Adult Mandarin Chinese speakers’ acquisition of locational and directional prepositional constructions in second language English

Highlights

• New data on locational and directional prepositions acquisition.

• Asymmetrical performance on locational and directional prepositions.

• Grammars representing neither L1 nor L2 but are nevertheless UG constrained.

Abstract

This study tests adult Chinese speakers of second language (L2) English in the domain of manner of motion verbs with locational and directional prepositional phrases. Ninety-eight Chinese speakers (a language which disallows ambiguity between locational and directional readings in sentences like Tom zai qiao dixia paobu/Tom ran under the bridge.) were asked to interpret locational and directional PPs in English (a language which, with certain prepositions, allows ambiguous locational and directional readings). The learners were divided into three proficiency levels and their performance was compared with a native speaker control group. The results from a written picture-matching test indicate that there is a discrepancy between native and non-native mental representations of the grammars concerned; whereas native grammars allow ambiguity between locational and directional readings, L2 learners overwhelmingly prefer locational readings to ambiguous readings of prepositional constructions. Results of the study lend support to the UG and Subset Principle Delinked Hypothesis, one of the predictions of the Subset Principle (Berwick, 1985, Wexler and Manzini, 1987), which argues that learning principles and UG may not be interactive in adult second language acquisition, resulting in a grammar which represents neither the L1 nor the L2 but is nevertheless a natural language permitted by UG.

Introduction

Considerable work within the field of second language acquisition (SLA) research has provided evidence to support the claim that adult learners exhibit great variations in ultimate attainment in L2 acquisition (Abrahamsson and Hyltenstam, 2009, Dekeyser, 2000, Hyltenstam and Abrahamsson, 2003, Johnson and Newport, 1989, Long, 1990, Long, 2007, Paradis, 2004, Ulyings, 2006). Although most researchers agree on the existence of native-nonnative divergence in L2 acquisition, there is considerable disagreement on what causes these differences in ultimate attainment in adult L2 acquisition (See Hawkins, 2001; White, 2003 for discussion). The aim of this study is to examine adult Mandarin Chinese speakers’ acquisition of manner of motion verbs with locational/directional prepositional phrases (PPs) in L2 English. In particular, the study tests predictions made by the Subset Principle (Berwick, 1985, Wexler and Manzini, 1987) which may account for the general lack of complete success in adult L2 acquisition of PPs.

Subset Principle makes an explicit claim about positive-evidence-only first language (L1) acquisition. According to Berwick (1985) and Wexler and Manzini (1987), the Subset Principle guarantees that when the input data are ambiguous, a learner will pick the correct values of a parameter. That is to say, two grammars are in a subset/superset relation when the two grammars generate the same subset of sentences, and one of the grammars generates additional ones. The Subset Principle overcomes the learnability problem by allowing the L1 learner to adopt the most restrictive grammar consistent with the input when the two grammars are available; switching to the superset grammar will occur immediately since positive evidence is available.¹

Much research in SLA has focused on the explanatory power of the Subset Principle in the acquisition of argument structure properties (Ayoun, 1996, Berent, 1994, Hirakawa, 1990, Finer, 1991, Fodor and Sakas, 2005, Inagaki, 2001a, Inagaki, 2001b, Inagaki, 2002, Izumi and Lakshmanan, 1998, Juffs, 1996, MacLaughlin, 1995, Thomas, 1995 White, 1987, White, 1991b, White, 2003). While an accumulating body of empirical evidence supports the notion that the Subset Principle seems to be at work in the acquisition of L1 syntactic and phonological knowledge (Berwick, 1985, Clark, 1992, Fodor, 1992, Fodor, 1994, Roeper and De Villiers, 1992, Wexler, 1993, Goro, 2007, Grijzenhout, 2000, Broselow, 2004, Eckman, 2004), whether the Subset Principle is relevant to L2 acquisition is still a matter of controversy. MacLaughlin (1995), investigating the Case-Adjacency Parameter (Chomsky, 1981, Chomsky, 1986, Stowell, 1981) the Pro-Drop Parameter (Hyams, 1986), and the Bounding-Node Parameter (Rizzi, 1982), considers the Subset Principle irrelevant to L2 acquisition because none of these parameters provides support (or the lack thereof) for the Subset Principle. Fodor and Sakas (2005) also raise doubts as to whether the Subset Principle guides adult L2 acquisition. Other researchers, however, argue that the Subset Principle does apply to L2 acquisition. Berent (1994) concludes, based on the results of the acquisition of English relative clauses, that the Subset Principle is relevant to L2 acquisition. In a similar vein, Ayoun (1996) provides empirical evidence in support of the argument that the Subset Principle applies (at least partially) to the L2 acquisition of the Oblique-Case Parameter (Kayne, 1981, Kayne, 1984) by French speakers. Given the controversy regarding the relevance of the Subset Principle in adult L2 acquisition, this paper joins the debate and offers a new case study to address the role of the Subset Principle in L2 acquisition. In particular, the current study is an attempt to investigate the relationship between the Subset Principle and the acquisition of English PPs by adult speakers of L1 Mandarin Chinese. As discussed in White (1989), the Subset Principle may constrain L2 grammar building and makes the following three predictions: the UG and Subset Principle Accessible Hypothesis, the L1 Transfer Hypothesis, and the UG and Subset Principle Delinked Hypothesis. We will present data from a written picture-matching task (PMT), a Chinese-English translation task, and an English-Chinese translation task performed by three groups of adult Mandarin Chinese speakers of L2 English to test against the three predictions made by the Subset Principle.

The outline of the article is as follows: Section 2 lays out the theoretical background concerning the similarities and differences in the syntax of English and Mandarin Chinese in relation to locational and directional PPs. Section 3 reviews the three hypotheses of the Subset Principle and the specific aims and scope of the current study. Sections 4 and 5 present the study and its results. Section 6 discusses the results of the study and closes the paper with some concluding remarks for future research design.