A role for verb regularity in the L2 processing of the Spanish subjunctive mood: Evidence from eye-tracking

Abstract The present study investigated the second language processing of grammatical mood in Spanish. Eye-movement data from a group advanced proficiency users revealed nativelike with irregular verb stimuli but not regular stimuli. A comparison native speakers showed expected effect both types stimuli, these were slightly more robust verbs than verbs. We propose that role form regularity was due to greater visual salience Spanish subjunctive forms versus and possibly also less efficient rule-based inflectional morphology whole word forms. In any case, results suggest what appeared be difficulty sentence could traced back word-level processes, which primary area difficulty. This outcome seems go against theories L2 is shallow.