Shayan Heidari - Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz

The learners of English whose native language lacks a definiteness marker have been shown to encounter difficulties regarding the acquisition of English definite article the (e.g., Ionin, Ko, & Wexler, 2004; Snape, 2008). Persian, like Russian and Japanese, is an article-less language that does not overtly mark definiteness. The present study attempted at finding the difficulties that Persian-speaking EFL learners face regarding the acquisition and use of the English definite article. Following Lardiere’s (2008) Feature Reassembly Hypothesis, the study predicted that Persian-speaking learners of English would initially map morpheme features of Persian onto the English definiteness marker. After this initial mapping, it was predicted that the learners would adjust the target feature based on the English input they were exposed to. The participants in the study included 42 Persian-speaking EFL learners. After completing a proficiency test, the participants were divided into two sub-groups based on their test scores. Then, an acceptability judgment test designed on the basis of Evans’ (2005) task were given to the learners. The results of the acceptability judgment test confirmed the predictions of the study regarding feature reassembly of English definiteness marker by Persian-speaking EFL learners. In addition, it was shown that the context in which an English definite noun phrase is used is a determinant factor for judging its acceptability. The study contributes to the growing body of research on the acquisition of the English definite article by the speakers of article-less languages

definite article, definiteness, feature reassembly, Persian, morpheme features