| L1 acquirers experience considerable delays in mastering properties related to Binding Principle B, performing inaccurately with respect to possible antecedents for pronouns well after the age of 6. Most accounts attribute this delay to performance phenomena (lack of pragmatic knowledge, processing capacity, etc.). In this article, I show that adult learners do not exhibit the same kinds of problems with Principle B. Intermediate-level adult learners of English as a second language (French and Japanese speakers), as well as a native-speaker control group, were tested using a truth value judgement task to determine their interpretations of pronouns. The L2 learners performed like native speakers in disallowing local antecedents for pronouns, suggesting that Principle B is not problematic in adult acquisition, in contrast to child acquisition. |