Feature Matching Does Not Equal Convergence: Acquisition of L2 French Accusative Pronouns by L1 Spanish Speakers

Our study aims to determine whether formal similarity between two languages (operationalized via the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis) allows adult L2 learners of French (Spanish native speakers; NSs) straightforwardly acquire third-person singular accusative clitics in their L2. Additionally, we examined role surface similarity, since and Spanish overlap diverge several ways. In terms clitic pronouns are almost perfect analogues counterparts. however, while feminine identical (“la” [la]), masculine ones differ (“lo” [lo]) (“le” [lǝ]). Participants included NSs (n = 26) Spanish-speaking 36). Results from an offline forced-choice picture selection task online self-paced reading did not support Hypothesis because showed considerable difficulty with interpretation processing these pronouns, revealing that, unlike NSs, interpretations guided by feature [±Human] and, a lesser degree, gender, which might be due surface-level both languages.