Korean Speakers' Acquisition of the English Ditransitive Construction: The Role of Verb Prototype, Input Distribution, and Frequency

Abstract

Recent studies in usage‐based linguistics have found that construction learning is more effective when input is skewed toward a prototypical exemplar of the construction, thereby reflecting the frequency distribution in natural language. This study investigates the extent to which a prototypical ditransitive verb with high frequency (give) facilitates the acquisition of the English ditransitive construction in Korean children learning English in a community in which exposure to English is rare outside of the formal classroom setting. Six classes were randomly assigned to either a skewed frequency group, where the input was skewed toward give, or a balanced frequency group, where the input was evenly distributed among the training ditransitive verbs. This experiment found little evidence for the facilitative effects of skewed input on construction learning. Instead, the results suggest that construction learning in this situation is superior with a more balanced set of verbs rather than a focus on a single prototype.