Acquisition of Transitive-Intransitive Verb Pairs by Hindi Speaking Learners of Japanese

Focusing on Errors in Predicate and Particle Selection

Abstract

This study analyses usage and error patterns of transitive-intransitive verb pairs produced by Hindi speaking learners of Japanese. Learners were divided into three groups based on the duration of learning Japanese. The results show that learners in the lower group made more errors related to predicate selection whereas errors concerning particle selection were relatively frequent in the intermediate group. Learners in the upper group not only made fewer errors, but these errors were not concentrated in any one error type; errors related to voice were almost as frequent as those related to predicate and particle selection. In other words, error patterns seem to change with time from errors concerning word selection (lower group) → errors related to particle selection (intermediate group) → errors related to creating grammatically and semantically sound sentences (upper group). This corroborates with the observations made in previous studies. However, when errors were analyzed separately for transitive and intransitive verbs, only transitive verbs displayed the above progression pattern. Errors related to intransitive verbs tended to concentrate on verb selection errors in all three groups, indicating that acquisition of vocabulary does not necessarily precede acquisition of particles. One possible cause of over-use of intransitive verbs may be attributed to mother tongue influence.