Study On Chinese L2 Learners’ Acquisition Of English Unaccusatives

In accordance with the Unaccusative Hypothesis, intransitive verbs can be further divided into two sub-types: unaccusatives and unergatives. The only arguments of unaccusatives, bearing roles of Patient, are subjects at S-Structure but objects at D-Structure; while the sole arguments of unergatives, playing roles of Agent, are subjects both at S-Structure and D-Structure. It is found that their distinct characteristics in syntax and semantics can influence their acquisition: learners are more inclined to make mistakes on unaccusatives. As Levin and Rappaport Havov(1995) assume distinctions between those two intransitive subtypes are semantically determined but syntactically represented, this present study probes into the acquisition of English unaccusatives and unergatives from the semantic-syntactic perspective. Research questions are as follows:(1) Do Chinese learners differentiate between English unaccusatives and unergatives?(2) Does the external causation, a semantic determinant of English unaccusativity, affect Chinese learners’ acquisition of unaccusatives?(3)How does the knowledge of English unaccusativity in Chinese learners’ grammar evolve form middle to final stage?(4) Is ultimate attainment of English unaccusativity incomplete?According to the research questions, the present study selected 86 learners comprising of three groups: intermediate group, advanced group and near-native group. Meanwhile, there is a control group consisting of 14 native speakers. All the participants are required to take online questionnaires about the knowledge of unaccusative diagnostics and NP-V structure as well as overpassivization. All the experimental statistics are processed with Compared samples t-tests and One-Way ANOVA in SPSS 17.0.The study has following findings:(1) Chinese learners are able to make a distinction between unaccusatives and unergatives.(2) External causation does affect the acquisition of unaccusatives. The more external causation of the action a verb denotes, the harder for learners to acquire its unaccusative knowledge.(3) Generally speaking, the knowledge of English unaccusativity in grammars of learners’ interlanguage increases with the development of language proficiency. But due to the verb types, the development of specific knowledge covers three forms: flat-lined shape, plow-shaped shape and rising-linear-sloped shape(4) Near-native learners do not perform significantly different from native speakers, which indicates the L2 learners’ ultimate acquisition of unaccusativity should be complete.Those results fully confirm the Unaccusative Hypothesis and partially the Unaccusative Trap Hypothesis. Besides, it also contributes to the amplification of researches on the variability of interlanguage. Through delving into the semantic-syntactic interface and the ultimate attainment of English unaccusativity, this study offers more evidence for the availability of Universal Grammar. Moreover, it could provide useful reference for the English pedagogy.