Error Analysis of P-forms of on in

Phrasal and Non-phrasal Verbs Used by

Chinese-speaking learners of English in Taiwan

台灣學生使用英語介詞混合體之錯誤分析台灣學生使用英語介詞混合體之錯誤分析台灣學生使用英語介詞混合體之錯誤分析台灣學生使用英語介詞混合體之錯誤分析—

以以以以 on 在短語動詞及非短語動詞為例在短語動詞及非短語動詞為例在短語動詞及非短語動詞為例在短語動詞及非短語動詞為例

Thesis Proposal

Contents

Ch1 Introduction ........................................................................................................1

1.0 Background ................................................................................................1

1.1 Motivation..................................................................................................3

1.2 Purpose.......................................................................................................4

1.3 Research questions.....................................................................................4

1.4 Significance................................................................................................6

1.5 Organization...............................................................................................7

1.6 A note on terminology ...............................................................................7

1.6.1 P-forms............................................................................................7

Ch2 Literature Review...............................................................................................8

2.1 Phrasal and non-phrasal verbs in traditional grammar ..............................8

2.1.1 Phrasal verbs ...................................................................................8

2.1.2 Non-phrasal verbs .........................................................................10

2.1.3 Summary.......................................................................................10

2.2 Littlefield’s (2006) model ........................................................................ 11

2.2.1 Four Prepositional elements in prepositional domain...................12

2.2.2 L1 acquisition of prepositional domain ........................................18

2.2.3 Syntactic properties.......................................................................20

2.3 Application of Littlefield’s model to P-forms in phrasal and non-phrasal

verbs.........................................................................................................24

2.4 L2 acquisition of phrasal and non-phrasal verbs .....................................27

2.4.1 Miura’s (1989) study.....................................................................28

2.4.2 Liu’s (2006) study.........................................................................28

2.5 Surface strategy taxonomy of errors ........................................................29

2.6 Conclusion ...............................................................................................30

Ch3 Research Design...............................................................................................31

3.1 Stage one ..................................................................................................31

3.1.1 Participants....................................................................................32

3.1.2 Material .........................................................................................32

3.1.2.1 Selected structure ...........................................................32

3.1.2.2 Selected preposition .......................................................33

3.1.2.3 Selected phrasal verbs and non-phrasal verbs ................34

3.1.2.4 Selected syntactic properties ..........................................37

3.1.3 Procedure ......................................................................................38

3.1.4 Data analysis .................................................................................38

3.1.5 Results...........................................................................................39

3.1.6 Discussion .....................................................................................42

3.2 Stage two..................................................................................................44

3.2.1 Participants....................................................................................44

3.2.2 Materials .......................................................................................44

3.2.3 Procedure ......................................................................................45

3.2.4 Data analysis .................................................................................45

References....................................................................................................................47

Appendix A…………………………………………………………………………...52

Appendix B…………………………………………………………………………...56

Appendix C…………………………………………………………………………...58

Appendix D………………………………………………………………………......64

1

Ch1 Introduction

1.0 Background

English prepositions, though a very small number compared with the vast

number of nouns, adjectives and verbs which English has (Harper-Collins Publisher,

1993), represent an important and frequently used category in English (Daud & Abusa,

1999; Littlefield, 2006). By definition, they are words that express relationship

between two entities in a sentence: They indicate a relationship in space between one

object and another, and/or a relationship in time between events, and/or a more

abstract relationships (e.g. government) (Habash, 1982; Harper-Collins Publishers,

1993; Strumpf, 2004). Previous studies of English prepositions have pointed out the

difficulties of English prepositions use or usage for all non-native speakers

( Khampang, 1974; Rastall, 1994; O’Dowd, 1998), and such difficulty does not come

to an end even when learners achieve a high level of proficiency (Celce-Mercia &

Larsen-Freeman, 1999; Lindstromberg, 1991). In other words, learning to use English

prepositions seem to be an on-going process as Jeng (1990) remarks.

The difficulty of learning to use prepositions revolves around the fact that

selection of prepositions appears arbitrary and anomalous and that the learning of

prepositions involves considerable burden of memorization and storage of information

(Rastall, 1994). For instance, native speakers of English say on Monday, but at Easter,

in August; they say in the week, but on the weekends; they say on the right, but in the

center and on the top; they say in danger, but at risk and under threat.

Furthermore, verbs play an important role in the omission, addition, and

selection of a preposition, which escalates ESL/EFL learners’ rate of wrong use of

prepositions (Habash, 1982). Traditional grammar books broadly indentify two types

of multi-word verbs: phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs. Phrasal verbs are made up

of two (or more) parts that function as a single verb in the verb-particle or verb-adverb

constructions (Celce-Mercia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999; Yule, 1998). This structure is

very difficult to learners (Liu, 2006b). After they learn that turn on the lights is

allowed in transformation into turn the lights on, and the case holds true as well for

the transformation of look up the word into look the word up, they may wonder why

the on has a counterpart off in turn off the lights whereas up does not (i.e. *look down

the word). They may also wonder why the omission of the up in eats up the apple is

2

allowed, but the omission of the up in look up the word is not allowed. A more

frustrating problem for them would be the fact that talk over the plan and talk the plan

over are both correct, but only run over a cat instead of run a cat over is acceptable.

The degree of difficulty in prepositional verbs is no less than that of difficulty in

phrasal verbs. A prepositional verb is made up purely of a verb and a true preposition.

ESL/EFL learners resort to painful memorization of a peculiar preposition collocated

with its verb, such as refer to, depend on, call on, agree on, agree with, apply for,

believe in, and etc. When it comes to more idiomatic interpretations, prepositional

verbs, like phrasal verbs, strike learners, as being illogical and less satisfying (Cornell,

1985). Examples are run into (i.e. “meet accidentally”), get over (i.e. “recover”), look

into (i.e. “investigate”), and go for (i.e. “attack”). It is likely that learners are plagued

by the problem of finding correct prepositions.

Researchers in the field of second language acquisition have tried to account for

why the learning is so difficult. Some researchers think the grammar books on

prepositions ESL/EFL learners use often bombard learners with detailed information

which demonstrates prepositions in their spatial sense, temporal sense, and idiomatic

sense (Habash, 1982; Hsu, 2005; Jiang, 1995). This exhibition of various senses along

with their grammatical properties such as case assignment, though exhaustive, never

satisfactorily addresses what preposition members are and how each member is

different from each other (O’Dowd, 1998).

The problem about preposition members results from the unclear status of

prepositions that is early acknowledged in linguistics (Tesak & Hummer, 1994). In the

traditional dichotomy between open class and closed class, prepositions are treated as

a member of closed class, which is composed of function words and which is

characterized by the fact that no new function words are added to English (Fromkin,

Radmon, & Hyams, 2003). On the contrary, Haegeman (1994) and Radford (2004)

think that prepositions, behaving like nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, are said to

have substantive lexical, descriptive contents, so that they fit into lexical or

substantive categories. An example can illustrate this contradictory identification of

prepositions. The on in agree on somebody fits into the closed class, as Fromkin et al.

(2003) say, due to its null semantic interpretation. On the contrary, the on in sit on the

chair is interpreted as “fastened or attached to; covering or forming part of (a

surface)” (Chang, 2002, p. 794). Since it is has semantic, descriptive content, it fits

into the open class. But the problem lies in the fact that although the two on are

treated differently, the on in sit on can also link its complement, the chair, behaving

like the on in agree on somebody. This simple example shows that the distinction

between grammatical and semantic features is not always clearcut in terms of closed

or open class, since many functional features have clear semantic content (e.g. on in

3

sit on the chair) (Radfore, 1997). Another confusing problem caused by grammar

books is their account of phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs. For example, the

verbal phrase come across is classified as a phrasal verbs by Celce-Mercia and

Larsen-Freeman (1999) while others, like Baldwin (2005) treats it as a prepositional

verb. Due to the problems, the intricate usage of prepositions that do not pattern

uniformly appears self-evident. Other researchers, on the other hand, attribute the

difficulty to transfer, suggesting that students found more difficulty in learning

prepositions that are not directly corresponding to those in their first language

(Habash, 1982; Jeng, 2006; Jiang, 1995; Kim, 2005; Liu, 2004; Liu, 2006b; Xing,

2008; Wang, 2007)

1.1 Motivation

The above difficulty is inevitably encountered by English learners with Chinese

background (Li, 2007; Wang, 2007). Empirically, Keskin (2004) found that one of the

five largest errors Chinese students made is in prepositions. Yang, Hsu, and Lin (2005)

further found that preposition use is the grammar problem area most frequently

mentioned by Chinese-speaking learners. Many researchers, in view of this

phenomenon, devote themselves to the exploration of why EFL learners with Chinese

background have difficulty in learning prepositions (Huang, 1995; Jeng, 1990; Lin,

2003; Ma, 2005; Wei, 2007, among others). Also, other researchers are devoted to

Chinese EFL learner’s acquisition of phrasal verbs (Chu, 1996; Liu, 2006a; Liu,

2006b; Ma, 2007; Zhang, 2004, among others). As far as the current thesis researcher

searches, Qiu (2008) is the only one who is concerned with Chinese EFL learners’

problems with prepositional verbs.

A review of what has been done in the past with regard to the difficulty in the use

of prepositions by EFL learners with Chinese background reveals that analyses of

previous studies were limited to the discipline of semantics, cognition, and cognitive

semantics, but syntactic exploration is never seen. That is probably due to the unclear

status of prepositions discussed in the previous section, which in turn makes it

impossible to make an analysis of learners’ use of prepositions. Therefore, to explore

why learning prepositions is difficult from the perspective of syntax appears

indispensible.

4

1.2 Purpose

The above motivation propels the researcher to conduct this study to investigate

English preposition on acting as different preposition-like elements in phrasal and

non-phrasal verbs used by Chinese-speaking learners of English in Taiwan from the

syntactic perspective through error analysis. The preposition on is the target because

of its high frequency in English and also its particularly great difficulty to learners

with Chinese background1. Preposition-like elements vaguely include (prepositional)

adverbs, particles, and true prepositions in traditional grammar, and are collectively

termed P-forms later in this study. Since no full theoretical account of P-forms is

available at this stage, the study employs Littlefield’s (2006) model which is

considered most effective so far by the researcher in specifying the members in

prepositional domain and their relationship with each other2. This model specifies

four preposition-like elements all of which can be distributed in the V-Pform-NP

construction of phrasal verbs and non-phrasal verbs3. As to error analysis, it is proven

effective by Khampang (1974) in showing problems, and describing, explaining errors

of prepositional use by non-native speakers of English, and was later employed by

Habash (1982) and Wang (2007) respectively. Therefore, the current thesis study is

also in line with this trend.

1.3 Research questions

Based on the spirit of error analysis, achievement of the purpose is closely

related to indication of error types of prepositional use, and discovery of what causes

the wrong use of prepositions and discovery of what determines the difficulty level of

prepositions. Three research questions are therefore worthy of investigation. The first

question reads: What error type is most frequently made by the Chinese-speaking

learners of English in Taiwan in their use of P-forms of on in phrasal and non-phrasal

verbs? The error types adopted in this study are omission, substitution, and others, in

reference to Littlefield’s (2006, p. 206) classification of error types and Dulay, Burt, &

Krashen’s (1982) surface strategy taxonomy of errors4. The error type, others,

includes miscellaneous errors that do not form a pattern of their own. The current

study speculates that substitution is the answer to this question since it is found to be

the most frequent error type in Arabic-speaking learners’ use of English prepositions

1 Detailed reasoning of the selection of on is given in section 3.1.2.2.

2 The model is presented in section 2.2.

3 Detailed reasoning of the selection of V-Pform-NP is given in section 3.1.2.1.

4 The two literatures are discussed respectively in section 2.2.2 and 2.5.

5

(Habash, 1982) and in Thai-speaking learners’ use of English prepositions (Khampang,

1974).

The second question is proposed to unveil what it is that determines the difficulty

level of prepositional use. In Littlefield’s (2006) model, each preposition-like element

carries the binary values of the lexical feature and the functional feature5. This

question intends to discover whether it is the [+/-Lexical] feature that determines the

learners’ difficulty in using the P-forms, or it is the [+/-Functional] feature that does.

