This chapter reviews the role played by linguistic evidence from the Romance languages in shaping contemporary semantic research. The discussion focuses on a selection of phenomena that have important ramifications for the form–meaning mapping (presupposition, anaphora, (in)definiteness, deixis, tense, negation). For each phenomenon some particularly remarkable cases are discussed, for which research into Romance languages has substantially contributed to theoretical models and analytical advances in the field of semantics. At the same time, a number of outstanding issues are singled out, for which Romance data may prove decisive in future research. From the non-exhaustive overview provided in this chapter, two conclusions emerge most clearly. First, Romance linguistics has proven to be very influential for semantic research thanks to the wide display of microvariation within the Romance family, which represents an ideal testing ground for theories of the form–meaning interface. Second, the diachronic depth that can be reached in examining Romance data is instrumental in opening up new perspectives for research into the historical development of semantic categories.

Drawing from classroom examples of ‘focus on form’, this chapter demonstrates how ‘form’ covers more than just grammar. Referring to second language acquisition research, it explores why a focus on form may be particularly important in the foreign language learning context and why the adolescent learner may be particularly able to benefit from opportunities to focus on features of language. The chapter presents a wide range of options of opportunities to focus on form, including an emphasis on the importance of giving explanations and on the potential for learners to learn from the feedback they get when using the language to communicate. The chapter draws on examples from a range of language classrooms and, also includes examples of the types of planned exercises teachers use to draw learner attention to form.

This chapter reviews corrective feedback studies that focused on the effectiveness of oral corrective feedback on specific morphosyntactic targets in English as a second language. Specifically, this chapter addressed the question of whether the grammatical complexity of the target structure investigated affects the effectiveness of corrective feedback as an instructional intervention. Not only was complexity defined on the basis of formal criteria, but it also incorporated a semantic component from the perspective of the redundancy and transparency of the form–meaning mapping. Eleven studies published between 2006 and 2018 qualified for the research synthesis. The overall findings indicated that, in general, corrective feedback is more effective for simpler grammatical features. The chapter concludes that type of language feature is a relevant dimension to consider in the effectiveness of corrective feedback. The chapter calls for future research on the role of grammatical complexity using categorization methods that consider both formal and semantic complexity features.