The non-finite verb slot in English causative constructions. Comparing native and learner collostructions
(2006) 22nd Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics — Location: Aalborg (19.June.2006)
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- Abstract
- Analytic causative constructions are notoriously difficult for learners, as demonstrated by studies such as Wong (1983) and Liu & Shaw (2001) for Chinese learners, Altenberg & Granger (2001) for Swedish and French-speaking learners, or Helms-Park (2001) for speakers of Hindi-Urdu and Vietnamese. This paper will focus on the lexical nature of the non-finite complement in English analytic causative constructions as used by advanced learners from different mother tongue backgrounds. The learner data come from ICLE, the International Corpus of Learner English, and will be compared to similar data for native English. I will apply a technique known as collostructional analysis (Stefanowitsch & Gries 2003, Gries & Stefanowitsch 2004a, b), which seeks to measure the association strength between a construction and the lexemes occurring in a particular slot of this construction. While it is often assumed, both in the literature (e.g. Stocker 1990) and by students, that analytic causative constructions are “always safe” and that any verb can therefore be used in the non-finite verb slot, a collostructional analysis reveals some strong preferences for certain verbs and classes of verbs. Moreover, these preferences tend to be specific to each construction. Thus, [X MAKE Y Vinf] is often used with non-volitional verbs (e.g. 'feel', 'seem', 'wonder'), whereas [X HAVE Y Vpp] prefers verbs which refer to the frame of service (e.g. 'build', 'repair', 'cut'). It will be argued that, generally speaking, learners show little awareness of such lexical preferences and that this may result in awkward and unidiomatic usage. The unsuitability of pedagogical tools in this respect will also be briefly discussed.
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Gilquin, G. (2006). The non-finite verb slot in English causative constructions. Comparing native and learner collostructions. 22nd Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, Aalborg. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/225328