The null hypothesis might read: Neither the lexical feature nor the functional feature

on P-forms serves as the determinant of the learners’ difficulty in using P-forms. H0

states that the two features have nothing to do with the learners’ difficulty in using

prepositions. The alternative hypothesis (and also an inductive one) is generalized

based on the implication of Miura’s (1989) study and Liu’s (2006b) study6. Miura’s

study implies that the functional feature does not cause difference in his participants’

use of phrasal and non-phrasal verbs; Liu’s study implies that prepositional element

with the [-lexical, -Functional] features are the most difficult. The two studies lead to

a logical speculation that it is [+/-Lexical] feature that plays a crucial part in the

determination of difficulty. Prepositional elements with the [+Lexical] feature are

easier whereas those with the [-Lexical] feature are difficult. In more detail, [+Lexical]

prepositional adverbs and semi-lexical prepositions are predicted to be easier than

[-Lexical] particles and functional prepositions. Whether prepositional adverbs

outrank semi-lexical prepositions and whether particles outrank functional

prepositions need further investigation. So at this point four orders of difficulty level

are possible (from the easiest to the most difficult):

a. +Lexical +Functional semi-lexical prepositions

+Lexical - Functional prepositional adverbs

- Lexical + Functional functional prepositions

- Lexical - Functional particles

b. +Lexical - Functional prepositional adverbs

+Lexical + Functional semi-lexical prepositions

- Lexical - Functional particles

- Lexical + Functional functional prepositions

5 The lexical and functional features are explained in section 2.2.

6 The two studies are introduced in section 2.4.

6

c. +Lexical + Functional semi-lexical prepositions

+Lexical - Functional prepositional adverbs

- Lexical - Functional particles

- Lexical + Functional functional prepositions

d. +Lexical - Functional prepositional adverbs

+Lexical + Functional semi-lexical prepositions

- Lexical + Functional functional prepositions

- Lexical - Functional particles

The third question is proposed to confirm the alternative hypothesis of the

previous question. It might read: Is there a high correlation between the learners’

choice of prepositions and their perception of syntactic operation related to functional

feature on phrasal verbs and non-phrasal verbs? Since Miura’s (1989) implied that the

functional feature is not a determinant of difficulty in using P-forms, the study follows

a null hypothesis that reads: The learners’ choice of prepositions is not significantly

correlated to their perception of syntactic operation on phrasal verbs and non-phrasal

verbs. The answer is expected to support that the functional feature does not play the

major role of interacting with the difficulty level of prepositional use.

1.4 Significance

The significance of the study is three-fold. First, the study puts a premium on

Littlefield’s (2006) model, and will indirectly test its feasibility through

grammaticality judgment task by native-speakers of English for the purpose of

classification of P-forms in the first stage of research design. Second, instead of from

the perspective of cognition and semantics, the study takes a syntactic angle to

discover what it is that determines the difficulty in P-forms used by Chinese-speaking

learners of English. Third, comparison and contrast between L1 acquisition and L2

acquisition are made with regard to their likeness or difference.

7

1.5 Organization

A general introduction is briefly made in Ch1. A review of (a) Littlefield’s (2006)

model, (b) traditional grammar about phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs, and simple

verb-preposition combination, (c) L2 acquisition of phrasal verbs and non-phrasal

verbs, and (d) Dulay, Burt, & Krashen’s (1982) surface strategy taxonomy of errors is

presented in Ch2. A figure which captures the relationship among phrasal verbs,

prepositional verbs, and simple verb-preposition combination is presented, and

Littlefield’s model is applied to the definitions of P-forms in this figure as well. Ch3 is

concerned with the research design which intends to collect the learners’ performance

on P-forms. To accomplish this goal, two stages of research design are necessary. The

result of stage one has a function of developing the needed instrument of stage two.

1.6 A note on terminology

1.6.1 P-forms

P-forms, proposed by O’Dowd (1998), accommodate the overlap among

preposition-like elements including prepositions, particles, and (prepositional) adverbs.

Other terms equivalent to P-forms were also proposed in the literature such as Adprep

(Bolinger, 1971). A Chinese corresponding term of Adprep, 副詞介詞混合體 (fu

ci jie ci hun he ti), was provided by Du (1986, p. 10), which literally means

blend of adverbs and prepositions. This Chinese corresponding term is not

satisfactory in two respects. First, it does not incorporate particles (質詞, zhi ci),

which is a preposition-like element. Second, 介詞 (jie ci) is a broad term of all the

preposition-like elements (Park, 1997; Li, 2005), including 質詞 (zhi ci), 副詞 (fu

ci), etc, and should not be parallel with 副詞 (adverbs, fu ci) in the Chinese

terminology. Therefore, an alternative Chinese corresponding term of P-forms, 介詞

混合體 (jie ci hun he ti) meaning blend of all the preposition-like elements, is

employed in avoidance of confusing definitions. In fact, P-forms are specified in more

detail as four prepositional elements by Littlefield (2006), and the current study used

her model of elaboration on P-forms.

8

Ch2 Literature Review

This chapter starts with the discussion of phrasal and non-phrasal verbs in

traditional grammar in section 2.1 where their intricate relationship with regard to

P-forms they require is displayed. Then Littlefield’s (2006) model where four

prepositional elements are introduced in section 2.2. Her model claims to be able to

shed clearer light on prepositions of which syntactic nature has been elusive and

complex in the past literature. Section 2.3 presents the application of Littlefield’s

(2006) model to P-forms in phrasal and non-phrasal verbs. Section 2.4 reviews two

studies of EFL learners’ acquisition of phrasal and non-phrasal verbs. The definitions

of the prepositions in these two studies were somehow different, but application of

Littlefield’s model to them could still uncover how the P-forms were performed by

EFL participants. Finally, section 2.5 gave a summarized account of surface strategy

taxonomy of error, a way of description of error types in error analysis.

2.1 Phrasal and non-phrasal verbs in traditional grammar

Traditional discussion of phrasal verbs and non-phrasal verbs is complex, elusive,

and diverse (Thibeau, 1999), partly because categorical dichotomy is not clear-cut and

the P-forms incorporated in them are not easy to be identified with regard to syntactic

class of their own (Celce-Mercia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999; O’Dowd, 1998). To make

things simpler and to make the discussion closely relevant to the current thesis design,

section 2.1 is constrained to the discussion of (a) transitive two-word phrasal verbs

and (b) verb-preposition construction of non-phrasal verbs.

2.1.1 Phrasal verbs

With regard to transitive two-word phrasal verbs, Celce-Mercia and

Larsen-freeman (1999) suggest that transitive phrasal verbs manifest themselves in

three roles: (a) separable phrasal verbs (b) inseparable phrasal verbs and (c) phrasal

verbs that are always separated. Separability of phrasal verbs means that sometimes

the particle can be separated from the verb by the direct object, and sometimes it

cannot. For separable phrasal verbs, if the direct object is a nominal object, separation

is optional (Ex 1a), but if the direct object is a pronominal object, separation is

obligatory (Ex 1b).

9

Ex 1 a. Mark threw away the ball.

Mark threw the ball way.

Rachel looked up the information.

Rachel looked the information up.

b. *Mark threw away it.

Mark threw it away.

*Rachel looked up it.

Rachel looked it up.

Although the most productive category of phrasal verbs is transitive separable

ones, there is a small category of inseparable phrasal verbs, where the particle cannot

be separated from its verb and must follow the verb directly (Ex 2a). The principle is

not subject to whether the object is a nominal phrase or a pronominal phrase (Ex 2b).

Ex 2 a. I came across an interesting article last night.

*I came an interesting article across last night.

John ran into an old friend.

*John ran an old friend into.

b. I came across it last night.

*I came it across last night.

John ran into him.

*John ran him into.

The third role is phrasal verbs that are always separated, where the object must

separate the verb and the particle, such as see through (i.e. “survive”) in We’ll see this

ordeal through together.

Celce-Mercia and Larsen-freeman’s discussion of separability of phrasal verbs

implies that phrasal verbs are designated with the [+/-separable] feature. The

[+separable] phrasal verbs fall into what Bolinger’s (1971) so-called nonprepositonal

subclass of phrasal verbs; the [-separable] ones fall into prepositional subclass of

phrasal verbs. In other words, the P-forms in separable phrasal verbs are not more

preposition-like, but those in inseparable phrasal verbs are. Less preposition-like

P-forms in separable phrasal verbs act as adverbs (e.g. on in turn on the lights) or

particles (e.g. up in look up the word, down in turn down the proposal)), whereas

more preposition-like P-forms in inseparable phrasal verbs act as true prepositions

(e.g. across in come across, on in get on the bus) (Azar, 2002; Celce-Mercia and

10

Larsen-freeman, 1999; O’Dowd, 1998). The latter verb-preposition construction is

commonly known as verb-preposition sequence (O’Dowd, 1998, p. 113) or

prepositional verbs (Jacobs, 1993, pp. 245-247). But the term does not capture a clear

syntactic distinction. Baldwin (2005) states that P-forms in prepositional verbs are

classified into two subgroups: fixed prepositions and mobile prepositions7. Fixed

prepositions, such as the across in come across, fall into inseparable transitive

two-word phrasal verbs; mobile prepositions, such as on in get on the bus, fall into

inseparable transitive two-word phrasal verbs, too (Cullen & Sargeant, 2003). In

contrast, another group of mobile prepositions, such as the to in refer to, fall into

non-phrasal verbs discussed in the following subsection.

2.1.2 Non-phrasal verbs

Two categories are involved in the discussion of the verb-preposition

construction of non-phrasal verbs: simple verb-preposition combination (Baldwin,

2005) and verb-preposition sequence (O’Dowd, 1998). Baldwin indicates that the

simple verb-preposition combination is composed by an intransitive verb and a

prepositional phrase (e.g. walk down the path, sit on the chair). On the other hand,

verb-preposition sequence, or prepositional verbs, is composed by a verb and a mobile

preposition (e.g. refers to the book, depend on parents). A feature common to the two

categories is the more preposition-like P-forms in non-phrasal verbs.

2.1.3 Summary

Figure 2-1 captures the summary of section 2.1. As shown in the figure, phrasal

verbs consist of three major subcategories, and they are (a) separable phrasal verbs, (b)

phrasal verbs that must be separated, and (c) prepositional verbs. Non-phrasal verbs

are composed of simple verb-preposition combination and prepositional verbs. Notice

is given to prepositional verbs which occur in the dichotomy cross-categorically.

Prepositional verbs with fixed prepositions are inseparable phrasal verbs;

prepositional verbs with mobile prepositions are either phrasal verbs or non-phrasal

verbs.

7 According to Baldwin’s (2005) argument, fixed prepositions do not allow passivization, pied-piping,

and insertion of an adverb between the verb and preposition, but mobile ones do.

11

aCelce-Mercia & Larsen-Freeman (1999, p. 430).

bCelce-Mercia & Larsen-Freeman (1999, p. 428).

cCelce-Mercia & Larsen-Freeman (1999, p. 429).

dBaldwin (2005, the section of the nature of

prepositional verbs, ¶ 2). eCelce-Mercia & Larsen-Freeman (1999, p. 428) & Baldwin (2005, the

section of the nature of prepositional verbs, ¶ 4). fCullen & Sargeant (2003, p.141).

gBaldwin (2005,

the section of the nature of prepositional verbs, ¶ 4).

Phrasal verbs Non-phrasal verbs

(separable)

turn (off) the lights (off)a

look (up) the word (up) b

turn (down) the proposal (down) b

(must be separated)

see this ordeal through c

Simple verb-preposition combination

walk down the pathd

(fixed)

come across a friend e

(mobile)

get on the busf

(mobile)

depend on the weatherg

Figure 2-1. The categorical dichotomy of phrasal and non-phrasal verbs

2.2 Littlefield’s (2006) model

That fact that prepositions are a problematic category is mentioned in the

previous chapter. Littlefield (2006) concluded that two issues are central. The first

issue is related to the definition of prepositional category: What are the members of

the category? The second one is central to the syntactic nature of the category: How

do they fit into the categorization of syntactic categories as lexical or functional? Thus,

knowing the answers to these two questions will be essential if the researcher needs to

understand the nature of preposition and use it in the present study of EFL learners’

performance on prepositions.

Prepositional verbs / Verb-preposition sequence

(inseparable)

12

The purpose of section 2.2 is to introduce a fine-grained prepositional domain

proposed by Littlefield (2006) which, as she claimed, can solve the two problems

mentioned above. Section 2.2.1 introduces the members in the domain and their

syntactic nature. Section 2.2.2 states first language acquisition of the prepositional

domain. The discussion includes the error types and what cause the error types.

Section 2.2.3 is concerned with the syntactic evidence related to the functional

features. Six syntactic properties are to be presented. However, a problem with the six

properties is discovered and is discussed in this section as well.

2.2.1 Four Prepositional elements in prepositional domain

Littlefield’s (2006) basic view is that prepositions represent some sort of hybrid

category, taken as a domain, which captures the interrelatedness and strong similarity

in the members of the category. The capture is based on two features: the functional

feature and the lexical feature.

The functional feature captures the syntactic role an element plays in a structure

indicating the ability of this element to link or connect other elements in a phrase or

sentence. The linking or connecting ability manifests itself through case assignment

or agreement feature. One of the two elements in English that can link elements

through case assignment is transitive prepositions (Haegeman, 1994)8. Transitive

prepositions assign accusative case to its NP complement in its governing domain.

Thereby the NP complement abides by case filter, so it can legally occupy the

complement position following its governing preposition. The connection, thus, arises.

Because English prepositions do not manifest their linking ability through agreement

feature, the ability to assign case will be seen as the only indicator of the plus

functional or [+Functional] status, while the inability to assign case will show the

minus functional or [-Functional] status9 (Littlefield, 2006, p.92). English P-forms are

either [+Functional] or [-Functional].

