The acquisition of English articles has been studied extensively in recent years suggesting difficulties facing learners from languages with and without articles. Explorations into cross-linguistic differences defined semantic universals of article features such as: definiteness, specificity and genericity and different form-meaning mappings between languages (e.g. Hawkins et al, 2006; Ionin, Ko & Wexler, 2004; Ionin & Montrul, 2009; Ionin et al, 2011; Slabakova, 2008; Snape, 2006). Meanwhile, this detailed account of the features related to articles is not found in English language instruction. The purpose of this research is to investigate the application of those findings from current generative second language acquisition research in the language classroom. 
The study started out by defining the difficulties in acquiring English articles by L1 Najdi Arabic speakers through a “contrastive analysis of features” that cause re-assembly difficulties (Lardiere, 2008, 2009; Slabakova, 2009). Contexts that involve the [+generic] feature are proposed to involve feature re-assembly difficulties and another difficulty is found with syntactic restrictions on the definite article when the noun is modified by a relative clause (Almahboob, 2009; Azaz, 2014; Sarko, 2009a, 2009b). 
Following an experimental design, the study included 54 Najdi Arabic speakers and 10 native English speakers. Three instruments were used: forced choice, sentence repetition, and written production conducted as pre-tests, post-tests and delayed post-tests eight weeks later. Two experimental groups received explicit and an implicit instruction with reinforced texts over the course of five weeks and a third uninstructed control group was used for comparison. 
The findings show that explicit and implicit instruction resulted in improvement not found with the control group. The explicit instruction resulted in improvement on the generic plural context and sustained long term effect. Therefore, this study recommends explicit instruction following an analytic focus on form on reinforced texts to accelerate the re-assembly process and recovery from L1 transfer.

The role of input in the acquisition of English articles by L1 Najdi Arabic speakers

Formal approaches to DPs in Old Romanian offers the first collection of papers on this topic published in English. All the analyses adopt the conceptual tools of generative grammar to explain the syntactic peculiarities of Old Romanian nouns, synchronically and diachronically. Old Romanian noun syntax displays non-trivial peculiarities both in the internal structure of the DP (e.g., inflected possessive marker, polydefinite agreement, optional definite article on proper nouns) and in the way the DP is used in clause derivation (e.g., variable location of object pronouns, reanalysis of the relative item from phrasal to head). The analyses emphasize the relevance of the data for a finer-grained typology of Romance/Balkan languages as well as for the theory of grammar.

Formal approaches to DPs in Old Romanian

Against a uniform analysis of adnominal possessives in Jordanian Arabic: Evidence from nominal ellipsis

Phase Theory :, A Promising Approach To The Analysis Of Semitic Construct State

A Note On The Genitive Particle ħaqq In Yemeni Arabic Free Genitives

This thesis provides a minimalist account of the Arabic DP. The data used comes
from Modern Standard Arabic and Makkan Arabic, a spoken variety used in Saudi
Arabia. Using two varieties provides a more complete picture of Arabic DPs and
sheds light on the relationship between standard and spoken Arabic.
I argue that head-to-spec movement takes place in all Arabic DPs and that this
movement is a cyclic, minimalist alternative to standard Head Movement. I claim
that the basic differences between Simple DPs and Free States on the one hand and
Construct States on the other are derivable from the D projected in each structure;
definite or indefinite D are projected in the former and Construct State D in the latter.
I analyse Construct States headed by a number of categories: nouns, quantifiers,
nominalised adjectives, numerals and verbal nouns. I claim that the similarities
between these constructs are due to the use of Construct State D, and the special
behaviour of each type is a reflection of the category of the head projected below D. I
propose that the Arabic lexicon is rich and I present evidence for some complex word
formation processes. Moreover, I propose that complex adjectives, often referred to
in the related literature as Adjectival Constructs, which show a mixture of adjectival
and construct properties, are adjectival compounds formed in the lexicon. I also
argue that Verbal Noun Construct States in Modern Standard Arabic may be formed
either in the lexicon or in the syntax, and that each option is associated with different
structures and modificational patterns. Moreover, I claim that the restrictions on
Verbal Noun Construct States in Makkan Arabic are a result of this variety having
only lexically formed Verbal Nouns.

Suzanne Mahmoud Bardeas

Papers

The syntax of the Arabic DP