Laura Sánchez

L2 activation and blending in third language acquisition: Evidence of crosslinguistic influence from the L2 in a longitudinal study on the acquisition of L3 English

This paper reports the findings of a four-year longitudinal study that examined the role of prior linguistic knowledge on the written L3 production of 93 Spanish/Catalan learners. Two research questions guided the study: the first asked whether a background language (L1s Spanish/Catalan, L2 German) would activate in parallel with L3 English during word construction attempts involving verbal forms, and if so, which would be the source language of blending. The second addressed the progressive readjustments of L2 activation and blending in the course of the first 200 hours of instruction. The elicitation technique was a written narrative based on a story telling task. Data were collected first when the learners were on average 9.9 years old (T1), and again at the ages of 10.9 (T2), 11.9 (T3) and 12.9 (T4). The focus of analysis was on word construction attempts that involved verbal forms. The results suggest that a background language, the L2, did indeed activate, especially at early stages of L3 acquisition.

Synthesis and Absolute Configuration of Novel N,O-Psiconucleosides Using (R)-N-Phenylpantolactam as a Resolution Agent

A series of novel N,O-psiconucleosides has been prepared in both enantiomeric forms by resolution of an advanced racemic synthetic intermediate using (R)-N-phenylpantolactam as a chiral resolution agent. The absolute configuration of all of these compounds has been unequivocally established by chemical correlation with the novel (R)- or (S)-1-methyl-5-phenylpyrrolidine-2,3-dione, prepared from the known (R)- and (S)-1-methyl-5-phenylpyrrolidin-2-one, respectively.

One-pot synthesis of N-substituted pantolactams from pantolactone

Rac-N-substituted pantolactams (5) are readily obtained in medium to good yields by reaction of rac-pantolactone (1) with primary amines under acid catalysis, whether at 250°C in a pressure reactor or under microwave irradiation. It appears that the amine can react with pantolactone at the carbonyl carbon atom to give a hydroxyamide (3) in a reversible way and at the methylene carbon atom to give a γ-amino acid (4). The last one on dehydration would give the corresponding pantolactam (5).