Missing the Trees for the Forest: Morphology in Second Language Acquisition

Abstract

By nearly all accounts, the mastery of morphology in a second language (L2) is difficult, especially for adult learners. This paper provides an overview of recent research investigating the kinds of challenges L2 learners face in acquiring and spelling out morphosyntactic features, including the extent to which L2 morphology can be successfully acquired, the extent to which morphological errors accurately reflect underlying knowledge of those features (and how we might assess this), and the role of L1 influence in ultimate attainment of the L2.