Sensitivity to grammatical gender in L1 Polish learners of L2 German: The contribution of semantic, lexical, and structural congruency

Are adult L2 learners sensitive to grammatical gender during L2 processing? Most previous research has examined learners of L2s like Spanish with L1 English, a language lacking grammatical gender. Less is known about how sensitivity to grammatical gender develops in L2 learners with a gendered L1. This study investigates how L1 Polish learners of L2 German process grammatical gender within the noun phrase, focusing on the role of congruency factors and L2 proficiency. Polish and German both have a three-gender system (masculine, feminine, neuter) but differ in lexical gender congruency. Furthermore, while both languages mark gender on adjectives (structurally congruent), only German marks it on prenominal articles (structurally incongruent). Two primed lexical decision tasks were conducted. Experiment 1 tested correctly vs. incorrectly gender-marked adjectives and manipulated the semantic congruency of adjective-noun pairs. Experiment 2 tested correctly vs. incorrectly inflected articles and manipulated lexical gender congruency. The results showed clear sensitivity to structurally congruent gender marking (adjectives) but not to incongruent marking (articles), regardless of semantic congruency, lexical gender congruency, or L2 proficiency. These findings suggest that structural congruency with L1 plays a primary role in shaping L2 learners’ sensitivity to grammatical gender, while lexical and semantic factors are less influential.