非賓格不及物動詞在U型語言發展中受到非賓格及物動詞，被動語態，和主詞生命度的影響 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學語言學研究所碩士論文 National Chengchi University Graduate Program in Linguistics Master Thesis. 指導教授 : 張郇慧博士. 政治大. Advisor: Dr. Hsun-Huei Chang. 立. ‧ 國. 學. Nat. io. sit. 生命度的影響. y. ‧. 非賓格不及物動詞在 U 型語言發展中受到非賓格及物動詞，型語言發展中受到非賓格及物動詞，被動語態，被動語態，和主詞. er. Interaction of Alternating Unaccusatives, Passives, and Animacy Effect in the. al. n. v i n C h of Non-alternating U-shaped Development e n g c h i U Unaccusatives. 研究生: 研究生石惠中撰 Name: Hui-jung Shih 中華民國一百零三年一百零三年七月 July, 2014 i.

(2) Interaction of Alternating Unaccusatives, Passives, and Animacy Effect in the U-shaped Development of Non-alternating Unaccusatives. BY. 立. Hui-jung治 Shih 政大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat A Thesis Submitted to the. n. v i n C h Institute of Linguistics Graduate engchi U in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. July, 2014 ii.

(3) Acknowledgements In the long journey of my graduate student life, I express my greatest appreciation to my advisor, Prof. Hsun-huei Chang, for her being patient with guidance, since many times Prof. Chang spent much time revising my paper due to many errors in my thesis. Moreover, in her class, I was feeling encouraged in the discussion so that I was being confident. Many thanks also go to Prof. Chiung-Chih. 政治大. Huang, for her encouragement throughout my graduate student life. Not only did I. 立. gain knowledge in her class but I was also encouraged in life. I never forgot Prof.. ‧ 國. 學. Huang helped me a lot when I was facing financial problems. I am really grateful for. ‧. the supports and comments in my thesis from Dr. Yow-yu Lin. Under his guidance,. Nat. io. sit. y. some statistical support makes my thesis more convincing. In addition, I would like to. er. thank everyone in the institute of linguistics. You all fulfill my life. Besides, I. al. n. v i n C h the experimentUin my study. appreciate every participant conducting engchi. Next, I would like to dedicate my love to my girlfriend, Sara (鈺炘), and two little kittens, Sesame (芝麻) and Little Dumpling (小籠包). You three gave me huge relief when I was feeling depressed in the heap of paper. More importantly, I express immense gratitude for Sara’s tolerance towards my being indifferent when I was doing my research. You always encouraged me and said to me that “we go to Xin-ye (my favorite restaurant) when you finish your thesis.” Additionally, I was feeling iii.

(4) grateful for Mi-jyou (米酒), Bao-yu (包魚), Xiao-bai-tu (小白兔), school badminton team, so free pizza, Plus.One.Lasai, and yoga club, because you color my life in the chaos of my four-year-long study. Further, thanks for the puddings from Home-mom (轟媽) to “bribe” the committee members. Last but not least, I express my warmest thanks to my parents. Thanks for allowing me to pursue my dream. Also, I deeply appreciate my sister’s financial. 政治大. supports for some time when I was in trouble. I couldn’t have accomplished the thesis. 立. without you all.. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. iv. i n U. v.

(5) TABLE OF CONTENTS. page Acknowledges………………………………………………………………………...iii Table of Contents………………………………………………………………...…….v Chinese Abstract………………………………………………………………………ix. 政治大. English Abstract………………………………………………………………………xi. 立. Chapter. ‧ 國. 學. 1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………..………1. ‧. 1.1 Background and Motivation………………………………….….……...1. Nat. io. sit. y. 1.2 Purposes of the Study….……………………………………….….……5. er. 1.3 Organization of the Pater…………………………………….…….……6. al. n. v i n Ch 2. LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………….……….….7 engchi U 2.1 The Unaccusative Hypothesis……………………………….……....….7 2.2 The Confusion of Unaccusatives and Passives………….……………...9 2.2.1 Alternating Unaccsative and Non-alternating Unaccusative. Verbs………………..………………………………………….14 2.3 U-shaped Learning…………………………………………………….16 2.3.1 U-shaped in Language Development…………………………..16 v.

(6) 2.3.2 Previous Study on U-shaped Learning…………………………18 2.4 Typology Issue…………………………………………………………19 2.4.1 Chinese Topic-comment Structure……………………………..20 2.4.1.1 Topic-comment Structure on L2 English Passives…...…21 2.4.1.2 Topic-comment Structure on L2 English Unaccusatives.22 2.5 Two Hypotheses on Unaccusatives: Transitivization Hypothesis and. 政治大. Postverbal NP Movement Hypothesis………………………………..23. 立. 2.6 Animacy Effect on Argument………………………………………….24. ‧ 國. 學. 2.7 Research Questions….………………………………………………..28. ‧. 3. METHOD…………………………………………………………………….30. Nat. io. sit. y. 3.1 Subjects………………………………………………………………..30. er. 3.2 Material………………………………………………………………..31. al. n. v i n Ch 3.2.1 GJ Task…...…………………………………………………….31 engchi U 3.2.2 CET Task...............……………………………………………..34. 3.3 Procedures……………………………………………………………..36 3.3.1 Pilot Study……………………………………………………...36 3.3.2 Formal Testing………………………………………………….37 3.4 Data Analysis…………………………………………………………..37 4. RESULTS and DISSCUSSION……………………………………………...41 vi.

(7) 4.1 The Results and Discussion of U-shaped Curve in Learning of Non-alternating Unaccusatives………………………………………41 4.1.1 Results ……………………………………….………….……..41 4.1.2 Discussion…………………………………..………………….43 4.1.2.1 Salience in Language and Reluctance in NP-V Word Order………………………………………….…………44. 政治大. 4.1.2.2 Transitivization in Non-alternating. 立 Unaccusatives…….…………………………………..…46. ‧ 國. 學. 4.2 The Influences of Alternaing Unaccusatives and Passives. ‧. with Respect to Learning of Non-alternating Unaccusatives………...48. Nat. io. sit. y. 4.2.1 Results………………………………………………………….48. er. 4.2.2 Discussion……………………………………………………...55. al. n. v i n CWord 4.2.2.1 NP-V Structure and Pro h e Order i U n g cinhTopic-comment. Drop in Chinese……….…………….…………………..55 4.2.2.2 No Subject-intransitive Word Order or Passives in a Single Verb.……………………….……………………………57 4.2.2.3 “No Subject-intransitive Word Order or Passives in a Single Verb” in U-shaped Learning…………………....60 4.3 Animacy Effect……………………..……………………………….…62 vii.

