Acquisition of grammatical gender and number agreement in Swedish learners of L2 Italian: Regularity and frequency effects

This corpus-based study examines gender and number agreement in oral productions of Swedish learners of L2 Italian. The main aim is to investigate how regularity and frequency effects influence learning. The theoretical framework is inspired by a functionalist approach focusing on the role of form–function mappings in the learner’s input. Regularity and frequency are interpreted in terms of the availability, reliability, and validity of the mappings between the different noun endings and their functions: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, and feminine plural. The results show a significant correlation between reliability and accuracy rate, but no statistically significant correlation between availability or validity and accuracy rate. An interaction between longitudinal development and reliability is noted.