Mass generics in L3 English: Acquisition route and transfer recovery

The study investigated the acquisition route of mass generics and the involvement of non-facilitative transfer in the interlanguage of L1 Moroccan Arabic-L2 French adults learning L3 English. Three learner groups and one of English native speakers completed a context-based acceptability judgment task. The results indicated that the pre-intermediate L3 learners initially transferred prior generic knowledge, incorrectly using definite nouns to express mass genericity. In a second developmental stage, the intermediate L3 learners allowed generic bare nouns interchangeably with transferred definite nouns. The data of the early developmental stages disconfirm the Cumulative Enhancement Model’s claim that non-facilitative prior knowledge remains neutral in L3 grammar construction. However, in the advanced stage, the L3 learners attained nativelike accuracy and used exclusively bare nouns to express mass genericity.