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DOI: 10.1191/0267658302sr196oa 2002; 18; 3 Second Language Research

Shunji Inagaki verbs with locational/directional PPs

Japanese learners’ acquisition of English manner-of-motion

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Japanese learners’ acquisition ofEnglish manner-of-motion verbs withlocational/directional PPsShunji Inagaki Osaka Prefecture University, Japan

This study investigated first language (L1) influence on second language(L2) argument structure in a situation where an L2 argument structure formsa superset of its L1 counterpart. In such a situation, a partial fit between theL1 and the L2 may trigger L1 transfer, whereas availability of positiveevidence may allow the learner to arrive at the L2 grammar (White, 1991b).This study tested these predictions by investigating whether Japanesespeakers can recognize the directional reading of English manner-of-motionverbs (walk, swim) with locational/directional PPs (under, behind), such asJohn swam under the bridge, where under the bridge can be either the goalof John’s swimming (directional) or the location of John’s swimming(locational). By contrast, their Japanese counterparts allow only a locationalreading, as Japanese is more restricted than English in allowing only directedmotion verbs (go) to appear with a phrase expressing a goal. Thirty-fiveintermediate Japanese learners of English and 23 English speakers weretested using a picture-matching task. Results show that, unlike Englishspeakers, Japanese speakers consistently failed to recognize a directionalreading. I suggest that positive evidence need not only be available but alsobe frequent and clear in order to be used by L2 learners to broaden theirinterlanguage grammar.

I Introduction

The acquisition of argument structure is attracting increasingattention in second language (L2) acquisition research (for a review,see Juffs, 2000). One of the important issues in L2 argumentstructure is how the outcomes of L2 acquisition vary depending onthe nature of learners’ first language (L1). In particular, it issuggested that L1 influence persists when there is a partial overlapbetween L1 and L2 argument structure possibilities (Adjémian,1983; White, 1991b). In this article, I consider issues concerningthe situation where the L1 permits a subset of argument structuresthat the L2 allows by looking at Japanese speakers’ acquisitionof English manner-of-motion verbs with locational/directionalprepositional phrases.

© Arnold 2002 10.1191/0267658302sr196oa

Address for correspondence: Shunji Inagaki, Language Center, Osaka Prefecture University,1–1 Gakuen-cho, Sakai, Osaka 599–8531, Japan; email: [email protected]

Second Language Research 18,1 (2002); pp. 3–27




White (1991b) discussed two situations where a partial fitbetween L1 and L2 argument structure properties might poseproblems to L2 learners. The first is the case where certainargument structure properties in the L2 form a subset of thecorresponding L1 properties, as illustrated in Figure 1. White pre-dicts that this situation causes difficulty in L2 acquisition because,assuming L1 transfer is triggered by the partial overlap between theL1 and the L2, all positive data L2 learners receive is consistentwith the L1 grammar as well as the L2 grammar. Thus, negativeevidence may be required for learners to restrict the L1 to the L2.

This prediction has generally been borne out in L2 argumentstructure studies (White, 1987; 1991b; Juffs, 1996; Izumi andLakshmanan, 1998; Inagaki, 2001a). For example, White (1987;1991b) looked at English speakers’ acquisition of dative structuresin French. English allows alternation between a prepositional dativesuch as (1a) and a double-objective dative such as (1b), whereasFrench allows the former, but not the latter, as in (2).

1) a. John gave the book to Mary.b. John gave Mary the book.

2) a. Jean a donné le livre à Marie.b. * Jean a donné Marie le livre.

Thus, French datives constitute a subset of English datives, whichpredicts difficulty for English speakers to unlearn the double-objectstructure in French. White found that English speakers, after yearsof exposure, still accepted forms like (2b), thereby supporting theprediction.

The second situation White (1991b) discusses is one where L2argument structure forms a superset of L1 argument structure, asin Figure 2. As White points out, the prediction for this situation is

4 Locational/directional PPS

Figure 1 Superset L1–subset L2

L1

L2




Shunji Inagaki 5

less clear, with two possibilities. First, the partial fit between the L1and the L2 may mislead L2 learners to assume that the L1 and theL2 are identical, thus failing to incorporate the L2 properties thatdo not exist in the L1 (Adjémian, 1983). Second, since the L2properties not allowed in the L1 exist in the input, L2 learners maybe able to notice them and arrive at the L2 grammar on the basisof positive evidence.

This situation has attracted less attention in L2 argumentstructure studies, but studies available thus far have producedmixed results, with Mazurkewich (1984) and Inagaki (2000; 2001a)supporting the second possibility and Montrul (2001) and Sorace(1993) the first. Mazurkewich (1984) looked at French speakers’acquisition of dative structures in English. As shown in (1), Englishdatives constitute a superset of French datives. Mazurkewich foundthat French speakers increasingly accepted forms like (1b) asthey became more proficient in English, supporting the secondpossibility.

Inagaki (2000; 2001a) investigated Japanese speakers’ acquisitionof English motion verbs with prepositional phrases expressing agoal. His study is based on a contrast between English andJapanese with respect to what kinds of motion verbs can takeprepositional/postpositional phrases (PPs) expressing a goal, or goalPPs (Ikegami, 1981; Talmy, 1985; Yoneyama, 1986; Tsujimura, 1994).In the following I introduce relevant descriptive facts about Englishand Japanese, followed by Inagaki’s finding.

