L2 English Articles and the Computation of Uniqueness

There has been much recent work investigating second language (L2) acquisition of English articles by speakers of article-less L1s (Huebner 1983, Master 1987, Parrish 1987, Thomas 1989, Kaneko 1996, Leung 2001, Ionin, Ko and Wexler 2004, Hawkins et al. 2006, Ko, Ionin and Wexler 2006, Ionin, Zubizarreta and Bautista Maldonado 2008, Trenkic 2008, among others). Examining L2-learners production of English articles, this research has largely focused on the reasons behind L2-learners’ article misuse. In particular, the work of Ionin et al. (2004) and Ko et al. (2006) has shown that article misuse in L2-English is not random but rather is constrained by the semantic features of definiteness, specificity, and partitivity. In the present paper, we take a different approach: first, we investigate comprehension instead of production; second, we ask how L2-English learners whose L1s lack articles acquire the very concept of definiteness. Specifically, we investigate whether Mandarin Chinese-speaking L2-English learners are sensitive to the semantic concept of uniqueness that underlies definiteness. We also identify pragmatic factors that contribute to the computation of uniqueness in L2-English. Based on our experimental data, we argue that L2-English learners are sensitive to the importance of uniqueness in determining definiteness, but also over-rely on the discourse factors of previous-mention and association in determining whether the or a should be used.