An Argument-Structure Approach To Chinese EFL Learners' Acquisition Of English Locative Verbs

Locative alternation, as a big issue for theoretical researches on the nature of semantic-syntax interface and a focus for empirical studies to address Baker's paradox, has invoked many significant researches in related field. The so-called locative alternation which exemplifies multiple argument realization, involves the alternate realization of the VP-internal arguments of an apparently triadic verb, producing sentence pairs which are felt to be near paraphrases, for instance Tom loaded the apples onto the truck/Tom loaded the truck with apples.The present study seeks to analyze the locative alternation and explore the acquisition of locative construction by Chinese English learners from a construction grammar approach. Our research questions are:1) Whether Chinese learners are sensitive to the object-holism effect underlying the locative construction, a property claimed to be universal?2) Whether Chinese learners can reach native-like knowledge of locative argument structure, a property claimed to be language-specific?3) Whether Chinese learners manifest possible L1 transfer in their knowledge of English locative construction?The research finds that both CET6 group and CET4 group have the knowledge of constructional meaning concerning locative alternations; they are sensitive to the holism-effect. Although CET6 group manifest a main effect for verb type, which indicates that they act differently given the different class of locative verbs, their knowledge of narrow rang classes is very limited; they can not correctly judge the grammaticality of test sentences and discriminate the verb classes consistently. CET4 group show no main effect for verb type. Subjects in that group can not distinguish the different classes of verbs. They have not acquired the narrowly defined semantic constrains concerning the locative constructions. Also, evidence regarding L1 influence is not found in our study.