Adult Mandarin Chinese speakers’ acquisition of locational and directional prepositional constructions in second language English

Abstract

This study tests adult Chinese speakers of second language (L2) English in the domain of manner of motion verbs with locational and directional prepositional phrases. Ninety-eight Chinese speakers (a language which disallows ambiguity between locational and directional readings in sentences like Tom zai qiao dixia paobu/Tom ran under the bridge.) were asked to interpret locational and directional PPs in English (a language which, with certain prepositions, allows ambiguous locational and directional readings). The learners were divided into three proficiency levels and their performance was compared with a native speaker control group. The results from a written picture-matching test indicate that there is a discrepancy between native and non-native mental representations of the grammars concerned; whereas native grammars allow ambiguity between locational and directional readings, L2 learners overwhelmingly prefer locational readings to ambiguous readings of prepositional constructions. Results of the study lend support to the UG and Subset Principle Delinked Hypothesis, one of the predictions of the Subset Principle (Berwick, 1985; Wexler and Manzini, 1987), which argues that learning principles and UG may not be interactive in adult second language acquisition, resulting in a grammar which represents neither the L1 nor the L2 but is nevertheless a natural language permitted by UG.