English allows both manner-of-motion verbs such as walk andrun and directed motion verbs such as go and come to occur withgoal PPs, as in (3).

3) a. John walked to school.b. John ran into the house.

Figure 2 Subset L1–superset L2

L2

L1




c. John went to school walking.d. John went/came into the house running.

Manner is expressed as a finite manner-of-motion verb in (3a) and(3b) and periphrastically as a participle in (3c) and (3d).

In contrast, Japanese does not allow manner-of-motion verbs withgoal PPs, as in (4a) and (4b), only allowing directed motion verbsto occur with goal PPs, as in (4c) and (4d).1 Japanese expressesmanner as a ‘gerund’ (Jorden, 1987), or the ‘te-form’, in which theverbal suffix –te is attached to the verb, as in (4c) and (4d).

4) a. ?* John-wa gakkoo-ni aruita.John-TOP school-at walked‘John walked to school.’

b. ?* John-wa ie-no naka-ni hasitta.John-TOP house-GEN inside-at ran‘John ran into the house.’

c. John-wa arui-te gakkoo-ni itta.John-TOP walk-GER school-at went‘John went to school walking.’

d. John-wa hasit-te ie-no naka-ni itta/haitta.John-TOP run-GER house-GEN inside-at went/entered‘John went into/entered the house running.’

Thus, English allows a wider range of motion verbs to occur witha goal PP than Japanese. In other words, regarding these argumentstructure properties, there is a superset–subset relation betweenEnglish and Japanese; this is illustrated in Figure 3.2 Inagaki found


1 The abbreviations used in the examples throughout this article are: TOP = topic-marker;GEN = genitive Case-marker; GER = gerund.2 As a reviewer points out, the superset–subset characterization of English and Japanesemotion verbs with goal PPs (Figure 3) is not so clear given the fact that Japanese does allowmanner-of-motion verbs to appear with a special goal P made (‘up to’, ‘as far as’), as in (i).

i) John-wa eki-made aruita/hasitta.John-TOP station-up to/as far as walked/ran‘John walked up to/as far as the station.’

I am fully aware of this fact, first observed by Ikegami (1981; see also Yoneyama, 1986;Inagaki, 2001b). However, I still think the superset–subset relation holds if one focuses onthe structural realization of the simple motion event where something moves to somewherein some manner (which is the focus of the present study reported below). This is becauseJapanese made is not semantically equivalent to English to as it denotes the ‘continuationof the action up to its endpoint’ (Ikegami, 1981). Therefore, an exact meaning of (i) is ‘Johncontinued to walk/run up to/as far as the station’, not ‘John waked/ran to the station’. Toexpress the latter in Japanese, one needs to use the directed motion verb iku (‘go’) alongwith a ni phrase, as in (ii).

ii) John-wa arui/hasit-te eki-ni itta.John-TOP walk/run-GER station-at went‘John went to school walking/running.’

This is exactly the situation observed in the contrast between (3) and (4) and illustrated inFigure 3.




Shunji Inagaki 7

that both intermediate (Inagaki, 2001a) and advanced (Inagaki,2000) Japanese learners of English accepted manner-of-motionverbs with goal PPs, such as (3a,b), supporting the secondpossibility.

However, Montrul’s (2001) results supported the first possibility.She investigated Spanish speakers’ acquisition of transitivityalternation in English involving manner-of-motion verbs (march,walk). English allows a transitivity alternation when there is a PPas in (5b), but Spanish does not as in (5d).

5) English:a. The soldiers marched.b. The captain marched the soldiers to the tents.

Spanish:c. Los soldados marcharon.d. * El capitán marchó a los soldados hasta el campamento.

Thus, Spanish permits a subset of argument structures allowed inEnglish. Montrul found that 94% of 17 intermediate Spanishlearners did not accept forms like (5b). Montrul speculated that thetransitive forms like (5b) were ‘marked’/‘idiomatic’ in English, forwhich reason the Spanish speakers had not yet noticed them in theinput.

Sorace (1993) investigated French speakers’ acquisition ofunaccusative reflexes in Italian. Among the properties Soracelooked at was optional auxiliary change in the structure ‘raising V+ unaccusative V’, as in (6).

6) Mario è/ha dovuto andare a casa.Mario is/has must go to home‘Mario had to go home.’

(Sorace, 1993: 26)

Figure 3 Motion verbs that can take goal PPs in English and Japanese

English

manner-of-motion V

Japanese

directed motion V




As (6) shows, in Italian when raising verbs like dovere (‘must’) arefollowed by unaccusative verbs like andare (‘go’), the auxiliary isoptionally changed from avere (‘have’) to essere (‘be’) in the presentperfect. In contrast, in French unaccusative verbs trigger no suchchange and, thus, raising verbs invariantly take avoir (‘have’) in thepresent perfect. Therefore, under ‘raising V + unaccusative V’,French allows only a subset of auxiliaries that Italian allows. Soracefound that near-native French learners of Italian accepted the avereversion of forms like (6), but not the essere version, therebysupporting the first possibility. Sorace (1993: 43, 45) suggests that:

the availability of positive evidence of a property P in the L2 input may notbe a sufficient condition for acquisition to take place, [and that] the propensityof certain learners to notice, or fail to notice, the occurrence of a given propertyP in the L2 input appears to be related to the status of the learner’s nativelanguage with respect to that property.

