Motion Verbs with Goal PPs in English and Japanese as Second Languages

概要

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This paper investigates how the outcomes of the acquisition of second language (L2) argument structure will vary depending on the nature of the learner's first language (L1). The focus is on motion verbs appearing with a prepositional/postpositional phrase that expresses a goal (goal PP). In English, manner-of-motion verbs (e.g., walk) and directed motion verbs (e.g., go) can appear with a goal PP as in John walked (went) to school. In contrast, Japanese allows only directed motion verbs to occur with a goal PP. Thus, Japanese motion verbs with goal PPs form a subset of their English counterparts. L1 transfer and learnability considerations (White, 1991b), then, lead me to hypothesize that Japanese speakers will be able to acquire English manner-of-motion verbs with goal PPs on the basis of positive evidence, but that English-speaking learners of Japanese will have difficulty recognizing the ungrammaticality of manner-of-motion verbs with goal PPs in Japanese, due to the lack of relevant positive evidence. Forty-seven Japanese-speaking learners of English at 2 proficiency levels and 48 English-speaking learners of Japanese at 3 proficiency levels were tested using a grammaticality judgment task with pictures. Results support the prediction, suggesting that whether the L1 constitutes a subset of the L2 or vice versa indeed affects the outcomes of the acquisition of L2 argument structure.
大阪府立大学の論文
2004-03-01