(8) 4.3.1 Results………………………………………………………….62 4.3.2 Discussion……………………………………………………...63 4.3.2.1 Examination on Transitivization Hypothesis…………...64 5. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………66 5.1 Major Findings of the Study…………..………………………………66 5.2 Pedagogical Implication in Language Teaching……….……………...68. 政治大. 5.3 Limitations and Suggestions…...……………………………………...69. 立. REFERENCES…………………………………………….…………………………72. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. APPENDIXES. A: GJ Task………...…………………………………………………………….75. Nat. io. sit. y. B: CET Task…...………………………………………………………………..76. er. C: Alternating and Non-alternating Unaccusative, and Passive Verbs in GJ. al. n. v i n Ch Task…………………………………………………………………………..77 engchi U. viii.

(9) 國立政治大學語言學研究所碩士班碩士論文摘要. 論文名稱：非賓格不及物動詞在 U 型語言發展中受到非賓格及物動詞，被動語態，和主詞生命度的影響指導教授：張郇慧博士研究生：石惠中. 立. 論文提要內容：. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. 本論文是以 Kellerman (1978) 的 U 型學習理論為基礎做擴大研究。本篇. ‧. 論文旨在探討英文程度不同的中文為母語之人士，在學習非賓格不及物動詞時是. Nat. al. er. io. 態，主詞生命度之間的互動也將做討論。. sit. y. 否也會出現 U 型曲線，除此之外，非賓格不及物動詞與非賓格及物動詞，被動. n. v i n Ch 在這個研究中，我們採用語法判斷(Grammaticality e n g c h i U judgment)來測試受測者. 對於非賓格不及物動詞的理解和中英轉譯(Chinese to English translation)來測試受測者對於主詞生命度和主被動態之間的影響。此研究共有 123 位受測者，他們根據學習英文的長短被分為四個組別，分別是低、低中、中、與中高程度。此研究可歸納為以下結論。(1) 不同英文程度的中文為母語之人士，在學習英文非賓格不及物動詞時也會出現 U 型曲線。此即意味著 U 型曲線不僅僅出現在母語為荷蘭語學習非賓格及物動詞 Break 的學習上，更可擴大到母語為中文 ix.

(10) 學習非賓格不及物動詞上。(2) 中文為母語之人士無法正確使用非賓格及物動詞，並且會把非賓格及物動詞當作非賓格不及物動詞。(3) 在學習非賓格不及物動詞中，主詞生命度確實會影響學習者使用主被動態之不同。當主詞有生命時，句子傾向使用主動態，當主詞是無生命時，句子傾向使用被動態。. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. x. i n U. v.

(11) ABSTRACT The study is based on Kellerman’s (1978) U-shaped leaning on break to do further study. The study aims to examine if the learning of non-alternating unaccsatives for L2 Chinese learners of English with different proficiency presents a U-shaped curve. In addition, the interactions among alternating unaccusatives, non-alternating unaccusatives, passives and animacy effect are discussed as well.. 政治大. In the study, we use grammaticality judgment task to test participants’. 立. understanding of non-alternating unaccusatives, and adopt Chinese to English. ‧ 國. 學. translation task to test animacy effect in non-alternating unaccusatives. 123. ‧. participants involve the experiment of the study. Among these participants, they are. Nat. according to how long they studied English.. al. er. io. sit. y. classified as four groups, low, low-intermediate, intermediate, and high-intermediate,. n. v i n The results of the study areC summarized follows. h e n g asc h i U (1) There is a U-shaped. curve in learning of non-alternating unaccusatives for L2 Chinese speakers learning English. It suggested that U-shaped learning is not only in alternating unaccusatives break in L1 Dutch but also in non-alternating unaccusatives in L1 Chinese. (2) For L2 learners, they are unable to use alternating unaccusatives correctly and tend to view alternating unaccusatives as non-alternating ones. (3) Animacy effect does influence the choices of voice forms. The study showed that participants tend to use active xi.

(12) voice while the subject is animate and prefer to use passive voice while the subject is inanimate.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. xii. i n U. v.

(13) CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background and Motivation Overuse of passivization on unaccusatives has been commonly seen in second language learning. Research about the issue has been made in terms of different aspects (Balcom, 1997; Ju, 2000; Montrul, 1999; Oshita, 1998, 2001; Perlmutter,. 政治大. 1978; Yip, 1990, 1995; Zobl, 1989). Kellerman (1978) discussed the issue in terms of. 立. different L2 English proficiency of L1 Dutch speakers and presented a U-shaped. ‧ 國. 學. curve in language learning. However, only the verb break is involved in the study; in. ‧. addition, there exists typological difference between Dutch and Chinese. It is worth. Nat. io. sit. y. noticing to examine the performances of L2 Chinese speakers learning English in. er. learning of non-alternating unaccusatives.. al. n. v i n C hthat L2 learners ofUEnglish usually overextend Previous studies have claimed engchi. passive voice even if learners belong to different L1 (Balcom, 1997; Ju, 2000; Montrul, 1999; Oshita, 1998; Yip, 1990; Zobl, 1989). These errors are often found in the unaccusatives as follows. (1) a. *The World War Ⅲ will be happened in the future. (Chinese: Yip, 1990) b. *The most memorable experience of my life was happened 15 years ago. (Arbic: Zobl, 1989) 1.

(14) The phenomenon of overusing passivization is known as overpassivization. The verb happen in (1) is an intransitive-unaccusative verb, rather than transitive verb; they cannot be passivized. According to Zobl (1989), both passives and unaccusatives have identical characteristic of internal argument, without external argument, and both internal NPs were moved to the subject slot. He also argued that there is a lexical rule of unaccusatives before learners acquire passives. The lexical rules of unaccusatives are displayed as follows.. 立. 政治大. (2) [ ___ [V NP]] (i.e. [open the door]). ‧ 國. 學. The lexical rule would be subsumed when L2 learners acquire passives since. ‧. passive rules are the core rules (Zobl, 1989). On the other hand, the assumption seems. Nat. io. sit. y. to imply the fact that the knowledge of unaccusatives did exist before learners acquire. er. passives. Moreover, under the viewpoints, U-shaped learning of unaccusatives. al. n. v i n conducted by Kellerman (1978)C also For example, in his U h supported e n g cthe h iassumption. study, the transferability rate from L1 Dutch Het kopje brak into L2 English The cup broke is about 100% in the group of low proficiency while the transferability rate goes down to 64% in the group of higher proficiency; finally the transferability rate goes up to the 90% in the group of advanced proficiency. However in Kellerman’s study, there are some problems that we would like to discuss further in order to make the U-shape learning of unaccusatives more 2.

