An Empirical Study Of L2 Syntactic-Semantic Interaction And Constraints Of Counterfactual Structures By Chinese Learners Of English

This present study is an empirical study of the syntactic-semantic interaction and constraints in the processing of Chinese students' English counterfactual sentences.A quantitative analysis method is employed.In addition,the psychology software E-prime2.0 and statistical analysis software SPSS20.0 are used to present experimental materials and to perform statistical analysis on the experimental data respectively.Counterfactual sentences in this study are divided into three syntactic types: if explicit counterfactual sentences,inversion counterfactual sentences,implied counterfactual sentences;and we further classify the three syntactic types into two semantic types,that is transparent and non-transparent counterfactual sentences(Yeh & Gentner,2005).Besides,the induced counterfactual sentences of the study were selected from the BNC and COCA corpora and were adapted according to the English proficiency levels of Chinese English learners.By comparing the performance on a grammatical comprehension judgment task through E-Prime2.0 between two groups of L2 English learners at different proficiency levels,ANOVA analyses showed that: 1)in the processing of counterfactual structures,the processing cost of advanced Chinese English learners were significantly smaller than those intermediate learners;2)Chinese English learners showed discrepancy in accuracy and reaction times under different syntactic counterfactual structures;3)Chinese English learners had an asymmetrical processing in transparent and non-transparent semantic counterfactual structures.The complexity of sentence pattern generation and semantic transparency have a stronger influence on Chinese learners' comprehension of L2 English counterfactual structures,meanwhile,main effect of English proficiency level was also significant.We discussed the above-mentioned results.To begin with,different L2(English)proficiency level is embodied in the different subcategorization framework between English and Chinese and the difference in the activation level of the syntactic-semantic interface as well as the ability to suppress the interference of L1(Chinese).Secondly,difference shown in the processing of the three syntactic types of English counterfactual sentences is not only related to the structural complexity generated inside of English structure,but also to the syntactic-pragmatic typological differences between English and Chinese.Finally,the degree of prominence and semantic transparency in syntactic structure embodies a relationship of mutual restriction and mutual choice.Semantics can limit the syntax by means of prominence.The study can deepen the understanding of the role of second language acquisition and its influence rule,thus deepen the understanding in the second language acquisition process.The research on Chinese students' processing of the second language structure can not only contribute to the universality of existing counterfactual structures and their processing theory hypotheses,but also has practical application value for English teaching in the classroom environment in China.