Korean EFL Learners' Acquisition of Preposition Stranding and Pied-piping

The study investigated possible factors affecting Korean EFL: learners' acquisition of preposition stranding and pied-piping, the two options for VPP construction in RC. The factors in focus are VPP dependencies and processing costs. Three groups, including lower level learners, higher level learners and native speakers, performed the linguistic manipulation task. It was found that all the groups preferred preposition stranding to pied-piping, though the lower level learners preferred the former more significantly than the other groups. The differences in processing costs, operationalized through different RC types, were found to influence the choice of VPP construction by EFL learners. That is, the learners' preference for preposition stranding was moderated in case of center-embedded RCs. No such effects were found in the native speaker data. On the other hand, the effects of verb-PP dependency were found in the native speaker data. The native speakers preferred to use preposition stranding more frequently when the verb and the PP were strongly dependent on each other, while they preferred the pied-piping when they were not. No such effects were found in the EFL learners data. Implications for second language education and research are discussed.