(15) convincible. First, just only the verb break was involved in the study. We need more unaccusatives to support the assumption of U-shaped learning. (3) a. The sun melted the ice. b. The ice melted. (4) a. *The truck happened a car accident. b. A car accident happened.. 政治大. In the above example, both happen and melt are categorized as unaccusatives.. 立. However, melt has a transitive counterpart while happen does not. Those. ‧ 國. 學. unaccusatives with transitive counterparts are known as alternating unaccusatives. ‧. whereas those without transitive counterparts are noted as non-alternating. Nat. io. sit. y. unaccusatives. In Kellerman’s study just involved the alternating unaccusative verb. er. break. We would like to examine if the language learning of non-alternating. n. al. i n C unaccusatives still presents a U-shaped h ecurve i U n g cas hwell.. v. Second, typological difference might influence the learning of unaccusatives. Chinese, as a topic-prominent language, allows a thematic patient/theme in subject slot. (5). Wen-jian. ji. Document send. LE LE. “Documents were sent” 3.

(16) In the above example, the preverbal NP wen-jian ‘document’ is the topic followed by a comment ji le ‘sent,’ which is known as topic-comment structure. Most importantly, topic-comment structure in Chinese contains a thematic patient/theme subject with a semantic passive in active voice; similarly the structure is like English unaccusatives as below. (6) a. The window broke b. A problem emerged.. 立. 政治大. In the example of (6), both verbs break and emerge are referred to as. ‧ 國. 學. unaccusatives. As we could see, both topic-comment structure and unaccusatives. ‧. share the NP-V word order (i.e. an NP followed by a verb) with semantic passive in. Nat. io. sit. y. active voice. Therefore, for Chinese native speakers, it is possible that L2 Chinese. er. learners of English might get accustomed to using NP-V word order with passive. al. n. v i n meaning in active voice. That is,Ctopic-comment h e n g c hstructure i U might facilitate the learning of unaccusatives. Thus, the typological issue of topic-comment structure is totally different from the Dutch case provided by Kellerman (1978). It is worth examining if the learning of unaccusatives still presents a U-shaped curve. Studies also revealed that subject animacy might influence the voice form in the sentence (Croft, 1995; Ferreira, 1994). Voice form in a sentence might be determined by animacy hierarchy: human>animate>inanimate>abstract entities; human entities as 4.

(17) subjects are unmarked while inanimate entities as subjects are marked (Croft, 1995). Unaccusatives usually contain inanimate subject, which might be the reason for L2 learners to use passive voice. Thus, the factor of animacy effect needs to be considered in learning of unaccusatives. 1.2 Purpose of the Study Based on the study by Kellerman (1978), there are some limitations that we. 政治大. would like to figure them out. There are three purposes in the study to fulfill the. 立. limitations by Kellerman (1978).. ‧ 國. 學. (1) To examine if the learning of non-alternating unaccusatives for L2 Chinese. ‧. learners of English with different proficiency represent a U-shaped curve as the study. Nat. io. sit. y. presented by Kellerman (1978).. er. (2) To examine how is the influence of the alternating unaccusatives and passives. n. al. i n C in the U-shaped learning of non-alternating h e n gunaccusatives. chi U. v. (3) To examine if the factor of animacy involves the usage of voice forms when L2 learners are using non-alternating unaccusatives. The study would shed light on L2 Chinese speakers learning English unaccusatives. The issue would unveil the problems of the learning of unaccusatives in the hopes of facilitating the language learning. We expected that this finding could contribute to the development of L2 English learning. 5.

(18) 1.3 Organization of the Paper In Chapter two, unaccusatives hypothesis will be introduced first to disclosure the differences of syntactic configuration, and a discussion about alternating and non-alternating unaccusatives will also be demonstrated. U-shaped learning and previous study are also included. Chapter Three will deal with the methodology of experiment designs and procedures. In Chapter Four, we will report the results and. 政治大. discussion based on the data collected in the experiment. Also, implication for L2. 立. language teaching will be mentioned. Finally, In Chapter Five, we will make a. ‧ 國. 學. conclusion to summarize the ideas of the study.. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 6. i n U. v.

(19) CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW There is some discussion about why alternating unaccusatives and passives behave similarly with non-alternating unaccusatives. U-shaped learning from Kellerman (1978) will be discussed. Finally we will move to the discussion of animacy effect. 2.1 The Unaccusative Hypothesis. 立. 政治大. Unaccusatives hypothesis proposed by Permultter (1978) and revised by Burzio. ‧ 國. 學. (1986) claimed that intransitive verbs could be categorized into two subclasses:. ‧. unergaive (e.g. fly, paint, run, dance, play, etc.) and unaccusative verbs (e.g. melt,. Nat. io. sit. y. happen, appear, vanish, break, etc). Despite the fact that both belong to intransitive. er. verbs, they share distinct properties in syntactic and semantic features. Unaccusative. al. n. v i n C h and associated with verbs, which usually lack of volition e n g c h i U change of state, would take an internal NP, while unergative verbs, whose subjects usually get volition, would take an external NP, syntactic configuration schematized as follows. (7) a. Unergative verbs: NP [VP V] b. Unaccusative verbs: _____ [VP V NP]. (Levin & Hovav, 1995). In generative grammar, the above structures show that in deep structures, verbs in (7a) require an external argument without internal one and its NP is usually a 7.

(20) thematic agent. As for the verbs in (7b), it requires an internal argument as a role of thematic patient without external one. However, Burzio (1986) claimed that the object of unaccusative verbs does not get any case underlyingly; it must move to the subject position to get a structural case in favor of case filter. Therefore, unaccusative verbs and unergative verbs share the same subject-intransitive word order but stem from distinct syntactic configurations.. 政治大. (8) a. Unaccusative: the guesti [VP arrived ti]. 立. b. Unergative: the boy [VP jumped]. (Oshita, 2001). ‧ 國. 學. Apparently, both (8a) and (8b) look identical. However, the preverbal NP the. ‧. guest goes from the internal verb phrase position and leaves a trace behind the verb. Nat. io. sit. y. arrived while the boy in (8b) originates in the preverbal position without movement.. er. Both constructions process differently in syntactic configuration although they belong. al. n. v i n C hunaccusative verbsUusually correlate with a to intransitive verbs. Semantically, engchi. thematic patient while unergative verbs fit with a thematic agent (Dowty, 1991), as shown in (8). Since agent always refers to human entities, while patient correlate with objects the thematic differences might lead to the voice forms differences (Croft, 1995). Yip (1990) also suggested that it is possible for L2 English learners to mark the passive morphology when an object appears in subject slot. Further, previous researchers (Yip, 1990; Zobl, 1989) claimed that learners overextend passives even if 8.

