The Second Language Acquisition of Negative Polarity Items in English Simple Sentences

Bokyeong Kim. 2015. The Second Language Acquisition of Negative Polarity Items in English Simple Sentences. Studies in British and American Language and Literature 116, 187-208. This study is on the acquisition of any-type NPIs in English simple sentences. The paper investigates how the factors of position and proficiency level influence on the second language acquisition. For this, three groups of Korean ESL learners categorized by proficiency level participated in this study. All the participants produced more NPIs in the object position than in the subject position. This implies that they realize the c-commanding requirement on NPIs in English, even though their L1 doesn’t exhibit this requirement. The results show that the less proficient in English the participants are, the more NPIs they produce in both subject and object positions. This may be related to L1 influence. With regard to correct responses, the beginner and intermediate groups show a strong preference for NPIs over negative pronouns in object position while the advanced group did not. This suggests that the higher English proficiency of the ESL learner, the more likely a preference for negative pronouns in both subject and object positions.