(Bare) Plural DPs and L2 Acquisition: From Generics to Mass/Count Distinction and Plurality

Abstract

This paper presents second language (L2) studies of bare plural DPs as well as a set of related linguistic phenomena that present potentially fruitful avenues for exploration in second language acquisition (SLA). So far, DPs have been at the centre of L2 studies in the nominal domain. The focus in L2 studies has revolved around some well-known properties such as article use, agreement features and the mass/count distinction. Shifting the focus away from these properties for a moment, in this paper, we will present some relatively less well-established properties associated with bare plural DPs in L2 acquisition. We first start by looking at how BPs, in their generic use, can offer an insight into L2 learners' sensitivity to lexical semantic constraints. Then we take on the notion of plurality — do plural nouns denote necessarily a plurality of things (i.e., more than one)? In English, it seems not, and this has been a topic of intensive debate in semantics in recent years (Sauerland et al., 2005; Farkas & de Swart, 2010; Kane et al., 2015). Following a recent study on this question by Renans et al. (2018), we show how a similar issue can be exploited in SLA. This can offer a new way of testing L2 learners' knowledge of plural DPs amid the mass/count distinction. In turn, this will also have implications for SLA and L1 transfer among obligatory vs. optional plural marking languages.