(21) they belong to different mother tongue, as exemplified below. (9) a. *I do not think that such abusive action should be happened to a twelve-year old child.. (Chinese: Yip 1990). b. *The most memorable experience of my life was happened 15 years ago. (Arbic: Zobl, 1989) The overuse of passivization on unaccusatives as above is known as. 政治大. overpassivization. This phenomenon has been evidenced in learning English as a. 立. 1999; Oshita, 1998, 2001; Yip, 1990, 1995; Zobl, 1989). ‧. 2.2 The Confusion of Unaccusatives and Passives. 學. ‧ 國. second language by different L1 backgrounds (Balcom, 1997; Ju, 2000; Montrul,. Nat. io. sit. y. Unaccusatives share plenty of characteristics with passives. Studies (Montrul,. er. 1999; Oshita, 1998; Yip, 1990; Zobl, 1989) showed that L2 learners would. al. n. v i n C hwith different L1 backgrounds overgeneralize passivization, even when acquiring engchi U passives. Zobl (1989) also claimed that as soon as L2 learners acquire passive voice, unaccusative verbs would be subsumed; passive rules become the core rule. In other words, L2 learners are prone to regard the unaccusative verbs as passive verbs. Yip (1995) further pointed out the idea that L2 Chinese learners of English considered unaccusative verbs as transitive ones when recognizing ungrammatical transitives as grammatical and rejecting the correct unaccusative verbs. 9.

(22) The reasons to accept ungrammatical passivized unaccusatives and reject correct unaccusatives might be the similarities between passives and unaccusatives. The similarities between unaccusative verbs and passive verbs could be listed as follows. Firstly, both unaccusatives and passives consist of one internal argument and their arguments are all moved to the subjection (Perlmutter, 1978) as shown below. (10) a. The star [VP appeared ____ ]. 政治大. b. The house was [VP painted ____ ]. 立. The internal argument of the unaccusative verb in (10a) moves to the preverbal. ‧ 國. 學. position while the internal one in (10b) goes forward to the sentence-initial position as. ‧. well. In addition, the internal arguments always belong to thematic patient or theme.. Nat. io. sit. y. Thus, these similarities between unaccusatives and passives might confuse L2. al. er. learners. Secondly, both (10a) and (10b) remain agentless, in which (10a) does not. n. v i n need any agent in unaccusative C verbs h ewhereas i Uin (10b) was suppressed n g cthehagent. (Burzio, 1986). In contrast, some differences occurred between unaccusatives and passives. Firstly, unaccusative verbs usually lack volition such as appear in (10a) and are associated with change of state verbs (Perlmutter, 1978) while passive verbs carry volition, such as paint in (10b) associated with transitive verb taking an underlying agent with volition1. Additionally, some researchers further came up with a hypothesis 1. Usually passives derived from causative sentences; that is, there must be an agent cause something to happen. Therefore, underlyingly there is supposed to be an agent even though passives are agentless in the surface structures. 10.

(23) classifying the degrees of unaccusative verbs based on the semantic difference, which is known as Unaccusative Hierarchy Hypothesis as shown below (Sorace, 1993a, 1993b; Sorace & Shomura, 2001). (11) The Unaccusative Hierarchy Change of Location. (Unaccusative Core). Change of State. 政治大. Appearance. 立. Continuation of a Pre-existing State. ‧ 國. 學. Existence. ‧. Uncontrolled Process. Nat. [Involuntary Reaction]. n. al. Ch. engchi. Controlled Motion Process. Controlled Non-motion Process. er. io. sit. y. [Emission]. i n U. v. (Unergative Core) (Sorace & Shomura, 2001). In the hierarchy, the verbs to the core would be more unaccusative-like or ergative-like than the verbs to the peripheral (Sorace & Shomura, 2001). Most importantly, the semantic subtypes of the hierarchy from the peripheral unaccusatives to the core ones show the characteristics of non-volition, except for the unergative 11.

(24) core. As for passive verbs, they could be either volition or non-volition. (12) a. We know Taipei 101 building. b. Taipei 101 building is known to us. (13) a. We bought some books. b. Some books were bought by us. In (12), know is the verb classified as condition of state as like unaccusative. 政治大. verbs, but it has transitive counterpart; therefore the verb know could be passivized as. 立. in (12b). However, in (13), bought is the verb referred to as a controlled motion verb. ‧ 國. 學. which could be passivized as well. In other words, passive verbs allow both volition. ‧. and non-volition. The trait of unaccusatives independent of volition is departed from. Nat. io. sit. y. passive verbs. Secondly, unaccusative verbs are intransitive verbs whereas passive. er. verbs are always transitive verbs. These distinctive features between unaccusatives. al. n. v i n C h from making errors and passives do not keep L2 learners e n g c h i U in unaccusatives but it seems that their similarities confuse L2 learners. However, the confusion influences the way that L2 learners view unaccusatives as passives while it was never found in the opposite way. (14) a. Stars appeared. b. *Stars were appeared.. 12.

(25) (15) a. *The fish devoured. b. The fish was devoured. The error of regarding unaccusatives as passives as in (14) happened in L2 speakers learning English (Balcom, 1997; Ju, 2000; Oshita, 1998, 2001; Yip, 1990, 1995; Yuan, 1999; Zobl, 1989). On the contrary, the error of incorrectly regarding passives as unaccusatives was never found as in (15). The relationship between. 政治大. transitivization unaccusatives and intransitivization passivization as showed below.. 立. Figure 1: Transitivization unaccusatives and intransitivization passives. ‧ 國. 學. a. The car accident happened. b. *The letter sent. ‧. Transitivization unaccusatives. Intransitivization passives. io. sit. y. Nat. The letter was sent.. er. *The car accident was happened. al. n. v i n The phenomenon as aboveC figure used in L2 English at the time when h eisnwidely gchi U L2 learners are reluctant to accept NP-V word order with respect to unaccusatives (Oshita, 2001). Zobl (1989) also supported that once L2 learnres acquire passives, they would view passives as core rules and subsume unaccusatives. It seems that unaccusatives exist prior to passives for L2 learners. On the other hand, intransitiization passives are never found in L2 English. It seems that compared to unaccusatives, passives are likely to be more salient in L2 learners’ mind. That might 13.

