Feature assembly in early stages of L2 acquisition

Based on the feature assembly hypothesis (e.g. Lardiere, 2009), and assuming a universal parser, early stages of second language (L2) acquisition are investigated in this paper. Using a methodology that combines reading time and acceptability judgment data, it is argued that L2 learners’ processing relies on a universal parser that allows the selection of uninterpretable features (even those that are not selected in the learners’ first language, such as uGender) based on a universal store. The data also suggest that these features are (re-)assembled, as shown by the asymmetries in the reading time data, which are taken to reflect different computational costs associated with different computations (i.e. feature checking and feature underspecification).