This thesis examines ungrammatical article omission, and overuse of the definite article 'the' in indefinite specific context by Japanese learners of English. This is an area of English grammar that has been considered a major problem for L2 learners (e.g. Ionin, Ko & Wexler, 2004; R. Hawkins et al., 2005, 2006; Trenkic, 2007). The thesis extends the analysis of Japanese learners' interlanguage to the overuse of 'a' in indefinite specific mass contexts by these learners. A detailed analysis of DP structures in Japanese and English leads to the conclusion that Japanese learners, through their L1, are equipped with the linguistic features which map onto articles in English, even though Japanese lacks articles. The thesis examines the syntactic role of articles in rendering predicative nouns argumental (e.g. Chierchia, 1998; Longobardi, 1994) and explores the definiteness contrast marked by 'the' as opposed to 'a/ø' with singular count nouns and mass nouns (e.g. J. Hawkins, 1978) at the semantic level. Count/mass distinctions are also examined in detail (e.g. Doetjes, 1997; Jackendoff, 1992) because the 'a' versus 'Ø' contrast clearly relates this distinction. This thesis argues that, despite its lack of articles, the Japanese grammar expresses definiteness and count/mass distinctions through its classifier system. For example, different orderings of the constituents in a classifier phrase induce different interpretations as to definiteness (e.g. Kakegawa, 2004). Further, the thesis shows that some classifiers are incompatible with mass nouns, thus argue that in Japanese, as in English, nouns are associated with the features which underlie the count/mass distinction. Thus, the difficulty that Japanese learners display in mastering the grammar of articles in English is attributed to difficulties in the mapping between their syntactic and semantic underlying knowledge and the surface forms (e.g. Lardiere, 1998) rather than to the need to acquire new features or categories of syntactic or semantic knowledge as the Representational Deficit Hypothesis (R. Hawkins, 2005) claims. This proposal differs from the previous studies that assume that the relevant syntactic category is not present in the learners’ L1 thus not acquirable in the L2 (R. Hawkins et al., 2005; Trenkic, 2007). It also differs from those that suggest that, even when the learners’ L1 does not overtly realize these features (Ionin et al., 2004), the semantic features are available through universal grammar (UG). In order to examine how Japanese learners map syntactic and semantic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles in their English, data were collected via an oral production task and two types of grammaticality judgment tasks. An online judgment task was used to gather evidence for an intuitive type of knowledge of the constraints on article use, while an offline judgment task examined conscious metalinguistic knowledge of articles. Because L2 learners tend to construct and apply various metalinguistic rules as to the use of articles (Goto-Butler, 2002), the examination of both intuitive and conscious knowledge is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the development of the article system in interlanguage grammar. For the mapping of the syntactic knowledge of articles, the omission of articles by Japanese participants is investigated. The investigation focused on singular count nouns because the omission of articles with these nouns is ungrammatical in any context. It was observed that several of the Japanese participants indeed disallowed article omission for these nouns, suggesting that they had acquired the English system of mapping relevant syntactic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles. The thesis also explores the mapping of the semantic knowledge of articles by focusing on the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Previous studies have claimed that the overuse of 'the' is governed by the Article Choice Parameter (Ionin et al., 2004). The findings reported here confirm the tendency to overuse 'the' in indefinite specific (i.e. noteworthy (Ionin et al., 2004)) contexts. However, it was also observed that 'a' was judged acceptable in the same context. The offline grammaticality judgment task revealed that the choice of 'the' in this context may have been affected by metalinguistic knowledge. Thus, the findings are not in agreement with the hypothesis that a parameter governs the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Additionally, the thesis examines the overuse of 'a' in mass contexts. Though small in number, the participants who make inconsistent judgments for the same noun showed a tendency to accept the use of 'a' in specific contexts (i.e. de re specific) and reject it in non-specific contexts. It is argued that the feature [+specific] may be mapped onto 'a' in mass contexts in these learners’ grammar. Based on these findings, the thesis explores how the syntactic module and the semantic module interact with each other in L2 grammar when mapping linguistic knowledge onto surface forms. The thesis also explores the effect of metalinguistic knowledge on L2 learners’ grammaticality judgments in order to demonstrate a more comprehensive picture of article systems in interlanguage grammar.

