The Repository @ St. Cloud State

Open Access Knowledge and Scholarship

  •  
  •  
 

Abstract

The proper agreement of phi-features (person, number, and gender) between a noun/noun phrase and a verb phrase within a grammatical language system is the realm of resolution rules; these resolution rules are the syntactic parameters that regulate this agreement. The initial study, of which this paper highlights a portion, examines L2 English compositions written by native Arabic speakers and investigates whether these students transfer phi-feature agreement patterns from their L1 to their L2. The findings discussed in this paper are focused on agreement errors in the application of number resolution rules, and the majority of these number agreement errors are found in indefinite pronoun constructions.

Author Bio

Jon Cotner received an MA in English/Applied Linguistics/TESL from St. Cloud State University and is currently pursuing a second MA in English/Rhetoric and Writing. Previously, he earned a BA in Philosophy and has had careers with IBM, Lawson Software, and as an independent contractor. His academic areas of interest include interlanguage dynamics, comparative linguistics, and second language writing. He can be reached at jon@gselo.com.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.