Book excerpt: This volume presents current research in the formal treatment of linguistic phenomena in the Romance languages. It focuses on a variety of issues in phonology, second language acquisition, semantics, and syntax. Topics in phonological theory include the analysis of geminates, assimilation, rhotics, aspiration, syllabification, the interaction of phonology with morphology, the phonology-phonetics interface, and issues of transderivation and allomorphy selection. The primary question addressed in the area of second language acquisition theory is the issue of learners' access to Universal Grammar. The studies in semantic theory examine the proper analysis of indefinites, bare plurals, and specificity, with a particular emphasis on the syntax-semantics interface. Finally, the essays on syntactic theory discuss issues pertaining to argument structure, functional projections, phrase structure and adjunction, feature checking, and the syntactic representation of tense.