeting in first language (L1) and second language (L2) sentence processing. In a noncumulative moving-window experiment, 25 English native speakers and 22 low-intermediate Korean learners of English with no naturalistic exposure read critical items in which a subordinate clause was either headed by an intransitive verb (unaccusative vs. unergative) or by a copular predicate. A linear mixed model revealed greater processing loads evidenced in longer reading times on V2 after intransitive verbs than after copular predicates. This finding echoes post hoc observations in Juffs (2004). These asymmetries were driven by significantly greater loads after unaccusative verbs than after copular predicates and unergative verbs. These asymmetries, found in both L1 and L2, are unexpected on the basis of valence information only, as one-place predicates should rule out a second argument. However, we argue that they receive an explanation if parsing involves the interaction of lexically encoded intransitivity information with a transitivity prediction.

There has been considerable progress in second language (L2) research at the syntax-semantics interface addressing how syntax can inform phrasal semantics, in terms of interpretive correlates of word order (Slabakova, 2008). This article provides evidence of a flow of information ostensibly in the opposite direction, from meaning to grammar, at the interface between lexical semantics and syntax. It is argued that there is a functional hierarchy of modifiers in the domain of adpositions, which enables the linguistic elaboration of trajectories, but that not all languages lexicalize all types. This study examines whether L2 learners of English are able to overcome the poverty of the stimulus and recruit the relevant functional categories despite their absence in the first language (L1). Modifiers were taught to learners individually, but never in combination. A computer-animated narrative was designed in order to create felicitous contexts for combinations of modifiers, and preference and grammaticality judgment tasks were administered to 121 students from various L1 backgrounds, as well as 20 native speakers. Accuracy scores were remarkably targetlike on binary combinations of modifiers (1) across proficiency levels, (2) across L1s, and (3) across the two tasks, revealing that with the semantics of modifiers in place, the syntactic hierarchy is naturally manifested.