This study set out to examine the Taiwan college students’ underlying knowledge of English relative clauses in order to see what the factor(s) is/are that constrain(s) the learners’ acquisition process, whether it be the universal factor, the native language, or human general problem solving skill. Three predictor hypotheses were used in this investigation: NAPH, PDH, and SOHH, which are motivated by different theoretical backgrounds. The NPAH is based on the typological markedness, the PDH is based on the notion of human limited capacity of short term memory, and SOHH the
combination of NPAH and PDH, and the structural difficulty of relative clause.
Three kinds of tasks were used to elicit the data: sentence combination test,
Chinese-English translation test, and grammaticality judgment test. According to the research result, the main findings of this study are summarized as follows:
1. The learners’ acquisition of relative clauses is largely constrained by the universal markedness by NPAH, except GEN, and the order between IO and OPREP.
2. The retention of pronoun is largely constrained by the linguistic universals of NPAH, but Chinese also has certain influence in the learners’ choice of supplying resumptive pronoun.
3. The learners largely did experience more difficulty in center-embedded relative clauses, which matches PDH.
4. Largely, SOHH is a valid prediction of the Learners’ acquisition of relative clauses.
5. The learners tended to avoid on the positions low on the NPAH, except GEN.
6. The learners did frequently avoid OCOMP relatives and center-embedded relative clauses.
Although the outcome in grammaticality judgment task does not have any support to the three hypotheses due to the exceptional nature of some of the test items, the overall outcome suggests that NPAH, PDH, and SOHH are in unification relationship, together making their contribution to our understanding of the acquisition problem of relative clauses. That is, the fact that the data in the other two tasks (except for the opposite result for PDH in the translation test) partially support the universal
markedness as predicted by NPAH, but fully support PDH and almost fully support SOHH may imply that learners are acquiring the relative clauses through the path that is constrained by the linguistic universals of NPAH and the universal of human cognition as hypothesized by PDH.
The framework of universal grammar has been proposed by Chomsky (1965) to account for the logical problem of child first language acquisition, and thereafter been applied in the adult second language acquisition (Flynn, 1987, 1989a, 1989b; White, 1996, 2003). It is different from the typological study of linguistic universal that was proposed by Greenburg (1966) in the methodological terms, but the pursuit of commonalities of the world languages is not dissimilar (Ellis, 1996c; Ritchie and Bhatia, 2003). Hence, this study’s outcome that the typological markedness is largely complied with may suggest that the existence of UG be operative in the adult foreign language learners. The fact that the learners are able to acquire OCOMP relative clause can also be accounted for in this framework.
While it is acknowledged that the linguistic universal factor and human cognitive mechanism are at play in Chinese adult learners’ language acquisition, the role of L1
strategies the learners made in the formation of English relative clauses. However, the influence of Chinese does not make the task of language learning totally
impossible since the learners are able to reset the parameter to that of the target language by assigning new values to the existing L1 parameter setting (Flynn, 1987).
Yip (1995) has made the following statement made:
It is proposed that from the erroneous constructions learners produce, we shall see that interlanguage is the product of a complex interaction between the native and target grammars and universal principles underlying grammar construction.
This thesis has probed a number of issues that have never been addressed in the Taiwan EFL situation. However, the results are not conclusive yet unless more relevant research is to be done in similar context. The results obtained for the GEN in this study is interesting in a way that was hardly mentioned before (except Gass, 1979, 1980). It is thus hoped that GEN relative clause can be looked into more closely and extensively in order to help us better understand language acquisition.
The fact that the participants in the study were able to form OCOMP relative clause (which does not manifest in Chinese and is hardly grammatical in the eyes of the native speakers of English) is an intriguing issue as well. It is a question that calls for further stud ies whether it is the universal principles that are at work or not.
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APPENDIX Questionnaire
第一部分 基本資料 學校：
系所年級：
性別：
年齡：
第二部分 題目
【注意事項】
1. 測驗時間 30 分鐘。請斟酌時間並儘量答完所有題目。
2. 請依直覺作答，勿作過多思考。
3. 拼字或時態等文法並不是研究的重點，亦不列入計分，無須作過多思考。
一 合併句子
【說明】請依照例句的提示，將第二句(B)合併至第一句(A)成一句，並以適當的 關係代名詞 who(whom), which, that, whose 連接。
【例】(A) The person is a teacher. (B) He plays the piano .
? The person who plays the piano is a teacher.
1. (A) I like the composition. . (B) You wrote it.
? 2. (A) I know the man.
(B) His bicycle is new.
? 3. (A) Jenny likes the teacher.
(B) He explained the answers to the class.
?
4. (A) The man called the police.
(B) His wallet was stolen.
? 5. (A) The woman spoke English.
(B) She was nice.
? 6. (A) The man was Fritz.
(B) Cathy was shorter than him.
? 7. (A) The author is well known.
(B) My mother mentioned him.
? 8. (A) The woman is a nurse.
(B) Bill passed a note to her.
? 9. (A) Mr. Smith looked at the girl.
(B) I gave a book to her.
? 10. (A) I know the hotel.
(B) Hilton is cheaper than it.
? 11. (A) I liked the woman.
(B) I danced with her last night.
? 12. (A) The candidate didn’t win the election.
(B) I voted for him.
?
二、中譯英
A.【說明】每個句子皆須含有一個用關係代名詞 who(whom), which, that 或
whose連接的關係子句。
1. 我讀過的這一本書很有趣。
? 2. 我給他一本書的那一個人是我的同學。
? 3. 那些住在高雄的人通常很友善。
? 4. 我不喜歡那個父親是醫生的學生。
? 5. 他認識教授寄了一封信給她的那一個女孩。
? 6.那個車子拋錨的人是我的老板。
? 7. 我認識一個將雞養在公寓的男人。
? 8. 我喜歡昨晚在宴會遇到的那一個女人。
? 9. 我遇到了一個我曾經跟她一起上小學的女人。
? 10. 我昨天跟他談話的那一個男人很親切。
? B.【說明】請將(B)合併至(A)翻譯成英文。
11. (A) 那個學生來了。
(B) Bill 比他高。
? 12. (A) 我認識那個男人。
(B) Joseph 比他瘦。
?
三、請判斷以下句子是否合乎關係子句文法，合文法請打(O)，不合文法請打(X) 並加以改正，如例句。【注意】無需考慮拼字或時態等其他文法的錯誤。
【例】The person plays the piano is a teacher. (X)
? The person who plays the piano is a teacher.
1. My wife a nd I are really enjoying the TV set that we bought it for ourselves last week. ( ) 14. People who work in the hunger program they estimate that 3500 people in
the world die from starvation every day of the year. ( )
?
15. I apologize to the woman whose husband is the president of the corporation. ( )
? 16. I still remember the man who he taught me to play the violin when I was a
boy. ( ) 26. The woman who(m) I was talking about her suddenly walked into the room.
I hope she didn’t hear me. ( ) 29 Joan likes the professor which gives easy exams to the class. ( )
?
以上是所有題目，謝謝您的耐心作答！