An Empirical Study on the Omission of Third-Person Singular -s in Writing

Enlightened by studies in inflectional morpheme in L2 speech, this article reports a survey on the use of third-person singular -s in writing by 6 L1 Chinese L2 English learners enrolled in Lancaster University in 2014. The results show that these undergraduate students omitted almost half -s marking in obligatory contexts but made little or no mistake when they actually used third-person singular -s. The students were more successful in using be form than -s form. The grammar of these students seemed to be “fossilized” in -s marking since they made no improvement after attending a pre-sessional program at Lancaster University. Whiling echoing the findings of previous studies on either Chinese or other English learners (adults or Children), this article concludes that the acquisition third-person singular -s is a challenge for adult Chinese English learners in writing. The implications for English language teaching in China are also discussed.