While the functional feature is used to capture the syntactic qualities, the lexical

feature focuses on the semantic side. Prepositional elements that are designated with

the plus lexical or [+Lexical] feature contribute a notion or substantive content. On

the other hand, prepositional elements with the minus lexical or [-Lexical] designation

lack notional content, even though they may contribute a more abstract level of

meaning, such as agreement.

8 The other one is transitive verbs.

9 Littlefield did not adopt Chomsky’s (1992) argument about case-marking that all case assignment is

dependent on agreement. Her example of agreement feature as the linking role in prepositions was in

reference to Rouveret’s (1991) study of Welsh prepositions.

13

By means of the two features (i.e. the functional feature and the lexical feature),

four types of combinations are derived: [+Lexical, -Functional], [+Lexical,

-Functional], [+Lexical, +Functional], and [-Lexical, +Functional]. As shown in

Figure 2-2, the fine-grained prepositional domain is made up of four quarters. Each

quarter represents a prepositional element. The first prepositional element is

prepositional adverbs designated with the [+Lexical, -Functional] features; the second

one is particles with the [-Lexical, -Functional] designation; the third one is

semi-lexical prepositions designated with the [+Lexical, -Functional] features; the

fourth one is functional prepositions with the [-Lexical, -Functional] features. The

followings elaborate on the four prepositional elements in some detail10

.

Figure 2-2. The fine-grained prepositional domain

10

Examples will be used to illustrate the four prepositional elements. These examples are directly cited

from the dissertation by Littlefield (2006).

[+Lexical, -Functional] [-Lexical, -Functional]

[+Lexical, +Functional] [-Lexical, +Functional]

Prepositional adverbs Particles

Semi-lexical prepositions Functional prepositions

1 2

3 4

14

To begin with, prepositional adverbs carry the designation [+Lexical,

-Functional], contributing substantive meaning due to [+Lexical], but cannot link

elements through case assignment due to [-Functional]. In Littlefield’s dissertation (p.

85), she defended [+Lexical] designation by quoting Sawyer’s (1999) study where

Sawyer considered the adverbs are semantically independent and can specify the

direction, location, or path in which the action of the verb occurs. Ex 3 shows the

literal directional contribution of prepositional adverbs. The two down in the first two

sentences mean “from a higher to a lower physical position or toward or to the ground,

floor, or bottom” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, n.d.; Compact Oxford Online

Dictionary, n.d.). The up in the last two sentences mean “towards a higher place or

position or to or at a place perceived as higher” (Compact Oxford Online Dictionary,

n.d.). Down and up have substantive meanings.

Ex 3 a. The girl sat down.

b. The boy threw down the ball.

c. They lifted up the lumber.

d. We looked up.

As to particles, they have the [-Lexical, -Functional] designation because they

cannot assign case, and do not contribute substantive, descriptive meaning. Generally,

particles are thought to trigger either an aspectual or idiomatic meaning in

conjunction with certain verbs. A most obvious aspectual meaning is perfectivity,

meaning “result achieved, finish, or completion”, such as the up in His term is up and

Time is up, and Let’s barter up. In addition, since the aspectual meaning in

conjunction with verbal phrases is non-substantive, the descriptive meanings of the

sentences in Ex 4 are the same whether the aspectual particles are used or not11

.

Ex 4 a. She ate (up) the sandwich.

b. He wrote (out) the check.

c. They finished (off/up) the ice cream.

d. Please hold (on); I have a call on the other line.

e. I hope the sunny weather holds (up) through the weekend.

The other meaning triggered by particles is idiomatic or figurative expressions.

The idiomatic verb-particle combination, like to come across meaning “find”, are

thought to have separate lexical entries from their main verbs, because the

11

Littlefield does not go along the lines of Marantz’s (1997) study in which particles contributed

meaning. She stresses the non-compositional nature of verb-particle combination.

15

combination creates a unique, unpredictable meaning. The definition of come and the

definition of across do not compose the definition of to come across. This close

relationship between the verb and particle can be illustrated by the fact that a true

adverb cannot intervene between them. The ungrammatical sentences (Ex 5a) can be

remedied by the movement of the modifying true adverbs to another places (Ex 5b).

Ex 5 a. *The thief stopped us and held us calmly up.

*He knew he was going to fail, so he dropped abruptly out.

*She had given his word, but at the last moment he backed timidly

down.

b. The thief stopped us and (calmly) held us up (calmly).

He knew he was going to fail, so he (abruptly) dropped out (abruptly).

She had given his word, but at the last moment he (timidly) backed

down (timidly).

Ex 5 reveals that verb-particle combinations can only be treated as a single unit,

and the modifier have to precede or follow it. Furthermore, some of the single units

have become so fossilized that their objects cannot be altered (Ex 6) and the objects

must be placed on one specific side of the particles either by following the particles

(Ex 6a) or by preceding the particles (Ex 6b).

Ex 6 a. to put on airs

to take up arms

to pluck up courage

to dance up a storm

b. to keep one’s hand in

to put one’s foot down

to talk someone’s head/arm off

to bite one’s head off

The third prepositional element is semi-lexical prepositions. They constitute the

largest category in the prepositional domain and are most often thought of as

prepositions in the traditional sense. Assigned with the [+Lexical, +Functional]

features, they convey descriptive content and can link elements in a phrase through

case assignment12

. Because they can assign case, they are regarded as transitive, and

that is, they require an internal complement. The combination between semi-lexical

12

This form of preposition was what Rastal (1994) called genuine prepositions.

16

prepositions and their internal complement presents the spatial and temporal

relationship of their own. The spatial relationship involves figure (the entity to be

located) and landmark (the reference object). In Ex 7, the cat is the figure, and the

object of the preposition represents the landmark. The same analysis should hold true

for the temporal relationship.

Ex 7 a. The cat ran into the room.

b. .The cat slept on the pillow.

c. The cat jumped walked around in the room

Semi-lexical prepositions also assign theta-roles to their arguments as shown in

Table 2-1. It should be noted that the possible semantic content of the internal DP

argument of semi-lexical prepositions is constrained. A preposition like in must have a

landmark that can be used as a container; a preposition like on must be interpreted as

surface. In addition, the use of semi-lexical prepositions can be extended

metaphorically, so that the original physical and literal meaning is expanded to refer

to nonphysical meaning, such as in trouble, in pain, on fire, and on my mind.

Table 2-1

Assignment of theta-roles by semi-lexical prepositions

Theta-roles Examples of semi-lexical prepositions

Location I walked the dog by the river.

Goal We went to Ouagadougou.

Source I flew from Dakar.

Patha I drew alone the river.

Recipients Somebody gives it to Sam.

Benefatives I bought the book for him.

Instrument He cut the beet with a knife.

Manner He watched his dog with pride.

Comitative He went with his brother.

Accompaniment The dog with the white tail is mine.

Agent She was bitten by the dog.

aOther candidates include across, around, by, into, over, toward(s), and through.

17

Finally, functional prepositions with the [-Lexical, +Functional] features are

characterized by their lack of substantive semantic content and by their ability to

assign case13

. Ex 8 illustrates nominal structures (Ex 8a), adjectival structures (Ex 8b),

and verbal structures (Ex 8c) where the functional preposition of does not assign

theta-roles due to the [-Lexical] feature but assigns an accusative case to its internal

DP complement. Thereby the nominal, adjectival, and verbal elements are connected

to the DP complements.

Ex 8 a. their resentment of her

the removal of the army

the destruction of the city

the translation of the book

Susan’s criticism of the army

b. Bob is fond of her.

Mary is proud of her dog.

The dog is afraid of thunder.

They are disdainful of the freshmen.

c. It smacks of foul play.

The meal consisted of vegetarian dishes.

The accused general was divested of his military honors.

While of is certainly the most widespread example of a functional preposition,

other prepositions can be found functioning as functional prepositions in nominal,

adjectival, and verbal structures, as shown in Ex 9. In these examples, the prepositions

at, for, in, on, over, to, and with act as functional prepositions, and seem to be

specifically selected by a particular noun, adjective, and verb. In fact, not any

preposition can be used to assign case in conjunction with a particular noun, adjective,

and verb. For example, the verb rely requires a functional preposition on, not of, in, to

and so on.

Ex 9 a. a visit to Carry

his capacity for hope

her love for/of nature

her trust in the old man

her desire for chocolate

13

This type of prepositions was what Rastal (1994) called pseudo-prepositions.

18

my admiration for Dr. King

our gratitude for the donation

an expert on dative structures

an expert in the evaluation of wine

the academy’s support for/of the proposal

b. Bill is keen on soccer.

She is angry at/with him.

They are good at volleyball.

c. She clings to her faith.

He relies on his family.

He angled for an invitation.

They reveled in the silence.

The inventor toyed with the idea.

The woman trifled with the young man’s emotions.

The students pore over their notes before the exam.

2.2.2 L1 acquisition of prepositional domain

Littlefield’s dissertation study aims to propose a fine-grained prepositional

domain. In order to test the validity of this domain, she further conducted a

longitudinal study of L1 acquisition of this domain. The result of the study of L1

acquisition supported the evidence of differences in the four prepositional elements in

the domain, and showed that this approach to defining prepositions can make

prediction about language acquisition pattern. The researcher does not tend to put all

the major findings of her study into section 2.2.2. Instead, it is worth notice that types

of errors and determinant of difficulty in prepositional use are two main findings in

Littlefield’s error analysis of L1 acquisition. The two findings are closely related to

the purpose of the thesis study.

According to the finding of Littlefield’s (2006) study, all her five participants

showed a highly consistent pattern of error types. In the acquisition of the

prepositional domain, the vast majority of errors each individual participant made

were omission, followed by substitution, and then followed by others. What is more,

each participant made a similar error pattern in their acquisition of the four

prepositional elements in the domain, though there was slightly inconsistency. For

example, a participant named Adam had the same error patterns in his acquisition of

prepositional adverbs, semi-lexical prepositions, and functional prepositions as in his

19

acquisition of the whole prepositional domain. That is, he made more errors of

omission than of substitution and others, and more errors of substitution than of others.

Nonetheless, with regard to particles, he made more substitution than the other two

errors. Phenomenon of slight inconsistency in the error pattern between the

acquisition of the prepositional domain and the acquisition of the four prepositional

elements was observed among the five participants. Yet, in general, the number of

omission errors went beyond substitution errors, and substitution errors were more

than others.

It was further found that the participants made the most errors with functional

prepositions (19.6%). The secondary difficult element for the participants was

semi-lexical prepositions (8.3%). The tertiary difficult element was particles (1.5%).

The least problematic element was prepositional adverbs (1.1%). Data was shown in

Table 2-2.

Table 2-2

Rate of Inaccuracy Frequency for Prepositional Elements in L1 Acquisition

Elements Fa N

b R

c

Prep. adverbs 79 7085 1.1

Particles 13 853 1.5

Semi-lexical prep. 1214 14653 8.3

Functional prep. 295 1505 19.6

aF = Frequency of inaccurate uses

bN = Total number of observed prepositional elements

CR = Rate or percentage of inaccuracy (%)

The degree of difficulty of elements, then, was ordered as follows (from the least

difficult to the most difficult):

Prep. adverbs [+Lexical, -Functional]

Particles [-Lexical, -Functional]

Semi-lexical prep. [+Lexical, +Functional]

Functional prep. [-Lexical, +Functional]

The major determinant of difficulty was found to be the functional feature. Elements

with the [+Functional] feature is more difficult than those with the [-Functional]

feature. Consequently, [+Functional] semi-lexical prepositions and functional

prepositions are more difficult than [-Functional] prepositional adverbs and particles.

Furthermore, the lexical feature played the role of secondary determination of

20

difficulty. Elements with the [-Lexical] feature are more difficult. Hence, [-Lexical]

functional preposition, in turn, is more difficult than [+Lexical] semi-lexical

prepositions. [-Lexical] particles is more difficult than [+Lexical] prepositional

adverbs.

2.2.3 Syntactic properties

There are two reasons for recruiting section 2.2.3 to chapter Ch2. First, the

researcher utilized the syntactic properties related to the functional feature to develop

the material of the stage one in Ch3. Additionally, the researcher intends to correlate

EFL learners’ uses of prepositions with their perception of the syntactic operation

related to the functional feature on phrasal and non-phrasal verbs.

The functional feature, as defined in the beginning of the section 2.2, captures

the syntactic role an element which plays in a structure indicating the ability of this

element to link or connect other elements in a phrase or sentence. The linking or

connecting ability manifests itself through case assignment or agreement feature.

Additionally, because English prepositions do not manifest their linking ability

through agreement feature, the ability to assign case will be seen as the only indicator

of the [+Functional] status, while the inability to assign case will show the

[-Functional] status. Prepositional adverbs and particles are paralleled due to the fact

that both are designated with the [-Functional] feature. Semi-lexical prepositions and

functional prepositions are categorized together due to their [+Functional] feature.

