English sentences containing the universal quantifiers each, every, and all are highly complex structures in view of the subtleties of their scope properties and resulting ambiguities. The present study aims to investigate the role of syntactic, lexic...
English sentences containing the universal quantifiers each, every, and all are highly complex structures in view of the subtleties of their scope properties and resulting ambiguities. The present study aims to investigate the role of syntactic, lexical and pragmatic factors in the acquisition and interpretation of English universal quantifier sentences.
This study explored the acquisition of universal quantifier sentences as reflected in the performance of two L2 learner groups and one native speaker group on a multipicture sentence interpretation task. The Korean L2 learner groups comprised a group of 45 middle school students and a group of 45 high school students. The 35 native speakers of English who participated in this study were the English instructors, aged 22 to 37, in middle schools and high schools in Chonnam Province and Kwangju. Three participant groups' performances on the multipicture task were analyzed to compare acquisition patterns in this study.
The L2 learners' and native speakers' knowledge of English sentences containing each, every, and all universal quantifiers was compared through their performance on a 45-item, multipicture task that required participants to decide whether each of five pictures represented a possible meaning of a target sentence. The task assessed fundamental knowledge of quantifier sentences, recognition of quantifier sentence ambiguity, and preferences for specific sentence interpretations.
This study supports the learnability order of the universal quantifier based on derivational economy of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995, 1998, 2000). The result of the present study revealed that the L2 learners recognized the full range of ambiguity of universal quantifiers. The results showed that the L2 learners at middle school and high school understand the fundamental meaning of universal quantifier sentences but differ in certain aspects from native speakers in their preferred interpretations. The results showed that the native speakers outperformed the L2 learner groups in overall performance on English universal quantifier sentence items. The results also revealed that all the participant groups performed better on the QP-subject position than on the QP-nonsubject position, and there is a gradual increase in performance as the educational level increases. In view of factors constraining ultimate attainment in L2 acquisition, the L2 learner groups exhibited overall less knowledge of English quantifier sentences than the native speakers. Because higher overall English language proficiency implies greater internalization of English language input, the learner group with higher overall English proficiency exhibited relatively greater knowledge of English quantifier sentences than the learner group with lower overall English proficiency.
Second, the result revealed that L2 learners minimally exhibited knowledge of the most basic property of English quantifier sentences by rejecting context-incompatible depictions and semantically incompatible depictions. All the L2 learners understood that any acceptable depiction of the universal quantifier sentences requires inclusion of both the agent and object. Appropriate rejection to the incompatible depictions also verifies that a participant is attending to the task and not responding randomly. However, the L2 middle school learners performed less than the L2 high school learners in semantically incompatible depictions. This supports the learnability order of the universal quantifier.
Performance patterns are explained in terms of the influences of derivational economy, including the option to restrict in situ indefinite noun phrases to singleton indefinites. The learner groups exhibited greater knowledge of collective than distributive interpretations of English universal quantifier sentences because of the great inherent semantic complexity of distributive representations. However, as for the participant groups' preferred interpretations on each, every, and all quantifier sentences, the result showed that the intrinsic lexical property of L1 universal quantifiers and pragmatic knowledge play a role in the specific interpretation of universal quantifier sentences.
With respect to the symmetry effect associated with symmetrical versus asymmetrical (extra-object, extra-agent) distributive depictions, the symmetry effect was also observed in all participant groups but decreased as English proficiency increases. The L2 learner groups and the native speakers exhibited the preferences for symmetrical over asymmetrical depictions of distributive interpretations of universal quantifier sentences. The symmetry effect found in this study is explained in terms of a pragmatic challenge in managing contextural information that invokes an unexpected singleton indefinite interpretation.
The results contribute to the understanding of sentence comprehension under conditions of restricted learner access to target language input and underscore the value of derivational economy and lexical and pragmatic factors in language acquisition and use.
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