Determiners in late bilingualism

English articles – 'the' and 'a(n)' – are difficult to master for second language learners from first language backgrounds without articles. This chapter offers an account of what distinguishes articles from other determiners and why this poses a learning challenge. By reviewing patterns in second language article use – and focusing on article substitution and article omission errors in particular – the chapter uncovers the meanings that late bilinguals attribute to the two article forms, and elucidate the mechanisms of bilingual language production and the morphosyntactic representations that underpin them. The findings support the view that, even at the level of morphosyntax, both languages in a bilingual speaker are simultaneously active and compete for selection. Indirectly, they point to cross-linguistic differences in the syntactic structure of the nominal phrase and the grammatical function of determiners.