This article investigates the second language (L2) acquisition of two expressions of the semantic feature [definite] in Russian, a language without articles, by English and Korean native speakers. Within the Feature Reassembly approach (Lardiere, 2009), Slabakova (2009) has argued that reassembling features that are represented overtly in the first language (L1) and mapping them onto those that are encoded indirectly, or covertly, in the L2 will present a greater difficulty than reassembling features in the opposite learning direction. An idealized scale of predictions of difficulty is proposed based on the overt or covert character of the feature encoding and the ease/difficulty of noticing the feature expression. A total of 158 participants (56 native Russian, 49 English learners and 53 Korean learners of Russian) evaluated the acceptability of test sentences in context. Findings demonstrate that acquiring the expression of a feature that is encoded contextually in the L2 is challenging for learners, while an overt expression of a feature presents less difficulty. On the basis of the learners' developmental patterns observed in the study, we argue that overt and covert expression of semantic features, feature reassembly, and indirect encoding appear to be significant factors in L2 grammatical feature acquisition. Keywordsdefiniteness, direct and indirect feature encoding, English-Russian interlanguage, feature reassembly, Korean-Russian interlanguage, L2 Russian, semantic features

Aims and research questions: This study aims to investigate second language (L2) learnability in article acquisition from a feature-based contrastive approach by examining L1-Korean speakers’ comprehension of different types of definites in L2-English: anaphoric and non-anaphoric definites. English does not morphologically distinguish different kinds of definites but some languages do (e.g., Fering) (Schwarz, 2013). Korean, an article-less language, differentiates between the two types of definites by marking only one type (i.e., anaphoric) with the demonstrative ku ‘that’ (Chang, 2009). That is, the English definite article ‘the’ encodes [+definite, ±anaphoric] and the Korean demonstrative ‘ku’ encodes [+definite, +anaphoric]. Within the feature reassembly model (Lardiere, 2009), this difference in feature combinations between Korean and English is expected to influence L1-Korean learners’ interpretation of English articles. Methodology: An acceptability judgment task was used to assess L1-Korean L2-English learners (22 intermediate and 15 advanced) and 26 English native-speaker controls’ comprehension of different types of definites. Data: The intermediate group rated definites significantly higher than indefinites in anaphoric definite contexts but not in non-anaphoric definite contexts, indicating L1 influence. The advanced group rated definites higher than indefinites in non-bridging anaphoric contexts but not in bridging (anaphoric and non-anaphoric) contexts. This suggests that they have re-assembled the features associated with the definite article but have difficulty in accommodating unmentioned propositions for bridging definites. Conclusion: These findings suggest that presupposition accommodation for bridging definites may be another hurdle in article acquisition beyond feature reassembly. Originality/Significance: By focusing on the acquisition of the semantics of definites, exclusively, this study provides new data and information which enable us to come to a more precise and fine-grained understanding of learnability in article acquisition. Thus, the results of the study bring out new and insightful conceptual issues that open up new directions for future research on the acquisition of definiteness.

A direct scalar implicature (DSI) arises when a sentence with a weaker term like sometimes implies the negation of the stronger alternative always (e.g., John sometimes (∼ not always) drinks coffee). A reverse implicature, often referred to as indirect scalar implicature (ISI), arises when the stronger term is under negation and implicates the weaker alternative (e.g., John doesn’t always (∼ sometimes) drink coffee). Recent research suggests that English-speaking adults and children behave differently in interpreting these two types of SI ( Cremers and Chemla, 2014 ; Bill et al., 2016 ). However, little attention has been paid to how these two types of SI are processed in a non-native, or second language (L2). By using a covered box paradigm, this study examines how these two types of SI are computed and suspended in a second language by measuring the visible vs. covered picture selection percentage as well as response times (RTs) taken for the selection. Data collected from 26 native speakers of English to 24 L1-Chinese L2-English learners showed that unlike native speakers, L2 speakers showed asymmetries in their generation and suspension of DSI and ISI. That is, L2 speakers computed DSI more often than ISI, but they suspended ISI more frequently than DSI. Furthermore, our RT data suggested that L2 speakers suspended ISI not only more frequently but also significantly faster than DSI. Regarding the asymmetrical behavior among L2 speakers, we consider the number of alternative meanings involved in DSI vs. ISI suspension and different routes to the suspension of SI.

This study examines L1-Korean speakers’ online processing and offline judgments of L2-English articles using a self-paced task (SPRT) targeting implicit knowledge and an untimed acceptability judgment task (AJT) assessing explicit knowledge. SPRT results indicate that L1-Korean speakers exhibited targetlike online sensitivity to (in)appropriate use of articles, which provides evidence against the claim that L2-specific morphosyntactic structures cannot be utilized during online comprehension (Jiang, 2007). However, the same L2 speakers showed non-targetlike judgment patterns in the AJT. The discrepancy between online and offline performance is discussed in terms of the role of task effects on L2 performance and the development of implicit and explicit knowledge for L2 articles in the acquisition process. Methodological considerations for evaluating L2 knowledge are also discussed.

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