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Second Language Learner Knowledge of Verb—Argument Constructions: Effects of
Language Transfer and Typology

Author(s): UTE RÖMER, MATTHEW BROOK O'DONNELL and NICK C. ELLIS
Source: The Modern Language Journal , Winter 2014, Vol. 98, No. 4 (Winter 2014), pp.
952-975
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers
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Second Language Learner
Knowledge of Verb-Argument
Constructions: Effects of
Language Transfer and Typology
UTE RÖMER NICK C. ELLIS
Georgia State University University of Michigan

Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL Department of Psychology
34 Peachtree Street, Suite 1200 530 Church Street
Atlanta , GA 30303 Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
MATTHEW BROOK O'DONNELL
The University of Pennsylvania

Annenberg School for Communication
3620 Walnut Street
Philadelphia , PA 19104
Email: [email protected]
This article examines second language (L2) learner knowledge of English verb-argument constructions
(VACs) , for example, the 'V against n' construction. It investigates to what extent constructions underpin
L2 learners' linguistic competence, how VAC mental representations in native speakers and learners
differ, and whether there are observable effects of the learners' first language. Native speakers of English
and advanced learners of 3 different first language backgrounds (Czech, German, Spanish) were asked to
generate the first verb that came to mind to fill the gap in 20 sparse VAC frames like "she
the...." The comparison of learner and native speaker verb responses h

effects as well as effects of language typology that impact verb semant
suggest that learners whose LI is, like English, satellite-framed (here
target-like verbs than learners whose LI is verb-framed (here Spanis
Keywords: usage-based language acquisition; Construction Grammar;

influence; satellite- vs. verb-framed languages
THIS ARTICLE PRESENTS SELECTED FIND- 1991, 2004; Stubbs, 2001). Written texts and
ings from a large research project at the interface
spoken utterances are not just random sequences
of Corpus Linguistics, Construction of Grammar,
individual words that can be solely explained
and language acquisition. Recent work on in
the corpus
basis of grammatical rules, but are made
up tofor
linguistics has provided ample evidence a large
theextent of fixed or semi-fixed
highly patterned nature of languageelements
(e.g., Hun-
that convey meanings. Cognitive linguis-
ston & Francis, 2000; Römer, 2005, 2009;
ticSinclair,
theories of construction grammar posit that
language comprises many thousands of construc-
tions: form-meaning mappings, conventional-
The Modern Language fournal, 98, 4, (2014) ized in the speech community, and entrenched
DOI: 10.1111/modl.l2149
as language knowledge in the learner's mind
0026-7902/ 1 4/952-975 $ 1 .50/0
(Bybee, 2010; Goldberg, 1995; Robinson 8c
© 2014 The Modern Language fournal
Ellis, 2008; Trousdale 8c Hoffmann, 2013).

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Ute Römer et al. 953
Construction Gramm
order to determine regularities in their acquisi-
spondence between
tion and use (Ellis 8c Ferreira-Junior, 2009;
meaning and
Goldberg, argue
2006; Goldberg, Casenhiser, 8c Se-
words thuraman, 2004; Ibbotson, 2013). These studies
('constructions
(Goldberg,conclude that2003,there is a strong tendency2006 for one
single verb to occur with
demonstrates particularly high
languag
to usage frequency
frequency in comparison to other verbs and a
cesses andthat the overall distribution of verbs in construc-
represent
notactics,tions reading,
follows Zipf s (1935) law, which states that sp
the frequency
formulaic of words decreases as a power
language
grammaticality, sent
function of their ranks in the frequency table. The
(Ellis, studies show how
2002). the frequencies of verbs
That lan
the inputinfluence acquisition, and how Zipfian distribu-
frequencies
they must have
tional properties regi
of language usage help make
processing,language learnable,
and for both first and second
these
compelling evidence
language learners. The findings are revealing but
language acquisition
have yet to be backed up by evidence from more
2002; MacWhinney,
constructions and larger datasets. Also needed is
Second language
experimental data on what speakers of English (L2
learners know
alike about the verbs that share
occur in particular
and producing
VACs. Evidence on speaker knowledge
langu of VACs
based upon their
will help us determine exp
whether constructions are
there arepsychologically
many real and how stronglycom
they are
L2 acquisition
entrenched in the speaker's mind. that
corpus analyses of
We have taken a large sample of 50 construc-
cognitive tions, and
identified and discussed in COBUILD
psycho
struction Grammar Patterns 1: Verbs (Francis, Hunston, 8c
acquisition
cognitive Manning, 1996), as a starting point for a
principles
tion. systematic analysis of VACs in the 100-million
Usage-based app
tics, and word British National Corpus (BNC). In Römer,
Corpus Ling
O'Donnell, 8c Ellis
influential in (2015), we second
describe the steps
research (Collins
involved &
in mining the BNC for VACs and suggest El
Ellis & Cadierno,
a new approach to making verb construction 2009
analyses scalable.
However, because We have also carried out L
devoted considerable resources to the estimationpsycholinguistic experiments to capture native
of the characteristics of their native tonguespeaker
in and nonnative speaker associations of
which they have become fluent, their computa- verbs and the selected constructions. In Ellis,
tions and inductions are often affected by O'Donnell, 8c Römer (2014a), we use generative
free association tasks to test the psychological
transfer, with LI -tuned expectations and selective
attention (Ellis, 2006; Ellis 8c Sagarra, 2011) reality of VACs in terms of their form-function
representation, type-token distribution, verb-
blinding the acquisition system to aspects of the
L2 sample. Learned attentional biases from construction contingency, and semantic struc-
various Lis may influence the ultimate language ture. In one experiment, 285 native English
attainment of L2 learners from various LI back- speakers generated the first word that came to
grounds (Ellis 8c Sagarra, 2011). SLA is thus mind to fill the verb slot in 20 sparse VAC frames
different from first language acquisition in thatsuch
it as 'she
involves processes of construction and reconstruc-experiment, 40 native

tion. We explore these issues in this article. as many verbs fitting
In a collaborative project among psycho-, could think of in a m
corpus-, and computational linguists, we studyscale corpus analyses
speaker knowledge and use of English verb- demonstrated the relia
argument constructions (henceforth VACs) , such in language usage. We
as the 'V against n' construction (e.g., he leaned tions are (a) Zipfian in
against the door frame) or the 'Vnn' construction tions, with one verb ty
share of all VAC tokens, (b) selective in their
(e.g., they sent her a letter ). Small sets of VACs have
been analyzed in native and learner corpora in verb form occupancy, and (c) coherent in their

