초록 열기/닫기 버튼
This paper explores whether and to what extent L2 learners can access lexico-syntactic rules underlying English argument structure alternations and how their performance changes along with general English proficiency. Specifically, this paper investigated Korean EFL learners’ judgment and production of English transitivity alternations with three verb classes which behave differently in transitivity alternation - alternating unaccusative verbs, non-alternating unaccusative verbs, and transitive-only verbs. 11 native speakers of English and 101 Korean university students with three different proficiency levels participated in this study. Overall, the learners were sensitive to verb classes and their transitivity possibilities. At the same time, however, they showed significant differences from the native speakers in their performance particularly with alternating and non-alternating unaccusative verbs: they undergenerated correct constructions, while overgeneralizing incorrect constructions. The undergeneration problem tended to improve as the learners’ proficiency increased, but overgeneralization errors were rarely remedied even among the advanced learners. Based on the findings, it is concluded that English transitivity alternations do pose serious learning problems for Korean EFL learners and therefore, instructional treatments are required to facilitate their learning of English transitivity alternations.
