Acquiring the core-peripheral distinction in split intransitivity

This study presents the results of an experimental investigation into the L2 acquisition of the core-peripheral distinction in the syntax of split intransitivity by L1 Mandarin EFL learners to verify whether or not their L2 acquisition is lexically constrained by the Split Intransitivity Hierarchy, which predicts that core verbs have primacy in both L1 and L2 acquisition over peripheral ones (Sorace, 2000, 2004, 2011). Two diagnostics of English split intransitivity, the prenominal past participles (PPPs) and the for hours constructions, were used to test native English speakers and Mandarin EFL learners’ gradient acceptability with respect to core-peripheral verb classes. The results of an acceptability judgment test show that both native speakers and nonnative speakers are sensitive to the core-peripheral distinction in the two diagnostics, and EFL learners exhibit a native-like sensitivity to core unaccusatives in PPPs but not in the for hours constructions. The results confirm that the core-peripheral distinction can be accounted for neither by L1 transfer nor L2 input, which suggests for the behavior is due to direct access to semantic universals in the L2 acquisition of split intransitivity syntax.

Intransitive verbs in Enets: A contribution to the typology of split intransitivity

This paper contributes to the typology of “active-stative” split intransitivity and middle voice with a detailed case study: it proceeds from a typological comparison of the two phenomena, which are usually treated apart, to an analysis of the Enets data and a discussion of its place in the typology of possible intransitive splits. Enets (Uralic, Samoyedic) has two classes of intransitive verbs, and each class uses its own cross-reference paradigm in all finite forms. The paper provides an account of the morphology of this intransitive split and its connection to the lexical aspect, followed by an overview of semantic composition of the two lexical classes; special attention is given to cases of class variation available for a dozen verbs. The research is based on the data of a fieldworkers’ corpus and thus also shows the advantages of a corpus-based approach to this phenomenon.

Split intransitivity in English

This article proposes a hierarchy of functional heads encoding the features [±control], [±initiation], [±state], [±change] and [±telic] (see Ramchand 2008). It is argued that this allows for a superior analysis of split intransitivity in English than the traditional notion of ‘unaccusativity’ – the idea that there are two classes of intransitive verbs which differ in relation to the underlying status/positions of their arguments. Rather, it is shown – on the basis of a systematic consideration of a wide range of English verbs – that the proposed diagnostics for unaccusativity in English identify multiple classes, whose behaviour can be captured in terms of the proposed hierarchy. Good correlation is found between the classes identified by the English diagnostics and Sorace's (2000) Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy (ASH), providing further support for the cross-linguistic applicability of the ASH to split intransitive patterns.