2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.7 Research Questions…
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either animate or inanimate, or both animate nouns) and a verb. The results indicated that when a direct animate argument follows a verb, participants tend to use passives;
in contrast, when a verb requires an inanimate argument, participants would use active voice. Also, there is no preference was found when both arguments belong to animate arguments. Therefore, animacy effects might be the factor that would distract the use of unaccusatives for Chinese learners.
(28) a. A monster appeared.
b. *A star was appeared.
According to Ferreira, the determination of passive voice is not completely based on the verb appear, but on the animacy differences in subjects. In this account, (25b) is highly possible to be passive for L2 speakers learning unaccusatives. Accordingly, the phenomenon of overpassivization should take animacy subjects into account.
2.7 Research Questions
Since the phenomenon of U-shaped learning has occurred in first and second language, it appears to be the necessary procedure in language learning. Kellerman (1978, 1979) showed that the transferability of transitive and intransitive meaning of alternating unaccusatives represented a U-shaped curve. However, Kellerman’s study just emphasizes the verb break; other non-alternating unaccusatives were not
concerned. Also, the fact that the successful transfer from L1 Dutch to L2 in the group
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of low proficiency seems to imply that unaccusatives is prior to passives. Research supported that L2 learners would subsume unaccusatives under passives (Zobl, 1989).
Moreover, the interactions of alternating unaccusatives and passives would also be examined through different stages. Additionally, the impact of animacy would be concerned in our study. Therefore, we aim to provide a diachronic perspective discussing the interactions of passives, alternating unaccusatives with respect to learning of non-alternating unaccusatives. The research questions in the study would be stated as follows.
1. Does the learning of non-alternating unaccusatives by L2 Chinese learners of English represent a U-shaped curve as the study presented by Kellerman (1978)?
2. How are the influences of the alternating unaccusatives and passives on the learning of non-alternating unaccusatives?
3. Does the factor of animacy influence the learning of non-alternating unaccusatives?
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CHAPTER THREE
METHOD
In this chapter, I will present the design of the experiment about the understanding of alternating unaccusatives, non-alternating unaccusatives, and passives. In section one, the background of the subjects will be presented. In section two, the given materials will be introduced. In section three, the procedure will
include pilot study and formal testing. In section four, data analysis will be illustrated.
3.1 Subjects
123 subjects participated in the group. They were divided into four groups, low,
low-intermediate, intermediate, high-intermediate according to how long they had studied English. The group in low proficiency does not participate in grammaticality judgment task (henceforth GJ) because they had not learned passives, and they are unable to identify the answer between unaccusative verbs and passive verb in the GJ test. All groups took part in the Chinese to English translation task (henceforth CET).
Backgrounds of these groups are displayed as follows. The groups of low, low-intermediate, intermediate, and high-intermediate had studied English for 8, 10, 11, and more than 12 years, respectively. Except for low proficient group, the other groups had learned passives in school.
Subjects were told to feel free if they had any questions about doing the
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questionnaire. All subjects finish the experiment without any time limit. 6 subjects were discarded because too many items were not answered in their test sheet, just 117 reliable subjects in total involving the study.
3.2 Materials
Cross-sectional quantitative methods are adopted in the study. The study was
designed to elicit the subjects’ response to English to test the understanding of
non-alternating unaccusatives interaction with alternating unaccusatives, passives, and subject animacy. There are two tasks in the study, GJ and CET. GJ aims to investigate their understanding of alternating, non-alternating unaccusatives, and passives while CET is used to test the use of non-alternating unaccusatives by observing the voice forms differences from Chinese to English. Also, the variance of subjects with animacy is concerned in the task.
3.2.1 GJ Task
There are 24 sentences in total in the task made up of three types of verbs, 8 for alternating unaccusative verbs, 8 for non-alternating unaccusative verbs, and 8 for passive verbs in English. Each given sentence consists of active voice and passive voice. The different voice forms of the verbs in every sentence are underlined for subjects to check. If subjects judge the sentence grammatical then they mark the answer with a circle ○, and leave no mark if the sentence is ungrammatical. Also, each
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verb will be assigned with animate and inanimate subject in order to test animacy effect.
(29) The house (remained/was remained) cool.
(30) He (remained/was remained) cool.
