The Learnability of English Dative Alternation by Intermediate Korean University Students

This study explores the learnability of English dative alternation by Korean EFL learners at intermediate levels by examining whether they are aware of the syntax and semantic constraints on English ditransitive verbs. Analysis of essays revealed the students’ strong propensity to use prepositional dative constructions more often than double object forms. Such a finding can be interpreted due to Korean postpositions, -eykey and –ulwihay, as counterparts of to and for in English respectively. The results of the AJT to examine the participants’ sensitivity to semantic constraint were obviously contrasted between licit and illicit forms. As for licit forms, the accuracy in goal verbs was much higher than that in benefactive ones; however, in terms of illicit forms, the result was completely opposite. Different semantic properties between L1 and L2 on ditransitive verb types are assumed to make L2 learners have difficulties in narrowing down the semantic value scope by positive evidence only, especially in benefactive ones. Based on the Subset Principle (Berwick, 1985) and the Tolerance Principle (Yang, 2005, 2016), such results suggest providing L2 learners with more opportunities to encounter L2 input in consideration of distributional properties of it to make them gradually retreat from overgeneralization on English dative alternation.