This thesis examines ungrammatical article omission, and overuse of the definite article 'the' in indefinite specific context by Japanese learners of English. This is an area of English grammar that has been considered a major problem for L2 learners (e.g. Ionin, Ko & Wexler, 2004; R. Hawkins et al., 2005, 2006; Trenkic, 2007). The thesis extends the analysis of Japanese learners' interlanguage to the overuse of 'a' in indefinite specific mass contexts by these learners. A detailed analysis of DP structures in Japanese and English leads to the conclusion that Japanese learners, through their L1, are equipped with the linguistic features which map onto articles in English, even though Japanese lacks articles. The thesis examines the syntactic role of articles in rendering predicative nouns argumental (e.g. Chierchia, 1998; Longobardi, 1994) and explores the definiteness contrast marked by 'the' as opposed to 'a/ø' with singular count nouns and mass nouns (e.g. J. Hawkins, 1978) at the semantic level. Count/mass distinctions are also examined in detail (e.g. Doetjes, 1997; Jackendoff, 1992) because the 'a' versus 'Ø' contrast clearly relates this distinction. This thesis argues that, despite its lack of articles, the Japanese grammar expresses definiteness and count/mass distinctions through its classifier system. For example, different orderings of the constituents in a classifier phrase induce different interpretations as to definiteness (e.g. Kakegawa, 2004). Further, the thesis shows that some classifiers are incompatible with mass nouns, thus argue that in Japanese, as in English, nouns are associated with the features which underlie the count/mass distinction. Thus, the difficulty that Japanese learners display in mastering the grammar of articles in English is attributed to difficulties in the mapping between their syntactic and semantic underlying knowledge and the surface forms (e.g. Lardiere, 1998) rather than to the need to acquire new features or categories of syntactic or semantic knowledge as the Representational Deficit Hypothesis (R. Hawkins, 2005) claims. This proposal differs from the previous studies that assume that the relevant syntactic category is not present in the learners’ L1 thus not acquirable in the L2 (R. Hawkins et al., 2005; Trenkic, 2007). It also differs from those that suggest that, even when the learners’ L1 does not overtly realize these features (Ionin et al., 2004), the semantic features are available through universal grammar (UG). In order to examine how Japanese learners map syntactic and semantic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles in their English, data were collected via an oral production task and two types of grammaticality judgment tasks. An online judgment task was used to gather evidence for an intuitive type of knowledge of the constraints on article use, while an offline judgment task examined conscious metalinguistic knowledge of articles. Because L2 learners tend to construct and apply various metalinguistic rules as to the use of articles (Goto-Butler, 2002), the examination of both intuitive and conscious knowledge is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the development of the article system in interlanguage grammar. For the mapping of the syntactic knowledge of articles, the omission of articles by Japanese participants is investigated. The investigation focused on singular count nouns because the omission of articles with these nouns is ungrammatical in any context. It was observed that several of the Japanese participants indeed disallowed article omission for these nouns, suggesting that they had acquired the English system of mapping relevant syntactic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles. The thesis also explores the mapping of the semantic knowledge of articles by focusing on the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Previous studies have claimed that the overuse of 'the' is governed by the Article Choice Parameter (Ionin et al., 2004). The findings reported here confirm the tendency to overuse 'the' in indefinite specific (i.e. noteworthy (Ionin et al., 2004)) contexts. However, it was also observed that 'a' was judged acceptable in the same context. The offline grammaticality judgment task revealed that the choice of 'the' in this context may have been affected by metalinguistic knowledge. Thus, the findings are not in agreement with the hypothesis that a parameter governs the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Additionally, the thesis examines the overuse of 'a' in mass contexts. Though small in number, the participants who make inconsistent judgments for the same noun showed a tendency to accept the use of 'a' in specific contexts (i.e. de re specific) and reject it in non-specific contexts. It is argued that the feature [+specific] may be mapped onto 'a' in mass contexts in these learners’ grammar. Based on these findings, the thesis explores how the syntactic module and the semantic module interact with each other in L2 grammar when mapping linguistic knowledge onto surface forms. The thesis also explores the effect of metalinguistic knowledge on L2 learners’ grammaticality judgments in order to demonstrate a more comprehensive picture of article systems in interlanguage grammar.