How can we account for the conflicting results in the secondsituation (Figure 2)? It seems that whether L2 learners can usepositive evidence or not depends on the robustness of the evidence.That is, for L1 argument structure to be broadened into L2argument structure, relevant positive data must be not onlyavailable but also robust enough to override L1 influence triggeredby the partial overlap between the L1 and the L2. Notice that thestudies supporting the second possibility – Mazurkewich (1984) andInagaki (2000; 2001a) – looked at English double-object datives(1b) and English manner-of-motion verbs with goal PPs (3a,b), bothof which are common in English. Thus, it is reasonable to assumethat L2 learners had received enough exposure to the targetstructures to incorporate them into their interlanguage grammar. Incontrast, Montrul (2001), which supported the first possibility,looked at transitive forms involving manner-of-motion verbs andPPs (5b), an unusual construction in English. Thus, it is likely, asMontrul herself suggests, that the intermediate Spanish speakershad not had enough exposure to notice them in the input.Incidentally, the assumption that in English manner-of-motion verbswith goal PPs (Inagaki’s target) are frequent, whereas transitivityalternation involving manner-of-motion verbs and PPs (Montrul’starget) is rare is supported by Levin (1993: 31, 105). She lists 124manner-of-motion verbs that can take goal PPs, but only 12 manner-of-motion verbs that allow the transitivity alternation. Finally,Sorace’s (1993) results are harder to explain because no Italian dataare available on the frequency of essere and avere in the relevantcontext. However, Sorace (personal communication, October 2000)





Shunji Inagaki 9

suggests that there is evidence of erosion of essere by avere inItalian (especially in northern Italian varieties), and that Frenchspeakers may have been exposed to Italian spoken by other Frenchspeakers, all of which points to a predominance of avere in theinput.

In this article, I further explore these issues concerning thesituation where L1 argument structure constitutes a subset of itsL2 counterpart (Figure 2) by looking at Japanese speakers’acquisition of English manner-of-motion verbs with locational/directional PPs.

II Motion verbs with locational/directional PPs in Englishand Japanese

As illustrated in Figure 3, manner-of-motion verbs (walk, run) aswell as directed motion verbs (go, come) can take goal PPs (to, into)in English, whereas Japanese allows only the latter to take goal PPs:(3) vs. (4). Why is there such a contrast? In the following, I presentInagaki’s (2001b) analysis of the contrast.

Inagaki (2001b) provided an account of the contrast within theframework of a syntactic approach to argument structure proposedby Hale and Keyser (1993; 1997). According to Hale and Keyser,argument structure is formed in the lexicon but its derivation isconstrained by general syntactic principles, such as X’ theory andthe Empty Category Principle (Chomsky, 1981), thus referring tothe level as ‘l(exical)-syntax,’ as opposed to ‘s(entential)-syntax’(Hale and Keyser, 1997), syntax in the normal sense of the term.Hale and Keyser (1993) further assume that primitive semanticnotions such as ‘cause’ and ‘change of state’ are not stipulated butderive from the structural relations of lexical categories and theirprojections, thereby referring to argument structure as ‘LexicalRelational Structure’ (LRS). In the spirit of Hale and Keyser (1993;1997), Inagaki (2001b) proposed that the English–Japanese contrastin the expression of a motion event follows from differentincorporation patterns (Baker, 1988) in l-syntax. Specifically,Inagaki proposed the LRS of a motion event in (7).3

3 The structure given in (7) is a simplification of the one given in Inagaki (2001b), wherePath P was further decomposed into relational Path P and Path P, and Place P was furtherdecomposed into relational Place N and Place P. This simplification is immaterial to thisarticle.




7) LRS of a motion event

VP

NP V’

V PP

PPath PP

PPlace NP

Example (7) is the LRS representation of a motion event (Talmy,1985), or an event where something moves to somewhere (in somemanner), thus implicating a change of location. The upper P andthe lower P are labelled ‘Path’ P and ‘Place’ P, respectively, becausesemantically the former corresponds to the course/route of themotion and the latter its endpoint. Inagaki proposed that within (7),English incorporates Place P into Path P and realizes it as adirectional P as in (8), whereas Japanese incorporates Path P intoV and realizes it as a directed motion verb as in (9).

8) Incorporation of Place P into Path P in English; cf. (3b)

VP

NP V’

John V PP

run PPath PP

into PPlace NP

house





Shunji Inagaki 11

9) Incorporation of Path P into V in Japanese; cf. (4d)4

VP

NP V’

John PP V

PP PPath hairu

‘enter’NP PPlace

ie-no naka ni‘house-of inside’ ‘at’

Thus, English has a number of directional Ps such as to, into, andonto, whereas Japanese has a number of directed motion verbs suchas iku ‘go’, hairu ‘enter’, and agaru ‘go-up’.

