Cross-Linguistic Aspects of Processability Theory; Editorial page; Title page; LCC data; Table of contents; Abbreviations; Preface; An introduction to Processability Theory; Discussing PT; Processability, typological distance and L1 transfer; Agreement morphology in Arabic as a second language; Processing and formal instruction in the L2 acquisition of five Chinese grammatical morphemes; Similarities and differences in L1 and L2 development; Extending Processability Theory; Argument structure and syntactic development in Japanese as a second language; Subject index
Summary
Seven years ago Manfred Pienemann proposed a novel psycholinguistic theory of language development, Processability Theory (PT). This volume examines the typological plausibility of PT. Focusing on the acquisition of Arabic, Chinese and Japanese the authors demonstrate the capacity of PT to make detailed and verifiable predictions about the developmental schedule for each language. This cross-linguistic perspective is also applied to the study of L1 transfer by comparing the impact of processability and typological proximity. The typological perspective is extended by including a comparison of
