• Language and Information
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.39-63
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• 1999

Korean manner-of-motion verbs have different characteristics from locomotion verbs syntactically and semantically, and they are aptly encoded as having the primitive semantic element MOVE, not GO of Jackendoff(1990)'s Conceptual Semantics framework. This point is shown on the basis of their behavior, the inability to take the Goal 'NP-lo' phrases, the Purposive 'S-le' clauses, the 'NP-ey' phrases, and the atelic interpretation. It is further shown that the apparent locomotion verb behavior of some manner-of-motion verbs, 'exocentric' phenomenon in their meaning composition, is merely a transferred aspect of manner-of-motion verbs. Three kinds of strategies, transformational, quasi-transformational, and lexical ones, are examined to describe this phenomenon, and the lexical one is determined to be the most appropriate. The remaining part of this paper pursues the possibility of adopting Tenny's(1987, 1994) 'Aspectual Interface Hypothesis' in establishing an argument linking system with special attention to 'measuring-out', but concludes that the hypothesis can be accepted only in a restricted part of verbs, and with a modified notion of measuring-out like Jackendoff's(1996).

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.1
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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.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.341-373
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• 2003

A cross-linguistic examination of motion constructions reveals that the nature of the special property of English motion verbs that Tenny (1995) discussed-namely, why English can freely append locational delimiters to manner-of-motion verbs, as in Bill swam/rowed/canoed to the end of the lake -resides not in the verbs but in the semantic structure of the prepositions that denote transition from motion to end location. It is further argued that the differentiation of bounded paths from non-bounded Ones provides a clear-cut basis on which to distinguish motion constructions from resultative constructions. This proposal provides an alternative to the analyses of resultative constructions by Wechsler (1997) and Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2001).

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.4
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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.