Chinese EFL Learners' Acquisition Of Comp

This study aims to investigate whether recognition of formal features and the complexity of the reassembly of formal features influence Chinese EFL learners'acquisition of English Complementizer (C). Taking into consideration the extensive exploration of the morpho-syntax interface by the generativists, this study, based on the lexical-realizational model in inflectional morphology (Stump 2001) and Chomsky's (2007b,2014) phonological parameter at the post-syntactic stage, attempts to redefine the morpho-syntax interface. More specifically, to map the abstract syntactic properties with morphological forms at the pre-syntactic stage and to explicitly instantiate the syntactic results to meet the linear order and morphological requirements of particular languages via morpho-phonological computation at the post-syntactic stage.To take the reconceptualization of the morpho-syntax interface as a guide, a new project for parameter-setting is reformulated under the minimalist framework of the biolinguistic paradigm, namely, to integrate the micro lexical parameter at the pre-syntactic stage with post-syntactic phonological parameters. Then, the "Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (FRH)" (Lardiere 2005,2009a,2009b), which has drawn extensive attention in the generative approaches to second language acquisition (GASLA), is reformulated into "Feature Recognition and Reassembly Complexity Hypothesis (FRRCH)" on the basis of the integrated project of parameter-setting, which is set to explore the development of interlanguage and enrich the transition theory of SLA.The data in this study were obtained from two experimental tasks (question-asking and grammaticality judgment of minimal pairs), with the purpose of utilizing phonetic clues and grammaticality judgment intuition to explore how Chinese EFL learners acquire C. Two hundred and nine subjects participated in the English proficiency test (EPT), but only the data of ninety-four subjects (three groups each with more than thirty) have been analyzed thus far (Data were removed if they did not meet the criteria for primary, intermediate and advanced groups, and/or they were from those participants who did not complete the tests).The findings show that the success of recognizing English C features such as [TNS], [EPP], [Decl] and [Q]/[Wh] is positively correlated with the acquisition of English C; furthermore, the degree of acquisition of C by the primary, the intermediate and the advanced learners presented an increasing tendency from less or weak proficiency to greater or advanced proficiency. These indicate that if LI features are invisible and the corresponding L2 features are explicit or visible, it is comparatively difficult to acquire the relevant L2 syntactic structures according to Kayne's (2005a,2013) viewpoint, which admits the existence of invisible syntactic elements in different languages. In this case, the prediction by FRRCH about the correlation between featural recognition and acquisition of C could be verified.In addition, the accuracy rate of oral production of C in yes-no questions is significantly higher than that of simple Wh-questions; and the accuracy rate of the grammaticality judgment of restriction of T-C movement is also significantly higher than that of mistaking T-C movement in English embedded sentences. These indicate that if the recognition of formal features at the pre-syntactic stage is not successful, and the intensive reassembly of formal features is more complex, acquisition of C will be more difficult. In this case, the prediction by FRRCH about the relation between recognition of formal features, the complexity of intensive reassembly of formal features and the acquisition of C could be confirmed.If the verification is reliable, FRRCH could, to some extent, provide a more detailed explanation for L2 acquisition than FRH, and produce a more specific explanation for Chinese EFL learners'acquisition of English C than the general theory of language transfer. This finding agrees with the viewpoint of the Interface Hypothesis:the syntactic properties of interfaces (among different language modules) are generally more difficult to acquire than those of specific syntactic structures for L2 learners (Cf. Montrul 2002,2004; Sorace 2006; White2011; Dai 2014). It also demonstrates that the theoretical bases of FRRCH, viz. the reconceptualization of mopho-syntax mapping and the integrated project of parameter-setting, seem to be reasonable.