Abstract
This article examines two recent books on fossilization and assesses their contribution to our understanding of the causes of non-target performance in near-native grammars. The different accounts of fossilization these books present is outlined; one takes the view that a critical period prevents subjects from accessing syntactic features which are not available in their first language (L1), while the other takes the view that maturational problems make it difficult for learners to work out the mapping between syntactic features and their morphological expression. The contrasting consequences of each of these phenomena upon our understanding of fossilization, end-state grammars and the role played by the first language are highlighted. The possibility of moving away from a parameter-setting model of second language acquisition is discussed.
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