159.20.64.68 on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:41:02 UTC
954 The Modern Language Journal 98 (2014)
semantics (for details, see Ellis, O'Donnell, & central aim of our present article is to uncover and
Römer, 2013; Römer et al., 2015). Through our discuss these differences and transfer effects in
psycholinguistic experiments, we demonstrated order to better understand which realizations of
the reliability and validity of VACs in language which VACs are not, or not yet, well entrenched in
users' minds. We observed that adult native the minds of learners, and which ones are. In the
speakers of English represented similardiscussion
bindingsof differences between native speaker
and learner
of form and function as retrieved from usage data. knowledge of VACs, we consider
The verbs produced by fluent language issues
usersofare
language typology that affect the verb
determined by (a) their token frequenciessystem, particularly the semantics of verbs. A
in the
respective VAC in usage, (b) how faithfuluseful
verbs typological
are distinction, introduced by
to particular VACs in usage, and (c) the Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000), can be made between
centrality
of the verb meaning in the VAC's semantic
verb-framed and satellite-framed languages,
network in usage (for details, see Ellis
whichet differ
al., in how they encode the path and
2014a). manner of motion within the verb phrase. We will
provide an overview of these concepts in the
Following the empirical design and methodol-
ogy described in Ellis et al. (2014a) and Römer
following section of this article, followed by a
et al. (2015), we have also used corpus- and of our research questions and hypo-
summary
psycholinguistic evidence to measure second
theses. We will then describe the design and
language learner knowledge of VACs. We were
implementation of the psycholinguistic experi-
interested in finding out whether, and to what
ments carried out for this study, and summarize
extent, constructions also underpin L2thelearners'
data retrieval and evaluation steps. The core
section of the
linguistic competence. We were also interested in article is dedicated to the discussion
of results
determining how similar or different the mental on speaker knowledge of 20 selected
VACs. We will end with a summary of main
representations of common VACs are between
native speakers and learners of English andimplications for instruction, and further
findings,
whether there are observable effects of the directions for related research.
learners' first language. We had English native

speakers and advanced English language LANGUAGE
learners TYPOLOGY: VERB-FRAMED AND
SATELLITE-FRAMED LANGUAGES
of three different first language backgrounds
(German, Czech, and Spanish) complete the
Languages differ in the ways in which verb
same type of free association task (details provid-
ed in the Data and Method section) and phrases express motion events. According to
Talmy
compared responses across those four groups. (2000),
We correlated the results from these association
the world's languages generally seem to divide into a
tasks (for LI and L2 speakers) with results from
two-category typology on the basis of the characteris-
large-scale corpus analyses of the same VACs. We
tic pattern in which the conceptual structure of the
found that learners have strong constructional
macro-event is mapped onto syntactic structure. To
knowledge and that, similar to native speakers,
characterize it initially in broad strokes, the typology
the VAC processing of LI German, Czech, and
consists of whether the core schema is expressed by
Spanish advanced learners of English, too,the main verb or by the satellite, (p. 221)
showed effects of frequency, contingency, and
prototypicality. These findings are discussed in
Ellis, O'Donnell, 8c Römer (2014b). Our discus- The core schema here refers to the framing event ,
sion highlights similarities in the patterns thatthat is, to the expression of the path of motion.
underlie both first and second language VACTalmy goes on to say that "[l]anguages that
acquisition. Our findings reflect L2 knowledge ofcharacteristically map the core schema into the
language that comes from usage and indicate thatverb will be said to have a framing verb and to be
all groups of participants are sensitive to distri- verb-framed languages" and that "languages that
butions in the language they are exposed to, albeit characteristically map the core schema onto the
to varying extents. satellite will be said to have a framing satellite and
One thing that Ellis et al. (2014b) does not to be satellite-framed languages" (p. 222; empha-
discuss is in what ways native speaker mentalsis in original) . Included in the former group are
representations differ from those of advanced Romance and Semitic languages, Japanese, and
language learners. It also does not provide detailsTamil. Languages in the latter group include
on potential crosslinguistic transfer (Jarvis, 2013;Germanic, Slavic, Finno-Ugric languages, and
Odlin, 2013) from German, Czech, or Spanish. A Chinese. This means that a Germanic language

159.20.64.68 on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:41:02 UTC
such as man. This observation is incorporated

English oftein the
plus preposition
discussion of our survey results. or
where a Romance
single form
RESEARCH ( entrar
QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES ,
While verb-framed
of motion in the main verb and are path- The research questions we are addressing in
this article are:
incorporating (Talmy, 1985) or path-type languages
(Mani & Pustejovski, 2012), satellite-framed
languages are manner-incorporating or manner-type
languages in which manner is expressed in the RQ1. Following from the observation that con-
main verb (e.g., English run , stroll). According to structions underpin L2 learners' linguistic
Slobin (2003, p. 162), "English speakers get competence (Ellis et al., 2014b), how similar
or different are the existing mental repre-
manner for free." They commonly use manner sentations of common VACs between
verbs in the expression of motion events and have
advanced L2 learners and native speakers?
more lexical items available to do so than speakers
of satellite-framed languages like Spanish. The RQ2. Are there observable differences in the
Spanish motion verb saltar , for example, has a mental representations of common VACs
range of English translation equivalents including among LI German, LI Czech, and LI
jump (over, up ), leap , climb, skip , spurt , and hop. Spanish learners? Is one learner group closer
Manner of motion is a "highly saturated" semantic to the native speaker group than the others?
space in satellite-framed languages (Slobin, 2003,
RQ3. If there are such differences, can they be
p. 163). In verb-framed languages, manner of explained on the basis of transfer from the
motion is less commonly expressed. It is "an learners' first languages and/or on the basis
adjunct - an optional addition to a clause that is of language typology effects?
already complete" (Slobin, 2003, p. 162), such as a
participial form (e.g., Spanish entró corriendo ,
"enter running"). We therefore assume manner All groups of speakers in our study are asked to
of motion to be a less entrenched, less salient produce verbs in response to VAC frames the
concept in the minds of speakers whose LI is verb- majority of which encode a path of motion, with
framed. The concept is less easily codable and the path expressed by a satellite (a particle or
requires additional effort to express. Cifuentes- preposition). Against the background of the
Férez and Gentner (2006) provide empirical language-typological issues discussed in the
evidence in support of this assumption by showing previous paragraphs, our research hypotheses
that, in a word mapping task, Spanish speakers (H) are:
were more likely to infer a path interpretation of a
novel motion verb than a manner interpretation.
English speakers showed the opposite behavior HI. The mental VAC representations of
and favored manner over path interpretations German, Czech, and Spanish advanced
(see Brown & Gullberg, 2011; Cadierno, 2008, learners of English will differ in diverse ways
2013; and Slobin, 2003, 2006, for reviews of from native speakers' mental VAC
additional studies that demonstrate similar effects representations, showing that learners are
biased by their Lis.
of language typology on linguistic production).
Whereas Slavic languages are generally consid- H2. Learners whose LI is satellite-framed (and
ered satellite-framed (Slobin, 2003, 2006), hence typologically similar to English) will
Gehrke (2008) cautions that Czech is "neither produce more target-like verbs (verbs that
straightforwardly verb-framed nor straightfor- correlate more closely with those produced
by LI English speakers) than speakers whose
wardly satellite-framed" (p. 203). While motion LI is verb-framed.
and manner in Czech are included in the verb (as
is typically the case for a satellite-framed lan-
H3. Speakers of satellite-framed languages (here
guage) , paths of motion may be mapped onto the German and Czech, even though the latter
verb and/ or a directional preposition. To give is not a clear-cut case) will produce more
one example, Czech offers three ways of express- verbs that express specific manners of
motion in the verb generation tasks (in line
ing jump over, skočit přes ('jump over' ) , přeskočit přes
with native speakers).
('oveijump over'), and přeskočit ('overjump').
Czech hence appears to be a less prototypical
H4. Conversely, speakers of a verb-framed lan-
satellite-framed language than English or Ger- guage (here Spanish) will produce specific