The subjects of (29) and (30) are inanimate and animate respectively. Thus, the animacy of four alternating unaccusatives creates 8 sentences and the animacy of four non-alternating unaccusatives creates 8 sentences as well. On the other hand, 8
passive verbs create 8 sentences, 4 for animate subjects and 4 for inanimate subjects.
The verbs of alternating and non-alternating unaccusatives, and passives used in the GJ task are displayed in the following table.
Table 1: Verbs of alternating and non-alternating unaccusatives, and passives in GJ
task
The different numbers between unaccusatives and passives are because passive verbs usually do not occur in a sentence with animate/inanimate subject. For example,
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it is inappropriate to arrange an inanimate subject in the passive verb tease since the verb usually collocates with an animate subject. Likewise, put an inanimate subject to the verb attract is inappropriate as well. In addition, arranging the animacies of the subjects to a single passive verb might not represent participants’ knowledge on passives. The following table is the example of the verb buy collocating with an animate subject.
Table 2: The example of animate subject collocating with active/passive voices
He (bought/was bought)
For example, as the above table shows, if participants choose active voice in the verb buy collocating with an animate subject He (i.e. in the case participants consider He bought correct), it is not because they know or they do not know how to use
passives, but because they know the intransitive usage of the verb buy. On the other hand, the reason for giving up He was bought might be because the semantic meaning of the sentence is against common sense. Therefore, for passive verbs, we arrange 8 different passive verbs in the task.
Among these three kinds of verbs, all tested items are randomly distributed, which can prevent participants find the patters of the verbs.
3.2.2 CET Task
There are sixteen Chinese topic-comment structure sentences with active voice
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displayed in the CET task, in which subjects were asked to translate into English.
Besides, since the test aims to test the use of non-alternating unaccusatives, half of the sentences are non-alternating unaccusatives while the others are passive verbs.
Therefore, eight of sentences should be presented with active voice whereas, eight with passive voice. Animate and inanimate subjects are assigned to each unaccusative verb and passive verb in order to test animacy effect, examples shown as follows.
Table3: The sample of CET subjects respectively. Item 1 and 5 should be translated in active voice in English while item 4 and 11, passives. In item 5, the hint arrive is provided so that subjects would not substitute arrive with reach or get to, which do not belong to unaccusatives.
Table4: The numbers and distribution of test items in GJ and CET tasks Alternating Unacc. Non-alternating
Unacc.
Passive Verbs Total
Animate Inanimate Animate Inanimate Animate Inanimate
GJ 4 4 4 4 4 4 24
CET 4 4 4 4 16
Considering that subjects might involve the problem of unknown vocabulary words, they are provided with unknown vocabulary list in order to exclude vocabulary
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factor. Subjects could look up the words they were not familiar with from the list when they were doing tasks. The list is shown as follows.
Table 5. The unknown vocabulary words list
All the tested verbs and animate/inanimate subjects in GJ and CET are
randomized in the test sheet in order to exclude the counter balanced effects. For the groups of different proficiency, each group is represented by a letter: Group A for low proficiency learners, Group B for low-intermediate learners, Group C for intermediate learners, and Group D for high-intermediate learners.
3.3 Procedures
3.3.1 Pilot Study
Pilot study covers the verbs identification and the use of non-alternaing unaccusatives. 68 subjects were tested in the pilot study in order to examine the
車禍 Car accident 出現 Appear/Emerge
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interaction of alternating unaccusatives, non-alternating unaccusatives, passives, and animacy. They had studied English about 10 years. Their PR3 in the entrance exam is at 70 indicating that the proficiency of the participants is better than that of 70%
students.
The result showed that L2 English learners would overpassivize unaccusatives and the factor of subject animacty would influence the determination of voice forms.
Thus, it was confirmed that passives and animacy do influence the learning of non-alternating unaccusatives.
Some problematic designs are found in the experiment. In CET, subjects might not use the non-alternating unaccusative verb as we expected, but alternatively use other nontarget words, exemplified as follows.
Table 6: Examples of non-target words in the study
包伯叔叔到了 Uncle Bob is here.
這隻螞蟻死了 The ant was dead.
In order to avoid the choice of alternative words, it is necessary that the assigned verb will be provided as a hint behind Chinese verb. The example is as follows.
Table 7: The verb arrive is assigned to be used
爸爸抵達(arrive)機場了 Father arrived at the airport.
