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This article presents the results from a cross-sectional study that tests predictions of processability theory (PT) regarding the acquisition of German word order. Spontaneous production data were elicited from 21 tutored second language learners of German who are native speakers of English. Each learner engaged in a 45-min informal conversation with a native speaker of German. The conversations were transcribed, analyzed, and implicationally scaled with respect to stages in the acquisition of German word order as predicted by PT. Applying the emergence criterion for acquisition set by PT, the implicational scale strongly confirmed the predictions with a 100% fit. The study focused on four subhypotheses drawn from PT. Two (the order and cumulative nature of predicted stages) were strongly supported. Support for the third hypothesis on the sequential nature of the stages was less clear. The final hypothesis on universality was assessed through a comparison with previous studies on different learner groups and appeared to be supported with one exception. Because PT focuses on procedural knowledge, the study's empirical findings were also viewed in the light of the theory of modulated structure building (MSB), which seeks to explain the acquisition of representational knowledge. . I gratefully acknowledge the contribution and open-hearted spirit which participating students and the native speakers brought to the project. For the students it was quite a task to engage in a sustained spontaneous conversation with an unfamiliar native speaker. Without their generous participation the study would not have been possible. I am indebted to Bronwen Dyson, Evelyn Hatch, Malcolm Paull, Yanyin Zhang, as well as four anonymous reviewers and two editors of Language Learning for their encouragement and insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper, and for their help with English style. I also wish to thank Helen Charters for her generous help with the intricacies of labeling rule descriptions. Any remaining errors and problems are entirely mine.

This article identifies empirical evidence (Dao, 2007; in preparation) conflicting with Processability Theory's (PT) prediction that in acquisition of English as a second language (ESL), plural-marking emerges first in bare nouns and only later in numeric expressions. Specifically, it presents results from Dao's (2007) cross-sectional study of ESL in 36 Vietnamese learners, which was designed to test PT's predictions that inflections emerge in lexical contexts before agreement in phrasal contexts, but found that emergence occurred in the reverse order. The article explores whether Dao's findings invalidate PT's crosslinguistic principles or whether there is a problem in applying these to language-specific empirical contexts. The exploration reveals weaknesses in the description of PT's principles, as these are based on implicit assumptions, which may be invalid in specific first language / second language (L1/L2) typological contexts and thus lead to incorrect predictions. The findings are explained by reference to L1 transfer represented in the framework of one of PT's feeder theories: Levelt's (1989) Theory of Speaking as modelled in Weaver++ (Levelt et al., 1999). Our L1 transfer account is in line with PT's Developmentally Moderated Transfer Hypothesis. Keywordsacquisition of ESL nominal plural, English second language acquisition, acquisition of plurality, acquisition of number, cognitive linguistics

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Clahsen's (1988) and Clahsen and Muysken's (1989) claim that subject–verb agreement and verb-second are unrelated in the acquisition of German second language acquisition (SLA) has met a number of counterpositions; for example: Pienemann and Johnston (1987) and Pienemann (1988; 1998), Jordens (1988), Eubank (1992; 1994) and Vainikka and Young-Scholten (1994; 1996). The conflicting claims source essentially the same data. The presentation and analysis of these data is scrutinized and a number of inconsistencies and methodological questions are identified. The paper argues that, when it comes to underpinning theoretical claims, more rigour in data description should be exercised.