159.20.64.68 on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:41:02 UTC
manner of motion verbsassociated with a particularand

less frequently category (Battig &
Montague,
instead respond with more 1969; Rosch
general motion & Mervis, 1975). The
verbs such as go, come, or move.
actual instructions that participants received are
H5. The verb responses of given
allin Figure
learner1 . After the survey instructions, the
groups
will show effects of collocational transfer participants saw the 20 sentence frames displayed
(Yamashita & Jiang, 2010) from the in Table 1, shown once with either she or he as
learners' first languages. subject and once with it as subject. These 40
prompts were presented in random order and
participants filled the gaps in each frame. For
We will refer back to these hypotheses in oureach VAC, we recorded the verbs produced and
results discussion and conclusion. the participants' response times. The entire
survey took between 5 and 15 minutes to
DATA AND METHOD complete.2
The participants were predominan tly university
The data collected for this study come students
from recruited
a through emails sent by mem-
series of psycholinguistic experimentsbers or associates of the research team, either to
adminis-
tered online using the Qual tries survey thesystem.1
students direcdy or (in the case of the learners
Native English speakers and German, Czech,who participated)
and to one of their instructors. The
English native speakers were mosdy students
Spanish advanced learners of English (described
in more detail later) completed the same enrolled at a large Midwestern research universi-
genera-
tive free association task that presented ty.
them The with
LI German, LI Czech, and LI Spanish
VAC frames such as 'she learners were students enrolled at research
universities in Germany, the Czech Republic
word that came to mind to fill the blank. Free and Spain, respectively. The learners in all three
groups had been in instructed EFL settings in
association tasks like this are standard in psychol-
Germany, the Czech Republic, or Spain for at least
ogy for determining which items are most closely
FIGURE 1
Instructions Given to Participants at the Beginning of the Online Survey
We are studying how people use English verbs. We are going to show you a phrase with a v
missing and ask you to fill in the gap with the first word that comes to your mind.
For example, for the phrase:
he
you might respond
he gave her the . . . or he sends her t
And for the phrase:
it
you might respond
it rolls down the ... or it fell down the . . .
On each page you will be presented with a phrase like one of these with a line indicating a
missing word. In the text box, type the first word that you think of and press the [ENTER] key

159.20.64.68 on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:41:02 UTC
TABLE 1
Selected Verb-Argument Constructions (VACs) and Prompts Used in Experiments
Selected VACs Survey Prompts

V about n he
V across n she
V after n he
V against n she
V among n she
V around n he
Vflsn she
Vat n2 he
V between n he
V for n she
V in n he
V into n she
V like n he
V of n he
V offri she
V over n she
V through n he
V towards n she
V under n he
V with n she
7 years. learner responses with The lists based on English m

English native speaker responses:
instruc LI German vs. English,
11.37 LI Czech vs. English, and LI Spanish
for Czech vs. English.
According We used a simple regression general linearto model t
levels of the German and Czech learners corre- (GLM) framework to build models for each of
sponded to level CI in the Common European these language pairings for each of the 19 VACs.
Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), We used R (R Development Core Team, 2012) to
perform statistical analyses of the data. Verb
described as the "Effective Operational Proficien-
frequency in the English sample was taken as a
cy" level (Council of Europe, 2001). Our Spanish
contacts reported that the majority of studentsproxy for native speaker VAC knowledge (i.e., this
who participated in the survey were advanced is what a native speaker says confronted with the
learners at CEFR level CI while some of them VAC(anframe) and was used as the single predictor
of verb
estimated 10%) were at level B2 ("Vantage" level) . frequency in the LI German, Czech, and
Our contacts confirmed that they did not share Spanish samples. Frequencies were log trans-
the survey link with learners at lower levels formed
of due to the Zipfian nature of the distribu-
proficiency. tion (i.e., a long-tailed distribution, see Tables 3 to
The following numbers of participants volun- 5) to bring them into linear space for the
teered to complete the VAC survey: 285 native comparison of the two LI distributions. Nonoc-
English speakers, 276 LI German learners of currence (i.e., zero frequency) of a verb in one LI
English, 185 LI Czech learners of English, and background sample that occurs in the other (e.g.,
131 LI Spanish learners of English. To ensure none of the 131 native speakers used argue in the
comparability across dataseis, we based our 'V against n' frame but 5 of the German LI
analyses on only 131 responses from each of the speakers did) becomes an issue because the
four participant groups, including all of the LI logarithm of zero is not defined. It is, however,
Spanish responses and 131 randomly selected important to include instances such as argue and
responses each from the native speaker, LI sit (5 occurrences in native speaker responses
German, and LI Czech groups. For each group, and none in LI German) in the 'V against n'
the lists of responses were lemmatized by verb type comparison of LI German responses to native
(e.g., runs , ran , was running etc. - ► run) and speaker responses as they contribute to the overall
ordered by verb token frequencies.3 We then shape of the distribution which we take as a proxy
carried out comparisons of lists based on the for speaker knowledge of the VAC. Therefore,

159.20.64.68 on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:41:02 UTC
RESULTS: COMPARING
when computing the correlations andNATIVE AND
plotting
these items, we use the log value -0.1. We NONNATIVE SPEAKER VAC KNOWLEDGE
examined the correspondence between the verb

Our discussion of results from the verb list
frequency distributions of paired languages using
comparisons begins with an overview of correla-
a simple regression framework where verb fre-
quency in learner responses (i.e., LI German, tions between the native speaker and learner
responses for the VACs listed in Table 1. For each
Czech, or Spanish) within a specific VAC is taken
as the dependent variable and frequency in native
VAC and each comparison (LI German vs.
speaker responses as the independent (predictor)
English, LI Czech vs. English, LI Spanish vs.
variable.4 We used the standardized residuals; that English) , we also report which verbs have particu-
is, the amount of divergence between the larly high (positive and negative) standardized
residuals and are unusually frequent or infrequent
predicted and actual values. While residuals are
commonly used in regression analysis as a way of
in the learner responses compared to the native
speaker responses. This overview of results for all
identifying outliers in the data that may be overly
influencing the model or leading to a poor fit, we
VACs is followed by a detailed analysis of three
use them here on an item-based level as an VACs that have been selected to provide us with a
indicator of the over- or underuse of a verb more in-depth
by a picture of potential LI transfer
effects and effects of language typology on the
nonnative speaker compared to the native norm.
learners' survey responses. The selected VACs are
The basic insight behind this method is that a
statistical model can be built based on empirical 'V against n,' 'V in n,' and 'V over n.'
data gathered from native speakers and be
thought of as a model of "what would Overview
a native of VACs
speaker do?" This model can then be used to
predict the responses for nonnative speakers. Table The
2 shows the overall correlations between
predicted and the actual values can be compared
learner and native speaker responses to the survey
both across the whole distribution (i.e., prompts
correla- listed in Table 1. Figure 2 provides a
tion) and on an item-based level (i.e., residuals) to
visual representation of these correlations, with
look at under- and overuse of specific itemsdataand
points
to represented by prepositions. The
identify potential areas of LI interference andrange of values is 0 to 1. The closer the
possible
influence. value is to 1, the stronger the correlation between
TABLE 2
Correlations Between Learner and Native Speaker Responses (n= 131 per Group)
VAC LI German LI Czech LI Spanish

