English prototyped small clauses in the interlanguage of Chinese/Taiwanese adult learners

Abstract

This study of consider and find attempts to shed light on second language acquisition of English small clause complements, as in we consider [Mary intelligent] and we find [Mary interesting]. It examines how learners’ First language (Mandarin Chinese) interacts with the target language. The analysis is based on the results of two kinds of tasks: grammaticality judgements, intended to elicit nonnative participants’ implicit knowledge as compared with the responses of native participants; and oral translations to test their explicit access to this knowledge. The results indicate that Chinese learners tend to avoid sentences that contain small clause complements. A related finding is that, like small clause complements, infinitival complements are under-generated and not preferred by the subjects; tensed clauses and clauses introduced by that are preferred. It is suggested that learners’ difficulty with small clause complements involves underlying first language transfer. On the other hand, the difficulty with infinitive clauses may be related to universal developmental order, as the interpretation for an NP involves an extra mechanism, Exceptional Case Marking.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aarts, B. 1992: Small clauses in English: the nonverbal types. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter .

Bresnan, J. 1978: A realistic transformational grammar. In Halle, M. , Bresnan, J. and Miller, G. , editors, Linguistic theory and psychological reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press , 1-59.

Cardinaletti, A. and Guasti, M. , editors 1995: Small clauses: syntax and semantics. Volume 28. San Diego: Academic Press .

Cardinaletti, A. and Guasti, M. 1993: Negation in small clauses . Probus 5, 39-61 .

Carrier, J. and Randall, J. 1992: The argument structure and syntactic structure of resultatives . Linguistic Inquiry 23, 173-234 .

Chaudron, C. 1983: Research in metalinguistic judgements: a review of theory, methods and results . Language Learning 33, 343-377 .

Chomsky, N. 1981: Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris .

Chomsky, N. 1986: Knowledge of language: its nature, origin and use. New York: Praeger .

Chung, S. and McCloskey, J. 1987: Government, barriers and small clauses in modern Irish . Linguistic Inquiry 18, 173-237 .

10.

Cowan, R. and Hatasa Y. 1994: Investigating the validity and reliability of native speaker and second-language learner judgements about sentences. In Tarone, E. , Gass, S. and Cohen, A. , editors, Research methodology in second-language acquisition. Hillside, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum , 287-302.

11.

De Villiers, J. and de Villiers, P. 1985: The acquisition of English. In Slobin, D. , editor, The crosslinguistic study on language acquisition. Data volume 1. Hillside, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum , 39-139.

12.

Dulay, H. and Burt, M. 1974: Natural sequences in child second language acquisition . Language Learning 24, 37-53 .

13.

Goldberg, A. 1995: Constructions: a construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press .

14.

Hoekstra, T. 1988: Small clause results . Lingua 74, 101-139 .

15.

Ioup, G. 1983: Acquiring complex sentences in ESL. In Bailey, K. , Long, M. and Peck, S. , editors, Second language acquisition studies. Rowley, MA: Newbury House .

16.

Jackendoff, R. 1990: Semantic structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press .

17.

Jackendoff, R. 1997: The architecture of the language faculty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press .

18.

Lado, R. 1957: Linguistic across cultures: applied linguistics for language teachers. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan .

19.

Lakshmanan, U. 1993/94: The boy for the cookie’: some evidence for the non-violation of the case filter in child second language acquisition . Language Acquisition 3, 55-91 .

20.

Lakshmanan, U. and Selinker, L. 1994: The status of CP and the tensed complementizer that in the developing L2 grammars of English . Second Language Research 10, 25-48 .

21.

Odlin, T. 1989: Language transfer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

22.

Radford, A. 1990: Syntactic theory and the acquisition of English syntax: the nature of early child grammar of English. London: Blackwell .

23.

Safir, K. 1983: On small clauses as constituents . Linguistic Inquiry 14, 730-735 .

24.

Selinker, L. and Lakshmanan, U. 1992: Language transfer and fossilization: the multiple effects principle. In Gass, S. and Selinker, L. , editors, Language transfer in language learning. Amsterdam: John Benjamins , 197-216.

25.

Schachter, J. 1992: A new account of language transfer. In Gass, S. and Selinker, L. , editors, Language transfer in language learning. Amsterdam: John Benjamins , 32-46.

26.

Sharwood Smith, M. and Kellerman, E. 1986: Crosslinguistic influence in second language acquisition: an introduction. In Kellerman, E. and Sharwood Smith, M. , editors, Cross-linguistic influence in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon .

27.

Snyder, W. 2001: On the nature of syntactic variation: evidence from complex predicates and complex word-formation . Language 77, 324-342 .

28.

Sorace, A. 1996: The use of acceptability judgements in second language research. In Ritchie, W. and Bhatia, T. , editors, Handbook of second language acquisition. San Diego: Academic Press .

29.

Stowell, T. 1981: Origins of phrase structure. Unpublished PhD dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, MA.

30.

Stowell, T. 1983: Subjects across categories . The Linguistic Review 2, 285-312 .

31.

Stowell, T. 1991: Small clause restructuring. In Freidin, R. , editor, Principles and parameters of comparative grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press .

32.

Williams, E. 1983: Against small clauses . Linguistic Inquiry 14, 287-308 .