This thesis examines ungrammatical article omission, and overuse of the definite article 'the' in indefinite specific context by Japanese learners of English. This is an area of English grammar that has been considered a major problem for L2 learners (e.g. Ionin, Ko & Wexler, 2004; R. Hawkins et al., 2005, 2006; Trenkic, 2007). The thesis extends the analysis of Japanese learners' interlanguage to the overuse of 'a' in indefinite specific mass contexts by these learners. A detailed analysis of DP structures in Japanese and English leads to the conclusion that Japanese learners, through their L1, are equipped with the linguistic features which map onto articles in English, even though Japanese lacks articles. The thesis examines the syntactic role of articles in rendering predicative nouns argumental (e.g. Chierchia, 1998; Longobardi, 1994) and explores the definiteness contrast marked by 'the' as opposed to 'a/ø' with singular count nouns and mass nouns (e.g. J. Hawkins, 1978) at the semantic level. Count/mass distinctions are also examined in detail (e.g. Doetjes, 1997; Jackendoff, 1992) because the 'a' versus 'Ø' contrast clearly relates this distinction. This thesis argues that, despite its lack of articles, the Japanese grammar expresses definiteness and count/mass distinctions through its classifier system. For example, different orderings of the constituents in a classifier phrase induce different interpretations as to definiteness (e.g. Kakegawa, 2004). Further, the thesis shows that some classifiers are incompatible with mass nouns, thus argue that in Japanese, as in English, nouns are associated with the features which underlie the count/mass distinction. Thus, the difficulty that Japanese learners display in mastering the grammar of articles in English is attributed to difficulties in the mapping between their syntactic and semantic underlying knowledge and the surface forms (e.g. Lardiere, 1998) rather than to the need to acquire new features or categories of syntactic or semantic knowledge as the Representational Deficit Hypothesis (R. Hawkins, 2005) claims. This proposal differs from the previous studies that assume that the relevant syntactic category is not present in the learners’ L1 thus not acquirable in the L2 (R. Hawkins et al., 2005; Trenkic, 2007). It also differs from those that suggest that, even when the learners’ L1 does not overtly realize these features (Ionin et al., 2004), the semantic features are available through universal grammar (UG). In order to examine how Japanese learners map syntactic and semantic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles in their English, data were collected via an oral production task and two types of grammaticality judgment tasks. An online judgment task was used to gather evidence for an intuitive type of knowledge of the constraints on article use, while an offline judgment task examined conscious metalinguistic knowledge of articles. Because L2 learners tend to construct and apply various metalinguistic rules as to the use of articles (Goto-Butler, 2002), the examination of both intuitive and conscious knowledge is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the development of the article system in interlanguage grammar. For the mapping of the syntactic knowledge of articles, the omission of articles by Japanese participants is investigated. The investigation focused on singular count nouns because the omission of articles with these nouns is ungrammatical in any context. It was observed that several of the Japanese participants indeed disallowed article omission for these nouns, suggesting that they had acquired the English system of mapping relevant syntactic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles. The thesis also explores the mapping of the semantic knowledge of articles by focusing on the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Previous studies have claimed that the overuse of 'the' is governed by the Article Choice Parameter (Ionin et al., 2004). The findings reported here confirm the tendency to overuse 'the' in indefinite specific (i.e. noteworthy (Ionin et al., 2004)) contexts. However, it was also observed that 'a' was judged acceptable in the same context. The offline grammaticality judgment task revealed that the choice of 'the' in this context may have been affected by metalinguistic knowledge. Thus, the findings are not in agreement with the hypothesis that a parameter governs the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Additionally, the thesis examines the overuse of 'a' in mass contexts. Though small in number, the participants who make inconsistent judgments for the same noun showed a tendency to accept the use of 'a' in specific contexts (i.e. de re specific) and reject it in non-specific contexts. It is argued that the feature [+specific] may be mapped onto 'a' in mass contexts in these learners’ grammar. Based on these findings, the thesis explores how the syntactic module and the semantic module interact with each other in L2 grammar when mapping linguistic knowledge onto surface forms. The thesis also explores the effect of metalinguistic knowledge on L2 learners’ grammaticality judgments in order to demonstrate a more comprehensive picture of article systems in interlanguage grammar.

