An Acquisition Research On English Prepositions In And Into

Within the framework of Minimalist Program, the present study investigates Chinesestudents’ acquisition of English prepositions in and into. The data were collectedthrough questionnaire tests on pupils, senior students as well as sophomores in whichsentences were adopted from the examples in Levin(1993), Tomas(2001,2003,2004) andTutton(2009). The results which were analyzed by SPSS are shown as below: firstly,acquisition of lexical categories is prior to that of the functional categories, and acquisition ofthe overt functional categories takes precedence over that of the covert functional categories;Secondly, most of students couldn’t distinguish the covert directional meaning of prepositionseven with the development of cognitive ability; Lastly, students can draw a clear distinctionbetween inLocand in, but couldn’t distinct inLocand inDir. Besides, senior one students andsophomores all tend to use into in the sentences that inLocand into are interchangeable. Thepresent study explains the priority of lexical categories’ acquisition from the dimensions ofcomplicated syntax, syntax hierarchy as well as Feature Assemble Hypothesis. From theperspective of Interface Hypothesis, the phenomenon most students couldn’t distinguishbetween inLocand inDirso that they acquire covert functional categories later than overtfunctional categories is interpreted. In addition, classroom input and cognitive prominence arethe reasons students couldn’t discriminate inLocand inDiras well as their preference of into.The present study, on one hand, reveals the internal acquisition process of language learnersby taking in and into as examples to explore the Chinese learners’ acquisition of Englishprepositions, and by analysis of the causes, on the other hand, provides further guidance forEnglish teaching which is helpful for L2learners.