A Study Of Chinese EFL Learners’ Acquisition Of Quantificational Scope From The Perspective Of Syntax-Pragmatics Interface

In syntax,quantificational scope refers to the scope that quantifiers c-command in logical form representation.Syntactically,in English,the interaction between negation and quantifiers may cause ambiguity,leading to both the surface reading and the inverse reading.In Chinese,the corresponding constructions only have the surface reading in all sentence types,which is different from quantificational scope in English.Pragmatically,for a sentence with multiple quantifiers which has two interpretations,if one interpretation makes it true in a specific context,the sentence can be accepted.Syntactic knowledge and pragmatic knowledge both contribute to the understanding of the quantificational scope.Thus,the interpretation of quantificational scope involves the syntax-pragmatics interface,and it is difficult for Chinese EFL learners to acquire quantificational scope.But few scholars explore the quantificational scope from the syntax-pragmatics interface.Therefore,Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition of quantificational scope is explored in this research from the perspective of the syntax-pragmatics interface.The theoretical framework used in this research is the Quantificational Scope Learning Framework Based on Syntax-Pragmatics Interface.Participants are English major students,including undergraduates,postgraduates,and doctors.This research adopts the Acceptability Judgment Tasks,the Truth-value Judgment Tasks,the picture elicitation tasks,and think-aloud tasks to explore learners’ acquisition of quantificational scope.Specifically,it aims to answer three research questions:1.Can Chinese EFL learners’ interpretation of quantificational scope reach the native-like state? What native-like features and non native-like features can be discovered in their interpretation? What is the developmental trend?2.Can Chinese EFL learners’ production of quantificational scope reach the native-like state? What native-like features and non native-like features can be discovered in their production? What is the developmental trend?3.What are the main factors that might affect Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition of quantificational scope?The answers to the research questions are as follows.First,learners can only fully acquire the interpretation of some…not sentences at the syntax-pragmatics interface.The developmental trend is that the proportion of native-like learners increases as the proficiency level raises.The non native-like features are mainly divergence,optionality,and indeterminacy.The developmental trends are as follows.The proportion of optionality decreases except for the interpretation of every…not sentences.The proportion of divergence increases except for the interpretation of every…not sentences.The proportion of indeterminacy decreases except for the interpretation of not…some sentences.Second,learners’ production does not reach the native-like state in all sentence types.The non native-like features are mainly divergence and optionality.For every...not sentences,the proportion of divergence increases but the proportion of optionality decreases as learners improve.For not...every sentences,some...not sentences,and not...some sentences,the proportion of optionality increases as learners improve,while the proportion of divergence decreases as learners improve.Third,the influencing factors are form-meaning relevance strength,context,L1 transfer,and information processing capability.This research extends the research on Chinese English learners’ acquisition of quantificational scope to syntax-pragmatics interface,adds data and evidence to the studies of the syntax-pragmatics interface,and verifies the Interface Hypothesis.