خلاصة:
The acquisition of argument structures has been studied by a variety of second language acquisition scholars within the past two decades (Atay, 2010; Can, 2009; Chay, 2006, & Kras, 2007, among others). In the present study, ‘Predicate’ as the most substantial element of a sentence is investigated. There are three English verb-types which seem to be more problematic for Persian EFL learners: (a) Paired Ergative verbs (e.g. open); (b) Unergative verbs (e.g. cry) and (c) Unaccusative verbs (e.g. die). The study aims to shed more light on the learnability problems with which Persian EFL learners are faced in the acquisition of the afore-mentioned structures. Additionally, the role of cross-linguistic influence and proficiency is investigated. The results show that the participants had learning problems associated with Unaccusative predicates as well as the intransitive (inchoative & middle) variants of Paired Ergative verbs. Additionally, the role of L1 (Persian) was detected in the acquisition of unergatives and inchoatives more clearly when the learners experienced learning difficulties as the result of negative transfer from L1. In the case of unaccusatives, the challenges are attributed to the lack of L2 intuitive knowledge of the learners.
ملخص الجهاز:
The results show that the participants had learning problems associated with Unaccusative predicates as well as the intransitive (inchoative & middle) variants of Paired Ergative verbs.
2. Review of the Literature After the introduction of Unaccusativity or Split Intransitivity hypothesis by Perlmutter (1978) claiming that there are two subclasses of Intransitive verbs (unergatives and unaccusatives which are not homogenous), many researchers tried to conduct descriptive and empirical studies on the topic of Unaccusativity aiming to see how well second language learners behave when perceiving and producing unergative and unaccusative structures (Burzio, 1986; Levin & Rappaport Hovav, 1995; Van Valin, 1987, 1990) .
3. Objectives This study is an attempt to explore the potential problems Persian EFL learners may encounter when trying to acquire and produce English Unergative, Unaccusative and Paired Ergative structures along with the related argument and predicate relationships.
In order to analyze the results of the first task (picture slide-show), a mixed between-within subjects analysis of variance was conducted to explore the impact of proficiency on the acquisition of Persian EFL learners of unergative, unaccusative and paired ergative structures.
A mixed between-within subjects ANOVA was conducted to explore the impact of proficiency on the acquisition of Persian EFL learners of inchoative paired ergative, unergative and unaccusative structures in the translation task.
Mean of different contexts across proficiency in grammaticality judgment task / For analyzing the results of the grammaticality judgment task, a mixed between-within subjects ANOVA was conducted to explore the impact of proficiency on the acquisition of English unergative, unaccusative and paired ergative structures by Persian EFL learners.