Elided Verb Structures In L2Syntax By Chinese Learners Of English

Within the framework of generative grammar, the paper makes a research ondistribution of VP ellipsis and gapping by using a grammaticality judgment test. Accordingto the classification of Chao (1988), VP ellipsis belongs to the class of H+ellipticalconstructions, while gapping belongs to the class of H-elliptical constructions. It isgenerally believed that Chinese does not have H-elliptical constructions. Syntactically, theconstraint of gapping in Chinese is more stringent than that in English; as for VP ellipsis,their constraints are similar. Naturally, due to these reasons, Chinese learners of Englishwill have different performance on acquiring English VP ellipsis and gapping.The results reveal: firstly, Chinese learners’ correctness in judging VP ellipsisconstruction is higher than that in judging gapping construction. Secondly, elementary andintermediate learners bear the lower correct rates in relative contexts than in subordinatecontexts both in gapping and VP ellipsis. Thirdly, the advanced learners with highproficiency still have difficulty in learning English gapping construction in coordinatecontexts. Fourthly, Chinese learners’ correct rates in judging gapping with quantified NPsare generally low, with little influence by L1transfer.We propose that Chinese learners have done better in learning VP ellipsis as a resultof L1transfer during the acquisition process. Chinese allows VP ellipsis, but prohibitsgapping, thus learners can learn English VP ellipsis more easily. As for elementary andintermediate learners’ lower correct rates in relative contexts both for VP ellipsis andgapping, we explain it from the view of syntactic complexity and syntactic level.Compared with relative clauses, the syntactic structure of subordinate clauses is simplerand the syntactic level is higher, which leads to a higher degree of attention. Therefore learners can acquire gapping in subordinate clauses more easily than in relative clauses.With regard to the advanced learners’ low correctness in judging English gapping incoordinate contexts, which are grammatical in English, we attribute it to the U-shapeddevelopment in L2acquisition. What’s more, as for the low correctness in judging gappingwith quantified NPs, we suggest L1transfer implies learners’ failure to learn L2structurewhich is disallowed in L1, even if there is an extremely similar structure in L1.This study not only indicates the internal principles in Chinese learners’ acquisitionprocess of English gapping and VP ellipsis, but also gives a comparative analysis ondistribution differences between gapping and VP ellipsis. From this way, this research canoffer some available advices for English teaching and learning, as well as promote theprocess of SLA.