L2 acquisition of definiteness in Japanese floating numeral quantifiers

Abstract This study investigates the second language (L2) acquisition of a constraint on definiteness in Japanese floating numeral quantifiers (NQs) by native English and Korean speakers. The arises because specific structural relation between NQ its associated noun, resulting an obligatorily indefinite interpretation. indirect – or, covert encoding this structure allows investigation predictions based cline difficulty proposed Cho Slabakova (2014) , whereby L2 property may be facilitated if first (L1) expresses relevant feature overtly. is such language, having overt morphology to express definiteness, whereas has NQs that are obligatorily, covertly, indefinite, as Japanese. Sensitivity was measured using acceptability judgement task. Although both L1-Korean L1-English speakers showed sensitivity at group level, follow-up analyses suggested had more consistent knowledge. We argue complexity task which greater for English-speakers than Korean-speakers played bigger role attainment versus L1.