Similar syntactic properties can be observed from two major categories (i.e.

[-Functional] for prepositional adverbs and particles, and [+Functional] for

semi-lexical prepositions and functional prepositions). First, placement of a true

adverbial phrase between the verb and the [-Functional] element cannot occur (Ex

10a), while a true adverbial phrase can immediately precede the [+Functional]

element (Ex 10b).

Ex 10 a. *He pulled quickly up her sleeve. (prep. adverb)

* He looked quickly up the number. (particle)

b. He ran quickly up the slope. (semi-lexical prep.)

I relied heavily on my friends. (functional prep.)

Second, fronting of Pform-NP is not legitimate for [-Functional] elements (Ex 11a),

but is fine with [+Functional] elements (Ex 11b). Quite similar to the fronting property,

pied-piping is not fine with [-Functional] elements (Ex 12a), but is acceptable to

[+Functional] elements (Ex 12b).

21

Ex 11 a. *UP the baby’s sleeve, she pulled. (prep. adverb)

*Up the number, she looked. (particle)

b. Up the slope, they trudged. (semi-lexical prep.)

On my friends, I relied. (functional prep.)

Ex 12 a. *Up whose sleeve did she pull? (prep. adverb)

*Up whose number did she look? (particle)

b. Up which slope did they trudge? (semi-lexical prep.)

On whom did we rely? (functional prep.)

Forth, gapping of verb is not possible for [-Functional] elements, whereas it is

fine with [+Functional] elements. Prepositional adverbs and particles do not allow

gapping (Ex 13a), but semi-lexical prepositions and functional prepositions do (Ex

13b).

Ex 13 a. *She pulled up her sleeve, and Sam, up his pant

leg.

(prep. adverb)

*He looked up the number, and Tim, up the

address.

(particle)

b. Bob ran up 8th

Avenue, and Bill, up 9th

. (semi-lexical prep.)

c. Joe was proud of Riley, and Richard, of Daisy. (functional prep.)

The fifth syntactic property ocurs in structures with object shift, where the DP

can freely move immediately before or after [-Functional] element (Ex 14a & Ex 14b),

but is fixed after [+Functional] elements (Ex 14c & Ex 14d).

Ex 14 a. You pull up your sleeve. (prep. adverb)

You pull your sleeve up.

b. They look up the number. (particle)

They look the number up.

c. He trudged up the slope. (semi-lexical prep.)

*He trudged the slope up.

d. Mary is proud of her bird. (functional prep.)

*Mary is proud her bird of.

The last syntactic property is related to the distribution of pronominal objects.

The pronoun must precede [-Functional] elements (Ex 15a), but must follow

[+Functional] elements (Ex 15b).

22

Ex 15 a. She pulled it up. (prep. adverb)

*She pulled up it.

He looked it up. (particle)

*He looked up it.

b. He trudged up it. (semi-lexical prep.)

*He trudged it up.

Mary is proud of her. (functional prep.)

*Mary is proud her of.

A summary of syntactic properties of [+/-Functional] features discussed above is

presented in Table 2-3.

Table 2-3

Syntactic Properties of [+/-Functional] Feature

Syntactic properties

[-Functional]

Prep. Adverbs

particles

[+Functional]

Semi-lexical prep.

Functional prep.

Placement of a true adverbial

phrase between verb and

prepositional element

NA A

Fronting NA A

Pied-piping NA A

Gapping NA A

Object shift A NA

Pronominal object preceding

prepositional element

A NA

Note. A=Applicable; NA=Not Applicable

Although the six properties are regarded as one strong support of the conclusion

that prepositions can be considered as a single domain, yet after the review of

Littlefield’s account of the four prepositional elements and the six syntactic properties,

two puzzling problems arise. These problems occur when it comes to the object shift

and pronominal object preceding prepositional element for particles.

In reference to Table 2-3, [-Functional] particles allow object shift and always

require pronominal objects to precede them. Such a prediction could be problematic

because some nominal objects of particles are fixed in the place where they can occur,

as illustrated in Ex 6. In other words, there is no concise and precise way to predict on

23

which side of the particles the nominal object can be placed. Hence, the application of

the object shift to some particles is possibly incorrect. Ex 16a shows that the nominal

objects must be placed on the right side of the particles; Ex 16b displays that the

nominal objects must be placed on the left side of the particles. An inappropriate

position of nominal object results in ungrammaticality.

Ex 16 a. to put on airs

*to put airs on

to pluck up courage

*to pluck courage up

b. to put one’s foot down

*to put down one’s foot

to keep ones shirt on

*to keep on ones shirt

The problem with the object shift becomes worse as O’Dowd (1998) gave an

ungrammatical sentential example in which a nominal object is placed before a

[-Functional] prepositional adverb (Ex 17). According to the syntactic property of

object shift, the nominal object occurs on the left side of the particle off should have

been correct, but it is not. Ex 17 shows the failure of object shift in prediction of the

acceptable place for nominal object.

Ex 17 *We turned [NP those lights that had been blinking on and off like crazy for

the last two days] off.

As to the problem with pronominal object, examples can be found in Konishi’s

(1988, p. 1466) edited dictionary (Ex 18a) and O’Dowd’s (1998, p. 17) book (Ex 18b).

The pronominal object him of the [-Functional] element over may either precede or

follow the particles (Ex 18a), whereas the pronominal object it must follow the

[-Functional] element over (Ex 18b). In contrast with Ex 18a, Ex 18b fails to accord

with the distribution of pronominal objects which must precede a [-Functional]

element.

24

Ex 18 a. The bus ran him over.

The bus ran over him.

b. to go over it

*to go it over

In summary of section 2.2, the prepositional domain consists of four

prepositional elements which are classified by the lexical feature concerning the

descriptive and semantic content and by the functional feature concerning the ability

to link elements through case assignment. Prepositional adverbs are designated with

the [+Lexical, -Functional] features. Particles have the [-Lexical, -Functional] features.

Semi-lexical prepositions carry the [+Lexical, +Functional] features. Functional

prepositions are featured by [-Lexical, +Functional].

It is also found that omission was the most frequent type of error in the L1

acquisition. A L1 acquisition pattern emerges, showing that the degree of difficulty is:

functional prepositions > semi-lexical prepositions > particles > prepositional adverbs.

[+Functional] elements are more difficult than [-Functional] elements. [-Lexical]

elements are more difficult than [+Lexical] prepositions. It is the functional feature

that plays the major role of determining difficulty level.

There are six syntactic properties relating to the functional feature, and they are

placement of adverbs between the verb and prepositional element, fronting,

pied-piping, gapping, object shift, and pronominal object preceding prepositional

elements. The problems with object shift and pronominal object preceding

prepositional elements lie in some fossilized places of nominal object and pronominal

object. Application of the two properties to the prediction of distributions of P-forms

is problematic on occasion.

2.3 Application of Littlefield’s model to P-forms in phrasal and

non-phrasal verbs

Various P-forms are found in phrasal and non-phrasal verbs. For [+separable]

phrasal verbs, P-forms could be adverbs (e.g. off in turn off the light), particles (e.g.

up in look up the word, down in turn down the proposal, through in see this ordeal

through). For inseparable phrasal verbs, P-forms are always true prepositions. But the

preposition across in come across a friend is different from that on in get on the bus

implicitly. The former one is a fixed preposition and does not contribute any semantic

25

content to the verbal phrase, whereas the latter one is a mobile preposition and does

contribute semantic content to the verbal phrase (This could be supported in contrast

with its counterpart off in get off the bus).

The P-forms in non-phrasal verbs are always prepositions, but, again, subtle

difference could be observed. The prepositions in simple verb-preposition

combination have descriptive, semantic content (e.g. down in walk down the path

means “from a high or higher point on something to a lower one”), but the (mobile)

preposition in prepositional verbs are null semantically (e.g. the on in depend on is

meaningless).

Re-defining traditional P-forms is necessary because overlapping features in

traditional grammar about prepositions pose confusion. For example, the on in get on

the bus and the on in depend on the weather in traditional grammar are both treated as

mobile prepositions, but in fact, the two prepositions are significantly different in

terms of their semantic interpretation. Littlefield’s (2006) model of prepositional

domain is, therefore, an ideal application (Table 2-4). According to the model,

prepositional adverbs are the adverbs in separable phrasal verbs (e.g. off in turn off

the light). Particles are (a) the traditional particles in separable phrasal verbs (e.g. up

in look up the word, down in turn down the proposal), (b) the ones in phrasal verbs

that must be separated (e.g. through in see this ordeal through), or (c) the ones which

are fixed prepositions in inseparable phrasal verbs (e.g. across in come across14

).

Semi-lexical prepositions are the prepositions in simple verb-preposition sequence

(e.g. down in walk down the path) or mobile prepositions in some prepositional verbs

of phrasal verbs (e.g. on in get on the bus). Functional prepositions are the mobile

prepositions in prepositional verbs of non-phrasal verbs (e.g. on in depend on).

14

That the across in come across is a particle is indirectly supported by Baldwin (2005), who proposed

that as a fixed preposition the operation of pied-piping and insertion of a true adverb between come and

across is not legitimate (i.e. *across which letter I came, *come suddenly across the letter). Such a

constraint conforms to the syntactic property a [-Functional] element bears. The [-Lexical] feature of

this particle is recognized by its null contribution of meaning to the phrase.

26

Table 2-4

Correspondence Between Littlefield’s Model and Traditional Grammar about

Phrasal Verbs and Non-phrasal Verbs

Traditional view

Model P-forms Examples Construction

Prep. adverb adverb turn off the lights Aa

Particles particle look up the word A

particle turn down the proposal A

particle see the ordeal through Bb

fixed prep. come across a friend Cc

Semi-lexical prep. prep. walk down the path Dd

mobile prep. get on the bus Ee

Functional prep. mobile prep. depend on the weather Ff

aA = separable phrasal verb

bB = phrasal verb that must be separated

cC = prepositional verb with fixed preposition in phrasal verb

dD = simple verb-preposition combination in non-phrasal verb

eE = prepositional verbs with mobile preposition in phrasal verb

fF = prepositional verb with mobile preposition in non-phrasal verb

Attention is paid to two points. First, in O’Dowd’s dissertation study (as cited in

Celce-Mercia & Larsen-freeman, 1999), O’Dowd acknowledges that it is impossible,

though a tendency, to specify the role played by a P-form without taking the

situational context into account. She suggests that P-forms are evolving. For, example,

to determine whether the back in separable phrasal verb bring back is seen as

Littlefield’s prepositional adverb or particle becomes elusive, if the context is not

provided. So, if the context requires a more literal meaning (i.e. the phrasal verb

means “to return something into an earlier position, condition or stage”), the back acts

as an adverb. If the context requires a more non-literal meaning (e.g. the phrasal verb

means “to restore something that has been discontinued”), the back acts as a particle.

Second, as mentioned above, some P-forms of inseparable phrasal verbs (e.g. on

in get on the bus) act as Littlefield’s semi-lexical preposition or act as a traditional

mobile preposition, and the others (e.g. across in come across a friend) act as a

particle in either Littlefield’s model or traditional grammar. However, a group of

P-forms in inseparable phrasal verbs (e.g. on in set on meaning “to attack”) has not

been discussed. The meaning of set on, like come across is not composed by the verb

set and the P-form on, but its unique meaning (i.e. “to attack”) is composed by the two

elements interpreted together as a single lexical word (Jackendoff, 1995). If the on in

27

set on is designated with the [-Functional] feature, it must be a particle because it is

[-Lexical]. It is then treated like the across in come across. On the other hand, if the

on in set on is designated with the [+Functional] feature, then it is a functional

preposition because it carries the [-Lexical] feature, like the on in depend on parents.

However, A catch-22 problem arises if the on is determined as a functional preposition.

According to Littlefield’s definition, a functional preposition carrying the [-Lexical,

+Functional] features (e.g. on in depend on) does not contribute to meaning but can

link its complement through case assignment. The meaning of the verb-functional

preposition construction is based totally upon the verb itself (i.e. the meaning of

depend on comes from the meaning of the verb depend). In the case of set on, neither

the verb nor the functional preposition determines the meaning of the phrasal verb.

Therefore, it cannot be a functional preposition. This discussion implies that the

[-Functional] particle on seems to be preferred. Reliable determination of the

[+/-Functional] feature for the on in set on has to be dependent on the test of the

syntactic properties.

2.4 L2 acquisition of phrasal and non-phrasal verbs

Although there is abundance of past studies of EFL learners’ performance on

prepositional verbs or/and phrasal verbs (e.g. Chu, 1996; Hsieh, 2006; Kao, 2001;

Kubota, 1997; Liu, 2006b; Matlock & Heredia, 2002; Miura, 1989; Thibeau, 1999;

Qiu, 2008, etc), none of them investigated which P-forms in phrasal and non-phrasal

verbs are easy or difficulty to EFL/ESL learners and why they are so. For example,

Although Thibeau (1999) investigated whether a relatively non-proficient group of

ESL users make distinctions among three different functions (spatial, idiomatic,

aspectual) of the English prepositions without benefit of instruction, the focus was on

the instructional treatment as a dependable variable. How the three functions differed

from each was not shown. Another example is Matlock & Heredia’s (2002) study.

