Japanese speakers’ judgments of grammaticality of Japanese and English bitransitive sentences with a differing number of arguments : A comparison between speakers exposed to Chomsky’s generative grammar and those not

Abstract

This study investigates the judgments of grammaticality of Japanese and English bitransitive sentences with a differing number of arguments. Japanese speakers exposed to Chomsky’s generative grammar (n = 30) and those not exposed (n = 28) were compared. This exposure was expected to facilitate a sentence− oriented judgment strategy that would direct speakers towards decreasing the grammaticality of the Japanese sentences lacking one or more arguments. Findings showed no effect in the judgments of Japanese sentences. However, in the judgments of the English sentences speakers exposed to generative grammar approximated to those made by native speakers of English. It was suggested that the exposure to generative grammar facilitated the sentence−oriented strategy in the judgments of English sentences, but it was not so effective as to weaken a discourse−oriented strategy used by Japanese speakers when they judged Japanese sentences.