This paper presents an empirical study of the acquisition of English ambiguous verb-locative prepositional phrase constructions （VLPPs） by adult Mandarin and Spanish speakers. This study assumes that the semantic pr...This paper presents an empirical study of the acquisition of English ambiguous verb-locative prepositional phrase constructions （VLPPs） by adult Mandarin and Spanish speakers. This study assumes that the semantic properties of the target VLPPs that relate to change-of-location in sentences such as The boat floated under the bridge arise from an uninterpretable syntactic feature selected by English but unselected by Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. Results obtained from an animated cartoon selection task indicate that neither the Mandarin nor the Spanish speakers at any level of English proficiency possess native-like interpretative knowledge. Tense/ Aspect effects on the interpretation of the target constructions by Spanish speakers were also found. These results are interpreted as consistent with the Representational Deficit Hypothesis view （Hawkins, 2003, 2005） of adult second language acquisition.展开更多
Operator movement is one of the scholastic views which have been advanced to analyse expressions that contain an operator of some kind.In this work,attention will be focused on interrogative operator in Fulfulde.This ...Operator movement is one of the scholastic views which have been advanced to analyse expressions that contain an operator of some kind.In this work,attention will be focused on interrogative operator in Fulfulde.This work examines the nature of wh-movement in Fulfulde using the minimalist programme.In conducting the research,primary and secondary sources of data collection were employed.The native speaker’s intuition forms the primary source of data while the secondary source involves three competent native speakers of Adamawa Fulfulde to validate the data.The outcome of the study reveals four types of wh-movement in Fulfulde.The four types of wh-movement in Fulfulde are the subject preposed from its canonical position in declarative sentences to a new position in interrogative sentences.There are both left to right movement and right to left movement.The interrogative questions are marked by an optional‘na’at the end of the sentence.It is possible and grammatical to have double interrogatives but only one of the elements can move.The movement is determined by proximity,short or long movement of the interrogative marker to either left to right or right to left.However,wh-or interrogative element in Fulfulde is represented by-ye and-e suffixes bound to stems of pronouns and some prepositions.Pied-piping and preposition stranding are also observed.In some whmovement,the question remains in place called wh-in-situ;here,the interrogative marker does not move at all.When this happens the interrogative marker occupies the position of the element in question.When there is movement,each move element leaves behind a trace marked by‘t’and the trace is co-indexed so that we can see the extraction sites and the landing sites of the elements that have moved.The direct object preposed to the complementizer position through wh-movement and the subject of the main clause raises and moves into the subject position of the relative clause in order to check the question feature of comp in Fulfulde.展开更多
文摘This paper presents an empirical study of the acquisition of English ambiguous verb-locative prepositional phrase constructions （VLPPs） by adult Mandarin and Spanish speakers. This study assumes that the semantic properties of the target VLPPs that relate to change-of-location in sentences such as The boat floated under the bridge arise from an uninterpretable syntactic feature selected by English but unselected by Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. Results obtained from an animated cartoon selection task indicate that neither the Mandarin nor the Spanish speakers at any level of English proficiency possess native-like interpretative knowledge. Tense/ Aspect effects on the interpretation of the target constructions by Spanish speakers were also found. These results are interpreted as consistent with the Representational Deficit Hypothesis view （Hawkins, 2003, 2005） of adult second language acquisition.
文摘Operator movement is one of the scholastic views which have been advanced to analyse expressions that contain an operator of some kind.In this work,attention will be focused on interrogative operator in Fulfulde.This work examines the nature of wh-movement in Fulfulde using the minimalist programme.In conducting the research,primary and secondary sources of data collection were employed.The native speaker’s intuition forms the primary source of data while the secondary source involves three competent native speakers of Adamawa Fulfulde to validate the data.The outcome of the study reveals four types of wh-movement in Fulfulde.The four types of wh-movement in Fulfulde are the subject preposed from its canonical position in declarative sentences to a new position in interrogative sentences.There are both left to right movement and right to left movement.The interrogative questions are marked by an optional‘na’at the end of the sentence.It is possible and grammatical to have double interrogatives but only one of the elements can move.The movement is determined by proximity,short or long movement of the interrogative marker to either left to right or right to left.However,wh-or interrogative element in Fulfulde is represented by-ye and-e suffixes bound to stems of pronouns and some prepositions.Pied-piping and preposition stranding are also observed.In some whmovement,the question remains in place called wh-in-situ;here,the interrogative marker does not move at all.When this happens the interrogative marker occupies the position of the element in question.When there is movement,each move element leaves behind a trace marked by‘t’and the trace is co-indexed so that we can see the extraction sites and the landing sites of the elements that have moved.The direct object preposed to the complementizer position through wh-movement and the subject of the main clause raises and moves into the subject position of the relative clause in order to check the question feature of comp in Fulfulde.
