This paper presents two experimental studies that examine English-speaking learners' knowledge of unaccusativity in Japanese. Following Levin & Rappaport Hovav (1995) and Kageyama (1993), I distinguish between deep versus surface unaccusativity. Deep unaccusativity refers to a representation where the argument of an unaccusative verb is base-generated in the object position, whereas surface unaccusativity refers to a configuration where the unaccusative argument remains in the object position even at a later stage of derivation (i.e., it does not move to the subject position). It has been claimed that Japanese exhibits both deep and surface unaccusativity (Kageyama, 1993; Yatsushiro, 1999). Previous findings in second language (L2) literature suggest that learners of Japanese are sensitive to deep unaccusativity, based on the results of tests involving the takusan 'a lot' construction and quantifier floating (Hirakawa, 1999; Sorace Shomura, 2001). However, these studies failed to tap knowledge of surface unaccusativity where Case Drop was used as a diagnostic. The failure was due to the fact that even native speakers did not behave as the theory predicted. Following up on these studies, the present paper uses new constructions in order to examine the issue further : resultatives for deep unaccusativity and causative-passives for surface unaccusativity. Results confirm that deep unaccusativity is observed by both intermediate and advanced learners but that surface unaccusativity is observed only by advanced learners. I argue that L2 learners' grammars are constrained by the principles of UG but that the L1 also has some effects in the acquisition of the properties of unaccusative verbs in the L2 when they differ from those in the L1.

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Japanese allows null subjects and null objects, while English allows neither. This difference implies that the acquisition of obligatory objects is as difficult as the acquisition of obligatory subjects for Japanese learners of English. Contrary to this prediction, data in this study suggest that obligatory objects are far more difficult than obligatory subjects for Japanese learners of English (JLEs). With the same kind of data from Chinese learners of English, Yuan (1997) suggests that this asymmetry is attributable to the availability of triggering data in input : the availability of morphological evidence of subject-verb agreement triggers the acquisition of obligatory subjects in Chinese learners' L2 grammar, while there are no such triggering data for the acquisition of obligatory objects. We argue that although Yuan's explanation, with his assumption that learners' use of morphemes does not reflect syntactic knowledge, cannot be refuted, it is not supported by experimental data. Davies (1996), for example, showed that the acquisition of morphological subject-verb agreement and the acquisition of obligatory subjects are independent of each other. We suggest three factors for the asymmetry. One is the difference in the consistency in L2 input. Namely, subject noun phrases are consistently phonetically realized in every sentence in English, while object noun phrases are not; i.e., sentences with intransitive verbs lack object noun phrases. With this kind of input, JLEs may believe null objects to be allowed in English. In addition, the verbs that can be used as both transitive and intransitive may lead JLEs to take a wrong track. Moreover, the lack of morphological markings for transitivity on English verbs may make it difficult for JLEs to learn the syntactic properties of each verb.

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