V about n 0.81 0.78 0.75
V across n 0.84 0.73 0.78
V after ri 0.77 0.69 0.62
V against n 0.62 0.54 0.55
V among n 0.63 0.30 0.47
V around n 0.82 0.76 0.75
Vain 0.62 0.40 0.40
V between n 0.63 0.68 0.57
V/orn 0.72 0.78 0.72
V in n 0.79 0.69 0.35
V into n 0.86 0.89 0.70
V like n 0.72 0.68 0.70
V of n 0.76 0.73 0.71
V off n 0.83 0.69 0.56
V over n 0.72 0.76 0.48
V through n 0.81 0.67 0.62
V towards n 0.90 0.80 0.81
V under n 0.71 0.75 0.70
V with n 0.73 0.60 0.58
Average: 0.75 Average: 0.68 Average: 0.62

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FIGURE 2
Visual Representation of Correlations Between Learner and Native Speaker Responses
the responses. Correlation figures expressgroups

how (i.e., a correlation of 1), all verb labels
would
much the sets of verbs produced by a group ofbe neatly placed along the diagonal
learners (both in terms of types and tokens)
through the middle of the graph. This is not
overlap with the sets of verbs produced by the the
case in any of our three comparisons. Instead,
group of native speakers in response to the verbs
same are scattered to the left and right of the
VAC prompt. Figure 3 provides three graphs diagonal
that in all three graphs. Verbs that appear to
the left of (or above) the diagonal are markedly
illustrate this comparison of the verb responses
given by German/Czech/Spanish learnersmore and frequent in the learner than the native
speaker
native speakers for one of the selected VACs: 'V in responses; verbs that appear to the right
of (orof
n.' The x-axis shows the logarithmic frequency below) the diagonal are markedly less
frequent
the verb type in the native speakers' responses; the in the learner than the native speaker
responses.
y-axis shows the logarithmic frequency of the verb In the right hand scatterplot panel in
type in the L2 learners' responses. If thereFigure
were3 (LI Spanish vs. native speakers), most
perfect overlap in verb responses between verbs
two are much farther away from the diagonal

159.20.64.68 on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:41:02 UTC
FIGURE 3
Correlations of Verb Responses Between Three Groups of Learner Responses (LI German, left
LI Czech, middle panel; LI Spanish, right panel) and Native Speaker Responses (LI English) fo
Czech)
than in the middle (LI Czech) and left panels (LIto 0.9 ('V towards n,' LI German). As
German). LI Spanish learners respond withFigure
verbs 2 indicates, LI German vs. English
to this VAC that are quite different fromcorrelations
those are much more homogeneous across
produced by native speakers. For example,VACs (0.62 to 0.9) than LI Spanish vs. English and
these
(even more so) LI Czech vs. English correlations
learners produce be, live, and stay comparatively
(0.35 to 0.81 and 0.3 to 0.89 respectively).5 For
more often and go, look, and sit comparatively
LI German,
less often than native speakers. This lack of we also observe a higher average
correlation of 0.75 than for LI Czech (0.68) and
overlap is reflected in the rather low correlation
figure of 0.35 (compared to values of 0.69LI and
Spanish (0.62). None of the LI German vs.
0.79 for Czech and German). English correlations falls below 0.6, whereas three
Across the 57 datasets captured in Tableof2 the
andLI Czech correlations (for 'V against n,' 'V
Figure 2 (19 VACs times three learner groups),
amongn ,' and 'V ¿zsn') and eight of the LI Spanish
correlations range from 0.3 ('V amongcorrelations
n,' LI do (for 'V againstn ,' 'V amongn ,' 'V as

159.20.64.68 on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:41:02 UTC
n,' 'V Appendix

between An,'
indicates
'V a number
in
with n'). preferences
This thatmeans
are shared acros
learner learner groups. Verbs that are m
responses produ
learner cantly more frequently by learners
responses le
speaker responses,
than by native speakers are: come fo
sponses falling some
and 'V towards n'; look for 'V after n,'
groups (see our
'V into n'; be for ear
'V against n' and 'V am
status as for
a 'V around
less n'; stay, clear
be, and live for
framed stay for
language). 'V with n.' All of these It
ver
respect to
frequenciesa large
in general English langun
learners' appear to be highly entrenched in t
form-mean
with minds. Appendix
native spèaker A also indicatesp
Czech number of verbs with high
learners, conf positive
which residuals are not shared by
predicted learners of
that
would backgrounds. To from
differ give a few example
diverse overused by German
ways. This learners
isin resp
p
'V against'V ri,'
about n' frame
'V but amon
not by Czech
in n,' 'V learners who favor
offri ,' speak instead.
'V over For
have below German learners
average show strong associ
c
column come and
in stand, Czech learners
Table 2). with
tions for LI German and LI Czech tend to be stand, and Spanish learners with ap
For 'V through n,' the verbs with t
higher, often considerably so (with the exception
of 'V among n' and 'V as n' in the LI Czech positive residuals are walk and climb
learners, get and see for Czech learn
dataset). We will investigate a selection of these
VACs and related learner verb preferences
and inpass for Spanish learners.
more detail in the following sections. This
The verb go is a particularly interest
confirms our Hypothesis 2, predicting appears
that in the LI Spanish positive st
Spanish learners find it harder than German
residuals lists for 7 out of 19 VACs. R
a VAC frame with a form of this verb
and Czech learners to produce verbs that corre-
a productive strategy for the Spa
late closely with those produced by native English
speakers. participants. Other general motion
Our analysis of standardized residuals aimed are overused by LI Spanish learners a
at highlighting verbs that are either particularly move. The Spanish learners in our st
common in the learner responses (high positive favor these general verbs (especia
standardized residuals) or particularly rare in more specific manner of motion verbs
or absent from the learner responses (high in the negative standardized residual
negative standardized residuals), always in jump, run, crawl, slip). The German
comparison with the native speaker responses learners also overuse general motion
to the same VAC frames. We consider residuals individual VACs but not as often as
learners. The verb go appears in
that fall outside of +2 or -2 standard deviations
unusual and include the corresponding verbs German and four of the Czech positi
and absolute response token frequencies in ized residuals lists. This is evidence i
the table in Appendix A. To facilitate data our Hypotheses 3 and 4, predicting t
interpretation, we use gray shading for verbs learners will indicate manner of motion less often
with negative standardized residuals below -2. than native English speakers and German and
We are interested in verb selection patterns Czech learners will. Our finding is in line with
that emerge across VACs and across Lis. In lineCadierno's (2010) observation that beginning to
with Hypotheses 3 and 4, we expect that, in intermediate LI Spanish learners of Danish (like
their verb responses to VAC frames that serve English, a satellite-framed language) did not
to express directed motion events, Spanish produce specific manner of motion verbs in a
learners of English will indicate manner of production task but instead overgeneralized and
motion less often than native English speakers used Gá (go, walk) in all walking-related contexts
and German and Czech learners do. Instead, whereas Russian and German learners of Danish
employed more manner of motion verbs. Another
we expect Spanish learners to overuse general
motion verbs that do not express a specificinteresting pattern is the occurrence of be in the
manner. positive residuals lists for a number of VACs. This

