The goals of this study were to investigate the developmental patterns of acquisition of the Spanish tap and trill by L1 Mandarin–L2 English–L3 Spanish speakers, and to examine the extent to which the L1 and the L2 influenced the L3 productions. Twenty L1 Mandarin–L2 English–L3 Spanish speakers performed a reading task that elicited production of rhotics from the speakers’ L3 Spanish, L2 English, and L1 Mandarin, as well as the L2 English flap. The least proficient speakers produced a single substitution initially, generally [l]. The same non-target segment was produced for both rhotics, mirroring the results of previous studies investigating L1 English–L2 Spanish speakers, indicating that this may be a universal simplification strategy. In contrast to previous work on L1 English speakers, the L1 Mandarin–L2 English–L3 Spanish speakers who had acquired the tap did not tend to use it as the primary substitute for the trill. Overall, the L1 was a stronger source of cross-linguistic influence. Nonetheless, evidence of positive and negative L2 transfer was also found. The L2 flap allophone facilitated acquisition of the L3 tap, whereas non-target productions of the L2 /ɹ/ were also observed, revealing that both previously learned languages were possible sources of cross-linguistic influence.

While the L2 perception of segmentals has been investigated, our knowledge of the L2 perception of intonation is limited. Moreover, it is unclear how context affects L1 transfer. This study investigates the perception of English sentence types by adult L1 Spanish speakers across tasks varying in contextual information. In Task 1, participants heard low-pass filtered utterances and identified them as statements, questions or exclamations. Task 2 was similar, but consisted of unaltered utterances. In Task 3, participants heard a scenario and three options (absolute question, declarative question, statement), and selected the best one. Accuracy and reaction times were measured. Learners had the most difficulty in Task 3, but were target-like in the others, confirming previous findings. Namely, L2 speakers perform better in tasks lacking contextual information versus contextualized ones. Thus, while learners maintain their auditory resolution to intonation cues in non-speech tasks, they cannot relate contours to appropriate L2 meanings.

Previous research has revealed that English speakers can differentiate between questions and statements after hearing an utterance's first pitch accent [1]. This suggests that initial F0 cues distinguishing questions from statements are present in the input. We examined this proposal by analyzing the first pitch accent in statements, absolute yes/no questions, and declarative questions. The production of these three sentence types was elicited from 10 Canadian English speakers who performed a sentence-repetition task. Results revealed that statements were produced with an initial H*, whereas both question types were almost exclusively produced with an initial L*+H. Statements were also produced with an earlier peak alignment, and a smaller F0 change. No differences were observed between absolute and declarative questions. The results are consistent with the stimuli analyzed in [1], and provide further evidence that initial pitch cues mark sentence type in Canadian English.

Research on relative difficulty in L2 production has revealed that learners target the most salient parameter when acquiring new sounds (Colantoni & Steele, 2008). For example, L1 English-L2 French learners acquire the more salient fricative manner of the French /ʁ/ before the voicing and duration parameters (Colantoni & Steele, 2007, 2008). Previous work in this framework has not compared the acquisition of place and manner parameters. If the more salient parameter is targeted first, we should expect L2 learners to acquire the manner of articulation before the place of articulation, given that manner is a more salient feature than place (Miller & Nicely, 1955; Bedoin et al., 2013). This hypothesis was tested by investigating the L2 production of the Spanish voiceless dorsal fricative by L1 English speakers living in Madrid, a region in which the fricative has a strident realization (Hualde, 2014) and a uvular place of articulation (Ibabe et al., 2016). Fourteen L1 English-L2 Spanish speakers and 14 native Spanish controls performed a picture description task that elicited the target in two vocalic contexts: [aχe, eχa]. An acoustic analysis revealed that the L2 speakers produced fricatives with a similar amplitude compared to controls. However, in the [eχa] context, the learners produced fricatives with a more anterior place of articulation and less frication. The results are consistent with the finding from previous work that learners focus on the most salient property when learning new segments, and provide further evidence that vocalic context is an important factor in production difficulty.

L2 prosody is particularly difficult to acquire, because it requires an understanding of intonation, syntax, and pragmatics. For example, to acquire English sentence types, speakers must learn that statements (Ss) and absolute yes/no questions (AQs) are syntactically and prosodically marked, whereas the difference between Ss and declarative questions (DQs) is purely prosodic. Moreover, DQs can only occur in restricted contexts, such as to express surprise. In this paper, we examine the L2 perception and comprehension of English sentence types, by speakers of three typologically distinct L1s (Spanish, Mandarin, Inuktitut), with the goal of investigating the role of crosslinguistic influence (CLI). Spanish uses only intonation (a higher initial pitch accent and final rising boundary tone) to distinguish Ss from AQs and DQs, whereas in Mandarin, questions (AQs and DQs) can be syntactically identical to statements or marked by the lexical particle –ma. Mandarin also has a prosodic distinction between broad focus and echo questions (which are similar to English AQs and DQs). In contrast, Inuktitut has a very restricted use of pitch, and primarily marks questions morphologically. Learners of each L1 and English controls performed three tasks that varied in the amount of contextual and linguistic information available. Our results revealed evidence of both positive and negative CLI.  Inuktitut and Mandarin speakers demonstrated some tendencies to focus more on syntax than intonation. Moreover, the Mandarin speakers were the most successful at acquiring the pragmatic distinction between AQs and DQs, which we argue is due to a similar contrast in Mandarin.