The Acquisition Of Chinese Unaccusative Verbs By Native English-Speakers

The present study is based on the framework of syntax and semantics correspondence and focuses on the L2 acquisition of Chinese unaccusative verbs by English-speaking learners.According to Unaccusative Hypothesis,first proposed by Perlmutter in 1978,traditional intransitive verbs can be divided into two different classes:Unaccusatives and Unergatives.Unaccusatives only has an object in D-structure but no subject,while unergatives,on the contrary,has a subject in D-structure,rather than an object.Further studies show that the distinction between unaccusatives and unergatives exist universally,though differences of unaccusativity also exist in different languages.Since Perlmutter proposed the 'Unaccusative Hypothesis,researches have been done relating to learners of different first language background.However,these researches mainly focus on English learners,and they were criticized because of the lack of empirical studies.Oshita proposed 'Unaccusative Trap Hypothesis(UTH),which believes the acquisition of unaccusative verbs is in a U-shaped' pattern.Sorace proposed 'Unaccusative Hierarchy Hypothesis'(UHH),which assumed that there exist hierarchy in unaccusative verbs from which core unaccusatives are easier to acquire than peripheral ones.The present survey,based on the 'UTH' and 'UHH',as well as'Markedness Differential Hypothesis'(MDH),proposed by Eckman,focuses on the acquisition of Chinese unaccusative verbs by Chinese learners from English-speaking countries.The present study is a cross-sectional study in which there are 60 participants from Nanjing University and Beijing Language and Culture University.All the participants are divided into 3 groups,i.e.Beginners,Intermediate learners and advanced learners.A grammatical judgmenttask and a writing task have been done in this survey in orderto test the following questions:1.In what order and developing pattern does an English-speaking learners acquire Chinese unaccusatives?2.In what ways do some specific constructions in Chinese affect the acquisition of Chinese Unaccusatives?The results can be concluded as follows:1.In the beginning and intermediate level,English-speaking Learners can not distinguish unaccusative verbs from unergative verbs.In same syntactic context,they prefer to use unergative verbs and even transitive verbs rather than unaccusatives.Besides,the acquisition of 'V+NP' is more difficult than 'NP+V'2.There is no U-shaped' pattern in the process of Chinese unaccusative acquisition,instead,a 'plough-shaped' pattern seems to be more reasonable.That is to say,in the beginning and intermediate level,the acquisition of Chinese unaccusatives stays in a relative lower stage while when learners have achieved advanced level,learners can make a remarkable improvement.Meanwhile,Chinese unaccusatives can be fully acquired as long as learners have achieved advanced level and can distinguish both unaccusatives and unergatives in their interlanguage system.3.The choice of Aspect markers is very difficult in the process of acquiring Chinese unaccusatives.4.The present study cannot fully prove the impact from other specific constructions such as core/peripheral unaccusatives,alternative intransitive verbs.These requires further researches.The present study can shed some light on the nature of SLA and provide some insights into teaching.Teachers should pay more attention to those constructions that may cause difficulties to learners.On the one hand,organizing abundant tasks to stimulate students' attention to those difficult constructions.On the other hand,narrow the gap between learns' cognition of thematic-roles and semantics,so that students can learn Chinese Unaccusatives much easier.