159.20.64.68 on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:41:02 UTC
applies to all three learner

relygroups,
less on specific,although
lower frequencytoverbsaand
more on general,
much larger extent to Spanish than high-frequency
German verbs
and (see also
Czech learners, be is amongRömer et al., 2015). significantly
the We will comment more on
overused verbs in Spanishparticular
learner differences
responses
between learner
toand 12native
VACs including 'V around n,'VAC
speaker 'Vresponses
between n,' 'V
in the following sections.
towards n,' and 'V under n' (compared to only six
VACs in the German and five VACs in the Czech
Zooming in on V Against AT
datasets). This provides additional support for
'V against n' is a VAC with particularly low
our Hypothesis 2. Spanish learners find it more
correlation values. Correlations are below average
difficult to retrieve specific target-like lexical verbs
when confronted with bare VAC frames of the for all three Lis (0.62 for German, 0.54 for Czech,
's/ he and 0.55 for Spanish). We therefore expect to
Czech learners do. Instead, findthey
considerable variation
often in verb
opt choices
for
forms of the semanticallybetween bleached native speaker
verb be. and learner respon
Even more evidence in support (in terms of ofverb(especially
types, verb token numbers,
Spanish) learners' avoidance both).ofTable 3 shows lemmatized
specific motion lists of the 2
verbs in the free association task can be found most frequent verbs produced by the four gro
in the negative standardized residuals included of survey participants in response to the prom
in Appendix A (shaded gray). While there is 'she
considerable variation across LI groups the

(and . . . .' The nativ
across VACs) with respect to underused verbs, hand a column (shad
common feature of many of the verbs withpoint high for compari
and
negative standardized residuals is that they are less Spanish learne
frequent in general English language use than cized in a learner
most of the overused verbs discussed in the native speaker list.
previous paragraphs. Examples include revolve Of the 20 verbs
and circle ('V around n'), slip and fall ('V between
German survey pa
n'), reach ('V /orn'), bump ('V intorì)y swim the
('V like native speaker
n'), hop 'V over n'), and crawl ('V under n'). considerable overl
Compared to the native English speakers, the and rank position
advanced learners who participated in our studydifferent. The verbs be, fight, and hit, for
TABLE 3
'V Against n,' Top 20 Verbs in Native Speaker and Learner Responses
Rank Native Speakers German Learners Czech Learners Spanish Learners

1 LEAN 23 BE 29 FIGHT 27 FIGHT 40
2 PUSH 13 IJ-AS 14 BF. 25 BE 31
3 BE 13 FIGHT 12 SPEAK 12 STAND 5
4 FALL 12 Rl 'S 12 HAS 11 PI AY 5
5 RUN 10 HIT 8 STAND 9 GO 5
6 GO 10 FA EL 7 VOTE 6 ¡JAS 4
7 FIGHT 6 ARGUE 5 PUSH 5 AR(¿l'E 3
8 RAG 5 VOTE 5 RI 'S 5 FA El. 3
9 SIT 4 REBEL 4 GO 5 SPEAK 2
10 PROTEST 3 GO 3 PROTEST 4 Pl'SH 2
11 WORK 3 WALK 3 ARGUE 3 REACT 2
12 HIT 3 DEMONSTRATE 3 RISE 2 Rl S 2
13 RISE 2 KIGK 2 COME 2 CRASH 2
14 RAIL 2 CRASH 2 MOVE 2 STAY 2
15 REST 2 PROTEST 1 OBJECT 1 SA'T. 1
16 CROUCH 1 RISE 1 TURN 1 CHANGE 1
17 STRUGGLE 1 WORK 1 SAY 1 CAN 1
18 RAM 1 SPEAK 1 ROLL 1 CI AIM 1
19 BUMP 1 SHOUT 1 DECIDE 1 DISCUSS 1
20 FLY 1 STUMBLE 1 HIT 1 PIACE 1
Note. Italicized verbs indicate overla

159.20.64.68 on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:41:02 UTC
instance, constitutesare more

additional evidence in support of our
learner Hypothesis 5.
than the nati
as native speakers mo
lean, fall, and
Zooming in on Yin N' go in r
The two lists sugges
German learners have different semantic associ- The correlation values for 'V in n' vary
ations with this VAC. Native speakers associateconsiderably across learner groups. Correlations
verbs that express (forced) physical contact areor
high for German (0.79) , slightly above average
collision with 'V against n,' especially the top-
for Czech (0.69) , and extremely low for Spanish
ranked lean (23 instances) and push (13 instances;
(0.35). We hence expect strong overlap in terms
of verb preferences between native speaker and
not in the German list) , but also the less frequent
German
sit, rest, ram, bump, and fly that do not appear in and Czech learner responses. We expect
the learner list. German learners show weaker the verb choices of Spanish learners to be rather
associations with these verbs and instead produce
different from those of native speakers and from
verbs that express a (mostly verbal) reaction those
or of their German and Czech peers. Table 4
argument, including fight, argue, vote, rebel, shows lemmatized lists of the 20 most frequent
verbs produced by the four groups of survey
demonstrate, speak, and shout. A possible expla-
nation for this semantic preference is crosslin-
participants in response to the prompts 'he
guistic transfer from German where the verbs in the . . .' and 'it
speaker
KŘMPFEN ('FIGHT'), PROTESTIEREN ('PROTEST*) , VOTIE- responses in the
REN ('vote'), and stimmen ('vote') are among the(shaded gray) serve as a
most significant left-hand collocates of gegen? comparisons
the with the G
Spanish learner responses
translation equivalent of against. Verbs that
in a learner list if they als
express the meaning of push ('drücken') or fall
('fallen') tend to be used without or with a speaker list.
different preposition (drücken auf, put pressure on ; Indeed, for this VAC, we observe much more
fallen in/ auf/ von, fall in/ on/ off). Learners' verb overlap between native speaker and German (13
responses appear to be influenced by collocation- verbs) and native speaker and Czech (14 verbs)
al preferences in their LI, providing evidence in top-20 lists than between native speaker and
support of our Hypothesis 5. Spanish lists (7 verbs), further confirming Hy-
pothesis 1. This higher degree of overlap for
Czech learners show similar patterns of overlap
and semantic preference as German learners. German and Czech than for Spanish responses
They share 9 verbs (out of 20) with the native also became apparent in the graphs provided in
speakers and have a strong preference for verbs Figure 3. The shared verbs do, however, occupy
that express a (verbal) reaction against some- different ranks across lists and/or have quite
thing, including fight (rank 1), speak (rank 3), different token frequencies. Although shared
vote (rank 6), protest (rank 10), and argue (rank among the top 20, verbs that express static
11). Proti , the Czech translation equivalent of meanings (including be, live, stay, and stand)
against , strongly collocates with verbs that express are more often produced by German and Czech
negative attitudes and evokes a sense of "reacting learners than by native speakers. Several of the
against" an opponent or enemy. Compared to the motion verbs produced by native speakers (go,
group of native speakers, fewer learners in the walk, come) have the same or similar frequencies
Czech group associate verbs such as lean, push, or in the German and (though to a lesser extent)
sit with this VAC frame. These verbs are also Czech lists. Other motion verbs produced by
infrequent in the LI Spanish verb list. Between
native speakers (slide, blow, draw, jump, swim) are
absentof
zero and four Spanish learners produce verbs from or less common in the German and
physical contact or collision when they are learner responses. Again we observe that
Czech
presented with a 'V against n' frame. Thelearners
two produce verbs that have high frequencies
top responses from this group are forms in ofusage
the and have stronger associations with verbs
that71are common in general language use.
verbs fight and be which together account for
The
or 54.2% of all participant responses. Again, LISpanish learner responses are very differ-
ent from both the native speaker and the
transfer may explain the strong association
German/
between fight and against. In a large corpus of Czech learner responses, providing
further evidence in support of our Hypothesis
Spanish, the Corpus del Español,7 luchar (fight)
2. The scatterplot in Figure 3 already provided an
was found to be by far the most frequent collocate
immediately to the left of contra (against). This
illustration of this lack of overlap between Spanish

