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Spanish Language Acquisition: Gender-Marking Parameter, Marissa T.Y.O Kanemura

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This study further examines past studies that have examined the gender marking value of a parameter of variation allowed by UG in L1 and L2 speakers of French and Spanish. Child L1 French speakers were found to make few errors in assigning gender to both actual nouns and nonsense nouns. An L2 Spanish learner was found to default one gender for the definite article and another gender for the indefinite article. Adult L2 French speakers were found to display similar defaulting, to a lesser degree, perhaps attributed to experience with exceptions to patterns.

To enhance these results, I conducted a …