摘要：An interesting area in second language acquisition research is the way the concept of generic reference is expressed in different languages. This study examines the role of the article system in the expression of generic noun phrases in English and focuses on the problems Persian learners face. Analysis of the performance of Persian learners at three levels of proficiency on a grammaticality judgment task and comparing it with that of the native control group shows that Persian learners of English at the advanced level of grammatical knowledge display a native-like knowledge of English generic constructions that include bare plurals or the indefinite NPs. They are, however, unable to show the same knowledge in definite generic constructions. It is discussed that this failure can be traced to be resulted from a strong L1 transfer effect.
关键词：English article system;acquisition;definiteness;genericity;L1 transfer