Inagaki (2001b) further argued that his analysis explains whyEnglish, but not Japanese, allows manner-of-motion verbs to appearwith goal PPs, as in (3) and (4). Inagaki claims that in the LRS (7),[Spec, VP] is licensed by a predicative requirement of the PPselected by the V. This is based on Hale and Keyser’s (1993; 1997)assumption that PP is a predicate and thus requires a ‘subject’ thatit is predicated of to satisfy Full Interpretation (Chomsky, 1986),which states that ‘no uninterpreted, or “superfluous”, projectionsmay appear in a well-formed argument structure’ (Hale and Keyser,1997: 33). However, while Hale and Keyser assume every P is apredicate, Inagaki suggested that only directional Ps (i.e., Ps thatinclude both Path P and Place P in their LRS representations) area predicate. This is motivated by the fact that only directional Ps,by virtue of including both Path P and Place P, implicate a changeof location, thereby necessitating the presence of two entities, a‘subject’ in [Spec, VP] as well as an ‘object’ as their complement.

It, then, follows that in English the predicative force of directionalPs such as to allows manner-of-motion verbs such as walk to appearin the LRS of a motion event, as in (10).

4 As in (9), Inagaki (2001b) analysed the Japanese P ni as Place P because, while expressinga goal when selected by a directed motion verb as in (4c,d), ni expresses a location whenselected by a stative verb such as iru (‘be’) and sunde-iru (‘live’), as in (i).

i) John-wa Tokyoo-ni iru/sunde-iru.John-TOP Tokyo-at be/living-be‘John is/lives in Tokyo.’

Thus, Inagaki suggests that ni denotes a place, which could be interpreted as a goal or alocation depending on the nature of the verb selecting it.




10) [Spec, VP] licensed; cf. (3a)

VP

NP V’

John V PP

walk PPath PP

to PPlace NP

school

In (10), [Spec, VP] is licensed by the predicative requirement of thedirectional P to, thus satisfying Full Interpretation. In contrast,including only Place P, but not Path P, in its LRS representation,the Japanese P ni (‘at’) is not directional and thus non-predicative.This explains why it cannot yield a well-formed LRS of a motionevent with a manner-of-motion verb such as aruku (‘walk’), as in(11).

11) * [Spec, VP] unlicensed; cf. (4a)

VP

NP V’

John PP V

NP PPlace aruku‘walk’

gakkoo ni‘school’ ‘at’

In (11), [Spec, VP] is unlicensed due to the lack of the predicativeforce of the Place P ni, thus violating Full Interpretation.

To summarize thus far, English and Japanese differ in theexpression of a motion event, which derives from differentincorporation patterns in l-syntax.

Furthermore, Inagaki’s (2001b) analysis also accounts for the factthat in English, some Ps such as under and behind are ambiguousbetween locational and directional readings, as in (12) (Jackendoff,1983; 1990; Carter, 1988; Levin and Rapoport, 1988).





Shunji Inagaki 13

12) a. John swam under the bridge. (directional/locational)b. John ran behind the wall. (directional/locational)c. John jumped in the water. (directional/locational)

For example, in (12a), under the bridge can be either the goal ofJohn’s swimming (directional) or the location of John’sswimming (locational). This is because in English Place P can beincorporated into Path P as in (8). Some Ps have a morpho-logical reflex of the Path P ‘to’ (to, into, onto) and, thus, areunambiguously directional. However, other Ps do not (under,behind, in) and, thus, are ambiguous between locational anddirectional readings.5

In contrast, Japanese does not have the incorporation of Place Pinto Path P, as in (9), and thus the Place P ni, appearing withmanner-of-motion verbs, cannot be directional, as in (4a) and (4b).

In addition, sentences like (4a) and (4b) cannot have a locationalreading either, since ni can only denote a location for a static event(existing, living) (see note 4), not a dynamic event (swimming,running). For a dynamic event, another Place P de (‘at’) must beused, as in (13).

13) a John-wa hasi-no sita-de oyoida. (locational only)John-TOP bridge-GEN under-at swam‘John swam under the bridge.’

b. John-wa kabe-no usiro-de hasitta. (locational only)John-TOP wall-GEN back-at ran‘John ran behind the wall.’

c. John-wa puuru-no naka-de tonda. (locational only)John-TOP pool-GEN inside-at jumped‘John jumped in the pool.’

In contrast to their English counterparts in (12), sentences like(13) are unambiguously locational, due to the lack of the

5 A reviewer asks if there are two alternative syntactic representations that correspond tothe directional and the locational reading of sentences like (12). I assume there are. Thedirectional reading corresponds to the LRS in (10). Under the locational reading, thelocational PP such as under the bridge in (12a) is not even an argument but an adjunct and,therefore, is not present at l-syntax (the level where argument structure is formed). In s-syntax, the directional PP would be a complement of V, whereas the locational PP wouldappear as a sister of V’. Evidence for it is provided in (i), where the intended readings ofunder and in are directional and locational, receptively.

i) a. John walked under the bridge in the park.b. ?* John walked in the park under the bridge.