This thesis examines ungrammatical article omission, and overuse of the definite article 'the' in indefinite specific context by Japanese learners of English. This is an area of English grammar that has been considered a major problem for L2 learners (e.g. Ionin, Ko & Wexler, 2004; R. Hawkins et al., 2005, 2006; Trenkic, 2007). The thesis extends the analysis of Japanese learners' interlanguage to the overuse of 'a' in indefinite specific mass contexts by these learners. A detailed analysis of DP structures in Japanese and English leads to the conclusion that Japanese learners, through their L1, are equipped with the linguistic features which map onto articles in English, even though Japanese lacks articles. The thesis examines the syntactic role of articles in rendering predicative nouns argumental (e.g. Chierchia, 1998; Longobardi, 1994) and explores the definiteness contrast marked by 'the' as opposed to 'a/ø' with singular count nouns and mass nouns (e.g. J. Hawkins, 1978) at the semantic level. Count/mass distinctions are also examined in detail (e.g. Doetjes, 1997; Jackendoff, 1992) because the 'a' versus 'Ø' contrast clearly relates this distinction. This thesis argues that, despite its lack of articles, the Japanese grammar expresses definiteness and count/mass distinctions through its classifier system. For example, different orderings of the constituents in a classifier phrase induce different interpretations as to definiteness (e.g. Kakegawa, 2004). Further, the thesis shows that some classifiers are incompatible with mass nouns, thus argue that in Japanese, as in English, nouns are associated with the features which underlie the count/mass distinction. Thus, the difficulty that Japanese learners display in mastering the grammar of articles in English is attributed to difficulties in the mapping between their syntactic and semantic underlying knowledge and the surface forms (e.g. Lardiere, 1998) rather than to the need to acquire new features or categories of syntactic or semantic knowledge as the Representational Deficit Hypothesis (R. Hawkins, 2005) claims. This proposal differs from the previous studies that assume that the relevant syntactic category is not present in the learners’ L1 thus not acquirable in the L2 (R. Hawkins et al., 2005; Trenkic, 2007). It also differs from those that suggest that, even when the learners’ L1 does not overtly realize these features (Ionin et al., 2004), the semantic features are available through universal grammar (UG). In order to examine how Japanese learners map syntactic and semantic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles in their English, data were collected via an oral production task and two types of grammaticality judgment tasks. An online judgment task was used to gather evidence for an intuitive type of knowledge of the constraints on article use, while an offline judgment task examined conscious metalinguistic knowledge of articles. Because L2 learners tend to construct and apply various metalinguistic rules as to the use of articles (Goto-Butler, 2002), the examination of both intuitive and conscious knowledge is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the development of the article system in interlanguage grammar. For the mapping of the syntactic knowledge of articles, the omission of articles by Japanese participants is investigated. The investigation focused on singular count nouns because the omission of articles with these nouns is ungrammatical in any context. It was observed that several of the Japanese participants indeed disallowed article omission for these nouns, suggesting that they had acquired the English system of mapping relevant syntactic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles. The thesis also explores the mapping of the semantic knowledge of articles by focusing on the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Previous studies have claimed that the overuse of 'the' is governed by the Article Choice Parameter (Ionin et al., 2004). The findings reported here confirm the tendency to overuse 'the' in indefinite specific (i.e. noteworthy (Ionin et al., 2004)) contexts. However, it was also observed that 'a' was judged acceptable in the same context. The offline grammaticality judgment task revealed that the choice of 'the' in this context may have been affected by metalinguistic knowledge. Thus, the findings are not in agreement with the hypothesis that a parameter governs the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Additionally, the thesis examines the overuse of 'a' in mass contexts. Though small in number, the participants who make inconsistent judgments for the same noun showed a tendency to accept the use of 'a' in specific contexts (i.e. de re specific) and reject it in non-specific contexts. It is argued that the feature [+specific] may be mapped onto 'a' in mass contexts in these learners’ grammar. Based on these findings, the thesis explores how the syntactic module and the semantic module interact with each other in L2 grammar when mapping linguistic knowledge onto surface forms. The thesis also explores the effect of metalinguistic knowledge on L2 learners’ grammaticality judgments in order to demonstrate a more comprehensive picture of article systems in interlanguage grammar.

