L1-Mandarin L2-English learners’ acquisition of English
double-quantifier scope
English double-quantifier configurations such as A
dog scared every man are ambiguous between a
surface-scope reading (there exists one specific dog which scared
every man) and an inverse-scope reading (each man was scared by a
possibly different dog), while the Mandarin equivalent only has the
surface-scope reading. Therefore, if L1-transfer is at work,
L1-Mandarin L2-English learners would not initially allow
inverse-scope readings in English, but may acquire them through
exposure to relevant input. We tested learners in the U.S. and
native English speakers on their acceptance of surface-scope and
inverse-scope readings and found that learners disallowed
inverse-scope readings of English double-quantifier sentences. This
suggests that positive evidence alone is not sufficient for the
L2-acquisition of inverse scope.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Scope in English, Mandarin and L2-acquisition
- 2.1English and Mandarin scope
- 2.2Experimental studies on English and Mandarin scope
- 2.2.1Experiments on English scope
- 2.2.2Experiments on Mandarin scope
- 2.2Previous L2 and heritage language studies on scope
- 3.Scope in L2-English: The role of positive evidence
- 3.1Positive evidence and L2-acquisition
- 3.2Research question
- 4.Method
- 4.1Task materials
- 4.2Procedure
- 4.3Participants
- 5.Results
- 5.1Descriptive results
- 5.2Statistical analysis
- 6.Discussion
- 7.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
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