(26) be the reason that L2 learners of English overpassivize unaccusatives and do not intransitivize passives. 2.2.1 Alternating Unaccusative and Non-Alternating Unaccusative Verbs Within unaccusative verbs, they could be characterized by alternating unaccusative verbs (e.g. break, melt, sink, etc.) and non-alternating unaccusative verbs (e.g. happen, appear, bloom, etc.). Alternating unaccusative verbs contain. 政治大. causative transitive counterparts but non-alternating unaccusative verbs do not.. 立. 學. ‧ 國. Examples are as follows.. (16) a. I broke the window.. ‧. b. The window broke.. Nat. io. sit. y. In (16a), the NP the window is an object of the causative-transitive verb broke. er. while it is the subject of the inchoative-intransitive verb broke in (16b) as an NP-V. al. n. v i n order. That is, the unaccusative C verbs h ecould i U as an agent to become n gaddc ahcauser. causative sentences as in (16a), or represent as the inchoative forms without the agent as in (16b). The behavior of the verb break in (16b) acts like the passive verbs just with the difference on passive morphology. Unlike non-alternating unaccusative verbs, alternating unaccusatives ones have nothing to do with verbs of existence or appearance. Studies showed that all unaccusative verbs are basically causative verbs (Chierchia 1989, Reinhart 1999), and later some researchers (Levin & Hovav, 1995) 14.

(27) assumed that alternating unaccusative verbs belong to causative verbs. Non-alternating unaccusative verbs refer to those verbs that are unaccusatives but, in contrast, were not derived from the causative verbs. In other words, non-alternating unaccusatives do not have transitive counterparts. Often these verbs represent the characteristics of verbs of existence and appearance. The example is shown below.. 政治大. (17) a. A star appeared in the sky.. 立. b. *The darkness appeared a star in the sky.. (Levin & Hovav, 1995). ‧ 國. 學. In (17a), the subject a star could not be in the object position of the causative. ‧. sentence in (17b). Also, the darkness does not belong to the internal argument of the. Nat. intransitives leads to the diverse result in passive voice.. n. al. Ch. (18) a. The window was broken.. engchi. er. io. sit. y. verb appear. Within unaccusatives, the difference with respect to the transitives or. i n U. v. b. *A star was appeared. Even though both break and appear belong to unaccusatives, the one, break, with transitive counterpart in passive voice is grammatical while the other one, appear, ungrammatical. For the phenomenon of passivized unaccustives, Yip (1990) claimed that learners somehow underlyingly viewed unaccusative verbs as transitive verbs. That is, even though some syntactic configuration exists between alternating 15.

(28) unaccusatives and non-alternating unaccusatives, L2 English learners could not distinguish them apart. Permultter (1978) also suggested that both alternating and non-alternating unaccusatives fall into identical category for L2 English learners. Owing to the reason, L2 learners might accidentally correctly use passivized unaccusatives such as The window was broken, but were not reluctant to accept NP-V structures on unaccusatives such as The window broke. Therefore, even though. 政治大. alternating and non-alternating unaccusatives share similar syntactic configurations, it. 立. is possible that the processes of learning alternating and non-alternating unaccusatives. ‧ 國. 學. might be different.. ‧. 2.3 U-shaped Learning. Nat. io. sit. y. Throughout language development, U-shaped learning plays a key role in the. er. development of first and second language (Kellerman, 1978; Lightbown, 1983). The. al. n. v i n phenomenon not only implicatesCthe learning is rule-based, but also h fact e ntheglanguage chi U is considered to be the process of language development. 2.3.1 U-shaped in Language Development The research of sensitivity of alternating and non-alternating unaccusative verbs has been explored by Kellerman (1978). In the study, L1 Dutch subjects are divided into eight groups in accordance with different L2 English proficiency. Subjects are observed whether they would transfer L1 Dutch Het kopje brak as L2 English The cup 16.

(29) broke. The results in the experiment showed that the transferability rate is 100% in the group of age 14 to 17. Then the transferability rate decrease to 64% among age twenties; and finally up to 90% for the advanced group. The transferability rate is represented as a U-shaped in the language development of break. The U-shaped learning with respect to break unveils three stages in the development, in which L2 learners accept alternating unaccusatives break with NP-V. 政治大. order at first followed by a rejection as proficiency increases; then finally L2 learners. 立. accept the structure when reaching advanced level. Similarly, the phenomenon seems. ‧ 國. 學. to appear in early child language acquisition. Young children correctly use went. ‧. referring to past tense of go. However, they incorrectly use goed as its past tense as. Nat. io. sit. y. linguistic competence progressed. Finally they achieve the usage went in the end. The. er. phenomenon has been evidenced that U-shaped learning such as children’s learning. al. n. v i n C h language development. with respect to go plays a part through engchi U. The appearance of U-shaped development could also be observed in SLA. Three groups of L1 French with different proficiency learning English were examined in their use of English progressive tense – ing (Lightbown, 1983). The performances of correctness concerning the use of -ing are as follows.. 17.

(30) Figure 2: The use of –ing in U-shaped learning Stage 1: He is taking a cake. Stage 3: He is taking a cake.. Stage 2: He take a cake. 立. 政治大. Time. Learners at first use progressive tense –ing both in simple and progressive tense.. ‧ 國. 學. As they acquire simple tense, they overgeneralize simple tense and made errors on. ‧. progressive forms. Finally, once learners could correctly use progressive, they could. Nat. io. sit. y. also use simple tense in correct contexts. Both U-shaped learning in first and second. er. language study showed the sequences of language learning. It is believed that. al. n. v i n U-shaped learning is a key role C in learning h e n gof clanguage h i Udevelopment. 2.3.2 Previous Study on U-shaped Learning. Unaccusative Trap Hypothesis refers to the fact there are three stages as L2 learners acquiring unaccusatives (Oshita, 1998, 2001). At the first stage, unaccusatives are misanalyzed as unergatives, and learners paradoxically correctly use NP-V order on unaccusatives. At the second stage, learners are reluctant to accept NP-V order on unaccusatives but substitute passive voice for unaccusatives. At final 18.