The contrast between (ia) and (ib) indicates that the directional PP is a sister of the V walk,whereas the locational PP is a sister of the V’ walk under the bridge, as in (ii).

ii) [IP John [VP [V’ walked [PP under the bridge]] in the park]].




incorporation of Place P into Path P in Japanese.6Thus, English manner-of-motion verbs with locational PPs allow

either locational or directional readings, whereas their Japanesecounterparts allow only a locational reading. In this domain too,then, there is a superset–subset relationship between English andJapanese, as illustrated in Figure 4.7

III The present study

The present study investigates what determines the (non-)use ofpositive evidence in the situation where L2 argument structure is asuperset of L1 argument structure. It attempts to answer thisquestion by looking at Japanese speakers’ acquisition of Englishmanner-of-motion verbs with goal PPs involving ambiguous Ps(under, behind, in). As mentioned above, Inagaki (2000; 2001a)already investigated Japanese speakers’ acquisition of English


6 A reviewer suggests that Japanese is also ambiguous because ni denotes direction with adirected motion verb as in (4c) and (4d), and location with a stative verb as in note 4.However, the ambiguity focused on is one concerning manner-of-motion verbs withlocational/directional PPs, within which English shows ambiguity but Japanese allows only alocational interpretation with the P de (‘at’).7 A reviewer raises the question of where the locational/directional ambiguity in Englishcomes from. The reviewer claims that although Inagaki (2001b) attributes the ambiguity tothe preposition (i.e., the availability of the incorporation of Place P into Path P), it is equallyplausible that the verb causes the ambiguity. That is, one might argue that English manner-of-motion verbs such as swim and run can be either directional or locational. (This isessentially the approach adopted by Talmy (1985) in his well-known conflation patterns ofa motion event.) However, Inagaki (2001b) provided evidence indicating that P determinesthe ambiguity. He points out that it is not that in Japanese-type languages (includingRomance languages) manner-of-motion verbs can never be directional (see note 2). In fact,when occurring with a directional P meaning ‘up to’ or ‘as far as’, manner-of-motion verbsin Japanese-type languages can be directional, as in (i).

i) Japanesea. John-wa gakkoo-made aruita/hasitta.

John-TOP school-up to/as far as walked/ran‘John walked up to/as far as school.’

Spanish (Aske, 1989)b. Juan corrió/caminó hasta el túnel.

Juan ran/walked up to/as far as the tunnel‘Juan ran/walked up to/as far as the tunnel.’

Example (i) indicates that even in Japanese-type languages manner-of-motion verbs can bedirectional if they occur with a directional P such as Japanese made and Spanish hasta. Thissuggests that it is, indeed, the directional P that allows a directional reading of a manner-of-motion verb, as in (10). On the other hand, in order to argue that manner-of-motion verbscan be either locational or directional in English, but are only locational in Japanese-typelanguages, one would be forced to claim that manner-of-motion verbs in (i) exceptionallybecome directional when occurring with made and hasta, thereby missing a generalization.Thus, it must be P, not V, that allows a directional reading of a manner-of-motion verb. If so,then the ambiguity associated with English sentences like (12) must also come fromprepositions, not verbs.




Shunji Inagaki 15

manner-of-motion verbs with goal PPs. However, he looked at goalPs in general, not distinguishing between Ps that wereunambiguously directional (to, into) and Ps that were ambiguouslylocational or directional (under, behind). In fact, a majority of histest items (7 out of 11) contained unambiguous Ps. Yet, such adistinction is important because predictions for L2 acquisitionwould be different depending on which type of P is involved.

The following hypothesis was formulated for the presentstudy:

Japanese learners of English will have difficulty recognizing the directionalreading of English manner-of-motion verbs with locational/directional PPs(John swam under the bridge).

The hypothesized acquisition problem is illustrated in Figure 5. Theleftmost box shows what is available in the L2 input, the middlebox the L1 grammar (Japanese) and the rightmost box the resultantL2 grammar.Available in the L2 input will be directed motion verbswith goal PPs (John went into the house), manner-of-motion verbswith goal PPs involving both unambiguous Ps (to, into, onto) andambiguous Ps (under, behind), and manner-of-motion verbs withlocational PPs (under, behind). I assume the L2 input is filteredthrough the L1 grammar, which allows directed motion verbs withgoal PPs, manner-of-motion verbs with locational PPs, but notmanner-of-motion verbs with goal PPs (hence the gap). Initially, thelearners will notice the fit between the L1 and the L2 andincorporate it into their L2 grammar. This will result in tooconservative an L2 grammar generating only a subset of whatEnglish allows (Figures 3 and 4). Therefore, manner-of-motion

Figure 4 Possible readings of manner-of-motion verbs with locational PPs inEnglish and Japanese

English

directional

Japanese

locational





dire

cted

V +

goa

l P

P:

to/in

to/u

nde

r

to/in

to/o

nto

man

ner

V +

goa

l PP

to/in

to/u

nde

run

der

/beh

ind

man

ner

V +

loc

atio

nal

PP

:un

der

/beh

ind

L2

Inpu

t

unno

tice

d

mis

anal

ysed

dire

cted

V +

goa

l PP

man

ner

V +

loc

atio

nal

PP

L1

Gra

mm

ar

dire

cted

V +

goa

l P

P:

to/in

to/u

nder

to/in

to/o

nto

man

ner

V +

goa

l P

P

man

ner

V +

loc

atio

nal

PP

:u

nder

/beh

ind

L2

Gra

mm

ar

Fig

ure

5A

n i

llust

rati

on

of

the

pro

ble

m




Shunji Inagaki 17

verbs with goal PPs, or the LRS representation (8), must beacquired from the L2 input.