They compared monolinguals’ learning of phrasal and non-phrasal verbs with

bilinguals’. Likewise, the focus was not on P-forms. Among the irrelevant studies that

did not zero in on how learners performed on P-forms, only Miura’s (1998) and Liu’s

(2006b) studies provide valuably indirect comparison of different P-forms used by

their study participants. This comparison is considered important in the formation of

hypothesis for research question number two.

28

2.4.1 Miura’s (1989) study

After observing that Japanese students of English cannot use multi-word verbs

properly, Miura thought there was a need to investigate to what extent Japanese

students can use prepositional and phrasal verbs properly. One of the results in his

study revealed that the number of correct uses of prepositional verbs and those of

phrasal verbs do not differ excessively, F(1, 12) = 0.124, p > 0.1. He gave a reason for

this result by saying, “The main reason for this may be that the subjects have learned

both verb types together and therefore they are unaware of the difference between the

two types” (p. 76).

The four prepositional verbs that were chosen in his study included call on, apply

for, deal with, and refer to. The P-forms incorporated in them are Littlefield’s

so-called functional prepositions with the [-Lexical, +Functional] features. They are

null semantically, and can link its complement through case assignment. Also, the

meanings of the four prepositional verbs are derived from the meanings of the verbs.

On the other hand, the four phrasal verbs that were chosen were see off, find out, bring

up, and turn on. The P-forms in them are Littlefield’s [-Lexical, -Functional] particles

contributing no descriptive, semantic contents, and do not link their complements.

Also, the meanings of the four phrasal verbs are not predictable. In the condition of no

significant difference in the correct use of prepositional and phrasal verbs, follow-up

careful examination of [-Lexical, +Functional] and [-Lexical, -Functional] suggests

that the functional feature does not come into play regarding the determinant that

affects frequency of correct uses.

2.4.2 Liu’s (2006) study

The purpose of Liu’ study was to investigate the use of English phrasal verbs by

Chinese college students from the error analysis. Phrasal verbs, in his study, were

broadly defined as the verb-adverb/particle/preposition construction. One material, a

multiple choice test, displayed that particularly high frequency of inaccuracy rates

among 30 entries of phrasal verbs happened to four phrasal verbs, put off (72%), bring

round (57%), take off (74%), and take after (91%). Liu attempted to explain the

subjects’ difficulty in using them by saying that the subjects made errors of (a)

guessing the meaning of the phrasal verbs solely literally (b) inferring the meaning of

the phrasal verb largely influenced by L1 (c) neglecting the context while inferring its

meaning, and (d) overlapping of the former three causes.

29

The P-forms of the four most difficult phrasal verbs are particles in Littlefield’s

prepositional domain because they do not contribute to meanings and do not assign

case to the following NP complements. Consequently, it follows that elements with

[-Lexical, -Functional] features are particularly difficult to the subjects.

2.5 Surface strategy taxonomy of errors

A surface strategy taxonomy is one option to a linguistic classification of errors

in error analysis (Brown, 2000; Ellis, 1994; Lennon, 1991). A full account of surface

strategy taxonomy is given by Dulay, Burt, & Krashen (1982, pp. 150-163). They

observe that learners may omit necessary items or add unnecessary ones; they may

misform items or misorder them. However, they noticed that surface elements of a

language are altered in specific and systematic way, which “hold promise for

researchers concerned with identifying cognitive process that underlie the learner’s

reconstruction of the new language. It also makes us aware that learners’ errors are

based on some logic. They are not the result of laziness or sloppy thinking, but of the

learner’s use of interim principles to produce a new language.” (p. 150)

A brief summary of surface strategy taxonomy of errors by Dulay et al. (1986)

was made by Ellis (1994) and displayed in Table 2-5. This table along with

Littlefield’s classification of error types (section 2.2.2) is referred to in the formation

of error types for the research question number one.

Table 2-5

A Surface Strategy taxonomy of Errors

Categories Description Examples

Omissions

The absence of an item that must

appear in a well-formed utterance.

She sleeping.

Additions

The presence of an item that must not

appear in well-formed utterances.

We didn’t went there.

Misinformations

The use of the wrong form of the

morpheme or structure

The dog ated the

chicken.

Misordering

The incorrect placement of a

morpheme of group of morphemes in

an utterance.

What daddy is

going?

30

2.6 Conclusion

In this chapter, Littlefield’s (2006) model is applied to the traditional P-forms in

phrasal and non-phrasal verbs. It is shown that a group of P-forms in prepositional

verbs may have trouble being fit into the mode (as the on in set on). What is more,

examination of the results of two past studies of EFL performance on P-forms in

phrasal and prepositional verbs (Miura, 1989; Liu, 2006b) unveiled a little bit the

importance of the functional and lexical features in acquisition of P-forms.

31

Ch3 Research Design

This chapter describes two main stages. Data collected by means of the method

in stage one has the subsidiary function of developing the material for the primary

data collection in stage two. Stage one aims to clarify the presence or absence of the

functional features carried by P-forms of on in verbal phrases. P-forms are not easily

identified by the current researcher, a non-native speaker of English. Indirectly, this

exploration also displays that the syntactic properties suggested by Littlefield (2006)

do not fully operate as she expecst. Stage two deals with the core part of this thesis

study with regard to EFL learners’ performance on P-forms of on in phrasal and

non-phrasal verbs in correspondence to the research questions of the thesis study.

3.1 Stage one

In order to investigate Taiwan EFL students’ performance on prepositions by

making use of Littlefield’s (2006) prepositional domain, the researcher first needs to

know what kind of prepositional element a preposition functions as. For example, the

researcher needs to know that the on in depend on NP is a functional preposition, and

the on in turn on NP is a prepositional adverb. Unfortunately, there are some

prepositions of which identities are not clear to the researcher. For example, the on in

put on the play appears puzzling: Does the on have semantic content? (This question

has something to do with the determination of the [+/-Lexical] feature.) Does the on

have the function of connecting the NP complement it takes? (This question is closely

related to the determination of the value of the functional feature.)

Hence, the purpose of stage one aims to help the researcher identify the presence

or absence of the functional feature of P-forms. The researcher adopts Internalized

Approach (Chomsky, 1986). That is, native speakers have intuition about

grammaticality (Radford, 1997), and by making use of this intuition, abstract

principles that shape the grammar of any particular language is presented in the mind

of a speaker.

32

3.1.1 Participants

The participants were 11 native speakers of English. Six of them were Schweitzer

foreign English teachers of pupils in remote districts of Nantou County. Four of them

were teachers of children English in private institutions. The final one was an

instructor of college English in a university. That their mother tongue is English was

the only necessary controlled variable in this conduction of Internalized Approach.

3.1.2 Material

The material (See Appendix A for complete understanding) is a test of 13 sets of

four sentences (i.e. totally 52 sentential question items). How it was developed is

presented in the following.

3.1.2.1 Selected structure

The first step in developing the test was to take into account what type of

syntactic structure formed with prepositional elements would be used for the analysis

in the study. Actually, the four prepositional elements have variant distributions of

their own. Prepositional adverbs occur in the construction of Verb-Prep. adverb (e.g.

sit down), V-NP-Prep. adverb (e.g. turn the light on), or V-Prep. adverb-NP (e.g. turn

on the light). Similar to the distribution of prepositional adverbs, the constructions

formed with particles are V-Particle (e.g. barter up), V-NP-Particle (e.g. eat the

sandwich up, keep one’s hand in), or V-Particle-NP (e.g. eat up the sandwich, put on

airs). Semi-lexical prepositions merge with an NP, their complement, forming the

construction of Semi-lexical prep.-NP (e.g. in the room). This construction can, in

succession, be attached to a verb, forming a verbal phrase, i.e. V-Semi-lexical

prep.-NP (e.g. run into the room) or with a noun, forming a nominal phrase, i.e.

NP-Semi-lexical prep.-NP (e.g. three yards above the window). Functional

prepositions, like semi-lexical prepositions, merge with an NP, their complement,

forming the construction of Functional prep.-NP, and this construction is, in

succession, merged with a verb, forming a verbal phrase, i.e. V-Functional prep.-NP

(e.g. depend on his parents), with a noun, forming a nominal phrase, i.e.

NP-Functional prep.-NP (e.g. destruction of the city), or with an adjective, forming an

adjectival phrase, i.e. Adj-Functional prep.-NP (e.g. proud of her dog). Among the

variant constructions for the four prepositional elements, a common construction or

syntactic structure was required for comparison of the uses of the four prepositional

33

elements in an identical syntactic environment which eliminates any analysis

deviation resulting from the structural factor. The construction common to all the

prepositional elements is V-Pform-NP. Therefore, the construction of V-Pform-NP was

the targeted construction.

3.1.2.2 Selected preposition

The second consideration was which preposition would be chosen from among

so many potential candidates of English prepositions15

. To achieve this, it is

reasonable to examine which prepositions can play the role of all the four

prepositional elements (That is a certain preposition can act as a prepositional adverb,

particle, semi-lexical preposition, or functional preposition.)

First, there are 87 semi-lexical prepositions accounting for the highest percentage

of the potential candidates16

. In addition, Hill (1968) comes up with a most complete

list of English adverbs among which there are 43 (prepositional) adverbs17

. These 43

adverbs are: aboard, about, above, across, after, ahead, along, alongside, around, as,

away, back, before, behind, below, beneath, beside(s), between, beyond, but, by, down,

forward, forwards, in, inside, near, nearby, off, on .out, outside, over, past, since,

through, throughout, together, toward, underneath, under, up, within. As to particles,

Littlefield (2006) cited Sawyer’s (2004) personal communication in her dissertation,

indicating that particles are comprised of slightly reduced subset of the frequently

used adverbs, and they are across, ahead, along, around, away, back, by, down, in, off,

on, out, over, through, under, and up18

. Finally, Littlefield (2006) presents eight

prepositions that seem to act as functional prepositions: at, for, from, in, on, over, to,

and with. After examining the members of each prepositional element, the researcher

finds that three prepositions can act as all the four prepositional elements: on, in, over.

Therefore, until now, the number of potential candidates of prepositions was reduced

to three, and they were on, in, over.

These three prepositions, on, in, over, were not all employed in this stage, though

all can be found acting as all the four prepositional elements. Actually, only one

preposition was favored by the researcher, and that was on. On won out among the

other two for two main reasons. First, on is found to be one of the most frequently

15

248 English prepositions, at least, are discovered in a corpus study of English by Fang (2000). 16

The number, 87, is calculated by subtracting one functional preposition, of, from 88 simplex

prepositions in Fang’s (2000) study that are later classified as semi-lexical prepositions by Littlefield

(2006). For those who are interested in what the 87 members are, please refer to Fang’s (2000) work.

Complex prepositions, i.e. those containing more than one words, are not discussed in Littlefield’s

(2006) study, and thus are not the targets in this current study. 17

Hill (1968) uses the term of adverbs which is later what Littlefield (2006) called prepositional

adverbs. 18

This personal communication is considered valuable for the sake of its scholarly relevance.

34

used prepositions. Fang (2000) found that on is in the fourth place among the 120

most frequent English prepositions. Leech, Rayson, & Wilson (2001) looked into the

frequency of prepositions in British National Corpus. According to their finding, on is

in the sixth place among the most frequently used top ten prepositions in one million

written and one million spoken English. The current researcher surveyed the

frequency of the construction of V-on-NP, V-in-NP, and V-over-NP in Idiomatic

Expression section of three versions of senior high school text books (Chen, 2007;

Shih, Lin, Huang, & Brook, 2007; Tian, Lin, Doyle, Shih, & Chen, 2006). The

number of V-on-NP entries is greater than the other two19

. Such a high occurrence of

on is also reflected in EFL learners’ knowledge of prepositions. Yang et al. (2005)

inquired of 49 college students in Taiwan what prepositions they knew. Most of them

mentioned on was one of the three prepositions they thought of in retrospect of

knowledge about prepositions20

. As to the second reason of choosing on, on is

regarded as basic but difficult preposition. Yang et al. (2005) investigated EFL college

students’ usage of three prepositions, in, on, and at. They found that on is ranked into

the top most three difficult prepositions no matter what type of preposition it functions

as. It is in the third place of difficulty level among time prepositions, in the third place

among direction prepositions, and in the second place among location prepositions.

Therefore, after taking into account the two major reasons mentioned above, the

researcher decided that on would be the target in this study21

.

So far, the reason for selecting V-P-NP construction is given in section 3.1.2.1;

the reason for selecting on is given in section 3.1.2.2. Combining the two

determinations leads to V-on-NP. In the next subsection, the researcher selected verbs

that can appropriately fit into the V-on-NP construction.

