A psycholinguistic investigation of grammatical class in second language lexical processing

This dissertation examines a previously under-researched factor in second language (L2) lexical processing, namely, grammatical class. Although a wealth of research using monolingual and brain-damaged participants suggests that this variable is active in lexical processing, little research has examined this factor with L2 learners. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate the relative contributions of grammatical class and semantic factors in L2 lexical processing and the nature of the relationship between these two variables throughout development. Accordingly, a series of psycholinguistic experiments were conducted with native speakers of English at different stages of L2 proficiency in Spanish. The specific goal was to put grammatical class and semantic similarity in direct competition to clarify the relationship between these two variables during comprehension and production. In addition to the two comprehension and one production experimental tasks, the participants performed various proficiency measures, in order to thoroughly examine developmental differences in various domains. The results suggest that L2 learners do utilize grammatical class in L2 lexical processing and that this variable can interact with semantic similarity to affect performance. Implications for models of bilingual lexical processing are presented with respect to the inclusion of grammatical class and developmental differences.