Second-language processing of English mass-count nouns by native-speakers of Korean

This study deals with the English mass-count distinction and how it cues meaning. 40 native speakers of Korean processed common nouns in their L2 (English) and in Korean. English native speakers performed the same English task. Anglophones individuated both count nouns and mass nouns denoting collections of entities. They were also acutely sensitive to plural-marking as a cue to the meaning of ambiguous “flexible” nouns denoting either bounded entities or substances. Koreans were target-like on 3 classes of English nouns but were insensitive to plural-marking on English flexible nouns. A comparison of English- and Korean-language tasks revealed that Koreans were using the same types of responses on semantically similar Korean and English items, consistent with the hypothesis that they use lexical semantics (not grammar) to arrive at an interpretation. Our study shows that Koreans perform at native-like levels on a judgement task involving the 3 most common classes of English nouns while remaining insensitive to English plural-marking. Learners do not make use of the mass-count syntax of English to interpret common nouns and appear not to have learnt plural-marking.