3.1.2.3 Selected phrasal verbs and non-phrasal verbs

After deciding the selected structure and targeted preposition, i.e. V-on-NP, the

researcher’s next step was to collect verbal phrases of which the syntactic

constructions are V-on-NP. Since the thesis study will investigate Taiwan EFL senior

high school students’ performance on prepositions, and therefore, as mentioned in

section 3.1.2.2, the researcher looked over three versions of textbooks (Chen, 2007;

Shih et al., 2007; Tian et al., 2006), plus Lin’s (1991) book on idiomatic expressions,

so as to collect phrasal verbs or non-phrasal verbs in the configurations of V-on-NP,

19

Entries are displayed in Table 3-1 in section 3.1.2.3. 20

The other two were in and at. 21

Coincidentally, on was also the only one targeted preposition in Hsieh’s (2006), Lindstromberg’s

(1996), and Xing’s (2008) studies.

35

V-in-NP, and V-over-NP. The result of the collection is displayed in Table 3-122

.

Table 3-1

Phrasal and Non-phrasal Verbs in the Configuration of V-P-NP

V-on-NP V-in-NP V-over-NP

take on NPa pull in NP wick over NP

take on NPb invest in NP knock over NP

turn on NP hand in NP make over NP

set on NP trade in NP talk over NP

capitalize on NP result in NP think over NP

feed on NP participate in NP look over NP

try on NP end in NP do over NP

trespass on NP arrive in NP take over NP

cheer on NP believe in NP hold over NP

act on NP bring in NP get over NP

get on NPc deal in NP run over NP

work on NP get in one’s way carry over NP

focus on NP walk in barefoot

slip on NP

dwell on NP

concentrate on NP

insist on NP

call on NP

depend on NP

remark on NP

experiment on NP

agree on NP

put on NPd

put on NPe

put on weight

put on the brake

go on a diet

Note. NP refers to any semantically appropriate internal argument.

aThe verbal phrase means “to begin to have (a particular quality, appearance, etc.)”.

22

The phrase come upon NP (i.e. “to meet or find somebody by chance”) appears in the Luntung

English Reader (Tian et al., 2006), and supposedly on can be substituted for upon, but still this entry

was not considered. An American consultant, Mr. Bob Pierce, remarked on the replacement of upon

with on by saying “Come on [NP] seems strange and ambiguous, like physically climbing onto a

person’s body.”

36

bThe verbal phrase means “to employ, hire”.

cThe verbal phrase means “to take a transportation tool”.

dThe verbal phrase means “to arrange a play or drama, and act out”.

eThe verbal phrase means “to wear something”.

First of all, Table 3-1 displays the V-P-NP construction of phrasal verbs and

prepositional verbs, excluding simple verb-preposition combinations in the textbooks.

Simple verb-preposition combinations are not tabulated because of their highly

productive nature that is far from calculation. In addition, although over and in are not

the targets, the reason to tabulate V-in-NP and V-over-NP is that they shall serve as

good distracters in the gap-filling test of stage two. Finally, not all of the entries listed

in the Verb-on-NP column were put into the material. Those whose P-forms are easily

recognized did not appear in the material, and they are displayed in Table 3-2. The on

in turn on NP, try on NP, put on NP, and slip on NP are prepositional adverbs directly

shown in Littlefield’s (2006) study. The on in get on NP is a semi-lexical preposition

since it has a semantic counterpart, off in get off NP, and therefore, it is considered

rich in content. The on in the remaining nine verbal phrases are functional

prepositions since they do not contribute any meaning to the phrases, and the

meanings of the verbal phrases are purely derived from the verbs.

Table 3-2

On in V-on-NP Which is Easy to be Classified into Prepositional Elements

Prepositional Adverb Semi-lexical preposition Functional preposition

turn on get on feed on

try on trespass on

put on focus on

slip on concentrate on

depend on

remark on

insist on

experiment on

agree on

What are left undetermined are another 13 verbal phrases, including Take on NP

(i.e. to begin to have [a particular quality, appearance, etc.]), take on NP (i.e. to

employ, hire), set on NP, capitalize on NP, cheer on NP, act on NP, dwell on NP, Call

on NP, put on NP (i.e. to arrange a play or drama, and act out), put on the brake, go

37

on a diet, work on NP, put on weight. These phrases are not recognized by Littlefield

(2006) and the present researcher, a non-native speaker of English, has no intuition

regarding to English language, and has difficulty recognizing them as particles or the

other three prepositional elements. Thus, they were expected to be recognized

successfully after the researcher surveyed the 11 native speakers of English who

responded to this material.

3.1.2.4 Selected syntactic properties

According to Littlefield (2006), the plus and minus functional features (i.e.

[+/-Functional]) can be used to classify prepositions into two major groups. The first

group with the [+Functional] feature contains semi-lexical prepositions and functional

prepositions; the second group with the [-Functional] feature consists of prepositional

adverbs and particles. Thus, this material is expected to classify the 13 prepositions

into the two major groups by means of syntactic properties associated to the

functional feature. Once these prepositions are classified into the two major groups, it

becomes easier to further sub-classify them into prepositional elements they act purely

in reliance on the semantic content they bear. For example, once the on in put on the

play is found carrying the [-Functional] feature, it would be either a prepositional

adverb or a particle. Then consideration of the [+/-Lexical] feature comes into play.

Because the on has no semantic content, it is treated as a particle precisely.

There are six syntactic properties associated to the [+/-Functional] feature as

mentioned in Table 2-3, but two syntactic properties are not considered helpful with

classification of prepositions, and they are Object Shift and Pronominal Object

Preceding Prepositional Element. The problem with the two syntactic properties lies

in the contradictory argument of Littlefield, who mentioned in her study that nominal

object may occur before or after prepositions designated with the [-Functional] feature

(i.e. adverbs and particles), and pronominal object obligatorily precede prepositions

designated with the [-Functional] feature (i.e. adverbs and particles), whereas she also

mentions the object position of particles is sometimes fossilized. In other words,

placement of objects cannot be predicted when it comes to particles. The present

study avoids the inconsistence by abandoning the two syntactic properties.

Therefore, four syntactic properties were employed in the material, and they

were Placement of a true adverbial phrase between verb and prepositional element,

fronting, pied-piping, and gapping. An examples of a [+Functional] element is

presented in Ex 19 ; an example of a [-Functional] element is presented in Ex 20. The

four sentences in Ex 19 are all grammatical after the operation of the four properties

because of the [+Functional] feature carried by the preposition on. On the contrary,

38

the four sentences in Ex 20 are all ungrammatical because the preposition on is

designated with the [-Functional] feature. Prepositions of unclear identity in verbal

phrases would then be used to make sentences containing the four syntactic properties.

An example is given in Ex 21.

Ex 19 a. John depended heavily on his parents. (Adverb)

b. On his parents, John depended. (Fronting)

c. On which persons did John depend? (Pied-piping)

d. John depended on his parents, and Mary, on her

grandparents.

(Gapping)

Ex 20 a. *John turned quickly on the lights (Adverb)

b. *On the lights, John turned. (Fronting)

c. *On which apparatus did John turn? (Pied-piping)

d. *John turned on the lights, and Mary, on the fans. (Gapping)

Ex 21 a. ?They put finally on the play. (Adverb)

b. ?On the play, they put. (Fronting)

c. ?On which play did they put? (Pied-piping)

d. ?We put on this play, and they, on that play. (Gapping)

3.1.3 Procedure

After the completion of the material, the next step was to send it to the 11 native

speakers of English via E-mail, surface mail, and face-to face delivery, for data

collection. The respondents filled out the form by putting F before the sentences they

considered ungrammatical to them relying on their intuition regarding L1. Then, they

sent it back to the researcher via either E-mail or surface mail, or the researcher took it

back in person. The period of data collection lasted one month (2008/08).

3.1.4 Data analysis

Data analysis was descriptive tally of the T and F for each question item. The on

in a verbal phrase was judged as a [+Functional] prepositional element only under the

circumstance where the four question items made with the phrase were all marked T

by the participants, and vice versa.

39

3.1.5 Results

The raw data of collected grammatical judgment by the 11 native speakers of

English is presented in Appendix B, and descriptive statistics of the raw data is shown

in Table 3-3 (for easy interpretation), with regard to the frequency of grammaticality

(T) and that of ungrammaticality (F) for the 52 sentences. For the phrase take on

(question number one to four), the frequencies of F are all greater than those of T for

the four sentences (i.e. 11 > 0, 11 > 0, 8 > 3, 8 > 3). For the phrase cheer on (question

number five to eight), the frequencies of F are all greater than those of T for the four

sentences (i.e. 10 > 1, 10 > 1, 7 > 4, 6 > 3). For the phrase work on (question number

nine to 12), the frequency of F is greater than that of T for question number 10 (i.e. 7

> 4) while the frequencies of F are smaller than those of T for the other three

sentences (i.e. 0 < 11, 0 < 11, 2 < 9). For the phrase put on the brake (question number

13 to 16), the frequencies of F are all greater than those of T for the four sentences (i.e.

11 > 0, 11 > 0, 11 > 0, 7 > 4). For the phrase act on (question number 17 to 20), the

frequency of F is greater than that of T for question number 18 (i.e. 6 > 5) while the

frequencies of F are all smaller than those of T for the other three sentences (i.e. 1 <

10, 4 < 7, 2 < 9). For the phrase call on (question number 21 to 24), the frequencies of

F are greater than those of T for question number 21 (i.e. 8 > 3) and 22 (i.e. 7 > 4)

while the frequencies of F are smaller than those of T for question number 23 (i.e. 2 <

9) and 24 (i.e. 5 < 6). For the phrase take on (question number 25 to 28), the

frequencies of F are all greater than those of T for the four sentences (i.e. 11 > 0, 11 >

0, 8 > 3, 8 > 3). For the phrase set on (question number 29 to 32), the frequencies of F

are smaller than those of T for question number 29 (i.e. 3 < 8) and 32 (i.e. 4 < 7) while

the frequencies of F are greater than those of T for question number 30 (i.e. 8 > 3) and

31 (i.e. 6 > 5). For the phrase capitalize on (questions number 33 to 36), the

frequencies of F are all smaller than those of T for the four sentences (i.e. 2 < 9, 5 < 6,

0 < 11, 2 < 9). For the phrase dwell on (question number 37 to 40), the frequency of F

is greater than that of T for question number 38 (i.e. 6 > 5) wile the frequencies of F

are smaller than those of T for the other three sentences (i.e. 1 < 10, 3 < 8, 4 < 7). For

the phrase of put on weight (question number 41 to 44), the frequencies of F are all

greater than those of T for the four sentences (i.e. 11 > 0, 11 > 0, 11 > 0, 9 > 2). For

the phrase put on (question number 45 to 48), the frequencies of F are all greater than

those of T for the four sentences (i.e. 11 > 0, 11 > 0, 8 > 3, 8 > 3). For the phrase go

on a diet (question number 49 to 52), the frequencies of F are all greater than those of

T for the four sentences (i.e. 6 > 5, 7 > 4, 7 > 4, 6 > 5).

40

Table 3-3

Frequency of T& F for Each Set of Question Items

Frequency of T & F

Sets of question items T F

take on

1. 0 11

2. 0 11

3. 3 8

4. 3 8

cheer on

5. 1 10

6. 1 10

7. 4 7

8. 3 6

work on

9. 11 0

10. 4 7

11. 11 0

12. 9 2

put on the brake

13. 0 11

14. 0 11

15. 0 11

16. 4 7

act on

17. 10 1

18. 5 6

19. 7 4

20. 9 2

call on

21. 3 8

22. 4 7

23. 9 2

24. 6 5

take on

25. 0 11

26. 0 11

27. 3 8

41

28. 3 8

set on

29. 8 3

30. 3 8

31. 5 6

32. 7 4

capitalize on

33. 9 2

34. 6 5

35. 11 0

36. 9 2

dwell on

37. 10 1

38. 5 6

39. 8 3

40. 7 4

put on weight

41. 0 11

42. 0 11

43. 0 11

44. 2 9

put on

45. 0 11

46. 0 11

47. 3 8

48. 3 8

go on a diet

49. 5 6

50. 4 7

51. 4 7

52. 5 6

It follows that four patterns can be observed as shown in Table 3-4. First, there

are P-forms in such phrases as take on (i.e. “to employ, hire”), take on (i.e. “to begin

to have a particular quality, appearance, etc.”), put on weight, put on (i.e. “to organize,

arrange, a theatrical entertainment”) carrying the [-Functional] feature because the

frequencies of F are dramatically greater than those of T for each set of the four

sentential question items. Additionally, these P-forms carry the [-Lexical] feature,

42

contributing no meaning. Second, there are P-forms in such phrases as cheer on, put

on the brake, and go on a diet, carrying the [-Functional] feature because the

frequencies of F are greater than those of T for each set of the four sentences, and at

least one frequency of F is just slightly greater than that of T among the four sentences.

