The investigators will undertake a critical reassessment of acceptability/truth-value judgment tasks in second language acquisition research, considering the impact of the problems historically associated with this methodology on the investigation of interpretive knowledge. The initial hypothesis will be that the truth-value judgment task is the most suitable one available for the investigation of most interpretive properties, but the investigators will also consider complementing this task with other task types. The results of the methodological investigation will provide the basis for developing stimuli for a series of experimental studies of second language acquisition, extending the domain of second language acquisition research to the syntax-semantics interface. The experimental studies will be designed to test the extent to which English-speaking classroom learners exhibit knowledge of a particular syntax-linked interpretive asymmetry of the target language that is neither directly instantiated in English nor explicitly taught in language proficiency courses. The target languages will include French, German, and Swahili.