This thesis examines ungrammatical article omission, and overuse of the definite article 'the' in indefinite specific context by Japanese learners of English. This is an area of English grammar that has been considered a major problem for L2 learners (e.g. Ionin, Ko & Wexler, 2004; R. Hawkins et al., 2005, 2006; Trenkic, 2007). The thesis extends the analysis of Japanese learners' interlanguage to the overuse of 'a' in indefinite specific mass contexts by these learners. A detailed analysis of DP structures in Japanese and English leads to the conclusion that Japanese learners, through their L1, are equipped with the linguistic features which map onto articles in English, even though Japanese lacks articles. The thesis examines the syntactic role of articles in rendering predicative nouns argumental (e.g. Chierchia, 1998; Longobardi, 1994) and explores the definiteness contrast marked by 'the' as opposed to 'a/ø' with singular count nouns and mass nouns (e.g. J. Hawkins, 1978) at the semantic level. Count/mass distinctions are also examined in detail (e.g. Doetjes, 1997; Jackendoff, 1992) because the 'a' versus 'Ø' contrast clearly relates this distinction. This thesis argues that, despite its lack of articles, the Japanese grammar expresses definiteness and count/mass distinctions through its classifier system. For example, different orderings of the constituents in a classifier phrase induce different interpretations as to definiteness (e.g. Kakegawa, 2004). Further, the thesis shows that some classifiers are incompatible with mass nouns, thus argue that in Japanese, as in English, nouns are associated with the features which underlie the count/mass distinction. Thus, the difficulty that Japanese learners display in mastering the grammar of articles in English is attributed to difficulties in the mapping between their syntactic and semantic underlying knowledge and the surface forms (e.g. Lardiere, 1998) rather than to the need to acquire new features or categories of syntactic or semantic knowledge as the Representational Deficit Hypothesis (R. Hawkins, 2005) claims. This proposal differs from the previous studies that assume that the relevant syntactic category is not present in the learners’ L1 thus not acquirable in the L2 (R. Hawkins et al., 2005; Trenkic, 2007). It also differs from those that suggest that, even when the learners’ L1 does not overtly realize these features (Ionin et al., 2004), the semantic features are available through universal grammar (UG). In order to examine how Japanese learners map syntactic and semantic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles in their English, data were collected via an oral production task and two types of grammaticality judgment tasks. An online judgment task was used to gather evidence for an intuitive type of knowledge of the constraints on article use, while an offline judgment task examined conscious metalinguistic knowledge of articles. Because L2 learners tend to construct and apply various metalinguistic rules as to the use of articles (Goto-Butler, 2002), the examination of both intuitive and conscious knowledge is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the development of the article system in interlanguage grammar. For the mapping of the syntactic knowledge of articles, the omission of articles by Japanese participants is investigated. The investigation focused on singular count nouns because the omission of articles with these nouns is ungrammatical in any context. It was observed that several of the Japanese participants indeed disallowed article omission for these nouns, suggesting that they had acquired the English system of mapping relevant syntactic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles. The thesis also explores the mapping of the semantic knowledge of articles by focusing on the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Previous studies have claimed that the overuse of 'the' is governed by the Article Choice Parameter (Ionin et al., 2004). The findings reported here confirm the tendency to overuse 'the' in indefinite specific (i.e. noteworthy (Ionin et al., 