Besides, subjects could involve the difficulty of unknown vocabulary. If
3 PR is the abbreviation of Percentile Rank, which represents the percentage of a score in total frequency.
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participants still have any problems on vocabulary that wordlist does not provide, they were allowed to ask questions any time.
3.3.2 Formal Testing
All problematic items in the pilot study had been replaced. Before the start of the task, the directions to the test were illustrated and an example was displayed by the tester. The test began after the confirmation of participants’ understanding about the test. Besides, participants were told to ask any question any time if they had any difficulty during the experiment.
Both of the tasks were conducted in the classroom. Participants were reminded to do the experiment as carefully as they could in order to assure the experiment of variability and reliability of the experiment.
3.4 Data analysis
Here is some of the policy on how to calculate the collected raw data. The directions of scoring will be demonstrated in this section.
In GJ, three possible answers, active voice, passive voice, and both are marked by numbers 1, 0, and 2, respectively. The number, 3, represents the case that
participants do not choose any answers, which are regarded as discarded item. They would not be calculated in the study. In CET task, two possible answers, actives and passives, are marked by number 1 and 0. The number 3 was reserved for those
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discarded items. The examples of discarded items are listed as follows.
Table 8: The examples of discarded items from participants’ response
Test item Participants’ response
車禍發生了 There was a car accident happened/Car
accident happening
這位先生中毒了 He get the poison
這隻貓咪動了 The cat started to move
餐廳預約了
I have been reserved the restaurant/I reserve the restaurant/ Reserve to (without subjects)
車禍發生了 It just happened a car accident
那份文件扔掉了 Throw away the document
這台腳踏車修好了 This bike is finish to repair
The standard of whether or not to abandon data is based on the
argument-predicate structure. Even though the voice form of the main verb happen in the predicate is correctly used as in It just happened a car accident, the participant otherwise regards the verb happen as a transitive verb. It will be contradictory if the verb use happen is thought of as correctness on the usage of non-alternating
unaccusatives. Besides, the data with incorrectly or alternatively using verbs such as He get the poison, The cat started to move and This bike is finish to repair would also
be discarded since the main verbs are not what we concerned. Moreover, There-be sentence pattern such as There was a car accident happened would be discarded because this is not a canonical sentence word order in English.
Although the voice forms in the main verb is what we concerned, the argument of a sentence is also the factor in establishing the voice forms differences (Croft,
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1995). L2 learners are likely to use passive voice when an object appears in the subject position (Yip, 1995). Thus, those imperative sentences such as Throw away the document and the agent insertion as in I have been reserved the restaurant and I
reserve the restaurant would be discarded. Undoubtedly, fragment sentences such as
Reserve to are viewed as discards. Those discards would not be analyzed in the study.
For the level of low-intermediate proficiency, a great deal of double verbs appears in L2 learners’ production such as The lost kid was find and The man is poison. In the case, the criteria of identifying active or passive voice to L2 learners
with respect to double verbs is based on the occurrence of passive tense — copular verb with past participle. In other words, if participants could use the passive voice in any other item such as A car accident was happened in his or her test sheet, they would be regarded to be able to use passives since they could use “be V-ed.”Therefore, their production in any other item in the sheet such as The lost kid was find and The man is poison would not be regarded as passive voice. In the data, many participants
could use Car accident was happened in the sentence 車禍發生了 “che huo fa sheng le” or Examine4 had been bribed, you can pass exam in the sentence 主考官被買通 了，你一定可以通過考試 “zhu kao guan bei mai tong le, ni yi ding ke yi tong kuo
kao shi.” Once these kinds of sentences were found in the data, double verbs in the
4 Obviously, the word examine here is a typo. Participant just substitutes examine for examiner. This
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test sheet would be regarded as active voice; otherwise doubles would be thought of as passives.
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CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The chapter aims to present the results conducted in chapter three and discuss the findings of the research questions. There are three parts according to the research questions in the following sections: (a) the U-shaped curve in learning of
non-alternating unaccusatives, (b) the influences of alternating unaccusatives and passives in the U-shaped learning of non-alternating unaccusatives, and (c) animacy effect on learning of non-alternating unaccusatives.
4.1 The Results and Discussion of U-shaped Curve in Learning of
Non-alternating Unaccusatives
4.1.1 Results
The study of U-shaped curve of non-alternating unaccusatives is tested in CET.
