This thesis explores the phrasal verb construction ("get off," "takeover") from a previously unexplored vantage point--that of its frequency and variation in terms of contextual or register constraints. Ten separate discourses were used as the corpus for this study, two in each of fiveterms of percentage per pragmatic context, frequency of particular particles and verbs on each level, and other significant pragmatic criteria.

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published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts

by Chan Mable. / Thesis submitted in 1997. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-124). / Abstract also in Chinese. / Chapter Chapter1 --- Second Language Acquisition Research: Background to the Present Study / Chapter 1.1 --- Introduction / Chapter 1.2 --- Rationale for the Present Study / Chapter 1.2.1 --- Structures and Properties of Middles and Unaccusative Verbs in English / Chapter 1.2.1.1 --- Derivation of Middles / Chapter 1.2.1.2 --- Derivation of Unaccusative Verb Structures / Chapter 1.2.2 --- Common Properties Shared by Middles and Unaccusative Verbs / Chapter 1.2.3 --- SLA Studies on L2 Acquisition of Middles and Unaccusative Verb Structures / Chapter 1.3 --- Research Issues / Chapter Chapter2 --- Theoretical Issues / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction / Chapter 2.2 --- Why Is It Difficult to Acquire Middles and Unaccusative Verbs? / Chapter 2.2.1 --- "Common Properties shared by Passives, Middles and Unaccusatives" / Chapter 2.2.2 --- "The Differences between Passives, Middles and Unaccusatives" / Chapter 2.3 --- A Comparison of the Middles and Unaccusative Verbs in L1 and L2 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- The issue of L1 Transfer / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Middles in Cantonese / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Unaccusative Verbs in Cantonese / Chapter 2.4 --- Predictions of Difficulties posed by both structures / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Middles / Chapter 2.4.2 --- Unaccusative Verbs / Chapter Chapter3 --- Methodology and Results / Chapter 3.1 --- Experiment / Chapter 3.2 --- Subjects / Chapter 3.3 --- Procedures / Chapter 3.4 --- Rationale of the Tasks / Chapter 3.4.1 --- The Grammaticality Judgment Task / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Picture Description Task / Chapter 3.5 --- Scoring Method / Chapter 3.6 --- Results of the Picture Description Task / Chapter 3.7 --- Results of the Grammaticality Judgment Task / Chapter 3.8 --- Diagnostics of Middle Constructions and Unaccusative Verbs / Chapter 3.9 --- Prompting Effect / Chapter Chapter4 --- Discussion and Conclusion / Chapter 4.1 --- Research Issues Revisited / Chapter 4.2 --- Acquisition Problem with the Middle Construction / Chapter 4.3 --- Acquisition Problem with Unaccusative Verbs / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Paired Unaccusative Verbs / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Unpaired Unaccusative Verbs / Chapter 4.4 --- Do L2 Learners have Knowledge of Middle Constructions and Unaccusative Verbs? / Chapter 4.5 --- Developmental Patterns of L2 Learners in Acquiring English Middle Constructions and Unaccusative Verbs / Chapter 4.6 --- Is there L1 Transfer? / Chapter 4.7 --- How to Account for the Difficulties Posed by Middle Constructions and Unaccusative Verbs / Chapter 4.7.1 --- Acquisition of Unaccusative Verbs / Chapter 4.7.2 --- Acquisition of the Middle Constructions / Chapter 4.8 --- Incompleteness' and 'Divergence' in Second Language Acquisition / Chapter 4.9 --- Conclusion / References / Appendix I / Appendix II

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Arts in Education

University of Macau / Faculty of Arts and Humanities. / Department of English

Much recent attention has been devoted to the semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic properties of phrasal verbs--those two-part lexical items like "put on" and "tighten up", along with suggestions regarding effective methods of teaching them to non-native speakers. According to Cornell (1985), phrasal verbs, "have been 'discovered' as an important component in curricula for English as a Foreign Language" (p. 1). However, it is very possible that they have become objects of current research primarily because of their complexity: their polysemy, their idiomaticity, their syntactic restraints, a complexity that means covering phrasal verbs in an ESL/EFL course can be a time-consuming process.

The purpose of this research was to analyze the status of the English auxiliary system in the verb phrases of the writing of a selected group of sixth grade children to determine whether there would be measurable differences between the incorporation and comprehension of verb phrase expansions of children taught generative-transformational theory and those taught traditional theory.The research was designed to answer four questions relevant to the effects of the experimental treatment on the writing productivity of the subjects in the study. I collected writing samples from the subjects for pre-test and post-test evaluation. The first 100 verb forms collected from the subjects' pre-test and post-test writing were analyzed for changes in the subjects' use of expanded verb forms. The purpose of this analysis was to determine if the experimental subjects utilized fewer simple verb forms and more expanded verb forms in their post-test sampling.The sampling consisted of fifteen Caucasians and six Blacks in each group for a total of forty-two subjects. The subjects were students attending the Henry Barnard School which serves as the laboratory setting for Rhode Island College. The groups were equalized in terms of I.Q. and language achievement. While I collected the post-test data, the experimental subjects studied generative-transformational methods of verb phrase expansions and the control subjects studied traditional methods of verb phrase expansions.The data were analyzed by means of a two-way factorial analysis which computed the statistical differences for the experimental (Black-Caucasian)/control (Black-Caucasian), pre-test, post-test variables. In order to determine statistically significant differences for the groups, t-scores and f-scores were analyzed. The following conclusions were drawn from the statistical findings.Although none of the statistical summaries were significant at the .05 level, the experimental subjects showed more gains in their use of expanded verb forms in their posttest writing than the control group showed. Among the experimental subjects who made gains in their use of expanded verb forms, the Black population made the greatest gains. The most complex verb forms did not appear in the post-test sampling of either group. These complex forms seemed to be beyond the written linguistic productivity of sixth-grade children.

The purpose of this study is to give a brief history of the strong verbs in Old English and to trace their development in Middle English and in Modern English, concentrating on the last period. In Modern English two lines of development are of particular interest and importance: the confusion of children and illiterates in using strong verb forms and the treatment of strong verbs in recent grammars. It is hoped that this study will show the pertinence of these verbs and that from this study recommendations can be made as to the simplest procedure for teaching them.

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