This study presents results of an experimental investigation into the acquisition of core-peripheral distinction in English split intransitivity. The purpose is to investigate whether L2 learners of English are sensitive to an aspectual and thematic hierarchy that underlies the core-peripheral distinction similarly to L2 learners of Romance languages who were found to be influenced by the Split Intransitivity Hierarchy (SIH) (Sorace, 2000, 2004, 2011). The SIH maintains that core verbs are consistently compatible with unaccusative diagnostics while peripheral verbs exhibit gradience to varying degrees. Two unaccusative diagnostics, the prenominal past participle (PPP) (Alexiadou et al., 2004) and cognate object (CO) construction (Levin and R. Hovav, 1995), were used to test native English speakers and Chinese-speaking L2 learners' gradient acceptability with respect to core-peripheral verb classes. The results show that both native speakers and nonnative speakers are sensitive to the core-peripheral distinction in PPP, but they do not exhibit same sensitivity in CO construction. These findings give partial support for the cross-linguistic plausibility of the SIH to split intransitivity.
展开▼
