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A bottom-up approach to the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis: Acquisition of the present perfect by Arabic learners of English.

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Bibliographic Details
Title: A bottom-up approach to the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis: Acquisition of the present perfect by Arabic learners of English.
Authors: Almishwat, Gadah1 gamshot@ub.edu.sa
Source: Journal of English Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics (JELTAL). 2026, Vol. 8 Issue 6, p51-71. 21p.
Subject Terms: *Language transfer (Language learning), *Second language acquisition, *Verbs, *Tense (Grammar), Semantics
Abstract: Data from prior research has provided evidence for the L1 Arabic influence on the acquisition of L2 English present perfect (PP). However, little is known about what exactly is being transferred from L1 Arabic grammar to facilitate or hinder the acquisition of the English PP by Arabic speakers of English. This paper adopts a bottom-up approach to the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (FRH) (Lardiere 2012) to empirically compare PP feature mapping in English and Arabic, resulting in precise L1 Arabic transfer predictions for feature reassembly, which we then tested in an L2 acquisition study. The results revealed that Arabic L2 users of English (L2ers) made form-meaning associations based on the lexical aspect (telicity) and semantic interpretations of English PP contexts, which revealed new insights into L1-L2 feature reassembly in English PP acquisition that other approaches did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Journal of English Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics (JELTAL) is the property of Al-Kindi Center for Research & Development and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Database: Education Research Complete
Description
Abstract:Data from prior research has provided evidence for the L1 Arabic influence on the acquisition of L2 English present perfect (PP). However, little is known about what exactly is being transferred from L1 Arabic grammar to facilitate or hinder the acquisition of the English PP by Arabic speakers of English. This paper adopts a bottom-up approach to the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (FRH) (Lardiere 2012) to empirically compare PP feature mapping in English and Arabic, resulting in precise L1 Arabic transfer predictions for feature reassembly, which we then tested in an L2 acquisition study. The results revealed that Arabic L2 users of English (L2ers) made form-meaning associations based on the lexical aspect (telicity) and semantic interpretations of English PP contexts, which revealed new insights into L1-L2 feature reassembly in English PP acquisition that other approaches did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:2707756X
DOI:10.32996/jeltal.2026.8.6.5