Accounting for the asymmetrical interpretation of thematic and non-thematic verbs in L2 English

Abstract

AbstractThis study presents data from an experiment on the interpretation of thematic and non-thematic verbs in second language (L2) English by three groups of adult native Chinese speakers and a group of native English speakers. English allows non-thematic verbs to raise but requires thematic verbs to remainin-situ. In contrast, neither thematic nor non-thematic verbs are allowed to raise in Chinese. The results indicate that there is a discrepancy between native and non-native mental representations of the grammars concerned; whereas native grammars require English thematic verbs to remainin-situbut allow non-thematic verbs to raise, neither thematic nor non-thematic verbs are allowed to raise in learners L2 English grammars. Results of the study argue against theValueless Features Hypothesis(Eubank 1993/94. On the transfer of parametric values in L2 development.Language Acquisition3. 183–208, 1994. Optionality and the initial state in L2 development. In T. Hoekstra & B. Schwartz (eds),Language acquisition studies in generative grammar: Papers in Honour of Kenneth Wexler from the 1991 GLOW Workshop, 369–388. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1996. Negation in early German-English interlanguage: More valueless features in the L2 initial state.Second Language Research12. 73–106.), which posits that the L1 syntactic features of INFL are initially inert and are not transferred. Instead, the results support theInterpretability Hypothesis(Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou 2007. The interpretability hypothesis: Evidence from wh-interrogatives in second language acquisition.Second Language Research23. 215–242.), which argues for the inaccessibility of uninterpretable syntactic features beyond a critical period. In particular, it is argued that uninterpretable syntactic features not selected during early stages of primary language acquisition become inaccessible in subsequent language acquisition. The results suggest that there may be cases where apparent target-like performance conceals non-target-like underlying competence.