(31) stage, learners achieve the use of unaccusatives. This hypothesis predicts the U-shaped learning in the acquisition of English break by L2 Dutch (Kellerman, 1978, 1979) and the learning of progressive tense –ing (Lightbown, 1983). Within the U-shaped learning, study (Kellerman, 1978, 1979) evidenced that Dutch speakers in a certain level of L2 English reject the transferability of NP-V order in the alternating unaccusative verb break. Additionally, the reluctance of NP-V word. 政治大. order in alternating unaccusatives is as strong as that in non-alternating unaccusatives. 立. to the Italians and Japanese subjects (Oshita, 1998). Zobl (1989) also provided that. ‧ 國. 學. unaccusatives would be subsumed under passives. Therefore, it is possible that. ‧. non-alternating unaccusatives are prior to passives and there would be. Nat. io. sit. y. overpassivization on non-alternating unaccuatives in a certain time as the predication. er. by Unaccusative Trap Hypothesis. Therefore, we hypothesize that there might be a. al. n. v i n Ch U-shaped curve in learning of non-alternating e n g cunaccusatives h i U for L1 Chinese learning English. 2.4 Typology Issue There are typological differences in languages: a subject-prominent language and a topic-prominent language. In Kellerman (1978), the study of U-shaped curve in learning of alternating unaccusatives break is conducted by L1 Dutch, which is a subject-prominent language. Research concerning early topic-prominent language in 19.

(32) L1 has been evidenced to come into the effect on L2 (Givón, 1995; Rutherford, 1989; Sasaki, 1990; Schachter, 1979). The characteristics of topic-prominent language in Chinese in learning of unaccusatives need to be illustrated. 2.4.1 Chinese Topic-comment Structure Languages can be characterized by subject-prominent languages (SP) and topic-prominent language (TP) based on sentence information role, subject-predicate. 政治大. or topic-comment structure (Li & Thompson, 1976). Chinese is referred to as a. 立. topic-prominent language (Li & Thompson, 1976, 1981). Studies have shown that. ‧ 國. 學. Chinese L1 topic-comment structures influence L2 English learning, as exemplified. ‧. below.. Nat. n. al. Topic / Comment. er. io. sit. y. (19) a. Irrational emotions are bad but rational emotions/ must use for judging.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. (Schachter, 1979). b. …and there is a mountain/ separate two lakes. Topic. /. Comment (Schachter & Celece-Murcia, 1971). c. To do this/ must have patience. Topic /. Comment. 20. (Zhang, 1987).

(33) d. China people/ live conditions very poor. Topic /. (Green, 1996). Comment. According to above sentences, Chinese speakers may transfer their L1 topic-comment structures to L2 English. In addition, a topic of a sentence is usually the object of the sentence. (20) a. Wo I. you. zhe-ben. own. this-CL book. 立. shu. 政治大. b. Zhe-ben shu,. wo I. you. ‧. This-CL book,. 學. ‧ 國. ‘I own this book.’. own. Nat. io. sit. y. ‘This book, I own.’. er. The NP Zhe-ben shu in (20a) is an object, but it moves to the sentence-initial. al. n. v i n C h the process is known position in (20b) as a topic, by which e n g c h i U as topicalization. Studies agreed that the NP zhe-ben shu in (20b) is regarded as a patient since it exists in a marked position instead of a usual object position (Huang, 1982; Shyu, 1995). Most importantly, the NP zhe-ben shu in (20b) holds an active voice. That is, topic-comment structure is an NP-V word order in Chinese in active voice. 2.4.1.1 Topic-comment Structure on L2 English Passives Topic-comment structure in Chinese in active voice might turn out to be passive 21.

(34) voice in English. (21) Fangzi. zao. House build. hao. LE. finish. PFV. ‘The house, (someone) has finished building it/ The house has been finished building.’ (Li & Thompson, 1976, 1981). 政治大. The above example is a topic-comment structure in Chinese. When it translates. 立. into English, there must be a null pronoun insertion or a passive voice. Therefore, for. ‧ 國. 學. these sentences, there will be a translation mismatch in voice forms between Chinese. ‧. and English (Li & Thompson, 1981). The reason for the mismatch might be that. Nat. io. sit. y. passive voice in Chinese could exist without passive morphology2. Additionally,. n. al. er. according to Yip (1995), L2 learners tend to passivize unaccusatives as soon as an. Ch. object is in the subject position.. engchi. i n U. v. 2.4.1.2 Topic-comment Structure on L2 English Unaccusatives On the other hand, topic-comment structure with NP-V word order in active voice in Chinese is similar to the structure of unaccusatives. As we mentioned before, the internal argument of unaccusatives would move to the subject position as a patient or theme (Dowty, 1991; Perlmutter, 1978). In the way, both topic-comment structure. 2. Chinese passive morphology Bei not necessarily appeared in the passive meaning. That is, it is plausible that a sentence contains passive meaning without passive morphology Bei. 22.

(35) in Chinese and unaccusatives might share the same NP-V word order in active voice. The example of topic-comment structure in Chinese in active voice is as follows. (22) a. Che-huo Car accident. fa-sheng. LE. happen. LE. ‘A car accident happened.’ In (22), 車禍發生了 “che huo fa sheng le” is a topic-comment structure in. 政治大. active voice in Chinese. Interestingly, its English equivalent is A car accident. 立. happened, which is also an active voice like Chinese. In sum, topic-comment. ‧ 國. 學. structures might somehow facilitate the learning of English passives due to the. ‧. patient/theme in the subject position or might help the learning of unaccusatives. Nat. sit er. io. order in active voice.. y. because both topic-comment structure and unaccusatives share the same NP-V word. al. n. v i n C h Transitivization 2.5 Two Hypotheses on Unaccusatives: e n g c h i U Hypothesis and Postverbal NP Movement Hypothesis According to Yip (1990), L2 learners tend to passivize unaccusatives since they view unaccusatives as underlyingly transitives. It appears to be reasonable that learners correctly use passive voice on alternating unaccusatives but incorrectly overextend passivization on non-alternating unaccusatives. (23) a. Someone broke the window. 23.

(36) b. The window was broken.. (Kellerman, 1978). (24) a. *A truck happened a car accident. b. *A car accident was happened. Learners might group alternating and non-alternating unaccusatives as transitive verbs, so (23b) and (24b) would be observed through learning of unaccusatives. Although the hypothesis could explain the phenomenon as in (22) and (23), it may not. 政治大. refer to the fact that overpassivization results from transitiviztion unaccusatives (Ju,. 立. 2000).. ‧ 國. 學. The other hypothesis argued that overpassivization results from the postverbal. ‧. Nat. (Ju, 2000). io. sit. (25) [ __ [V NP]] (i.e. [ __ [sink the ship]] ). y. NP movement (Zobl, 1989). There is a lexical rule of unaccusatives in the D-structure.. er. Zobl presented that L1 Japanese learners learning English would produce I was. al. n. v i n Cinstead just patient until dried my clothes h e nofgI cwashjust i Upatient until my clothes had dried. He suggested that there would be a NP movement happened between. D-structure and S-structure. However, Oshita (1998) argued that the phenomenon of postverbal NP movement with respect to unaccusatives could be observed in L1 Italian and Spanish, rarely in L1 Japanese and Korean speakers. 2.6 Animacy Effect on Argument Previous studies showed that the argument of a sentence is highly associated 24.

