top of page
Writer's pictureAIOR Admin

L1 Saudi-Arabic Learners’ Use of Articles with Count and Mass Nouns in L2 English

Afnan Aboras

Al-Baha University





English and Arabic differ in the use of the article system about singular, plural and mass nouns. Count and mass nouns take different articles in English. Thus, it would be interesting to investigate the effect of count and mass nouns on first language (L1) Saudi-Arabic learners’ use of the article system in second language (L2) English. In English, according to Adger (2003), the use of articles is determined by the nouns due to the c-command relationship; that is, the determiner must agree with the noun with which it is linked. If the nouns are singular and indefinite, the indefinite article must be used; if the nouns are plural or mass with indefinite contexts, ‘some’ must be used. Regarding definite contexts, the definite article is used with singular, plural and mass nouns, which is like the Arabic language. In this study, I will also investigate generic sentences in which the indefinite article is used in singular contexts and the bare plural that is used in plural and mass contexts, which is also a difference between English and Arabic because Arabic only uses definite articles for generic reference. I will examine that through the Bottleneck Hypothesis by Slabakova (2008) and the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis by Lardiere (2009) to investigate the learners’ ability to acquire functional morphology, as well as the mapping process regarding the use of articles with count and mass nouns. The data were collected using a forced choice task involving 67 L1 Saudi-Arabic learners of English. The results revealed that the learners were accurate in their use of the definite article with count and mass nouns and in their use of indefinite articles with singular and plural nouns, but had trouble with generic sentences and indefinite articles in mass contexts. The outcomes support the BH and the FRH, which state that learners might encounter difficulties due to L1 transfer when they need to map and reassemble the functional morphology.


0 comments

Kommentare


bottom of page