The test involves four groups, in which low proficiency group had not learned passive voice while the other groups had. Unaccusative Trap Hypothesis suggests that
overpassivization on unaccusatives occurred in the second stage when L2 learners had learned passives while no overuse passivization happened in the first stage (Oshita, 1998, 2001). Research also supported that the use of unaccusatives would be subsumed after learners acquired passive voice (Zobl, 1989). Participants’
performances on the use of non-alternating unaccusatives are presented as follows.
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Table 9: The correct rate of non-alternating unaccustives
Groups Proficiency Correctness on nn-alternating unaccusatives (%)
A Low 87.91
B Low-intermediate 79.92
C Intermediate 86.80
D High-intermediate 88.19
Figure 3: The correct rate of non-alternating unaccusatves from Chinese to English
In Table 7, the correct rate for Group A is 87.91%, which is nearly as high as Group D, 88.19%. There is an abrupt descend from Group A to B, reaching 79.92%, followed by a sharp increase to 86.80% for Group C. The curve represented in the Figure 3 has a “steep cliff” in learning of non-alternating unaccusatives. Although it is more like a V-shaped curve, the trend of the curve is as expected.
The experiment has conducted on 4 groups, group differences for independent variable, participants’ scores for dependant variable. After the collected data were decoded, the data were submitted to the one-way ANOVA on SPSS software. The analysis showed no significant difference in the use of non-alternating unaccusatives
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among groups, F(3, 113) =1.931, p >.05, p=.129. However, as we looked into the analysis between two groups in post hoc. The analysis revealed a statistically significant difference between Group A and Group B, and marginally significance between Group B and Group C. There exists a huge drop between Group A and Group B. The possible reasons for the gap of performances might be supposed to
overpassivization and the phenomenon of subsuming unaccusatives. Nevertheless, overall it appears to be no differences with respect to the understanding of language development of non-alternating unaccusatives. Additionally, Levene’s test for equality of variance between groups is not significant, that is, the numbers of sample
differences between groups will not influence the result. The result does not reject the first hypothesis: it will be a U-shaped curve in learning of non-alternating
unaccusatives. Moreover, the result evidences the fact that unaccusatives seem to be subsumed as learners acquired passive voice (Zobl, 1989) and matches the three stages of Unaccusative Trap Hypothesis in learning of unaccusatives (Oshita, 1998, 2001).
4.1.2 Discussion
The findings showed that L2 Chinese learners do overpassivize non-alternating unaccusatives in certain point of language development. The phenomenon occurred in the time when L2 learners acquired the passives, as the result displayed in Group B.
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After L2 learners acquire passives, they seem to be more willing to use passive voice and were reluctant to accept NP-V order. It seems that the use of unaccusatives is subsumed and substituted for passives once an object appeared in the subject position (Yip, 1995).
4.1.2.1 Salience in Language and Reluctance in NP-V Word Order
The phenomenon of overpassivization might result from two reasons: the salience of passives and reluctance in NP-V word order. In the viewpoint of salience, study showed that the frequency of L2 structure could be the reason for being salient (Bardovi-Harlig, 1987). In the study, the construction of preposition stranding (marked form) and the construction of preposition piped piping (unmarked form) were examined by L2 learners of English as a second language. The results showed that preposition stranding (marked form) is acquired before preposition piped piping (unmarked form), which is opposed to markedness hypothesis: unmarked forms are acquired before marked forms. The study suggested that a factor of facilitating language learning is salience. According to Bardovi-Harlig, salience is defined as the frequency in the target language. That is, the higher frequency the structures are, the
The phenomenon of overpassivization might result from two reasons: the salience of passives and reluctance in NP-V word order. In the viewpoint of salience, study showed that the frequency of L2 structure could be the reason for being salient (Bardovi-Harlig, 1987). In the study, the construction of preposition stranding (marked form) and the construction of preposition piped piping (unmarked form) were examined by L2 learners of English as a second language. The results showed that preposition stranding (marked form) is acquired before preposition piped piping (unmarked form), which is opposed to markedness hypothesis: unmarked forms are acquired before marked forms. The study suggested that a factor of facilitating language learning is salience. According to Bardovi-Harlig, salience is defined as the frequency in the target language. That is, the higher frequency the structures are, the