The Interpretation And Acquisition Of English Quantif Icational Scope By Chinese L2 Learners

The acquisition of English interface properties like quantificational scope has become one of international frontier research topics in the field of second language(L2)acquisition.Quantifiers always play significant roles in all kinds of languages.The phenomenon of quantificational scope results from the co-occurrence of a quantifier noun phrase(QNP)and another one or an operator,su ch as a wh-question word,a negator.Some quantificational scope is correlated with the interface between syntax and semantics while others may be related to the interfaces involving syntax,semantics,discourse and pragmatics.The former is defined as int ernal interface while the latter is regarded as multi-interfaces.The phenomenon of quantificational scope displays cross-linguistic differences.Scope ambiguity has been observed in English but not in Chinese.Acquision of quantificational scope usually c onstitutes huge difficulty for L2 learners due to the complexity of the interface and the cross-linguistic differences.In recent years,based on different linguistic theories,the researchers in the field of SLA have been exploring how L2 learners interp ret and acquire quantificational scope.Within the framework of Nativist Approach,the attention of most research in the past has been predominantly focused on whether there is any accessibility to UG or L1 transfer during the development of acquisition.Little research has been focused on whether it could be acquired as an internal interface or an external one in order that the general ability to deal with scope would be found(?z?elik 2017).And by adopting the paradigm of Nativist Emergentism,several studies have been concerned with the interpretation and acquisition handled by the efficiency-driven processor(Lee 2009;Kwak 2010).The proponents of Navitism have been devoted to reduc ing the content of UG because whether Quantifier Rising is obligatory has been highly debated.And the traditional paradigm has been challenged with which the research to the SLA of scope quantificational scope was conducted.The latest theory about the study of scope is Processing Determinism(O'Grady 2015).Overcoming the limitations of UG,it analysizes the nature of language and language acquisition through the internal processing mechanism.The lack of conclusiveness and sameness lies in the fact that there are few studies on the interpretation and acquisition of L2 quan tificational scope and that these studies always use only one type of quantifier sentence as the target structure and ignore the multi-interface features.Moreover,the studies in this field are not thorough or comprehensive.Adopting the methods of experi mental linguistics,this dissertation further investigates Processing Determinism and how Chinese EFL learners interpret and acquire English quantificational scope with the aim to expand and perfect the above theoretical researche as well as to facilitate the study of the acquisition of English interface properties like quantificational scope.This dissertation addresses the research questions below:1)How EFL learners interpret every...a(n)and a(n)...every in active or passive voice,every/some...not and not...every/some.2)In the process of interpreting every...a(n)and a(n)...every in active or passive voice,every/some...not and not...every/some,is there L1 processing routine?3)Do the scope context,the position of quantifiers,the type of quantifiers and the voice have impact on EFL learners' interpretation of every...a(n)and a(n)...every in active or passive voice,every/some...not and not...every/some?4)Does the language proficiency influence EFL learners' interpretation of every...a(n)and a(n)...every in active or passive voice,every/some...not and not...every/some?The present dissertation includes three kinds of experiments: Chinese experiments without scope context,English experiments without scope context and English experiments with certain scop e context,applying the off-line forced-choice comprehension task and on-line picture-or-story-based truth value judgment tasks.The target structures are QNP-QNP such as every...a(n)and a(n)...every in active or passive voice and QNP-Neg like every/some...not and not...every/some,each comprising three experiments,which aims to compare theinterpretation of Chinese quantificational scope to that of English quantificational scope,and to compare the EFL learners at two language proficiency levels with English natives speakes in interpreting English quantificational scope.The results of all six experiments are reported as follows:?.QNP-QNP: every...a(n)and a(n)...every in active or passive voiceExperiment 1(without scope context): 1)Regarding Mei...Yi,EFL learners produce similar percentage of surface scope interpretation and inverse one.2)as to Yi...Mei,EFL learners fail to interpret inverse scope.Experiment 2(without scope context): 1)Concerning every...a(n),EFL learners interpret surface scope and inverse one without any obvious preference.2)Respecting a(n)...every,EFL learners strongly prefer,or even only accept surface scope interpretation.Through the comparison between the result of Experiment 1and that of Experiment 2,it is found that EFL learners interpret Chinese quantificational scope and English quantificational scope in a similar way,which leads to the conclusion that L1 processing routines might have been transferred.Experiment 3(with surface or inverse scope co ntext): 1)Regarding all the four target structures,EFL learners and English native speakers have similar interpretive tendency.2)Concerning all target structures,EFL learners perform better in interpreting surface scope than inverse scope and have les s difficulty in interpreting inverse scope of every...a(n)than that of a(n)...every.3)EFL learners with higher proficiency level perform significantly better than