The Role of L1 Transfer in the Interpretation of Articles with Definite Plurals in L2 English

This study examines second language (L2) acquisition of the interpretation of plural noun phrases. Languages with articles differ in whether they use bare plurals (English) or definite plurals (Spanish) to express generic interpretation (Chierchia, 1998; Dayal, 2004; among others). It is hypothesized that Spanish-speaking learners of English transfer the interpretation of definite plurals from their native language. Results of a truth-value judgment task provide support for this hypothesis: Spanish speakers (N= 24) overaccepted the generic interpretation of English definite plurals to a greater extent than proficiency-matched speakers of Korean (N= 29), an articleless language. Results of a follow-up study further show that with advanced proficiency and increased immersion in the target language, Spanish-speaking learners of English (N= 11) were as targetlike as Korean-speaking learners of English (N= 9) on the interpretation of definite plurals, which suggests that recovery from first language transfer is possible. Implications of these findings for theories of L2 acquisition are discussed.

from Language Learning

Developing Noun Phrase Complexity at School Age: A Text-Embedded Cross-Linguistic Analysis

Development of noun phrase structure and use is analyzed as an important facet of syntactic acquisition from middle childhood to adolescence. Noun phrases occurring in narrative and expository texts produced in both speech and writing by 96 native speakers of English and Hebrew were identified and examined by a set of specially devised criteria including length in words, syntactic depth, abstractness of head nouns, and nature of modifiers. Results reveal a clear and consistent developmental increment in NP complexity from age 9 to 12, and particularly from age 16 years; written expository texts emerge as a favored site for use of syntactically complex constructions; and nominal elements play a more central role in the discursive syntax of Hebrew than English. Findings are discussed in terms of the interplay between psycholinguistic factors of cognitive processing constraints and the impact of increased literacy in later language development.

from First Language