Japanese EFL Learners’ Interpretation оf Plural Morphology

Abstract

This article examines Japanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ acquisition of meaning of the English plural marker -s. The main goal of the article is to experimentally investigate whether EFL learners are able to assign a plural-only reading to plural -s. The author conducted a Truth Value Judgement experiment with Japanese intermediate learners and found that they understood bare plurals in a different way than native speakers do. In singular scenarios, Japanese EFL learners failed to reject bare plural statements (e.g. Black Bear has cars) while they successfully rejected numeral statements (e.g. Black Bear has four cars). The results suggest that Japanese EFL learners had difficulties giving a ‘more than one’ reading to bare plurals and appeared to understand -s to mean ‘at least one’.