| Recently,studies of inflectional morphology have become a focus of the second language acquisition research.Some researchers have found that inflectional morphology seems to cause great difficulties in foreign language learning.Generally,there are two opposite hypotheses to explain these difficulties,that is,the Representational Deficit Hypothesis(RDH)and the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis(MSIH).The proponents of the RDH argue that Universal Grammar is not accessible in second language acquisition because of incomplete acquisition of target language representations.However,the supporters of the MSIH claim that Universal Grammar is accessible in second language acquisition which is not restricted by the learner's L1.L2 learners just have difficulty in mapping abstract morphosyntactic features to surface morphology because of processing or communication pressure.By reviewing the related experimental studies at home and abroad in recent years,we have found that there is few research about Chinese EFL learners' online processing of subject-verb agreement.Thus,the present study is conducted from the perspective of generative grammar,and takes the Chinese EFL learners' acquisition of subject-verb agreement as research object.The following research questions are formulated:(1)Will Chinese EFL learners be sensitive to online processing of subject-verb disagreement?(2)Will Chinese EFL learners at different levels of English show proficiency effects in online processing of subject-verb disagreement?(3)What are the factors that might influence Chinese EFL learners' performance in online processing of subject-verb agreement?In self-paced reading tasks,the participants were tested on their(in)sensitivity to subject-verb agreement violations in different types of sentences.Their sensitivity was determined by observing whether there was a delay in reading ungrammatical sentences.Their reaction times were measured by DMDX software and compared by the paired samples T test.According to the data analysis and relevant discussions,several findings have come to light.Firstly,Chinese EFL learners were sensitive to subject-verb person disagreement,but they were not always sensitive to number disagreement.Secondly,the advanced level group revealed effects for number attraction and nonlocal agreement,and linear distance seemed to pose no problem for the advanced L2 learners.Thirdly,Chinese EFL learners revealed sensitivity to the overuse of 3sg-s if the plurality of a subject was expressed by free morphemes,but if the plural subject was marked only by bound morpheme,they did not show sensitivity.Finally,it seems to be possible for L2 learners to acquire a formal feature which is not instantiated in their L1 when they reach an ad-vanced level.Based on these results,we hold the opinion that we should treat the language nature of L2 learners' interlanguage with the development view.The Representational Deficit Hypothesis and the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis are not diametrically opposite,suggesting a nuanced view that treats these two hypotheses as complementary.The development of L2 learners' interlanguage is a gradual process,and it presents different acquisition characteristics at different stages.It suggests that L2 learners'sensitivity to subject-verb disagreement is influenced by a number of factors,including plurality of subject,number attraction effect,[number]and[person]feature and English proficiency.The combined effect of these factors might explain the L2 learners'acquisition difficulty of inflectional morphemes.In English teaching,it is important to find effective teaching methods to transform explicit grammatical knowledge into students' tacit skills.Students must learn explicit knowledge first and transform it into tacit knowledge through plenty of communicative practice. |
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