Determiner Use in English Quantificational Expressions: A Corpus‐Based Study

Abstract

It is well known that article usage is difficult for learners of English to acquire. Indeed, learner errors such as *many of people are not uncommon. A closer look at similar multiword sequences reveals why learners might have difficulty using articles properly in such expressions: No definite article is required in phrases like lots of cars or plenty of money. In order to provide learners with corpus‐based accounts of article usage in these expressions, this study explored determiner use in English quantificational expressions in two reference corpora. It examined to what extent Korean learners of English in college (n = 806) employed quantificational expressions, compared to native‐English‐speaking college students (n = 552). Findings show that each group favored different types of quantificational expressions in their writing in response to identical prompts, but overall the learners displayed smaller quantificational expression repertoires. The learners also tended to omit determiners where they were obligatory with quantificational expressions, but error rates dropped as students’ proficiency levels increased. By presenting a thorough description of English quantificational constructions and identifying learner error types, this study provides information that may help learners of English improve their use of determiners in English multiword sequences.