(37) with the argument-predicate structure (Croft, 1995). The animacy hierarchy: human> animate> inanimate> abstract entities involve the choice of the predicate in a sentence. In the hierarchy, the most marked form would be inanimate or abstract entities suc as patient or theme in the subject position as unaccusatives; the least marked form would be human entities. That is, animacy might influence the voice forms of the sentence. Animacy effects also have been evidenced to influence the real-time processing in. 政治大. RCs (Relative Clauses) for Chinese speakers learning English (Branigan, Pickering, &. 立. Tanaka, 2008). In order to test the animacy effect in relative structures in SRC. ‧ 國. 學. (subject-extracted relative clauses), the animacy of internal RC head (subject) and the. ‧. animacy of internal RC object are manipulated. There are four conditions in the test of. Nat. (26) a. Inanimate RC-Object/Animate Head. al. v i n damenC deh jizhei qiaoqiaode e n g c h i U liule. n ti. raokai bypass. er. io. sit. y. real-time processing in SRC structures.. jinqu. gate DE reporter quietly slip-ASP inside. ‘The reporter that _____ bypassed the gate slipped in quietly.’ b. Animate RC-Object/Animate Head ti. raokai baoan de jizhei bypass guard DE reporter. qiaoqiaode liule. jinqu. quietly slip-ASP inside. ‘The reporter that _____ bypassed the guard slipped in quietly.’ 25.

(38) c. Animate RC-Object/Inanimate Head ti zazhong. baoan. smash-into. guard. de jidani nianhude liule. yidi. DE egg stickily splash-ASP ground. ‘The egg that _____ smashed into the guard splashed the ground stickily.’ d. Inanimate RC-Object/Inanimate Head ti zazhong damen de jidani. nianhude liule. yidi. 治 splash-ASP 政 stickily 大. smash-into gate DE egg. 立. ground. ‘The egg that _____ smashed into the gate splashed the ground stickily.’. ‧ 國. 學. (Branigan et al., 2008). ‧. In the SRC structures, the results showed that sentence (26a) processes faster. Nat. io. sit. y. than sentence (26d) while sentence (26b) is faster than sentence (26c). That is, the. er. real-time processing is faster when the subject is animate than when the subject is. al. n. v i n inanimate. On the other hand, inC ORC h e(object-extracted n g c h i Urelative clauses) structures, again animacy of RC subject and RC object (head) create four conditions. The results reveled that real-time processing would process faster when subject is inanimate than when subject is animate in ORC structures, as exemplified below. (27) a. Animate RC-Subject/Inanimate Head jizhe. raokai ti de dameni. reporter bypass. DE gate. lingluande tiezhe. guanggao. messily post-ASP advertisement 26.

(39) ‘The gate that the reporter bypassed _____ had flyers messily posted on it.’ [Note: In the sentence is not a passive construction.] b. Animate RC-Subject/Animate Head jizhe. raokai. ti de baoani. reporter bypass. DE guard. shengqide huangu angrily. look-about. sizhou surroundings. ‘The guard that the reporter bypassed _____ looked about his. 政治大. surroundings angrily.’. 立. jidan. zazhong ti. DE guard. shengqide. huangu sizhou. ‧. egg smash into. de baoanoi. 學. ‧ 國. c. Inanimate RC-Object/Animate Head. angrily. look-about surroundings. Nat. io. sit. y. ‘The guard that the egg smashed into _____ looked about his. er. surroundings angrily.’. n. al. i n C d. Inanimate RC-Subject/Inanimate h e n g c hHead i U jidan. zazhong ti. egg smash into. de dameni. lingluande. DE gate. messily. v. tiezhe. guanggao. post-ASP advertisemen. ‘The gate that the egg smashed into _____ had flyers messily posted on it’ Additionally, study showed that animacy effect might influence the choice of passive voice (Ferreira, 1994). In her study, participants were given two nouns (i.e. 27.

(40) 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.. 立. 政治大. b. *A star was appeared.. ‧ 國. 學. 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). Nat. io. sit. y. is highly possible to be passive for L2 speakers learning unaccusatives. Accordingly,. n. al. er. the phenomenon of overpassivization should take animacy subjects into account. 2.7 Research Questions. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 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 28.

(41) 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. 政治大. learning of non-alternating unaccusatives. The research questions in the study would. 立. be stated as follows.. ‧ 國. 學. 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)?. Nat. learning of non-alternating unaccusatives?. al. er. io. sit. y. 2. How are the influences of the alternating unaccusatives and passives on the. n. v i n C h the learning ofUnon-alternating unaccusatives? 3. Does the factor of animacy influence engchi. 29.

(42) 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. 政治大. include pilot study and formal testing. In section four, data analysis will be illustrated.. 立. 3.1 Subjects. ‧ 國. 學. 123 subjects participated in the group. They were divided into four groups, low,. ‧. low-intermediate, intermediate, high-intermediate according to how long they had. Nat. io. sit. y. studied English. The group in low proficiency does not participate in grammaticality. er. judgment task (henceforth GJ) because they had not learned passives, and they are. al. n. v i n C h unaccusative verbs unable to identify the answer between e n g c h i U 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 30.

(43) 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. 政治大. non-alternating unaccusatives interaction with alternating unaccusatives, passives, and. 立. subject animacy. There are two tasks in the study, GJ and CET. GJ aims to investigate. ‧ 國. 學. 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. Nat. io. sit. y. forms differences from Chinese to English. Also, the variance of subjects with. n. al. er. animacy is concerned in the task. 3.2.1 GJ Task. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 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 31.

(44) 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. 政治大. non-alternating unaccusatives creates 8 sentences as well. On the other hand, 8. 立. passive verbs create 8 sentences, 4 for animate subjects and 4 for inanimate subjects.. ‧ 國. 學. The verbs of alternating and non-alternating unaccusatives, and passives used in the. ‧. GJ task are displayed in the following table.. Nat. Number. Alternating Unaccusatives. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Sink Melt Break Roll. Remain Appear Vanish Emerge. Total. 4. 4. n. al. er. task. io. sit. y. Table 1: Verbs of alternating and non-alternating unaccusatives, and passives in GJ. Ch. i n U. Non-alternating Unaccusatives. engchi. v. Passives Invent Clean Buy Book Discover Tease Remind Attract 8. The different numbers between unaccusatives and passives are because passive verbs usually do not occur in a sentence with animate/inanimate subject. For example, 32.

