DETERMINERS, BARE SINGULARS, PLURALS: A PORTABLE TUTOR FOR SENTENCE GRAMMAR

Authors

  • Sorin Popovici Assumption University, ABAC, Hua Mak Campus, Queen Tower, Q-4404, Thailand

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejel.v6i4.3753

Keywords:

determiners, bare singulars, count nouns, functors

Abstract

This paper is based on the assumption that a portable tutor, as a practice-based tool, can offer students ample opportunities to improve their sentence grammar. By focusing on one specific grammar issue at a time, it presents certain sentence patterns that, through repeated practice, can eventually correct that particular grammar issue, in this case, that of determiners, bare singulars, and plurals. Significantly, this study has specific implications for Assumption University students and for Thai students in general, in that it explains why people who grow up speaking a language where nouns do not have determiners will have difficulty when learning a language that has them, for instance English. The paper begins by presenting a classification of determiners followed by a detailed description of one specific type of determiner: the bare singular count noun. The study continues with the proposed research methodology consisting of the Portable Tutor development, and the Experiment’s three main components, pre-testing, “treatment” and post-testing of the participating group of students. The paper concludes with data collection and analysis, and conclusions.

Article visualizations:

Hit counter

Author Biography

  • Sorin Popovici, Assumption University, ABAC, Hua Mak Campus, Queen Tower, Q-4404, Thailand
    Dr. Sorin is currently Senior Lecturer, Asst. Prof. of English with the Institute for English Language Education, Assumption University, Thailand. He started teaching English in Europe (Romania), then continued in the Americas (Brazil) and for the past 30 years, in Asia (Japan and Thailand). He wrote a number of research papers on sentence grammar-related issues presented at international conferences.

References

D. Biber, “Lexical bundles in conversation and academic prose”, Language and Computers, books.google.com, 1999

D. Kallulli, “The comparative syntax of Albanian: on the contribution of syntactic types to propositional interpretation”, Doctoral thesis, Durham University, 1999

G. Carlson, “A unified analysis of the English bare plural”, Linguistics and Philosophy, January 1977, Volume 1, Issue 3, pp 413–457

G. Carlson, “Reference to kinds in English”, PhD thesis, University of Massachusetts, 1977

G. Longobardi et al. “Across language families: Genome diversity mirrors linguistic variation within Europe”, https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.22758, 2015

L. Stvan, “The Semantics and Pragmatics of Bare Singular Noun Phrases”, pdfs.semanticscholar.org, 1998

N. Piriyawiboon,“Classifiers and determiner-less languages: The case of Thai, https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/26223/1/Piriyawiboon_Nattaya_201011_PhD_thesis.pdf

R. Zamparelli, “Definite and Bare Kind-denoting Noun Phrases”, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2515003_Definite_and_Bare_Kind-denoting_Noun_Phrases, 2002

S. Popovici, “Sentence Fragments: A portable tutor for sentence grammar”, The 3rd International Conference on Language Education (ICOLE), Sulawesi, Indonesia, 2013

S. Popovici, “The e-Grammar Clinic: A Moodle-based Tutoring System for English as Second Language”, a Ph.D. Dissertation, Assumption University Library, 2012

Downloads

Published

2021-05-23

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 4 (2021)

Section

Articles

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

 

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

 

  1. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

 

  1. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).