Acquisition Of English Ditransitive Constructions By Chinese EFL Learners

Ditransitive constructions are composed of double object constructions(DOCs)and prepositional dative constructions(PDCs),which are realized by a ditransitive verb taking three arguments,i.e.,agent,theme and goal.The alternation between DOCs and PDCs are termed as dative alternation,which is constrained by the semantic properties of ditransitive verbs.According to Pinker(1989),a verb to undergo dative alternation must be compatible with broad-range rules(BRRs)and narrow-range rules(NRRs).BRRs as a necessary condition for dative alternation specify the underlying semantic interpretation of DOCs,which can be predicated from universal linking rules and are available to all learners.NRRs as a sufficient condition for dative alternation further define semantic classes of ditransitive verbs in terms of dativizability,which are language-specific,thus posing learnability problems.The current study adopts acceptability judgment test and examines how L1-Chinese learners acquire English ditransitive constructions containing three narrow-range verb classes,i.e.,throw-class;tell-class;send-class.Two groups of participants of significantly different L2 proficiency levels are asked to complete an acceptability judgment task with target sentences containing three verb classes so as to probe whether there are any acquisitional differences between DOCs and PDCs by L1-Chinese learners of English,to what extent L1-Chinese learners are sensitive to narrow-range rules and the effect of L1 transfer & L2 proficiency on L2 acquisition of dative alternation.The research results show that,irrespective of L2 proficiency,L1-Chinese learners generally prefer PDCs,which probably results from the fact that PDCs are unmarked available in UG making them easy to be acquired.The second reason for this result is that PDCs with preposition-to are more structurally complex,which probably leads to more attention to learning and teaching given by L2 teachers and learners.But in general terms,L1-Chinese learners accept the fact that verbs from three classes are able to enter into double object constructions,which shows that narrow-range rules governing dative alternation are acquirable.Such results evidence the Interface Hypothesis(Sorace &Filiaci,2006)that narrow syntactic structures and syntax-semantics interface are acquirable for L2 learners.Despite the acceptance of double object constructions containing all the verbs from the three semantically defined classes by L1-Chinese learners,their performance significantly varies contingent on verb classes due to L1 transfer effect.At last,the effect of L2 proficiency on L1-Chinese learners’ acquisition of DOCs and PDCs has not been seen.