Acquisition of English Dative Alternation by Korean EFL Learners

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the acquisition of syntax-semantic properties on ditransitive verbs in English dative alternation by Korean adult learners of English. Besides negative L1 transfer caused by grammatical differences between English and Korean, this study provides compelling implications with the role of the Subset Principle. Using an Acceptability Judgment task with sentences containing typical target verbs involved in English dative alternation, the participants’ sensitivity to semantic constraints was investigated. Although the overall accuracy for goal verbs was higher than that of benefactive ones in terms of the licit forms, the result was opposite as for illicit forms. Furthermore, they showed a strong tendency to accept prepositional dative constructions more readily than double object constructions, which is possibly due to the influence of Korean postposition, -eykey and -ulwihay, as counterparts of English preposition, to and for respectively. The results from cross-sectional data obtained by 111 Korean college students suggest a need of negative evidence as well as positive evidence. Due to the different semantic properties between Korean and English, they have difficulties in narrowing down the semantic value scope by positive evidence, but as their proficiency increases, their difficulties can be overcome by having more opportunities to encounter negative evidence.