• 한국언어정보학회지:언어와정보
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• 제7권1호
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• pp.87-99
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• 2003

This paper investigates the role of input frequency in the acquisition of verb argument structures based on distributional information of a corpus of utterances derived from the English CHILDES database (MacWhinney 1993). It has been widely accepted that children successfully learn verb argument structures by innate language mechanisms, such as linking rules which connect verb meanings and its syntactic structures. In contrast, an approach to language acquisition called “statistical language learning” has currently claimed that children could succeed in acquiring syntactic structures in the absence of innate language mechanisms, making use of distributional properties of the input. In this paper, I evaluate the feasibility of the statistical learning in acquiring verb argument structures, based on distributional information about locative verbs in parental input. The naturalistic data allow us to investigate to what extent the statistical learning approach can and cannot help children succeed in learning the syntax of locative verbs. Based on the results of English database analysis, I show that there is rich statistical information for learning the syntactic possibilities of locative verbs in parental input, despite some limitations in the statistical learning approach.

• 영어어문교육
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• 제12권4호
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• pp.31-68
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• 2006

The present research investigates the acquisition of the English locative alternation by Korean EFL learners, which poses a learnability paradox, taking Pinker's framework of learnability theory as its basis. It addresses two questions (1) how lexical knowledge is represented initially and at different levels of interlanguage development and (2) what kinds of difficulty Korean learners find in the acquisition of English locative verbs and their constructions. Three groups of learners at different proficiency levels with a control group of English native speakers are examined by two instruments: elicited production task and grammaticality judgment task. According to different levels of proficiency, the learners exhibit gradual sensitivity to a change-of-state meaning and obtain complete perception of the meanings of locative verbs (manner-of-motion and change-of-state) and their constructions. Overgeneralization errors are observed in their performance. The errors are due to misinterpretations of particular lexical items in conjunction with the universal linking rules. More fundamental cause of difficulty is accounted for by partial use of learning mechanisms, caused by insufficient L2 input.

• 영어어문교육
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• 제16권1호
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• pp.41-59
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• 2009

The present study investigated Korean learners' knowledge on the range of possible interpretations of English locative PPs with manner of motion verbs, and considers whether learners can arrive at a superset L2 grammar on the basis of positive L2 input. Unlike Korean, some English locative PPs occurring with manner of motion verbs (such as in John jumped on the bed) are ambiguous as they can be interpreted as either directional or locational. Thirty Korean learners of English in three distinct groups (Advanced EFL-only group; Intermediate-EFL-only group; and ESL-experienced group) participated in an experimental study, along with a control group of nine native speakers of English. The results of the study showed that I) Korean learners, overall, tended to interpret English locative PPs as only locational, failing to recognize the ambiguity between the directional and locational readings in the target structure; 2) For the learners who experienced only the EFL context, even highly proficient learners, as well as intermediate level learners, failed to acknowledge the ambiguity; 3) The learners who experienced the ESL context for an extended period of time could identify the target reading to some extent, although they still could not reach the native-like competence. From these results, it is argued that robustness of positive evidence, not simply its availability, is critical in the acquisition of the superset L2 targets like the present one.

• 인지과학
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• 제10권1호
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• pp.45-55
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• 1999

본 논문은 사건/사타에 대한 공간적 인지가 수행되는 기본적인 방식을 규명하기 위해서는 그 사건/사태에 참여하는 참가자의 위치가 가장 주요한 요인임을 주장하고, 자연언어는 공간적 인지를 표현하기 위해 비교적 "단순한" 의미유형을 사용하고 있으며, 공간표현을 해석할 때 사건/사태 전체의 위치를 지정하는 것으로 해석하지 않고, 그 참가자로 표현된 논항(arguments)의 위치를 지정하는 것으로 해석한다는 것이다. 본 논문은 장소표현이 타동사의 두 논항의 위치를 지정하는 방식을 네 가지 유형의 노항지향성(argument orientations)으로 분류하여 기술하였고, 논항지향성을 통하여 영어를 포함한 자연언어의 장소표현이 관계(relations)의 집합에서 관계의 집합으로 사상하는 교차함수(intersecting functioins)로 해석되어야 한다는 의미해석상의 제약이 있음을 밝히고 있다.

• 음성과학
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• 제10권3호
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• pp.47-64
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• 2003

In the present study, the production of grammatical morphemes of Korean-speaking children with and without developmental language impairments was investigated. Ten children with language impairments (LI) (CA: 4; 4-6; 11, LA: 3; .6-5; 10) and 10 normal children (CA: 3;1-6;3, LA: 3;5-5;11) with matched language abilities participated in the study. Sixty pairs of pictures were used to elicit 12 types of predetermined grammatical morphemes. The two pictures of a pair were designed to elicit two sentences of the same sentence structure. After the investigator described one picture of a pair, the children were asked to describe the other picture. The LI children made more errors than the normal children in the production of 6 types of grammatical morphemes including: locative case marker, dative case marker, two connective endings of predicates representing cause and goal, and suffixes for passive and causative verbs. However, the LI children produced some grammatical morphemes as accurately as. the normal children. The two groups were similar in their error patterns. Some explanations for Korean-speaking LI children's use of grammatical morphemes were suggested.