Now, in making predictions for Japanese speakers’ acquisition ofEnglish manner-of-motion verbs with goal PPs, it is important todistinguish between those involving unambiguous Ps (to, into, onto)and those involving ambiguous Ps (under, behind). On the onehand, Japanese speakers will not have difficulty learning the formerdue to its high frequency in the input and the clear morphologicalevidence ‘to’ for the Path P, as supported by Inagaki (2000; 2001a).On the other hand, Japanese speakers will have difficulty learningthe latter for two possible reasons. First, English manner-of-motionverbs with goal PPs involving ambiguous Ps (under, behind) maybe infrequent in English compared to those involving unambiguousPs (to, into).8 If so, positive evidence for the former may not berobust enough for the learners to notice it (hence the dotted line).

Secondly, even if Japanese speakers do encounter Englishmanner-of-motion verbs with goal PPs involving ambiguous Ps, theymay misanalyse them as locational. There are two possible sourcesof misanalysis. First, there is no morphological difference betweendirectional under, behind, etc. and their locational counterparts.Secondly, the directional context may not be clearly distinct fromthe locational context. For example, suppose beginning Japaneselearners of English hear the sentence John swam under the bridgein the context where John went under the bridge in the manner ofswimming. Their L1 would tell them that it is locational, whichneeds to be rejected for successful L2 acquisition. However, thelocational reading might not be so incompatible with what thelearners observe, at least not to the extent that they eventuallyreject it. After all, if John swam under the bridge (directional), healso swam under the bridge (locational) at the endpoint of themotion. Therefore, the misinterpretation may not be serious enoughto cause a communication breakdown or incomprehension, whichwould otherwise force the learners to reconsider it. In any case, ifthis type of misanalysis occurs, then the relevant input will only beused as positive evidence for ‘manner V + locational PP’, not for‘manner V + goal PP’ involving ambiguous Ps (hence the diagonalarrow in Figure 5).

If all of this is the case, then the resultant L2 grammar will remaintoo restrictive to allow ‘manner V + goal PP’ involving ambiguousPs (under, behind), as indicated by the rightmost gap in Figure 5.

In sum, relevant positive evidence may be so infrequent andmisleading, both morphologically and contextually, that Japanese

8 This possibility was suggested to me by K. Kanno and R. Bley-Vroman.





learners of English may not be able to overcome the L1 influenceinduced by the partial overlap between the L1 and the L2.

IV Method

1 Participants

This study compared two language groups, whose biodata aresummarized in Table 1. The Japanese group consisted of 35 freshersat Osaka Prefecture University majoring in social welfare. Theystarted to learn English at junior high school or a cram school inJapan and had studied English formally since then. None of themhad stayed in an English-speaking country more than one month.Thus, their level of English could be considered as intermediate.9There was also a control group of 23 native speakers of English,most of whom were university teachers in Japan or graduatestudents in TESL at an American university.

2 Materials

A written picture-matching task was used (see Appendix 1 for anexample test item). In each test item was an English sentencecontaining a manner-of-motion verb with a PP which wasambiguous between locational and directional readings. The testsentence was followed by a pair of pictures, one of which showeda directional context and the other a locational context. In eachpicture were two objects: an object that moves, or ‘Figure’, and anobject with respect to which the Figure moves, or ‘Ground’ (Talmy,

9 Admittedly, the classification of this group as intermediate is somewhat arbitrary and thusshould better be verified by an independent measure of proficiency. Inagaki (in preparation),however, reports a similar study that includes such a proficiency measure.

Table 1 Biodata summary of participants

Japanese English(n = 35) (n = 23)

AgeRange 18–20 26–55M 18.51 40.30sd 0.66 8.90

Onset age for learning EnglishRange 10–13 –M 12.11 –sd 0.87 –




Shunji Inagaki 19

1985). For example, in Appendix 1, ‘Mike’ was the Figure and‘bridge’ was the Ground. Both the Figure and the Ground werenamed in English to make sure that participants were familiar withthe vocabulary. Participants were told that all pictures showedsituations that took place in the past, and thus that all sentenceswould be in the past tense. One of the pictures had an arrow witha ‘blob’ to provide a directional context. Participants were told thatthe arrow indicated the direction of the movement and the blobindicated the endpoint of the movement. Thus, the first picture inAppendix 1 depicts the situation where Mike swam towards thebridge and ended up being under the bridge. The other picture didnot have an arrow with a blob, thus showing a situation where anaction took place at some location. Below each sentence were threeoptions: ‘1 only’, ‘2 only’, and ‘either 1 or 2’. Participants were askedto circle ‘1 only’ if the sentence matched the first picture only, ‘2only’ if it matched the second picture only, and ‘either 1 or 2’ if itmatched either the first or the second picture.