those with lower proficiency level in interpreting the surface scope of every...a(n).But as to the rest of the three target structures,all EFL learners perform similarly.This experiment reveals that the surface scope is easy to be interpreted and some factors such as the position of quantifiers and the lexical properties of quantifiers,have some impact on the interpretation of inverse scope.The proficiency level of English is proved to have no effect on the interpretation and acquisition.?.QNP-Neg: every/some...not and not...every/someExperiment 4(without scope context): EFL learners prefer surface scope while interpreting Mei...meiyou,Youyixie...meiyou and Meiyou...mei.2)EFL learners display inverse scope preference about the inter pretation of meiyou...yixie.Experiment 5(without scope context): 1)As to every/some...not,EFL learners strongly prefer surface scope;2)Respecting not...every,EFL learners show no interpretive preference.Through the comparison between the result of Experiment 4and that of Experiment 5,the conclusion is that Chinese processing routine might have been transferred when it comes to the interpretation of every/some...not and not...every,but as regards not...some,L1 transfer doesn't occur.Experiment 6(with surface or inverse scope context): 1)With regard to all target structures of QNP-Neg,the interpretation of EFL learners is very different from that of English native speakers.About every...not,EFL learners strongly prefer surface scope interpretation while English native speakers prefer inverse scope reading;about not...every,EFL learners prefer inverse scope reading while English native speakers accept only surface scope reading;respecting not...some,EFL learners prefer surface scope readi ng while English native speakers accept only inverse scope reading.2)EFL learners of different proficiency levels show no significant difference in interpreting all target structures.This experiment shows the EFL learners' more acceptance of surface scope,the impact of the position of quantifiers and the transfer of L1 processing routine.The target structure involving pragmatics seems to be troublesome for EFL learners to interpret.Different proficiency levels have no effect on the acquisition.The results of all six experiments in the study indicate: 1)As regards QNP-QNP,EFL learners have similar interpretive preference to English native speakers,but still have trouble in interpreting inverse scopes;as to QNP-Neg,EFL learners have different interpretive preference in interpreting every...not and not...every/some from English native speakers and seem to fail in the acquisition.2)In regard to interpreting QNP-QNP and QNP-Neg,EFL learners tansfer L1 processing routine to L2.3)EFL learners' interpretation of English quantificational scope is influenced by inverse scope contexts,the position of quantifiers,the lexical properties of quantifiers and pragmatics,not by voice.4)The proficiency level has no impact on EFL learners' interpretation of English quantificational scope.The interpretation of L2 quantificational scope reveals how complicated the acquisition of interface properties is.The present study has revealed that L2 scope interpretation is mainly constrained by the efficiency-driven incremental linear processing,and also influenced by the position of quantifiers,the lexical properties of quantifiers,transfer of L1 processing routine,scope context and pragmatics.The acquisition of L2 quantificational scope is not only correlated wit h the processing efficiency,but also affected by EFL learners' ability to integrate various resources of word order,semantics,context and pragmatics,together with the frequency of the form-meaning mapping about L2 quantificational scope.The acquisition of L2 quantificational scope is shaped by internal pressures and frequency of the form-meaning mapping of quantificational scope.The results of the experiments are explained within Processing Determinism and its related hypotheses: the Efficiency Hypoth esis,the Transfer Calculus and the Amelioration Hypothesis.They prove that the mechanism of interpreting and acquiring quantificational scope can be well explained rationally within Processing Determinism,which indicates that Q uantifier Raising and Scope Principle adopted in generative grammar are not an essential part of UG.The values and significance of this dissertation are as follows: 1)The study has investigated the interpretation and acquisition of two different quantificational structures(quantifier-quantifier and quantifier-negation)and made the unified explanation,resulting in expanding the range of the past relevant studies,providing new empirical data for testing the predictive and explanatory power of Processing Determinism,and enforcing the adequacy of the theoretical explanation.What is more,L2 Acquisiton Model of Quantifier Scope has been established and the above theories have been expanded.2)Based on the methods of empirical Linguistics and the strict control of variables,the s tudy has conducted a quantitative analysis of results and revealed the processing and acquisition mechanism of the interface properties like L2 quantificational scope more profoundly and more scientifically by adopting the latest paradigof the experiments.3)It is the first trial to analyze the interaction between linguistic and non-linguistic factors and the progressive linear processing mechanism.And this research has confirmed the various factors influencing the acquisition of interface properties like L2 quantificational scope and deepened the research in this field.4)The study offers new perspectives and orientations for the future empirical research.It also provides the fellow researchers with some important references as to the methodology and em pirical data about the exploration of related topics.The findings might play some important roles in the instruction of English quantificational scope.