The Acquisition Of The Scope Of Chinese Negation By Korean Speakers:An Interface Approach

As one of the most influential theories in the field of second language acquisition(White,2009;Rothman & Slabakova,2017),the Interface Hypothesis(IH,Sorace&Serratrice,2009;Sorace,2011)has spurred a large number of studies.In the line of research on the syntax-semantics interface,disagreement arises as a variable-dependent view(Yuan,2010)emerges against the holistic nature of interface assumed by the IH or the domain-wide approach to the interface vulnerability.In light of these controversies,the present study attempts to add to the discussion by investigating the L2 acquisition of the scope of negation in Mandarin Chinese.The Chinese negator bu precedes or follows such scope-bearing elements as adverbs and modal verbs.Also,it can be placed “inside” and “outside” a Resultative Verb Compound(RVC).These three types of word order variation lead to interpretive differences,which presents features of syntax-semantics interface.Hence,word variation associated with the scope of negation offers a sound testing ground for the Interface Hypothesis and the holistic view of the interface.We recruited three groups of participants,a group of Korean-speaking intermediate learners of Chinese(n = 27),a group of Korean-speaking advanced learners of Chinese(n = 22)and a group of Chinese native speakers(n = 32).Results of an off-line sentence-making task showed that both L2 groups behaved in a nativelike way when it comes to the word order variation of negation and modal verbs,and of negation and RVCs.However,this task required a higher level of proficiency to acquire interactions between negation and all elements,which was represented by a subgroup(n = 11)that was extracted from the advanced learner group.Therefore,what seemed to be an interface breakdown turned out to be a failure in reaching nativelikeness.Furthermore,these findings intrigued discussions on several more topics.The input could help to explain why the word order variation of negation and adverbs posed greater difficulties for Korean-speaking L2 learners of Chinese.Rules of adverbs are complex;and when the L2 learners failed to grasp simple rules from the input of the target language,they needed a higher proficiency level to acquire knowledge at the syntax-semantics interface.Also,discussions on the cross-linguistic influence showed that it was neither a clear cut at the investigated interface nor a decisive factor in L2 acquisition of our objective.In addition to the theoretical implications,this study also indicates that it would be easier for L2 Chinese learners to learn the interaction between negation and adverbs if they are instructed to utilize semantic constraints to distinguish adverbs that are able to interact with the negator bu from those that are not.