There were twelve target items consisting of six manner-of-motion verbs and six prepositions, as in (14).

14) Manner-of-motion verbs: walk, run, swim, crawl, jump, flyPrepositions: in, on, under, behind, inside, above

There were also eight distractors including both ambiguous andunambiguous sentences (see Appendix 2 for all the sentencesincluded in the picture-matching task). To control for possibleordering effects, the test items and distractors were randomlyordered. The two pictures within each item were also randomlyordered for the same purpose.

V Results

Group results are presented first, followed by individual results.

1 Group results

Table 2 presents mean responses of ‘locational only’, ‘directionalonly’ and ‘either locational or directional’. (Standard deviations are

Table 2 Mean responses of ‘locational only’, ‘directional only’, and ‘eitherlocational or directional’ by Japanese and English speakers in percentages

Locational only Directional only Locational/Directional

Japanese 70.24 (14.19) 8.09 (9.58) 21.67 (13.74)English 18.54 (16.84) 14.49 (26.14) 66.97 (27.19)





included in parenthesis.) The results are visually represented inFigure 6. The results indicate that Japanese speakers chose‘locational only’ in most cases (70.24%), whereas English speakerschose ‘either locational or directional’ in most cases (66.97%).10

This is confirmed by t-tests, which showed that Japanese speakerschose ‘locational only’ significantly more often than Englishspeakers (t (56) = 12.60, p = 0.001) and that English speakers chose‘either locational or directional’ significantly more often thanJapanese speakers (t (56) = 8.38, p = 0.001). Thus, the group resultssuggest that, unlike English speakers, Japanese speakers often failedto recognize the directional reading of English manner-of-motionverbs with locational/directional PPs, thereby supporting thehypothesis.11

2 Individual results

I now turn to individual results to see if the group results indeedreflect how participants of each group performed individually. Table3 presents the number of Japanese and English participants who

10 As a reviewer points, however, it is somewhat unexpected that English speakers failed tofind the test sentences ambiguous 33.03% of the times. Their responses of ‘locational only’(18.54%) are particularly problematic since they indicate their failure to obtain thedirectional reading, the focus of this study. A possible explanation for this is that some nativespeakers were being purist, insisting that for the directional contexts into and onto, ratherthan in and on, should be used. A few native speakers indeed told me so after the session.Moreover, data from individual items suggest that most of the English speakers’ choices of‘locational only’ came from items containing in and on, with none coming from itemscontaining under and behind, which do not have their directional counterparts as separatelexical items.11 However, as a reviewer points out, the remaining cases (29.76%), where Japanese speakerschose ‘directional only’ or ‘either locational or directional’, is not expected under thehypothesis. I have no explanation for this. However, individual results below show that noJapanese participant chose either of the two options consistently.

100

80

60

40

20

0Japanese speakers English speakers

Locational only

Directional only

Locational/Directional

Mea

n r

espo

nse

s (p

erce

nta

ge)

Figure 6 Mean responses by Japanese and English speakers in percentages




Shunji Inagaki 21

answered either ‘directional only’ or ‘either locational ordirectional’ a certain number of times. Responses of these twooptions are combined in Table 3 because the question here iswhether or not the Japanese speakers recognized the directionalreading of target sentences. Table 3 shows that, out of twelve testitems, no Japanese speakers chose either ‘directional only’ or ‘eitherlocational or directional’ – thus recognizing the directional reading– more than six times (50%). In contrast, all but two Englishspeakers recognized the directional reading more than six times.Among the two English speakers, one recognized the directionalreading six times and the other five times. In sum, unlike Englishspeakers, Japanese speakers consistently failed to recognize thedirectional reading of English manner-of-motion verbs withlocational/directional PPs, thereby supporting the hypothesis.

VI Discussion

The hypothesis was supported. Both the group and individualresults indicate that intermediate Japanese learners of English haddifficulty recognizing the directional reading of English manner-of-motion verbs with locational/directional PPs (John swam under thebridge). This suggests that starting with the subset L1 grammar(Figures 3 and 4), Japanese speakers failed to notice positiveevidence for target properties and thus to broaden theirinterlanguage grammar. This failure may well have been due to:

� initial L1 transfer triggered by the partial fit between the L1 andthe L2;

� low frequency of the target structure; and/or� misanalysis of relevant directional sentences as locational ones,

which in turn was caused by the lack of clear morphological andcontextual cues for ‘directionalness’ (Figure 5).