Take put on the brake for example, the frequency of F is slightly greater than that of T

for question number 16 (i.e. 7 > 4) while the other frequencies of F are much greater

than those of T for the other three question sentences (i.e. 11 > 0, 11 > 0, 11 > 0). Also

these P-forms, like those in the first pattern, carry the [-Lexical] feature, contributing

no meaning. Third, there is a P-form in capitalize on carrying the [+Functional]

feature because the frequencies of F are all smaller than those of T for the four

question sentences (i.e. 2 < 9, 5 < 6, 0 < 11, 2 < 9). Additionally, it carries the

[-Lexical] feature, contributing no meaning. Fourth, there are P-forms in such phrases

as work on, act on, call on, set on, dwell on, which are hard to be determined with

respect to the functional feature. Take work on for example, although the frequencies

of F are dramatically smaller than those of T for question number 9 (i.e. 0 < 11), 11

(i.e. 0 < 11), and 12 (i.e. 2 < 9), yet a counterexample occurs to question number 10

for which the frequency of F is slightly greater than that of T (i.e. 7 > 4). A

consistency thus fails.

Table 3-4

Patterns of [+/-Lexical, +/-Functional] Features observed from

Grammaticality Judgment

Patterns

1. [-L, -F] 2. [-L, -F] 3. [-L, +F] 4. [?L, ?F]

take on cheer on capitalize on work on

take on put on the brake act on

put on weight go on a diet call on

Put on set on

dwell on

3.1.6 Discussion

The results show that the first and second patterns in Table 3-4 act as particles in

Littlefield’s model where any syntactic operation on the P-forms leads to crash, so

they are particles; the third pattern, on the other hand, acts as a functional preposition

in her model where any syntactic operation on the P-form gives rise to convergence. A

question arises in this case of capitalize on. If the on in the phrase capitalize on is

43

designated with the [-Lexical, +Functional] features as the results display, it is then

identified as a functional preposition. According to Littlefield’s definition of

functional preposition, a functional preposition is characterized by its lack of

substantive semantic content and by its ability to assign case, and the on in capitalize

on seemingly behaves so. In reference to Ex 9c and Table 3-2, the meaning of

Verb-functional preposition construction relies purely on the meaning of the verb

since the P-form is meaningless. However, the meaning of capitalize on does not

depend on the meaning of the verb capitalize, but a unique and unpredicted one is

derived. A catch-22 situation thus occurs: the functional preposition on along with the

verb capitalize do not compose the meaning of the phrase capitalize on in the way a

functional preposition and a verb do, but it is not a particle because it is found

designated with the [-Lexical, +Functional] features.

With regard to the forth pattern, their functional feature is not determined due to

one or more counter results of the four syntactic operations that prevent them from

been patterned. The three on in work on, act on, and dwell on act nearly as elements

carrying the [+Functional] features. Slightly more than half of the native speakers of

English did not agree on the well-formedness of question number 10 (i.e. 7 > 4), 18

(i.e. 6 > 5), 38 (i.e. 6 > 5) respectively. The results prevent the three on from being

classified as elements with the [+Functional] for precisely sure. In other word, the 11

native speakers of English implicitly consider the three on elements with the

[+Functional] feature in the syntactic operations except for their usage in fronting.

This small discrepancy of 7 > 4 and 6 > 5 might be remediated if more native

speakers of English were involved in the grammaticality judgment. Complication falls

on the two on in call on and set on. For the on in call on, fronting and placing an

adjective between call and on were not allowed by more native speakers of English

while pied-piping and gapping were allowed. For the on in set on, fronting and

pied-piping were not allowed by the majority while gapping and placing an adjective

between set and on were allowed.

The stage of research design does not intend to map out why there are four

patterns found in the result, but this discovery of the four patterns truly presents that

not all native speakers of English judged the four syntactic operations of P-forms as

Littlefield’s model predicts. The main purpose of this stage of research design is to

help the researcher identify the roles of P-forms. The P-forms in pattern one and

pattern two are found to be particles and the P-form in pattern three is found to be a

suspicious functional preposition. That the P-forms in pattern two are determined as

particles might be fishy since the discrepancy of frequencies between T and F is not

big. The P-form in pattern three is problematic as discussed above. Therefore, it is the

four P-forms in the first pattern that are determined as particles for precisely sure.

44

3.2 Stage two

The purpose of stage two is to collect EFL learners’ performance on P-forms of

on in phrasal and non-phrasal verbs by means of two self-developed materials, and

then the answers to the research questions will be found out through the error analysis

of collected data. The research design in stage two is along the line of Khampang’s

(1974) finding that error analysis is just as effective in showing problems of

prepositional uses. Section 3.2.1 describes the basic information of the chosen

participants. More description is given in section 3.2.2 where two materials for data

collection are introduced. Section 3.2.3 is concerned with how the participants carries

out the task of completing the two materials. Section 3.2.4 is concerned with the way

to analyze the collected data

3.2.1 Participants

The participants will be 170 third-graders in senior high school. The reason to

target the third-graders is that they nearly finish high school English curriculum and

are supposed to have learned grammar on prepositions from their textbooks which

provide examples of V-on-NP constructions. And they will not be further grouped

differently because Khampang (1974) suggests there is no need to separate EFL

learners by their backgrounds, such as sex, subtle age difference, number of years or

number of hours per week spent in learning English, etc. in error analysis.

3.2.2 Materials

The development of two materials is introduced in this subsection. The first

material is a gap filling test (See Appendix C for complete understanding). Although

Khampang (1974) suggests that cloze test seems to be more effective than the other

materials in testing the use of English prepositions, Khampang’s cloze test is actually

more like a gap filling test where the blanks are left for elicitation of prepositional use

rather than elicitation of appropriate vocabulary in a reading material. Therefore, one

of the two materials used in stage two is a gap filling test. This material contains 76

question items (See Appendix C for complete understanding). Each item is a pair of

Chinese sentence and its English correspondence. A gap occurs in the English

corresponding sentence where an appropriate preposition is expected to be filled by

the participants after they obtain the context through the Chinese sentence. Among the

76 items, 19 ones are the targeted items that incorporate the P-forms of on in phrasal

45

and non-phrasal verbs, including (a) four prepositional adverbs in turn on, try on, put

on, and slip on in Table 3-2. (b) four particles in take on, take on, put on, and put on

weight in Table 3-4. (c) three semi-lexical prepositions in get on, sit on (the chair),

and play on (the floor). The phrase get on appears in Table 3-2. The other two,

canonical examples of semi-lexical prepositions, are added to compensate the

impoverished examples of semi-lexical prepositions in Table 3-2, and (d) eight

functional prepositions in feed on, trespass on, focus on, concentrate on, depend on,

remark on, experiment on, and insist on in Table 3-2. It is noticed that agree on in

Table 3-2 is not included because another two prepositions, to and about, can be

substituted for on. Subtracting 19 from the total 76 items is 57. These remaining 57

items serve as item distractors whose job is to prevent the participants from being

aware that the preposition on is the expected answer. The ratio of 19 to 57 equals to

that of 1 to 3, a common ratio set in the multiple choice test.

The second material is a grammaticality judgment test (See Appendix D for

complete understanding). Its development is similar to that of the test in Appendix A.

For example, there are two sets of four sentences for prepositional adverb. The first

set is made with turn on, and the other is made with try on. So there are eight

sentences for this element (2x4). Along with the other three elements, the test contains

32 items (2x4x4).

3.2.3 Procedure

To collect the participants’ performance data on prepositions, the current

researcher will ask for senior high school English teachers’ help with the data

collection by delivering the two materials to their students in class. First, all the

participants will need to spend thirty minutes completing the gap filling test, and in

turn spend another twenty minutes completing the grammaticality judgment test after

the teacher takes back their gap-filling test sheets. Totally, the two tests will take

nearly fifty minutes.

3.2.4 Data analysis

The ways to data analysis will be tightly connected to the research questions. For

question number one, the frequency of error types of omissions, misinformation, and

others will be tallied, and the highest frequency of error type will emerge therefore.

For research question number two, frequencies of correct uses of the four

prepositional elements will be tallied. In turn these frequencies will be ordered from

the highest to the lowest so that the researcher can observe what it is that determines

46

the participant’s difficulty in using the P-forms of on. For example, supposed that the

order of the frequency of correct uses of the four prepositional elements is

semi-lexical prepositions > prepositional adverbs > functional prepositions > particles,

it follows that the lexical feature is the key determinant of difficulty in using the

P-forms of on. That is, elements with the lexical features are easier than those without

the lexical features. Meanwhile, the functional feature seems to play the secondary

role. For research question number three, it will be necessary to obtain the Pearson r

correlation coefficient in SPSS (12.0), to see if a high score on the first material is

likely to have a high or low score on the second material.

47

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52

A few words for you before you start

Acknowledgement First of all, great gratitude is shown to you for cooperation in filling out the questionnaire. You may feel relieved to know that your

name is NOT required purely for the sake of academic consideration.

ntention This questionnaire intends to survey how you, as a native speaker of English, think about the grammaticality of the sentences listed in

the following pages. The result of the survey will be used, later, as a criterion for classifying the prepositions collocated with phrasal

or non-phrasal verbs into 4 types of prepositional elements proposed by Heather A. Littlefield (2006)*.

direction As you open the file of the questionnaire, you will find several sets of 4 sentences made with the same phrasal or non-phrasal verb.

What makes the 4 sentences in a set different from each other is the linguistic context where and how the phrasal or non-phrasal verb

occurs. Please put F before the sentences (i.e. in the second column of the following pages) that are not grammatical or not

acceptable to you, relying on your English language intuition.

ignificance of

your job

Your response is considered valuable contribution to the clarification of prepositions in linguistics.

Designer of the

questionnaire

Jian-liang Eric Tang, Graduate student

The Linguistics and TESOL Master Program, Department of English

National Chunghua University of Education, Taiwan

E-mail: jle.tang@msa.hinet.net

Attention

Please answer the following 2 questions.

1. What is your mother tongue? □ English □ Other

2. Do you want to receive the result of the survey? □ Yes Your E-mail:

□ No

Littlefield, H. A., (2006). Syntax and acquisition in the prepositional domain: Evidence from English for fine-grained syntactic categories. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Boston University, Boston.

NO: __________ Appendix A Grammaticality Judgment of Syntactic Operation by Native Speakers of English

53

No. (F?) Sentential Items Phrasal verbs/Non-phrasal verbs

1. John took urgently on more new workers (at his factory).

2. On more new workers, John took.

3. On which group of workers did John take?

4. John took on more female workers, and Mary, on less male workers

Take on:

To employ, hire

5. The crowd cheered loudly on the runners (as they started the last lap).

6. On the runners, the crowd cheered.

7. On which team did the crowd cheer?

8. John cheered on his team, and Mary, on her team.

Cheer on:

To encourage somebody by shouting

loudly

9. John worked hard on his project.

10. On his project, John worked.

11. On which project did John work?

12. John worked on his project, and Mary, on her project.

Work on:

to spend time making, improving, or fixing

something

13. John put quickly on the brake.

14. On the brake, John put.

15. On which part of the car did John put?

16. John put on the brake of his car, and Mary, on the brake of her car.

Put on the brake:

To reduce the speed of or stop a car,

bicycle, train, etc

17. Many Chinese people act firmly on Confucius’ moral principles.

18. On Confucius’ moral principles, many Chinese people act.

19. On what principles did many Chinese people act?

20. Many Chinese people act on Confucius’ moral principles, and Americans, on Christian doctrines.

Act on:

To behave according to

54

21. John called happily on his parents.

22. On his parents, John called.

23. On which family did John call?

24. John called on his parents, and Mary, on her sisters.

Call on:

Make a short visit

25. Mary’s face took unconsciously on a happy expression (when she opened the gift).

26. On a happy expression, Mary’s face took.

27. On what kind of expression did Mary take?

28. Mary’s face took on a happy expression, and John, on a sad expression.

Take on:

To begin to have (a particular quality,

appearance, etc.)

29. The hungry tiger set suddenly on the man.

30. On the man, the hungry tiger set.

31. On which person did the hungry tiger set?

32. This hungry tiger set on John, and that angry dog, on Mary.

Set on:

To attack

33. John capitalized smartly on the opportunity for better stock provision.

34. On the opportunity for better stock provision, John capitalized.

35. On which opportunity did John capitalize?

36. John capitalized on this opportunity, and Mary, on that opportunity.

Capitalize on:

To use something to one’s advantage;

profit from something

37. John dwelled seriously on his past mistakes.

38. On his past mistakes, John dwelled.

39. On what part did John dwell?

40. John dwelled on his past mistakes, and Mary, on her past ones.

Dwell on:

To spend a lot of time thinking or talking

about unpleasant things

55

41. John put gradually on weight.

42. On weight, John put.

43. On which part did John put?

44. John put on weight, and Mary, on weight, too.

Put on weight:

To gain weight, add weight, and become

heavier

45. They put finally on the play.

46. On the play, they put.

47. On which play did they put?

48. We put on this play, and they, on that play.

Put on:

to organize, arrange, and present an event

such as a theatrical entertainment

49. Mary went painfully on a diet.

50. On a diet, Mary went.

51. On which thing did Mary go?

52. Mary went on a diet, and Jenny, on a diet, too.

go on a diet:

To be allowed to eat only some foods or a

little food, because of illness or to lose

weight

THANK YOU VERY MUCH! This is the end of the questionnaire. Please send the questionnaire you just filled out back to the designer of the

questionnaire. If possible, please forward the original file of the questionnaire to anyone you know who is a native speaker of English and who can do the

questionnaire. His or her contribution is highly valued as well.

