The Acquisition Of English Unaccusative Verbs Of Existence/Appearance By Chinese L2 Learners

The Acquisition ofEnglish Unaccusative Verbs of Existence I Appearanceby Chinese L2 LearnersThe present study is an attempt at tackling the learning problems in the acquisition of English unaccusative verbs of F/A (Existence/Appearance) by Chinese learners by answering the following four questions: (1) What are the factors that may influence the acquisition of unaccusative verbs of F/A by Chinese learners? (2) Given the influence of the identified factors, how can the process of acquisition be described? (3) Do the Chinese L2 learners acquire these verbs in the way as predicted? If no, how the process of acquisition might be described? (4) To what extent is the observed process of acquisition the result of influence of the identified factors? Are there any other possible factors that may contribute to the acquisition process?Based on a review of the current studies on overpassivization of English unaccusative verbs, our research subclssified English verbs of F/A into 4 verb types in the framework of the Lexical Semantic Structure Theoiy. In the light of a linguistic analysis between English F/A verbs and their Chinese counterparts and the Markedness Differential Hypothesis, 3 hypotheses were made about the acquisition pattern of E/A verbs by Chinese L2 learners.Then a GJ test was conducted to investigate the knowledge about the unaccusativity in E/A verbs of 90 subjects at 3 L2 proficiency levels and 10 native speakers. The results revealed that the acquisition route followed by Chinese learners in learning English F/A verbs is: the verb die 梸 verbs of Occurrenceverbs of Existence and verbs of Appearance. Animacy (the semantic feature of the NP arguments specified by EIA verbs) influenced the learning of F/A verbs through interaction with the semantic element of some verb types. The findings also suggested that fossilization is an important feature in the IL of L2 lexical development. These findings can be explained in the framework established for the present study.