The last sentence above, however, points to a limitation of thepresent study: It is not possible to clearly identify the source of the

Table 3 Number of Japanese and English participants answering either‘directional only’ or ‘either locational or directional’

Frequency of either ‘directional only’ Japanese Englishor ‘locational/directional’ responses (n = 35) (n = 23)(k = 12)

0–3 18 04–6 17 27–9 0 810–12 0 13





difficulty. There are two reasons for this. First, although initialtransfer of the L1 is assumed, it is also possible to account for theresults by saying simply that Japanese speakers had not receivedpositive evidence for the target. As L. White (personalcommunication, November 2000) pointed out, a way to confirm theL1 influence is to add another group whose L1 is like English inallowing both locational and directional interpretations of manner-of-motion verbs with PPs, such as German and Modern Hebrew(Talmy, 1985; Levin and Rappaport Hovav, 1995: 183), but who areat the same proficiency level and exposed to the same kind of input.If they perform better than the Japanese participants, L1 effects inthis domain are confirmed (whereas if there is no difference, lackof positive evidence alone can account for the results). Secondly,infrequency of the target structure in the input is assumed; however,as R. Bley-Vroman points out (personal communication, September2000), this assumption needs to be checked with real data using acorpus of some sort. These confirmatory studies are left to furtherresearch.

Leaving the reservations aside, more generally the results of thepresent study suggest that when an L2 argument structureconstitutes a superset of its L1 counterpart, the presence of positiveevidence may not be sufficient to broaden the interlanguagegrammar. That is, for relevant positive evidence to be ‘taken in’ bythe learners, it has to be not only available but robustly availablein the sense that it is frequent and clear. The frequency andclearness conditions would need to be met at the same time becausepositive evidence could be highly frequent but misleading or highlyclear but infrequent, none of which case might allow L2 learners toovercome the L1 influence and arrive at the L2 grammar.

Seen in this light, the situation investigated in the present studywas a tough one, as none of the two conditions appeared to be met.That is, the target structure may have been infrequent in the inputand, even if it existed, its directional context would have not beenso incompatible with a locational interpretation of it as to force theJapanese learners to revise their initial hypothesis. In such cases, L1influence triggered by a partial overlap between the L1 and the L2would persist, as indicated by the present results. However, it is anopen question whether L2 learners will eventually be able toovercome the difficulty. One needs to look at more advancedlearners to address this question.

In this connection, a reviewer claims that ‘by including only anintermediate level group in this study, the author cannot makeclaims about how successful positive evidence is or is not, since onewould expect some difficulty for this proficiency level, regardless of




Shunji Inagaki 23

the source’. I have two responses to this. First, it is not thatintermediate learners have difficulty with every aspect of the L2grammar; in fact, just as they find some L2 properties difficult toacquire, so they find others easy to acquire. The contribution of thistype of study, then, is to make predictions on where exactly thedifficulty arises (or does not arise) based on particular L1–L2contrasts and the nature of input and provide empirical support forthem. In the present case, the scenario illustrated in Figure 5predicted that it would not be difficult for Japanese learners toacquire English manner-of-motion verbs with goal PPs involvingunambiguously directional Ps such as to and into, but that it wouldbe difficult for them to acquire those involving ambiguous Ps suchas under and behind. As mentioned, the former prediction had beensupported by Inagaki (2001a) testing intermediate Japaneselearners, and the latter prediction was supported by the presentstudy testing Japanese learners at a similar proficiency level. Thus,the contrasting findings clearly indicate that not everything isdifficult for intermediate learners, and that data from intermediatelearners alone are not useless.

Secondly, as L. White (personal communication, November 2000)suggested, it is not clear how including more advanced learnerswould help to see the effect of positive evidence, since here onewould simply be making an assumption that they have had moreof the relevant input, which, as just mentioned, needs to be verifiedby some evidence anyway. A possible solution is to deliberatelysupply the learners with the relevant positive evidence in one formor another and see its effects (White, 1991a; Trahey and White,1993). This would more clearly reveal how much positive evidenceof what kind is needed for the acquisition of the relatively rare andcontextually misleading properties.

In conclusion, the results of the present study suggest that thereare situations in which availability of positive evidence may notguarantee success in L2 acquisition, for which purpose some typeof input enhancement would be beneficial.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for AdvancedScientific Research from Osaka Prefecture University and a Grant-in-Aid for Encouragement of Young Scientists from the JapanSociety for the Promotion of Science (No. 137/03/0). An earlierversion of this article was presented at the Second LanguageForum, Madison, WI in September 2000 and is to appear in theproceedings. I would like to thank participants at the conference,





and also anonymous Second Language Research reviewers, for theirhelpful comments. Special thanks go to Lydia White for hercomments on an earlier version and to Shu-chun Huang for herhelp in collecting data. However, any errors are mine.

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Appendix 1 Example test item

Mike swam under the bridge.

1 only 2 only either 1 or 2




Shunji Inagaki 27

Appendix 2 Sentences included in the picture-matching task

A: Test sentences1. Jim walked behind the house.2. Bob walked in the store.3. John ran inside the gym.4. Ted ran behind the wall.5. Mark ran in the house.6. Peter swam inside the cave.7. Mike swam under the bridge.8. The baby crawled under the table.9. The mouse crawled on the table.

10. Paul jumped on the bed.11. Fred jumped in the pool.12. The bird flew above the tree.

B: DistractorsDirectional only1. Sam walked to the beach.2. John walked onto the stage.3. The butterfly flew into the house.

Locational only4. Jim was in the park.5. John ran at the racetrack.

Ambiguous6. Mary ate the chocolate on the table.7. Tom watched the man with binoculars.8. The chicken is ready to eat.




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