56

Appendix B

Table B-1

Raw Data of Grammaticality Judgment of Syntactic Operation on Phrasal and

Non-phrasal Verbs by Native Speakers of English

Result of grammaticality judgment by 11 individual native speakers of English

Item 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

1. F F F F F F F F F F F

2. F F F F F F F F F F F

3. F F F F T F T F T F F

4. F F F F T T F F F T F

5. F F F F F F T F F F F

6. F F F F T F F F F F F

7. F T T F F F F T T F F

8. F F F F T T T T F T F

9. T T T T T T T T T T T

10. T F F F T T F F T F F

11. T T T T T T T T T T T

12. T F F T T T T T T T T

13. F F F F F F F F F F F

14. F F F F F F F F F F F

15. F F F F F F F F F F F

16. F F F F T T T F F T F

17. T F T T T T T T T T T

18. T F F F T T F T T F F

19. T F F F T T F T T T T

20. R F F T T T T T T T T

21. T F F T T F F F F F F

22. T F F F T T F F T F F

23. T T T T T T F F T T T

24. T F F T T T F F F T T

25. F F F F F F F F F F F

26. F F F F F F F F F F F

27. F T F F T F F F F T F

28. F F F F T T F F F T F

29. T F T T T T F F T T T

57

30. T F F F T F F F T F F

31. T F F F T F F F T T T

32. T F F T T T F F T T T

33. T F T T T T F T T T T

34. T F F F T T T T T F F

35. T T T T T T T T T T T

36. T F F T T T T T T T T

37. T F T T T T T T T T T

38. T F F F T T F T T F F

39. T F T T F T T T T T F

40. T F F T F T T T T T F

41. F F F F F F F F F F F

42. F F F F F F F F F F F

43. F F F F F F F F F F F

44. F F F F T T F F F F F

45. F F F F F F F F F F F

46. F F F F F F F F F F F

47. F F F F T F F F T T F

48. F F F F T T F F F T F

49. T F T T F F F F T T F

50. T F F F T T F F T F F

51. T F F F T F F F T T F

52. T F F F T T T F T F F

58

=================================================================

� 介系詞測驗

1. 請填入適當的介系詞

例如： 我看黑板。

I looked at the blackboard.

2. 若不需要使用介系詞，請在空格內打 ××××

例如： 我抓住你的手了。

I hold ×××× your hand.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. 地球繞日而行。

The earth goes the sun.

2. 珍妮找到最合適的派對禮服之前，她試穿了許多套。

Jennie tried many dresses before she found the perfect one for the party.

3. 這條船向下游行駛。

The ship sailed the river.

4. 為了安全駕駛，駕駛需要將注意力集中於道路狀況。

A driver needs to focus the road in order to drive safely.

5. 我習慣在晚上 11 點就寢。

I used to sleep 11:00 p.m..

6. 外頭很冷。我們需要穿上大衣保暖。

It’s chilly outside. We need to put coats to keep warm.

7. 大多數選民投票給馬英九先生，他因此當選中華民國第十二任總統。

Since most people voted Mr.Ying Jiu Ma, he was elected as the 12th

president of the R. O. C..

總 計

答對 題

總共 76 題

學校：

班級：

姓名：

座號：

Appendix C Gap Filling Test

59

8. 這條彎曲的路末端是通往農田。

The winding road ends a rice field.

9. 請幫我看一下（檢查）我的作文，然後給我ㄧ些評論。

Please look my composition and give me some comments on it.

10. 這家公司把重點集中在歐洲市場。

The firm concentrates the European market.

11. 這個男人迅速穿上靴子，然後就離開家裡。

The man slipped his boots and left the house.

12. 我會仔細考慮你的提議然後明天給答覆。

I will think your offer and give my answer tomorrow.

13. 他去台中。

He went Taichung.

14. 我跑上山。

I ran the hill.

15. 我們坐在樹下。

We sat the tree.

16. 約翰嘲笑瑪莉。

John laughed Mary.

17. 那間工廠正在僱用許多新工人。

They are taking many new workers at that plant.

18. 史密斯教授談到了這兩本字典的不同之處。

Prof. Smith remarked the difference between the two dictionaries.

19. 經歷血戰後，軍隊佔領（接收）此小鎮。

After the bloody battle, the army took the town.

20. 他走進屋裏。

He walked the house.

21. 他跳入河裡。

He jumped the river.

60

22. 他站在兩個男孩中間。

He stood two boys.

23. 有一些學生無法安安靜靜坐在椅子上聽老師上課。

Some students do not sit the chair quietly, listening to the lecture.

24. 她在書桌前讀書。

She studied her desk.

25. 健康依靠的是良好的食物、新鮮的空氣和充足的睡眠。

Health depends good food, fresh air and enough sleep.

26. 她無法克服她的羞怯心理。

She cannot get her shyness.

27. 不要緊張!還有很多時間可以搭上公車。。

Don’t worry. There is plenty of time to get the bus.

28. 滿嘴食物的時候說話是很不禮貌的。

It is impolite to speak your mouth full of food.

29. 當你離開房間時，不要忘記關燈。

When you get out of the room, don’t forget to turn the light.

30. 小孩子們在地板上玩耍。

The children are playing the floor.

31. 小心不要冒犯他的隱私。

Be careful not to trespass his privacy.

32. 老師要我們在下禮拜繳交報告。

The teacher wants us to turn our reports next week.

33. 他長得像他的父親。

He resembles his father.

34. 我正在等我爸爸。

I am waiting my dad.

35. 多少人參加開業典禮？

How many people participated the opening ceremony?

61

36. 這裡頭暗暗的，請把電燈打開。

It’s dark inside. Please turn the lights.

37. 他們沿著街道走。

They walked the street.

38. 他靠著牆。

He leaned the wall.

39. 船員們都感覺很幸運可以安然度過這場致命的暴風圈。

The sailor felt lucky to have lived the deadly form.

40. 這張椅子檔到我了（妨礙到我了）。咱們把它移到那邊去。

The chair got my way. Let’s move it over there.

41. 這隻老貓喜歡躺在陽光下(中、裏)

The cat likes to sit the sun.

42. 他已經工作三年了

He has been working three years.

43. 蘿拉嘗試藉由吃少一點避免體重增加。

Laura is trying to avoid putting weight by eating less.

44. 這位老師用左手寫字。

This teacher writes his left hand.

45. 我哥哥在進我房間時撞倒我的檯燈。

My brother knocked my lamp as he entered my room.

46. 她在聽廣播。

She is listening the radio.

47. 我們焦慮地等著考試結果。

We are anxiously awaiting our test results.

48. 羊以草為食。

Sheep feed grass.

49. 我叔叔上星期已前往非洲。

My uncle left Africa last week.

62

50. 他在中午前抵達。

He arrived noon.

51. 我們正以每小時 90 公里的速度前進。

We are traveling the speed of 90 kilometers an hour.

52. 他們在一週前抵達台灣。

They arrived Taiwan a week ago.

53. 我在我房間讀書。

I study my room.

54. 不用擔心我。

Don’t worry me.

55. 有一架飛機飛過我們的頭上。

A plane flew our heads.

56. 當女孩打開禮物時，她的臉上呈現出快樂的表情。

When the girl opened the gift, her face took a happy expression.

57. 鳥兒在空中飛。

Birds fly the sky.

58. 她修改她所有的舊衣服。

She makes all her old clothes.

59. 她跟我去。

She went me.

60. 委員會由十人組成。

The committee consists ten members.

61. 他們在大批動物身上進行實驗。/ 他們對（用）大批動物進行實驗。

They experimented a large number of animals.

62. 她的家在河的彼岸。

Her house lies the river.

63. 這個男孩越過馬路。

The boy went the street.

63

64. 他們最後決定要安排演出茱麗葉與羅密歐

They finally decided to put the play, Romeo and Juliet.

65. 無疑地，疾病是由吃了變質的食物所致。

It is no doubt that sickness results bad food.

66. 他怎麼去基隆的？他搭車去基隆。

How did he go to Keelung? He went bus.

67. 她堅持她的清白。

She insisted her innocence.

68. 這本書是我的

The book belongs me.

69. 為了應付學校的課業，他求助於父親。

In order to deal with the challenges at school, he turned his father for

advice.

70. 我不相信網路交朋友這件事情。

I don’t believe making friends through the Internet.

71. 這位男孩及女孩來自這個國家的不同區域。

The boy and the girl come different parts of the country.

72. 這架飛機將飛行於台灣、日本、和美國之間。

The plan will fly Taiwan, Japan, and America.

73. 她走在我前面。

She walked me.

74. 火車過山洞。

The train went a tunnel.

75. 我父親死於肺癌。

My father dies lung cancer.

76. 他們的爭端導致了戰爭。

Their dispute resulted the war.

64

=======================================================================

� 文法是非題：

例題：

1. ( ○○○○ ) 他們快樂地在地上玩。

They played happily on the floor.

2. ( ×××× ) 他們迅速地增加體重。/他們體重迅速增加。

They put quickly on weight.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. ( ) 我們決定要安排演出哪一部戲劇呢？

On which play did we decide to put?

2. ( ) 我們最後決定要安排演出茱麗葉與羅密歐

On the play, Romeo and Juliet, we decided to put.

3. ( ). 我們決定要認真安排演出茱麗葉與羅密歐

We decided to put seriously on the play, Romeo and Juliet.

4. ( ). 我們安排演出茱麗葉與羅密歐，而他們安排演出仲夏夜之夢。

We put on the play, Romeo and Juliet, and they, on the play, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

5. ( ). 約翰坐在哪張椅子上？

On which chair did John sit?

6. ( ) 約翰坐在他的椅子上。

On his chair John sat.

7. ( ) 約翰安靜地坐在椅子上。

John sat quietly on his chair.

8. ( ). 約翰坐在椅子上，而瑪莉坐在地板上。

John sat on the chair, and Mary, on the floor.

總 計

答對 題

總共 32 題

學校：

班級：

姓名：

座號：

Appendix D Grammaticality Judgment Test by NNS

65

9. ( ). 約翰試穿哪一件外套呢？

On which coat did John try?

10. ( ) 約翰試穿這件外套。

On this coat John tried.

11. ( ) 約翰開心地試穿這件外套。

John tried happily on the coat.

12. ( ). 約翰試穿這件外套，而瑪莉試穿那件裙子。

John tried on this coat, and Mary, on that skirt.

13. ( ) 約翰的臉上呈現什麼表情？

On what expression did John’s face take?

14. ( ) 約翰的臉上呈現出快樂的表情。

On a happy expression John’s face took.

15. ( ) 約翰的臉上逐漸呈現出快樂的表情

John’s face took gradually on a happy expression.

16. ( ) 約翰的臉上呈現出快樂的表情，而瑪莉的臉上呈現出哀傷的表情。

John’s face took on a happy expression, but Mary’s face, on a sad one.

17. ( ) 約翰搭上哪一班公車？

On which bus did John get?

18. ( ) 約翰搭上 101 號公車

On bus 101 John got.

19. ( ) 約翰迅速地搭上 101 號公車。

John got quickly on bus 101.

20. ( ) 約翰搭上 101 號公車，而瑪莉搭 104 號公車。

John got on bus 101, and Mary, on bus 104.

21. ( ) 約翰打開哪一盞燈？

On which light did John turn?

22. ( ) 約翰打開檯燈。

On the lamp John turned.

23. ( ) 約翰快速地打開檯燈。

John turned quickly on the lamp.

24. ( ) 約翰打開檯燈，而瑪莉打開電視機。

John turned on the lamp, and Mary, on the TV set.

66

25. ( ). 約翰依靠哪一位親人？

On which relative did John depend?

26. ( ). 約翰依靠他的奶奶。

On his grandma John depended.

27. ( ) 約翰非常依靠他的奶奶。

John depended heavily on his grandma.

28. ( ) 約翰依靠他的奶奶，而瑪莉依靠她的爺爺。

John depended on his grandma, and Mary, on her grandpa.

29. ( ) 約翰堅持(買)哪種牛奶？

On which milk did John insist?

30. ( ) 約翰堅持(買)全脂牛奶。

On whole milk John insisted.

31. ( ) 約翰無理地(買)堅持全脂牛奶。

John insisted unreasonably on whole milk.

32. ( ) 約翰堅持(買)全脂牛奶，而瑪莉堅持(買)低脂牛奶。

John insisted on whole milk, but Mary, on low-fat milk.