2004)) contexts. However, it was also observed that 'a' was judged acceptable in the same context. The offline grammaticality judgment task revealed that the choice of 'the' in this context may have been affected by metalinguistic knowledge. Thus, the findings are not in agreement with the hypothesis that a parameter governs the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Additionally, the thesis examines the overuse of 'a' in mass contexts. Though small in number, the participants who make inconsistent judgments for the same noun showed a tendency to accept the use of 'a' in specific contexts (i.e. de re specific) and reject it in non-specific contexts. It is argued that the feature [+specific] may be mapped onto 'a' in mass contexts in these learners’ grammar. Based on these findings, the thesis explores how the syntactic module and the semantic module interact with each other in L2 grammar when mapping linguistic knowledge onto surface forms. The thesis also explores the effect of metalinguistic knowledge on L2 learners’ grammaticality judgments in order to demonstrate a more comprehensive picture of article systems in interlanguage grammar.

The three structural possibilities marking a noun with an English article are a, the, and Ø (the absence of an article). Although these structural possibilities are simple, they encode a multitude of semantic and pragmatic functions, and it is these complex form-function interactions that this study explores and explains using a semantic map model. The semantic map that is proposed contains three dimensions, which I refer to as Grammatical Number, Referentiality, and Discourse Mode. Each of these dimensions contains a number of further semantic values or pragmatic functions - which I will label "attributes" - that are implicated in English article choice. Various semantic map versions are tested and compared with a methodological approach that uses data collected in a controlled protocol from an elicited conversational discourse. The version that performed best is used as a basis for proposing a comprehensive semantic map that includes the following dimensions and dimensional attributes: a Number dimension with 3 attributes (singular, plural, and uncountable); a Referentiality dimension with 11 attributes, including 7 referential attributes that describe kinds of identifiability (proper names, shared lexis, shared speech situation, frame, current discourse, identifiable to speaker only ["new reference"], and identifiable to neither speaker nor listener [non-specific]) as well as 4 non-referential attributes (categorization, general non-referential expressions, finite verb [verb-object] "noun incorporation", and idioms); and a Discourse Mode dimension with 4 attributes (headline, immediacy, normal, and reintroducing). This model of English articles contributes to the field of research on articles as well as to the field of English language instruction and learning. In addition, it is suggested that the methodological paradigm used to test the semantic map model may be useful as an experimental paradigm for testing semantic maps of other constructions and languages.

This study aimed to investigate the acquisition of the four non-generic uses of the English definite article the by Arabic learners of English in Saudi Arabia. These non-generic uses included textual, situational, cultural and structural. This study had three goals: (1) to determine whether these uses are acquired in a certain sequence; (2) to explore which one of these uses is the most difficult and the easiest in learning; (3) to investigate whether one or two of the uses are overused. The instrument consisted of 59 sentences adopted from Liu and Gleason (2002). There were 40 instances for required uses and 20 sentences for obligatory nonuse (5 instances for each use). The subjects were instructed to insert the where they deemed it necessary. The participants were 45 male undergraduate English major students, whose ages ranged from 18 to 22 with a Mean age of 21.6, from a university in Saudi Arabia. They were divided into three groups (15 students each) based on their proficiency levels as follows; low intermediate, intermediate, and advanced. The results revealed developmental trends in the acquisition of the non-generic uses of the English definite article related to proficiency. Specifically, the advanced group showed significantly higher accuracy of use in all four functions. Regarding the four functions, the order of acquisition, based on level of accuracy was as follows: situational, cultural, structural and textual. The study results are discussed in view of their pedagogical implications for the teaching of the definite article to Saudi learners of English.

