Ercan Yılmaz
The problem
 Articles are one of the most difficult structural
elements for EFL learners (Master 2002)
 Acquisition of the article system in English is very
demanding for L2 learners. Butler (2002)
The purpose
 1. to understand whether different types of articles are
acquired by different proficiency level learners with
different proficiency
 2. to determine whether there is a hierarchy in the
acquisition of definite and indefinite articles
The English article system
-the indefinite article a/an,
-the definite article the
-and the zero (null Ǿ) article
.
Master (2002)
The difficulty comes from three principle facts
about the article system.
1.The continuous rule application effort put by the
learners
there are more than one alternatives for the same
category
2. The article system puts multiple functions
on one single morpheme,
a considerable burden for the learner, who generally
seeks for a one-form-one function correspondence in
navigating the language until the advanced stages of
acquisition.
3. Function words are normally unstressed and
consequently are very difficult for non-native
speaker of English to discern, thus affecting the
availability of input in the spoken mode.
Huebner (1983)
Opened a new avenue of research on L2 article
acquisition . Not only did he look at the presence
or absence of articles in obligatory contexts, but
he also analyzed various types of NPs and the
articles used with each semantic type.
Huebner divided the articles into 4 types + Thomas’s
idiomatic & other conventional uses (type 5):
Type :1
[- SR, +HK] a, the , 0
These are generic nouns
Ǿ Lions are big wild cats
The Lion is a big wild cat
A lion is a big wild cat
Type 2
[+SR, +HK]
This refers to the article the
Pass me the salt
I found a book. The book was…..
The first person to walk on the moon…..
The idea of coming to the US was…
Type 3
[+SR, -HK]
referential indefinites & first – mention nouns (a ,
Ǿ)
-I saw a dog in Ahmet’s garden.
-Susan kept on sending Ǿ messages to her boyfriend
after they broke up.
Type 4
[-SR, -HK]
Non-referential nouns, attributive indefinites & nonspecific
indefinites
( a, Ǿ )
-Alice is an actor .
-I think , I should find a better job.
- Ǿ Foreigners would come up with a better solution.
Type 5
Idioms & Other conventional uses
a the Ǿ
- All of a sudden, he woke up
- In the 1950s, there weren’t many cars.
- His family is now living Ǿ hand to mouth
According to (Celce-Murcia &Larsen-Freeman, 1999;
Chesterman, 1991; Master, 1997)
The zero article is divided into two types: zero and null.
 The zero article occurs with nonspecific or generic
noncount and plural nouns:
- Water is essential to live .
- Cats aren’t as loyal as dogs.
 The null article occurs with certain singular count and
proper nouns
- İzmir is a very beautiful city.
- I think that breakfast is the most important meal.
Article Acquisition by L2 Learners
 Research on the L2 acquisition of articles has been
rather made, focusing on isolated features of the
English article system.
 Only Master studied the acquisition of articles
exclusively
 Master (1987, as cited in Master,1997)
 how the English article system develops in the
interlanguage of speakers of +Art and –Art languages.
 The acquisition order of articles differed depending on
the L1s of subjects.
 The zero article dominated the others .
 For – Art learners the acquisition of a was delayed
compared with the.
Thomas (1989)
 Differences-similarities btw.L1 and L2 patterns in article







acquisition
Do L2 learners Associate definite article more with +SR
rather than +HK if so
Overuse of the in first mention.
30 participants 7 +ART 23-ART
Story telling task
No accurate control of a in –SR –HK and the in +SR +HK
Overproduction of zero article is present in –ART
Overgeneralization of the [+SR –HK] contexts.
Atay 2010
 120 students
 40 elementary, 40 intermediate and 40 upper –intermediate students
 Data collection instrument, a forced-choice elicitation task is used.




40 short and contextualized dialogues.
each dialogue is missing an article
a/an, the or Ø
four different contexts; i.e. definite/specific,
 definite/non-specific,
 indefinite/specific
 indefinite/non-specific.
 Each context has 10 dialogues with four different contexts that are
randomized
A sample question in the tool
 Mother’s calling up to her daughter who is upstairs
 Mother: Ann! Could you please close ____ (Ø / a/ an /
the) windows up there? It’s getting cold outside!
 Ann: Ok mum!
Atay 2010
 intermediate level learners exhibited fluctuation between
definiteness and specificity to a great extent in (+definite/specific) and (-definite/+specific) contexts.
 Elementary level learners were more accurate in these
contexts exhibiting article omission errors in definite
contexts.
 upper intermediate level students were quite successful in
article assignment in defined contexts. This revealed that
there is a positive correlation between article system
acquisition and proficiency.
The -ART language Turkish
 Definiteness
 Specifity
 Turkish does not have an article system to mark
definiteness or specificity. It encodes these semantic
universals by some other alternative ways such as
 case morphology
 word order, stress
 tense aspect-modality.
“Bir” in Turkish can be interpreted both as the
indefinite determiner or numeral “one”.
Eg:
Sınıf – ta güzel
bir kız
var.
class –LOC beautiful one girl there is
(There is a beautiful girl in the class.)
Eg:
Sınıf – ta bir güzel
kız
var.
class-LOC one beautiful girl there is.
 (There is one beautiful girl in the class.)
 Bir
adam
gel – di.
One man come –PAST
( A man came )
 Bir
adam
gel – di
One
man come-PAST
(One man came)
In Turkish the minimal requirements for a noun
phrase to be interpreted as DEFINITE
 the absence of an indefinite determiner
□ Garson tabak – lar - ı
temizle - di.
Waiter plate -PL-ACC clean – PAST
(The waiter cleaned the plates.)
 accusative case marking where the NP is
functioning as direct object
□
Müdür araba -y - ı iste - di.
president car -ACC ask for –PAST
(The president asked for the car.)

