On the acquisition of English locative verbs by Japanese L2 learners: a brief sketch on the issue of markedness and transfer

Abstract

The current research is intended as a reexamination of some observations concerning the acquisition of English locative verbs provided both from the first/second language research. By making use of a preference task in Experiment 1 and a grammaticality judgment task in Experiment 2, the present study attempts to address the following two research questions: 1) Are the content locative verbs really more canonical (or unmarked) than the container verbs, as suggested by Bowerman (1982)? 2) Is there any effect of transfer if L1 and L2 differ with respect to syntax-semantics correspondences (e.g., Joo, 2003; Juffs 1996a)? The result of Experiment 1 suggests that non-alternating content verbs are the easiest English locative verbs for Japanese L2 learners. In contrast, alternating container verbs proves to be the most difficult, which contradicts with the explanation based solely on learner factors like transfer. The result of Experiment 2, on the other hand, supports the prediction of Bullock (2004), suggesting that transfer is triggered by the difference in the L1/L2 parameter. In an attempt to solve this contradiction, it is suggested that a factor related to language universals (i.e. a marked nature of container verbs, cf. Talmy (1972)) might also play some role in the acquisition process of English locative verbs. As the data seems to be in line with this explanation, this study constitutes another case supporting Full Transfer/Full Access hypothesis (Schwarz and Sprouse, 1996).