159.20.64.68 on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:41:02 UTC
TABLE 4
'V m n,' Top 20 Verbs in Native Speaker and Learner Responses

1 be 19 BE 27 be 33 BE 53
2 SIT 15 SIT 11 EIVE 10 EIXE 9
3 JUMP 10 IJ'E 8 STANI) 7 STAY 8
4 WALK 8 GO 8 SIT 7 PI AY 4
5 GO 7 WAEK 8 WAIT 6 SI IEP 3
6 LOOK 6 HIDE 5 WORK 5 HIDE 3
7 FALL 6 STAND 5 COME 5 COME 3
8 come 4 EOOK 4 simp 4 stand 3
9 LIVE 4 SIMP 3 STAY 4 PUT 3
10 SING 3 COME 3 PARTICIPATE 3 WORK 2
1 1 RUN 3 EAEE 3 E Al. E 3 TRAVEL 2
12 STAND 3 STAY 3 EIE 3 ENTER 2
13 SWIM 3 WORK 2 EOOK 3 ARRIVE 2
14 HIDE 3 PARTICIPATE 2 GO 3 GET 2
15 SLEEP 3 STUDY 2 M/A 3 FILI. 2
16 SUDE 2 WAIT 2 ////JA 2 REMAIN 2
1 7 DRAW 2 BITE 2 SWIM 2 2
18 LIE 2 SEARCH 2 PIT 2 EAT 2
19 READ 2 M 'Y 2 /rwp 2 INVOLVE 1
20 BLOW 2 JUMP 2 REI AX 1 STUDY 1
Note. Italicized verbs indicate overlap between
learner and native section.

speaker Apparently, Spanish learners
verb find it
responses
40% of Spanish survey
harder to produce
participants
target-like verbs than their
(53 of
respond to the 'V inCzech
n' and German peers, again
prompt with providing
forms o
most frequent, semantically
supportive evidence for Hypothesis
bleached 2. As in the verb
They share their preference for
case of 'V inn,1 this is likely live
related and
to LI -specific stay
the German and Czech groups
differences with but
respect to expressing pathlargely
and
motion verbs, walk, manner
fall, of motion.
and Table 5jump
shows lemmatized
are lists absent
of the 20
the Spanish list while most frequent
come and verbsgoproduced
are by the
rare
strong differencesfourbetween native
groups of survey participants speake
in response to
Spanish learner responses likely are a result the prompts 'he
typological differences
the . between . . .' The English native
Spanish that we discussed
hand column earlier. 'V(shad in n'
of many VACs in our point
set in which for comparis a path of m
is expressed by a satellite
and Spanish (here the learne
prepo
in). The verb-framed cized language in a Spanish learner tenl
encode this path in native
the verb and thelist.
speaker man
motion in an adjunct, The
so walk higher
¿wis realized correl as
caminando ( enter German
walking. Hence, and Czech it is
surprising that ourfairly
Spanish learners
high number do n
very rarely) produce these
verbs two such as groupswalk, go a
or jump in responselists
to the (11'V in for n' each
prompt g
and look are among
all three lists. Like
German learners associate over with verbs of
Zooming in on 'V Over n '
directed motion. Compared to native speakers,
For 'V over n' we see a split in terms of Czech learners show a preference for fall and run
correlation values between German (0.72) and (16 and 12 compared to 9 responses); German
Czech learners (0.76) on the one hand and learners more often respond with go, be, and
Spanish learners (0.48) on the other - similar tocome. This learner group also produces motion
verbs (walk, swim) that do not occur in the native
the 'V in n' construction discussed in the previous

159.20.64.68 on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:41:02 UTC
TABLE 5
'V Overn Top 20 Verbs in Native Speaker and Learner Responses

1 jump 29 jump 22 jimp 23 (.ft 13
2 FALL 10 FALL 13 FALL 17 CO MF 13
3 RUN 9 GO 1 3 Rl ' Y 1 2 BE 1 3
4 GO 9 RF 10 GO 7 TAKE 1 2
5 CLIMB 7 WALK 10 i.OOK 6 GO 12
6 BE 6 CO MF 9 COMF 5 LOOK 10
7 FLY 5 LOOK 9 RF 5 RI' X 5
8 LOOK 5 RI 'X 7 Cl. I MR 5 FLY 4
9 HOP 4 BEND 4 WALK 4 CROSS 4
10 ROLL 4 ROLL 3 (.ET 3 FALL 4
11 DRIVE S FLY 2 ROI.I. 3 TURN 3
12 COME 3 SWIM 2 BEND 3 BEND 3
13 READ 3 LIE 2 CROSS 3 WALK 3
14 LEAP 3 SIT 2 SI AAA* 2 I.EAN 3
15 STEP 2 SIAA.P 1 (ALL 2 JUMP 2
16 CROSS 2 SHIN 1 SAIL 2 WORK 1
17 SLEEP 1 LEANT 1 TL RN 2 TRWTL 1
18 CYCLE 1 JULPED 1 TAKE 2 OVER 1
19 AIR 1 LIVE 1 TRIP 2 MIND 1
20 PUSH 1 WRITE 1 THINK 2 DANCE 1
Note. Italicized verbs indicate overlap be

18 in the LI German list) presumably r
speaker response this is the most

list, andfrequent verb in which
for the native
tion across may speaker, be German,
a better, more
and Czech learner lists (with 29, i
(swim across instead 22, and swim
23 instances, respectively).
aver) . As The
mentionedre
may be LI transfer. earlier, jump over is not realizedlearners
German by a verb plus
difficult to distinguish preposition in Spanishbetween
(but it is in German and ave
because both share can be in the same
Czech) .8 Instead, Spanish transla
uses the verb
lent: über. Neither saltar, which encodes the path
learner of motion. This
group inc
the more specific may motion
be why jump is so infrequent
verbs in theinSpanish
th
that native speakers learner responses. The same applieswith
associate to climb overth
hop, drive, leap,which step,can be translated
push, as saltar or
(escalando) or
cycle
verbs that are trepar. stronglyThis further supports associated
our Hypotheses 2
construction in language and 4 and confirms ouruse assumptionbut that theof
low l
frequency and less correlation of Spanish learner and native
accessible tospeaker
Ger
learners. responses to the 'V over n' frame may be due to
This is also true for the Spanish learners who issues of language typology that are related to
participated in the survey. None of the more different strategies of expressing motion.
specific motion verbs (hop, drive, etc., plus climb)
appear in their list of top 20 verb responses. The CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK
verb at the top of the Spanish frequency list is get,
which does not appear at all in the native speaker This article set out to examine L2 languag
or German responses and is infrequent in the learners' knowledge of verb-argument constru
tions (VACs) . In psycholinguistic experiments, w
Czech responses. This verb is followed by come, be,
and take - all of which are much less common in gathered evidence on LI German, LI Czech, an
the native speaker list (take does not occur at LI
all) Spanish
. advanced English learners' ment
It appears that Spanish learners associate with representations
over of 19 different VACs. A compa
constructions not primarily the expressionson of aof data from these experiments with dat
directed motion but instead think of metaphori- collected from native English speakers perform
ing the same task allowed us to determine ho
cal uses such as get over and take over. Particularly
striking in this context is the fact that only similar
2 or different learners' verb-VAC associa-
Spanish participants responded with jump whereas tions are from those of native speakers. The