(45) 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.. 政治大. Table 2: The example of animate subject collocating with active/passive voices He (bought/was bought). 立. ‧ 國. 學. 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. y. Nat. er. io. sit. 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. al. n. v i n Cwas hand, the reason for giving up He h ebought h i beUbecause the semantic meaning n g cmight. 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 33.

(46) 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.. 政治大 1. 車禍發生了。_____________________________________________________ 立 4. 那位失蹤的小孩找到了。___________________________________________ Table3: The sample of CET. ‧ 國. 學. 5. 爸爸抵達(arrive)機場了。___________________________________________ 11. 餐廳預約了。. ‧. _____________________________________________________.. In the Table3, both item 1 and 11 and both 4 and 5 are inanimate and animate. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. subjects respectively. Item 1 and 5 should be translated in active voice in English. i n U. v. while item 4 and 11, passives. In item 5, the hint arrive is provided so that subjects. Ch. engchi. 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. GJ CET. Alternating Unacc.. Non-alternating Unacc.. Passive Verbs. Total. Animate. Inanimate. Animate. Inanimate. Animate. Inanimate. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 24. 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 34.

(47) 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 車禍. Car accident. 出現. Appear/Emerge. 發生. Happen. 彈起來. Bounce. 衣服. Clothes. 抵達. Arrive. 乾. Dry. 機場. Airport. 修理. Repair. 通過. Pass. 信. Letter. 戲弄. Tease. 失蹤的. Lost. 動. Move. 青蛙. Frog. 掉下來. Fall. 找到. Find. 預約. Reserve. 節紮. Neuter. 扔掉. Throw away. 中毒. Poison. 升起來. Rise. 消失. Vanish. Bribe 治政文件 Document 大立主考官 Examiner. 學 ‧. ‧ 國. 買通. Nat. io. sit. y. All the tested verbs and animate/inanimate subjects in GJ and CET are. er. randomized in the test sheet in order to exclude the counter balanced effects. For the. al. n. v i n groups of different proficiency, C each h group e n gis crepresented h i U 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 35.

(48) 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.. 政治大. Thus, it was confirmed that passives and animacy do influence the learning of. 立. non-alternating unaccusatives.. ‧ 國. 學. 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. Nat. sit. n. al. 這隻螞蟻死了. Ch. Uncle Bob is here.. engchi. The ant was dead.. er. io. Table 6: Examples of non-target words in the study 包伯叔叔到了. y. other nontarget words, exemplified as follows.. i n U. v. 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. 36.

(49) 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. 政治大. test. Besides, participants were told to ask any question any time if they had any. 立. difficulty during the experiment.. ‧ 國. 學. Both of the tasks were conducted in the classroom. Participants were reminded to. ‧. Nat. er. io. 3.4 Data analysis. sit. variability and reliability of the experiment.. y. do the experiment as carefully as they could in order to assure the experiment of. al. n. v i n Here is some of the policy C on h how to calculate the e n g c h i Ucollected 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 37.

(50) 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). 車禍發生了那份文件扔掉了. 立. 這台腳踏車修好了. It just happened a car accident 治 away the document 政 Throw 大 This bike is finish to repair. ‧ 國. 學. 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. ‧. sit. y. Nat. the predicate is correctly used as in It just happened a car accident, the participant. n. al. er. io. otherwise regards the verb happen as a transitive verb. It will be contradictory if the. i n U. v. verb use happen is thought of as correctness on the usage of non-alternating. Ch. engchi. 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, 38.

(51) 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. 政治大. appears in L2 learners’ production such as The lost kid was find and The man is. 立. poison. In the case, the criteria of identifying active or passive voice to L2 learners. ‧ 國. 學. 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. Nat. io. sit. y. any other item such as A car accident was happened in his or her test sheet, they. al. er. would be regarded to be able to use passives since they could use “be V-ed.”Therefore,. n. v i n Cinhthe sheet such as U their production in any other item e n g c h i 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 kind of mistake would be regarded as typo and will not be calculated in the analysis. 39.

(52) test sheet would be regarded as active voice; otherwise doubles would be thought of as passives.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 40. i n U. v.

(53) 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. 政治大. passives in the U-shaped learning of non-alternating unaccusatives, and (c) animacy. 立. effect on learning of non-alternating unaccusatives.. ‧ 國. 學. 4.1 The Results and Discussion of U-shaped Curve in Learning of. ‧. Non-alternating Unaccusatives. io. sit. y. Nat. 4.1.1 Results. er. The study of U-shaped curve of non-alternating unaccusatives is tested in CET.. al. n. v i n The test involves four groups, inCwhich group had not learned passive h e low n gproficiency chi U 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. 41.

(54) 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. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. In Table 7, the correct rate for Group A is 87.91%, which is nearly as high as. i n U. v. Group D, 88.19%. There is an abrupt descend from Group A to B, reaching 79.92%,. Ch. engchi. 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 42.

(55) 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,. 政治大. overall it appears to be no differences with respect to the understanding of language. 立. development of non-alternating unaccusatives. Additionally, Levene’s test for equality. ‧ 國. 學. 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. Nat. io. sit. y. first hypothesis: it will be a U-shaped curve in learning of non-alternating. er. unaccusatives. Moreover, the result evidences the fact that unaccusatives seem to be. al. n. v i n C h voice (Zobl, 1989) subsumed as learners acquired passive e n g c h i U 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. 43.

(56) 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. 政治大. salience of passives and reluctance in NP-V word order. In the viewpoint of salience,. 立. study showed that the frequency of L2 structure could be the reason for being salient. ‧ 國. 學. (Bardovi-Harlig, 1987). In the study, the construction of preposition stranding. ‧. (marked form) and the construction of preposition piped piping (unmarked form). Nat. io. sit. y. were examined by L2 learners of English as a second language. The results showed. er. that preposition stranding (marked form) is acquired before preposition piped piping. al. n. v i n C hto markedness hypothesis: (unmarked form), which is opposed unmarked forms are engchi U 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 more salient they are. In the way, language learning would be facilitated through greater input of high frequency. Likewise, we defined salience as the availability of input as Bardovi-Harlig. Even though unaccusatives are commonly distributed in the 44.