The Dative Alternation in the Interlanguage of German Learners of English

Inhaltsverzeichnis (Table of Contents)

• Introduction
• Phenomenon of inquiry: the English dative alternation
  • Basic terms and terminology
  • State of research
    • Semantic approaches to the dative alternation
    • Informational approaches to the dative alternation
    • Predicting the dative alternation
    • Lexical biases
• The present study
• Method
  • Material design
    • Test sets
  • Participants
    • American participants (group L1)
    • German participants (group L2)
  • Procedure
  • Score
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion

Zielsetzung und Themenschwerpunkte (Objectives and Key Themes)

This study examines the English dative alternation in the interlanguage of German learners of English, specifically investigating how they utilize the double object dative and prepositional object dative structures. The main objective is to determine whether German learners exhibit similar lexical biases in their choice of dative syntax as native speakers of English.

• The English dative alternation and its syntactic structures
• The influence of semantic and informational factors on dative alternation processes
• The phenomenon of lexical bias in dative alternation
• Language transfer issues in the acquisition of the English dative alternation by German learners
• Empirical investigation of lexical biases in the interlanguage of German learners of English

Zusammenfassung der Kapitel (Chapter Summaries)

The introduction presents the core concept of the English dative alternation, highlighting the two main syntactic variants: double object dative and prepositional object dative. It briefly outlines the existing research on this phenomenon, focusing on both semantic and informational approaches to explaining its mechanisms.

The chapter on the present study details the research aims, particularly the focus on investigating the dative alternation in the interlanguage of German learners of English. It explores the potential influence of language transfer from German, which lacks a dative alternation, and examines the presence of lexical biases in the learners' production.

The chapter on methodology elaborates on the design and execution of the experiment, including the construction of test sets, participant selection, and the procedure used to collect data. The scoring method employed in the study is also described.

The chapter on results presents the findings of the experiment, analyzing the data collected from both American and German participants. The chapter on discussion interprets these results, exploring their theoretical implications and potential explanations for the observed patterns.

Schlüsselwörter (Keywords)

This study focuses on the English dative alternation, exploring its syntactic structures, semantic and informational influences, and the presence of lexical biases. Key concepts include language transfer, interlanguage, second language acquisition, and empirical research in the field of linguistics.