Idiosyncratic Rules among Kurdish Intermediate English Learners’ Compositions: A Focus on their Interlanguage
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66121/5382da68Keywords:
EFL learners, Grammatical morphemes, Interlanguage, L1 transfer, Kurdish Sorani, Error analysisAbstract
This study investigated recurrent morphosyntactic errors in Sorani Kurdish EFL learners’ writing and inferred likely sources for the most frequent patterns at a private language institute in Dehgolan, Kurdistan region in Iran. Using a corpus-based, descriptive design, we analysed 53 learners’ writing samples. Errors were identified at the phrase level, coded into categories, and reported as percentage frequencies to determine the most recurring grammatical problem areas and patterns linked to interlanguage development and L1 transfer. The results revealed four main problem areas: articles (44.2%), subject–verb agreement (30.0%), plural marking (20.8%), and pronouns (5.0%). Article errors were the most frequent. Learners often omitted a/an and the, confused the two forms, or used a before plural nouns, all of which can be attributed to Sorani transfer. Subject–verb agreement presented a parallel difficulty: many learners consistently omitted the third-person singular -s (e.g., she give) and selected verb forms based on semantic proximity rather than grammatical subject. Plural errors clustered after quantifiers (e.g., many student), accompanied by count–mass confusion and over-pluralisation of irregular forms. Pronoun errors included resumptive pronouns in relative clauses (e.g., the man that I saw him), object/possessive confusion, and number mismatches in reflexive forms. Collectively, these findings confirm that intermediate learners’ grammar remains strongly shaped by the L1 and continues to develop unevenly across morphosyntactic subsystems. This paper addresses a notable gap by providing a morphosyntactic error corpus for Kurdish EFL learners, an under-researched population in Iran, and interprets interlanguage variation within the frame of L1–L2 structural contrast. The results have direct implications for EFL pedagogy, particularly for designing form-focused instructional activities targeting low-salience morphemes.
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