Müdür araba
iste - di.
president
car
ask for –PAST
(The president asked for a car.)
Alternative Ways of Definiteness
Marking in Turkish
1.
Word Order
Preverbal position
□
Bura –dan hırsız
gir - miş.
here – ABL burglar get in – PAST
(A burglar got in through here. )

Hırsız bura – dan gir - miş.
burglar here- ABL enter – PAST
(The burglar got in through here.)
2.Sentence Stress
 RaporLAR
yaz –ıl- dı.
Report-PLURAL write-Passive- PAST
(Reports were written.)

Raporlar
yaz – ıl - DI.
Report-PLURAL write-Passive- PAST
(The reports were written.)
3.Tense-Aspect-Modality
 Çocuk - lar
çabuk yorul- du.
child -PL
fast get tired –PAST
(The children got tired fast.)
 Çocuk - lar
çabuk yorul- ur.
Child –PL fast get tired –AOR
(Children get tired fast.)
Specifity
Enç (1991) asserts that in Turkish definite NPs are
always specific
 Hasan dekan- ı
arı- yor.
Hasan dean-ACC look for- PR.PROG.
(Hasan is looking for the dean.)
 But there is one exception:
 Hasan
Hasan
dekan –ı arı- yor, dekan
kim ol-ur- sa ol-sun.
dean-ACC
who be-AOR-COND be-OPT
look for-PR.PROG
(Hasan is looking for the dean- whoever the Dean may be.)
An indefinite NP can perform two referential functions:
First time mention:
1.

Dün yol -da bir araba gör -dü -m
Yesterday street-LOC one car
see –PAST-1SG
(Yesterday, I saw a car in the street)
(indefinite/specific)
2. non-specific entity which is unknown and
unidentifiable also for the hearer.
 Daha geniş bir araba almayı
düşün -üyor -uz.
More large one car
to buy think –PROG- 1PL
(We are thinking of buying a larger car.)
(indefinite/nonspecific)
The presence or absence of accusative case in
indefinite NPs
 Ali
bir piyano-yu kiralamak ist - i- yor.
Ali one piano-ACC to rent want-PROG-3SG
(Ali wants to rent a (certain) piano.)
(indefinite /specific)
 Ali
bir piyano kiralamak ist- i- yor.
Ali one piano
to rent want-PROG-3SG
(Ali wants to rent a (any) piano.)
(indefinite/nonspecific)
Study
 Ekiert(2004)’s test instrument
 Elementary
Pre-int
Upper-int
 42 sentences 75 items
 All types of Huebner’s & Thomas’s models are used.
 15 of each type
 Fred bought a car on Monday. On Wednesday, he crashed the car.
[Type 3]
[Type 2]
 A/the Cat likes 0 mice.
[Type 1]
[Type 4]
 All of a sudden, he woke up from his coma.
[Type 5]
 My computer has a new sound card.
[Type 3]
 Sally Ride was the first American woman in 0 space.
[Type 2]
[Type 5]
 elementary
.
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
Elementery
Q.A.
225
225
225
225
225
N=15
C.A
15
47
78
88
14
6,7
20,9
34,7
39,1
6,2
%
45.0
40.0
35.0
30.0
25.0
%
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
1
-T4>T3>T2>T1>T5
2
3
4
5
Pre int
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
Pre- int
Q.A.
1320
1320
1320
1320
1320
N=88
C.A
83
267
430
387
44
6,3
20,2
32,6
29,3
3,3
%
Pre-İnt
35.0
30.0
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
%
1
-T3>T4>T2>T1>T5
2
3
4
5
upper
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
Upper-int
Q.A.
630
630
630
630
630
N=42
C.A
62
246
321
279
44
9,8
39,0
51,0
44,3
7,0
%
upper-int
60.0
50.0
40.0
30.0
%
20.0
10.0
0.0
1
2
- T3>T4>T2>T1>T5
3
4
5
All levels
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
All levels
Q.A.
2175
2175
2175
2175
2175
N=145
C.A
160
560
829
754
102
7,4
25,7
38,1
34,7
4,7
%
all levels
45.0
40.0
35.0
30.0
25.0
20.0
%
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
1
-T3>T4>T2>T1>T5
2
3
4
5
Comparison (Ekiert-Own Study)
T1
100
low-ability
int-ability
high-ability
90
80
70
60
T2
62,2
75,5
60
T3
28,80
71,1
73,3
T4
46,6
73,3
80
T5
68,8
73,3
88,3
60
57,7
57,7
low-ability
50
int-ability
40
high-ability
30
20
10
0
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
T1
60
low-ability
int-ability
high-ability
50
40
low-ability
30
int-ability
20
high-ability
10
0
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
T2
6,7
6,6
9,8
T3
20,9
20,2
39,0
T4
34,7
32,6
51,0
T5
39,1
29,3
44,3
6,2
3,3
7,0
conclusion
 Students lack the usage of articles with generic nouns
and in idiomatic context
 Elementary= t4 t3 t2 t1 t5
 Pre-int and Upper- int= t3 t4 t2 t1 t5
 all levels: a/an >the >T1 > T5
 Acquisition of the is delayed compared with a/an
 No overproduction of Ǿ and no THE flooding
Thanks for listening =)