L1 Morphological Transfer as a Source of Errors with Unaccusative Verbs?: L2 Acquisition of English and Korean

Abstract

This paper revisited the claim that errors observed in L2 acquisition of alternating unaccusative verbs are constrained by the morphological patterns of learners' L1. Two bi-directional studies were conducted on L2 acquisition of English by Korean-speaking learners and L2 acquisition of Korean by English-speaking learners, using an acceptability judgement task and a forced-choice task, respectively. In both studies, the learners' choice of morphology could not be attributed to either L1 or L2. Instead, the learners of the two studies showed the same morphological pattern, that is, overt marking of the inchoative and zero-marking of the causative. These findings suggest that errors with unaccusative verbs are not L1-specific but developmental and L2 universal. It is proposed that this rather universal interlanguage pattern is caused by derivational, semantic, and morphosyntactic similarities between inchoatives and passives, which lead to L2 learners' confusion and consequently overgeneralization of overtly marked forms to the inchoative.