英語學習者如何能在普及的網路環境中，挑選難易度符合自身英文閱讀能力的文章，便是一個值得探討的議題。為了提升文章難易度分類的準確度，近代研究選取許多難易度特徵去分類。本研究希望能夠藉由英文語文難易度特徵、文字特徵，各自歸類和綜合歸類後與原先官方文章類別比較，檢驗是否可以利用語文特徵與文字特徵結合後的歸類結果，來提高準度。 本研究以GEPT的模擬試題文章作為歸類的依據。研究架構主要分成三部分：語文難易度特徵歸類、文字特徵歸類與綜合前兩者歸類。先以語文難易度特徵組成特徵向量的維度，並算出各語文特徵值後，再使用kNN將文章歸類成初級、中級或中高級，並做為比較準確度的依據；再以GEPT文章斷詞，並選取特徵詞作為特徵向量維度、TF-IDF作特徵值進行文字特徵歸類；最後則是將前面兩種特徵結合作為歸類標準。分別的F-measure為0.61、0.47，最後一個、也是表現最好的結果是以兩者結合後歸類，F-measure有0.68。 如何從大量的英文文章當中找到適合自己程度循序漸進的學習，是本論文期望未來可以藉由最後語文難易度特徵加上文字特徵的結果來達到的目的。未來可以結合語文難易度特徵以及文字特徵來幫助英文文章做分類，並可以從中分類出不同類別且不同程度的英文文章，讓使用者自行選擇並閱讀，使學習成效進而提升。 / It is rather an important issue that how to grasp the difficulty of the articles in order to efficiently choose the English articles that match our proficiency in the popularity of Internet. Recently, researchers have selected many characteristics of difficulty degrees in order to enhance the accuracy of the classification. The study aims to simplify the former complicated procedures of article classification by using the classification results of linguistic difficulty characteristics, text characteristics respectively, and the combination of the both; in the hope to raise the accuracy of the classification through the comparison of the results. The article classification of the study is based on GEPT official practicing exams. There are three parts of this study: the characteristics of the linguistic difficulty and the text, and the combination of the both. First, the dimensions of the linguistic vectors will be the linguistic characteristics. The articles will be classified into primary, intermediate, or intermediate-high levels by kNN method, considered the comparison basis for the classification of the articles’ difficulty. Second, after GEPT articles are broken into words, the dimensions of the text vectors will be the selected words; the TF-IDF will be the values of the text vectors. The third part is to classify articles by using the combination of the former two results. After comparing the three, the best method is the third, the accuracy is 0.68. The study hopes the result could help people choose proper English articles to learn English step by step. In the future, we could classify the articles by the combination of the both of linguistic difficulty characteristics and text characteristics. Not only classified as the different levels, but also classified as the different categories. The learners could choose what they like and the articles could correspond their degree in order to promote the effect of learning.

英語の冠詞システムは、冠詞システムを持たない日本語を母語とする日本人学習者にとって、習得の難しい文法項目であるとされている。その原因の1つとして、冠詞使用に影響する英語名詞の可算性について正しく理解できていない、という理由が考えられる。本研究では、2つの実験研究を行い、日本人学習者が名詞の可算性を学習することで、英語冠詞を適切に使用できるようになるのかを調査した。 / The acquisition of the English article system is difficult for learners of English, especially when these learners do not have any article systems in their first language. One reason for their difficulty with English article usage is considered to stem from their inadequate understanding about noun countability. The present study examined the extent to which learning noun countability prompts Japanese learners' appropriate usage of English articles. / 博士(英語学) / Doctor of Philosophy in English Linguistics / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University