LANGUAGE PROCESSING AND SECOND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT PROCESSABILITY THEORY -- Editorial page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Table of contents -- Acknowledgements -- Preface: A brief overview -- Chapter 1. Explanatory issues in SLA -- 1.1 Introduction: The thematic focus -- 1.2 An outline of the proposed theory -- The wider context -- The core of Processability Theory -- The scope of Processability Theory - 'hypothesis space' -- Dynamic systems -- Form-function relationships -- Interlanguage variation and the steadiness hypothesis -- Age differences -- Teachability -- Processability and strategies -- 1.3 Three competing approaches -- Parametrisation -- The 'minimalist program' and other generative approaches -- Functionalism -- Constructivism: Genetic epistemology -- A modular approach towards a theory of SLA -- Some distant relatives -- The cognitive connection -- The position assumed in this book -- Chapter 2. Language processing and language acquisition -- 2.1 Introduction: The wider context -- 2.2 Explaining SLA through processing strategies -- Clahsen's strategies -- Explanatory scope -- Application to teachability -- 2.3 Limitations of the strategies approach -- The role of grammar -- Restriction to movement -- Comprehension and Production -- Extendibility -- Positive points -- 2.4 Grammatical encoding -- Levelt's model -- Psychological constraints -- Grammaticalinformation storage -- The lexicon -- Syntactic procedures -- 2.5 Processing procedures for the acquisition of L2 grammar -- Language-specific processing procedures -- Exchange of grammatical information -- A hierarchy of processing procedures -- Summary and evaluation -- Chapter 3. Processing procedures and the development of grammar -- 3.1 Reasons for implementing processability into a theory of grammar -- Interfaces between explanatory modules.

Psychological and typological plausibility -- 3.2 A sketch of Lexical-Functional Grammar -- Constituent structures -- Lexical entries -- Functional structures -- Well-formedness conditions -- Unification -- 3.3 Word order revisited -- Basic word order patterns -- 'Split verbs' -- Verb-second -- Verb-final -- Word order and processing procedures -- 3.4 Lexical, phrasal and inter-phrasal morphemes -- Phrasal morphemes -- Inter-phrasal morphemes -- Summing up sections 3.3 and 3.4 -- Chapter 4. Empirical and theoretical issues in processability theory -- 4.1 A test case: German morphology -- Word order -- Morphology -- Summary and reflection -- 4.2 Dynamic systems and acquisition criteria -- Overview -- The theory-data interface -- The problem -- Implicational analysis -- Rank order of accuracy -- Distributional analysis -- Variable rules, interlanguage variation and the Multi-dimensional Model -- The emergence criterion and morphology -- Applying the emergence criterion -- Operationalisation of the emergence criterion -- 4.3 Form-function relationships and processability -- Processability and morphology -- Form-function relationships -- Testing the processability hierarchy -- Factorising diacritic features -- A post script on the perceived target-language orientation of Processability Theory -- Chapter 5. Cross-linguistic validity and on-line evidence -- 5.1 Typological plausibility -- 5.2 English as L2 -- The structures -- A processability hierarchy for English -- Word order -- Testing the predictions: Johnston (1985 -- Child ESL -- 5.3 Swedish as L2 -- Swedish morphology -- The noun phrase -- Lexical morphemes -- Phrasal morphology -- Inter-phrasal morphology -- Verbal morphology -- Syntax -- Word order -- Placement of negation -- Testing the predictions -- Acquisition of morphology -- Acquisition of the noun phrase -- Acquisition of verbal morphology.

Acquisition of syntax -- Acquisition of negation placement -- Summary and conclusion -- 5.4 Application to Japanese -- Japanese as a second language -- Japanese verbal morphology and word order -- A Japanese processability hierarchy -- Huter's and Kawaguchi's studies -- 5.5 Evidence from on-line experiments: the procedural skill hypothesis -- The objective of this section -- On-line experiments in SLA research -- Reflection: the focus on processing -- Experimental design -- Results -- Chapter 6. Hypothesis space -- 6.1 Introduction -- 6.2 Interlanguage variation and the developmental problem -- The structure of variational features -- Tarone and Ellis -- An a priori definition of variational features -- A brief postscript on variation and communication strategies -- Developmental gaps or "trailers" as variational features -- 6.3 Teachability is constrained by processability -- Theoretical significance: more about "developmental trailers" -- The teachability hypothesis - a brief overview -- Replication studies and further evidence -- Teachability and markedness -- 6.4 Effects of formal intervention on IL variation -- The copula - a critical self-review -- The use of ADV -- The omission of subject-NPs -- 6.5 Task variation: The steadiness hypothesis -- Overview -- Background -- The study -- Testing the steadiness hypothesis -- Variation as an adjustment to expressive needs -- Summary -- 6.6 Developmental dynamics and generative entrenchment -- Introduction -- Fundamental differences between L1 and L2 acquisition -- Processing similarities -- Generative entrenchment -- Generative entrenchment as a constraint on language development -- Ultimate attainment and fossilisation -- The 'good choices' of L1 learners -- Chapter 7. Epilogue -- Genetically specified linguistic knowledge -- Transfer -- Induction of form, function and procedures -- Notes.

References -- Author index -- Subject index -- The series Studies in Bilingualism.