159.20.64.68 on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:41:02 UTC
experiments enabled us survey
to highlight verbs
responses and avoided (or manner of
specific
groups of verbs) that are more
motion verbs.entrenched
Spanish learners alsoinproduced the
highest numbers
native speakers' than in learners' mentalof non-target-like
repre- verbs in
sentations of particular VACs,
responseand vice
to VACs thatversa.
encode a path of motion
With respect to our Research Question
in the preposition 1,over
(e.g., 'V we n' and 'V against
found that, while there is n')some
. Based on these observations,
overlap between we believe that a
learners' and native speakers' msyor mental representa-
factor that influences the level of target-like
tions of VACs (also see our discussion in Ellis form-meaning mapping of common English
et al., 2014b), there are also differences in the VACs is language typology or, more precisely,
associations of verbs and constructions. We the type of motion event conceptualization across
observed that all three learner groups languages. rely more Fewer manner of motion verbs are
on general, highly frequent verbs (e.g.,produced be, come, by Spanish learners who in turn
do) and produce lower numbers of specific, strugglelessmore with VACs that encode a path,
frequent verbs (e.g., slip, reach, crawl) than
because Spanish is a verb-framed language in
native speakers do. We also observed that,
whichfor
manner of motion verbs are less readily
certain VACs, learners' semantic associations withand in which the path of motion tends to
available
a VAC are different from native speakers. For in the verb. Given that patterns of
be encoded
example, learners associate verbs that expressing express a motion are language type specific, the
reaction or argument (including fight, challenge argue, and for the language learner is to acquire
speak) with 'V against n' while native the speakers
respective patterns for each new language. As
associate verbs of physical contact or collision our results (e.
indicate, this becomes harder when
g., lean, push, and bump) with this VAC.the new/ second language is typologically differ-
In response to Research Question 2, we found
ent from the learner's first language. Echoing
that, in their verb-VAC associations, our three observations previously made on learned atten-
groups of learners are not equally different from tion and SLA (Ellis & Sagarra, 2011), we can say
the native speaker group but that LI German and that a learner's LI and the LI -tuned expectations
LI Czech learners are closer to the native speaker that come with it bias her/his system and,
group than LI Spanish learners. In an overview depending on how typologically similar or differ-
chapter of studies that provide empirical evidenceent the LI and L2 are, make her/him more or less
for language typology effects on linguistic pro- open to internalizing structures in the L2. Further
duction, Cadierno (2008) asks "how do L2 addressing the crosslinguistic transfer issue (Hy-
learners with typologically different Lis and pothesis
L2s 5), we also found evidence of verb-
acquire the characteristic meaning-form map- preposition combinations in the learner survey
pings of the L2? And how does the performance data that are likely the result of collocational
of this type of learner compare to learners whose transfer from the Lis of the learners. An example
LI and L2 share the same typological patterns?" was German learners' association of fight, pro-
(p. 258) . We have addressed these questions with test, and vote with the 'V against n' constructions
reference to learners' knowledge of English verb- - all verbs that strongly collocate with the
argument constructions. We found that, for most translation equivalent of against {gegen) in Ger-
of the 19 VACs we examined, the mappings of man.
LI Similar effects were observable in the Czech
German and LI Czech learners (i.e., speakers and of Spanish learner survey results. Searches in
languages that share the same typological pattern corpora of the learners' Lis helped us confirm
as English) are more target-like than those ofour LI assumptions.
Spanish learners (i.e., speakers of a language that We also considered language proficiency as a
is typologically different from English). While potential
all factor that may have influenced our
three groups of learners have developed construc- results. Given that the majority of learners who
tional knowledge, the overlap with native speaker participated in our study were at the same
verb-VAC associations is generally greater for advanced level of proficiency (CEFR level CI),
German and Czech than for Spanish learners. we can disregard this as an influential factor. The
This brings us back to Research Questionsmall 3, number of level B2 learners among the LI
which asked whether differences across L2 Spanish group (around 10 of the 131 partic-
learner groups could be explained on theipants)
basis is unlikely to have had a major effect on
of LI transfer and/or language typology the overall results. The Spanish learners who
effects.
We think the answer to this questionparticipated
is yes. in our study also reported longer
Spanish learners, more than German and Czech
times of having had English instruction at school
learners, favored general motion verbs in
thantheir
German and Czech learners (an average of

159.20.64.68 on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:41:02 UTC
12.68 years, restructuring of form-meaning associations takes

compared
and 11.37 time, for and it needs aCzech).
lot of exposure to natural
We have been able to confirm all of the research language use - ideally in the form of "extensive
hypotheses formulated earlier: The mental VACinteraction in a variety of contexts with members
representations of German, Czech, and Spanishof the target language community" (Jarvis &
advanced learners of English differ in diverse waysPavlenko, 2008, p. 152). We find some of the
from those of native speakers, indicating that recent research in applying Cognitive Linguistics
learners are biased by their Lis. In generative freeto teaching English modais and prepositions
association tasks, learners whose LI is satellite- particularly promising and inspiring (see e.g.,
framed (and hence typologically similar to En- Tyler, 2012; Tyler, Mueller, 8c Ho, 2011) and
glish) produce more verbs that correlate more believe that the teaching of VACs could benefit
closely with those produced by LI English speakers from a similar approach.
than speakers whose LI is verb-framed. Speakers of In our SLA research agenda, we need to include
a satellite-framed language produce more verbs related work on an even larger set of construc-
that express specific manners of motion in the tions, including speakers of additional LI back-
verb generation tasks. Conversely, speakers of a grounds, and collecting larger and richer data
verb-framed language produce specific manner of sets. We have begun to gather responses to
motion verbs less frequently and instead respond additional VAC frames from native speakers and
with more general motion verbs such as go, come, German and Spanish learners. From the same
or move. Lastly, the verb responses of all learner groups of learners, we have also begun to collect
groups show effects of collocational transfer from richer data in verbal production tasks that ask
the learners' first languages. participants to generate as many verbs as they can
Our findings have implications for language think of in one minute (following the methodol-
teaching and for research in SLA. Second ogy suggested in Ellis et al., 2014a; see also
language instruction needs to acknowledge the Cadierno, 2010). It would also be interesting to
pervasiveness of constructions more than it collect data from learners at additional proficien-
currently does. With few exceptions, current cy levels. A concern here, however, would be that
EFL and ESL textbooks are still largely based on the type of task we used in our study may be too
models of language that suggest a strict separation difficult for beginning or intermediate learners
of lexis and grammar and fail to reflect the (LI Spanish learners at CEFR level B1 who were
interconnectedness of the two (see e.g., Meunier given the survey as a test struggled with the gap-fill
8c Gouverneur, 2007; Römer, 2005, 2007). We task and gave up after looking at the first few
suggest that materials focus more on typical prompts). Additional evidence on learner VAC
associations of lexical items and constructions knowledge could come from analyses of learner
and emphasize patterns in form-meaning rela- corpora which capture the output of learners of
different Lis and at different proficiency levels.
tions. Constructions that are semantically related
(e.g., VACs expressing directed motion) could Webe are currently mining subsets of written and
grouped and taught together. That way, as
spoken corpora of advanced learner English, the
Littlemore (2011) points out, it may be possible International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE;
for learners to "use their existing knowledge Granger
of et al., 2009) and the Louvain Interna-
constructions to infer the meanings of onestional that Database of Spoken English Interlanguage
are new to them" (p. 171). At the same time, (LINDSEI;
it Gilquin, De Cock, 8c Granger, 2010)
needs to be highlighted which meanings are for most VACs. Initial results of these learner corpus
typically construed by which constructionanalyses and are discussed in Römer, Roberseon,
what the most common lexical items are in each O'Donnell, 8c Ellis (2014). One thing that our
construction. It may also be necessary to make initial ICLE and LINDSEI explorations highlight
learners aware of differences between VACs in is that LI -specific subsets of these two learner
their LI and the L2. Learners of Lis that are corpora provide robust token numbers for
typologically different from English (such some
as VACs (e.g., 'V in n' and 'V about n') but
Spanish, covered in our study) may need are too small to give us enough tokens of the
addi-
tional help with specific constructions for majority
which of VACs in our sample to identify
semantic patterns or even lead verbs. This calls
their form-meaning mappings are less target-like.
Our findings could help raise instructors'for larger corpora of learner production that are
and
materials writers' awareness of learners' most carefully differentiated and marked up with
entrenched verb-VAC associations and how learner
they metadata (like ICLE and LINDSEI are).
Longitudinal learner corpora that consist of
differ from those of native speakers. Learners'

