A Comparative Study of Native and Non-native Speakers’ Use of Verb Subcategorization Information in Written English Production

The present study investigated how Korean L2 learners of English used their knowledge of verb subcategorization information in written production. Twenty-one Korean L2 learners of English participated in a sentence completion task which was designed to probe their knowledge of the subcategorization information of three different classes of English verbs: transitive verbs, non-alternating unaccusative verbs, and unergative verbs. The results showed that the Korean L2 learners of English displayed relatively accurate knowledge and use of verb subcategorization information in English. However, when the L2 learner data was compared with the data from a native English speaker control group, idiosyncratic patterns for different verbs emerged between the two participant groups. In conclusion, the results of the present study suggest that although advanced L2 learners of English may have relatively accurate knowledge of verb subcategorization information, verb bias preferences for particular verbs may differ from monolingual English speakers. Potential problems that these differences may pose for L2 on-line processing studies are also discussed.