Overpassivisation in L2 Acquisition: An Examination of L1 Malay ESL Tertiary Students’ Passivisation of Intransitive Verbs in English

Overpassivisation, a phenomenon in which passive morphology is applied to intransitive verbs, common feature the interlanguage of L2 English learners. This study examines overpassivisation among L1 Malay ESL tertiary students concerning type verb and proficiency level. A total 499 higher educational institutions Malaysia completed grammaticality judgment test involving items with unaccusative unergative verbs. The have at least 10 years formal instruction school considerably more exposure than learners foreign language setting. As predicted, participants overgeneralised so Further, students’ competence rejecting overpassivised forms decreased learners’ increasing English. findings show that while committed by students, verbs contribute It indicates processing different underlying structures two classes Also, rule progressively acquired as reduction observed for both types proficiency. lower levels yet work out structures, particularly those suggest receiving input high-exposure environment does not necessarily allow bypass developmental stages acquiring rule.