Young Korean Learners` Usage of the Verb give: Evidence from Their Narratives = Young Korean Learners` Usage of the Verb give: Evidence from Their Narratives

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The dative alternation in English caused the learnability paradox and many L1 acquisition researchers have dealt with this topic. The purpose of this study was to find out how young Korean learners of English use the verb give and its construction. My arguments are based on the analysis of 11 children``s narratives and their L2 data were collected while each language informant was describing the same wordless picture book, A Circle of Friends by Carmi (2003). The following are the findings: First, it seems that the amount of input bears little or no relation to the usage of the verb give as far as the appropriateness is concerned. Second, 3 informants in the third grade used inappropriate constructions more frequently than appropriate ones (13 versus 7 occurrences). It can be assumed that inappropriate forms like *is give-NP(IO)-NP(DO), *give-NP(DO), or *give-NP(IO), were influenced by their L1. Third, 3 children in Grade 4 began to recognize the verb give as a ditransitive rather than as a transitive, and a prepositional form of the dative alternation was their preference. We can assume that their ill-formed constructions like *is give-NP(DO) (twice), *NP(DO)-and-NP(IO)-is-give, and *NP(DO)-is-NP(IO)-give were the results of L1 transfer. Fourth, 2 children in the fifth grade more frequently used the verb give followed by two objects than the verb followed by a single object (20 versus 12 occurrences). Fifth, it seems that 3 informants in Grade 6 realized the verb give as a ditransitive. The usage of the verb in 2 informants’ narratives was quite appropriate and stabilized, while 1 informant’s narratives showed some characteristics of his Interlanguage. Sixth, it seems that Korean child learners regarded an expression like give me money or give to as a chunk.