159.ff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC
3 Lemmatization was carried
learner data at different proficiency out using the
levels and morphy
function language
allow us to capture learners' in the WordNet dictionary implemented in the
develop-
Natural Language
ment would also be extremely Toolkit (NLTK).
valuable in Thethis
function uses a
series of suffix rules based on part-of-speech category (e.
context. As convincingly pointed out by Byrnes
g., V = verb, N = noun) and an exception (i.e., irregular
(2009) in a study of the emergent writing ability of
forms) lookup list (see http://wordnet.princeton.edu/
L2 German learners, the adoption of a "develop-
man/ morphy. 7WN.html for details, last accessed 12
mental view has the potential of
April 2014) and capturing
attempts the
to find the base form (lemma)
dynamic nature of language use, language in WordNet that matches the supplied form. If a match
development, and the language system" (p. 64) . cannot be made the supplied form is returned. For
In this article, we have taken a snapshot of part example: running (V) > run ; running (N) > running, ran
of the linguistic knowledge of three groups of (V) > run ; ran (N) > ran. This matching strategy does
advanced English language learners. Our study not use frequency or probabilistic data to select base
has provided evidence for representations of a set forms from WordNet, yielding some unexpected results.
For instance, there is a verb lemma fell ('cause to fall by
of verb-argument constructions in the minds of
or as if by delivering a blow,' e.g., 'the woodcutter felled
these learners. It has highlighted which verbs
the tree'), which leads to these results: fell (V) > fell, felled
learners most strongly associate with these con-
(V) > fell, falls (V) > fall, falling (V) > fall. In the verb
structions and how their associations differ from
completion experiment fellv/as provided in response to
those of native speakers. We believe that athis
number of frames such as 's/he/it
snapshot has helped us gain a better understand-

and with among ; against, between , for,
ing of what speakers know about verbs intowards. Forms of fall {fall, falls
constructions and of the role that language
provided with these frames. As a
with two items in the initial frequen
typology and language transfer play in this context.
instances of fall and fell and lay and
and also searched for other similar items in our lists that
may have homonyms in WordNet.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 4 See Gries and Deshors (2014) and Gries and
Adelman (2014) for examples of using regression to
examine the relationships between NS and NNS usage
We would like to thank contacts at the following
of linguistic features. These articles argue for a more
universities who helped with survey participant recruit-
involved use of regression analysis and use multivariate
ment by distributing the survey link: University of
and multilevel approaches.
Cologne (Germany), University of Giessen (Germany),
The average numbers of verb types produced per
University of Hanover (Germany), University of Heidel-
VAC were 40.6 for LI German, 34.0 for LI Czech, and
berg (Germany), University of Oldenburg (Germany),
37.4 for LI Spanish learners. Native speaker participants
University of Trier (Germany), Masaryk University
produced an average of 45.1 different verbs per VAC.
(Czech Republic), Charles University (Czech Republic),
6 Source: DWDS ( Das digitale Wörterbuch der deutschen
University of Extremadura (Spain), University of
Sprache ), a corpus-based dictionary of German. URL of
Granada (Spain), University of Jaen (Spain), University
the search: http://www.dwds.de/?qu=gegen, last ac-
Jaume I of Castellon (Spain), University of Salamanca
cessed 12 April 2014. Selected collocate statistic: Mutual
(Spain) , and University of Zaragoza (Spain). We are also
Information (MI).
grateful to Markéta Malá for her native speaker advice
7 http://www.corpusdelespanol.org/, last accessed
on Czech translation equivalents of "jump over," to Petr
12 April 2014.
Sudičky for his help with interpreting some of the LI
As mentioned in the section on language typology,
Czech learner responses, and to Paco Barrón Serrano
translation equivalents of jump over in Czech include
for his help with interpreting some of the LI Spanish
skočit přes ('jump over'), přeskočit přes ('overjump over'),
learner responses.
and přeskočit ('oveijump').
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Second Language Learner Knowledge of Verb—Argument Constructions: Effects of

Language Transfer and Typology

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43651847

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Georgia State University University of Michigan

MATTHEW BROOK O'DONNELL

The University of Pennsylvania

the...." The comparison of learner and native speaker verb responses h

Keywords: usage-based language acquisition; Construction Grammar;

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involves processes of construction and reconstruc-experiment, 40 native

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learners' first language. We had English native

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such as man. This observation is incorporated

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manner of motion verbsassociated with a particularand

Instructions Given to Participants at the Beginning of the Online Survey

For example, for the phrase:

you might respond

he gave her the . . . or he sends her t

And for the phrase:

you might respond

it rolls down the ... or it fell down the . . .

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Selected Verb-Argument Constructions (VACs) and Prompts Used in Experiments

Selected VACs Survey Prompts

7 years. learner responses with The lists based on English m

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examined the correspondence between the verb

VAC LI German LI Czech LI Spanish

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Visual Representation of Correlations Between Learner and Native Speaker Responses

the responses. Correlation figures expressgroups

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n,' 'V Appendix

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applies to all three learner

considerable variation across LI groups the

Rank Native Speakers German Learners Czech Learners Spanish Learners

Note. Italicized verbs indicate overla

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instance, constitutesare more

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'V m n,' Top 20 Verbs in Native Speaker and Learner Responses

Rank Native Speakers German Learners Czech Learners Spanish Learners

Note. Italicized verbs indicate overlap between

learner and native section.

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'V Overn Top 20 Verbs in Native Speaker and Learner Responses

Rank Native Speakers German Learners Czech Learners Spanish Learners

Note. Italicized verbs indicate overlap be

speaker response this is the most

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12.68 years, restructuring of form-meaning associations takes

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snapshot has helped us gain a better understand-

1 http://www.qualtrics.com, last accessedBattig,

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Bybee, J. Ellis, N. C.,(2006)

Cadierno, T. (2013). Thinking for speaking in Francis,

Hunston, S., 8c Francis, G. (2000). Pattern grammar:

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