Interactions between lexical and syntactic L1-L2 overlap: Effects of gender congruency on L2 sentence processing in L1 Spanish-L2 German speakers

Abstract Bringing together lines of research from sentence processing and lexical access, this empirical study investigates the interplay between (grammatical gender) syntactic (word order) cross-linguistic overlap in L2 German. Eighty-six L1 Spanish-L2 German thirty-six monolingual adults completed a self-paced reading task with noun phrases (NPs) manipulated by L1-L2 gender congruency (congruent, incongruent, neuter) adjective-noun word order (pre- vs. postnominal adjectives). The examines effects congruency, type mapping (i.e., presence absence each class L2), proficiency level. Results show that detection ungrammatical interacts speakers are only sensitive to violations for sentences gender-congruent nouns. ungrammaticality containing gender-incongruent nouns emerges at higher levels. These findings underscore role processing.