On the acquisition of definite and bare plurals in Spanish-speaking learners of English L2

This study examines the acquisition of plural noun phrases in L2 English by native Spanish speakers. Spanish and English differ in their use of an overt determiner in subject position: Spanish allows a generic or a specific reading of the overt determiner while English restricts the use of the determiner to a specific context and utilizes a bare plural for a generic context (Chierchia, 1998). Following the assumption of L1 transfer in this area, it was expected that the L2 learner group would overgeneralize an overt determiner in English (Cuza, et al., 2012; Perez-Leroux, et al., 2004; Serratrice, et al., 2009 among others). 15 L2 English participants and 10 native control participants completed an oral Sentence Completion Task (SCT), an Acceptability Judgment Task (AJT) and a Forced Preference Task (FPT). Results of the SCT and the AJT show that the bare plurals were problematic as evidenced by the over-generalization of definite plurals in generic contexts. The results of the FPT & the AJT, however, show that learners also over-extended the use of the bare plural in specific contexts. Overall this study supports that the L2 learners exhibit L1 transfer in their oral production and interpretation but also exhibit production that cannot be attributed to transfer.