L2 Chinese Learners’ Lexical and Grammatical Development of Result-state Resultative Verb Compounds: A Usage-based Corpus Study

Abstract

Taking usage-based approaches to second language (L2) development and drawing on a written learner corpus, this study examined L2 Chinese learners’ lexical and grammatical development of result-state resultative verb compounds (RVCSs). The lexical development was examined in their frequency of usage, compositionality, and accuracy. Grammatical development was analyzed by the interaction of RVCSs and the perfective aspect marker le. Findings showed that while the frequency of use, compositionality, and lexical range of RVCSs grew with learners’ overall language proficiency, accuracy exhibited a certain degree of regression among high intermediate and advanced learners. L2 Chinese learners’ lexical and grammatical development of RVCSs is a systematic yet complex and variable process. Factors affecting the acquisition of RVCSs are the nature of input, L1 blocking and learned attention, and the unique properties of RVCSs.

Keywords

• result-state resultative verb compounds
• lexical and grammatical development
• learner corpus