The Necessity of Minimal Representation of Genericity in a Newly Developed Language, Unish

Abstract

The current study compares generic representations in different languages including English and Korean. It reviews important universal concepts of genericity denotation in languages and compares how genericity is realized in different languages. By comparing different genericity representations in different languages, the current study predicts possible acquisition difficulties. It also suggests difficulties of acquiring English article systems are also caused by the complex nature of article uses. Particularly, using a large corpus data (ICNALE), the current study reveals how L1 Korean L2 English learners use articles when they denote generic terms in their essays. Ample uses of bare Noun Phrase (NP) forms tentatively suggest that (i) probably uses of ‘articles’ are not necessarily the most efficient way of expressing genericity, and (ii) it can be marked by other grammatical functions, which are more simple and regular. Therefore, the current research argues that NP systems should be simplified and minimally represented in a newly developed language, which by nature will be learners’ extra language. In the current research, generic NPs in Unish language is introduced and it suggests that bare noun forms in Unish can denote genericity in a very regular and economical manner. Therefore, it may be easier for leaners to acquire because the configuration process is minimized in the Unish.