This special issue presents results from comparative research into the principles constraining learner varieties (interlanguages) in use. The contributors analyze the oral production of complex verbal tasks (descriptions, instructions, narratives, retellings) in L2 Dutch, English, French, German, and Italian, concentrating on the way information from different semantic domains is organized across utterances (referential movement) and on a major aspect of the interaction between utterance-level and discourse-level constraints, namely, scope phenomena. We hope the results presented here will provide insights into the structural and communicative factors pushing, or hampering, L2 acquisition and will further our understanding of how the organizing principles interact at different levels of discourse production, be it in L1 or L2.

Based on their longitudinal analysis of the acquisition of Dutch, English, French, and German, Klein and Perdue (1997) described a “basic learner variety” as valid cross-linguistically and comprising a limited number of shared syntactic patterns interacting with two types of constraints: (a) semantic—the NP whose referent has highest control comes first, and (b) pragmatic—the focus expression is in final position. These authors hypothesized that “the topic-focus structure also plays an important role in some other respects. . . . Thus, negation and (other) scope particles occur at the topic-focus boundary” (p. 318). This poses the problem of the interaction between the core organizational principles of the basic variety and optional items such as negative particles and scope particles, which semantically affect the whole or part of the utterance in which they occur. In this article, we test the validity of these authors' hypothesis for the acquisition of the additive scope particle also (and its translation equivalents). Our analysis is based on the European Science Foundation (ESF) data originally used to define the basic variety, but we also included some more advanced learner data from the same database. In doing so, we refer to the analyses of Dimroth and Klein (1996), which concern the interaction between scope particles and the part of the utterance they affect, and we make a distinction between maximal scope—that which is potentially affected by the particle—and the actual scope of a particle in relation to an utterance in a given discourse context.

This paper describes the process of acquisition in learner varieties with respect to reference and referential movement in the domain of modality. The findings are based on data from the longitudinal ESF and P-MoLL projects and on cross-sectional data of Italian learners of German, as well as German and Italian native speech. The theoretical framework is provided by Klein and von Stutterheim's (e.g., 1987) “quaestio model” and their concept of referential movement. The concept of modality is based on Dietrich's (1992) theory of modality. The present findings show that, in instructional discourse, the German native speakers prefer implicit, contextual-based modal means when referring to maintained topic information in the domain of modality, whereas in the learner varieties at least three main stages can be observed: a phase of formulaic speech and pragmatic mode, a phase of high explicitness, and a phase of approach toward implicit reference based on (target) principles of referential movement. With the help of a new category—subquaestio—I show how, with respect to the change of modal means, the use of explicit modal marking in German native speech generally arises from specific local difficulties. In contrast, the use of explicit modal reference in learner varieties remains to a large extent unaffected by whether the modal marking depends on the overall text quaestio or on local problems.

This paper focuses on the acquisition of linguistic devices used for discourse cohesion in Chinese and French. Particular attention is paid to how two types of learners (child L1 [Chinese, French] and adult L2 [Chinese learning French]) acquire the linguistic means for marking topics, in particular French dislocation,and its discourse-pragmatic functions. Data consist of narratives based on picture sequences, produced in absence of mutual knowledge. Previous studies in L2 acquisition have shown that, at early stages, adult learners' utterances and texts are organized along semantic and pragmatic principles, rather than along structural ones. These principles play a preponderant role in Chinese as well. French shares this tendency with Chinese, insofar as particular utterance patterns—dislocations—mark topic and antitopic. Results show that French children have to acquire the discourse functions related to dislocations. Postbasic-variety adult learners readily use French dislocations to mark—appropriately—a variety of discourse-pragmatic functions. However, the adult learners quite often use forms that deviate from the dislocated form found in target language French. This is all the more interesting because the chosen forms, though not usable without a certain context in standard French, do occur in colloquial French and are clearly functionally related to the target forms.

Acquisition of negation in Italian as a second language (L2) is investigated on the basis of the longitudinal data of five learners with different first languages (L1s) in the framework of a functional approach focusing on the semantic and pragmatic principles governing the organization of learner varieties and the process of their complexification. Negation develops in a cumulative process in four successive stages. New constructions entering into interlanguage (IL) at each stage effect reduction in frequency of use of previous constructions that specialize for special functions, such as constituent negation. The acquisition process provides insight into some of the mechanisms involved in the processing and filtering of grammatical elements from the input and into strategies employed by the learners to integrate the expression of the scope of negation into the syntactic organization of their variety. The results contribute to a better understanding of the acquisition processes of negation in L2s, allowing the comparison of the development of a relatively straightforward target with an invariable preverbal particle, Italian, with the better investigated development of the complex patterns of English and German.

The present cross-linguistic study deals with the relevance of principles of information organization in adult second language acquisition. It looks at typological features of information structure that allow speakers to organize and shape the flow of information when carrying out complex tasks, such as giving a description, and pinpoints factors that lead to the selection of linguistic form. At the focus of our attention are means used in reference introduction, such as existential and locational constructions, the morphosyntactic forms of expressions applied in reference maintenance, and word order. The cross-linguistic comparison shows that the options found in the expression of these functions in German, English, and Romance languages (French, Italian, and Spanish) follow distinct patterns in that the linguistic means used reflect unifying principles of a typological nature. These principles are perspective driven and are associated with patterns of grammaticization. Structures in language that reflect core principles in information organization may be difficult to acquire because learners have to recognize clusters of form-function relations that range over different domains. The nature of the analyses required is described for learners of German with English and Spanish as their source languages. The interlanguages (ILs) of these speakers show a high degree of compatibility with German in formal syntactic terms and are near native in many respects, but the levels at which the IL and target language diverge can be linked to fundamental principles of organization underlying information structure. Although the stage of acquisition is advanced, the languages still retain core principles in information structure typical of those found for English and Romance languages.