Countmass Distinction in the Acquisition of English Articles by Persian Learners of English

Articles in general and definite articles in particular can create problems even long after all other aspects of English have been mastered. The present article investigated the learnability problems related to the acquisition of countmass distinction of English nominals by Persian L2 learners. The theoretical underpinning of the study is the interpretability hypothesis (Tsimpli Dimitrakopoulou, 2007) arguing that the features which are semantically interpretable can be acquired. To this end, 50 learners constituted the participants of the study and completed a forcedchoice elicitation task requiring the use of articles. The results of the study substantiated the interpretability hypothesis. Nonetheless, the advanced L2ers showed a conservative behavior in the mass context. They significantly opted for a/an in wide scope indefinite nonreferential de/re context. The findings reveal that article suppliance creates more learnability problems in the plural and indefinite mass contexts compared to the count singular ones.