This study examined the role of the native language (L1) transfer in a non-native language (L2) acquisition of the there-insertion construction at the syntax-semantics interface. Specifically, the study investigated if Mandarin EFL learners would make overgeneralization errors in the situation where an L1 argument structure constitutes a superset of its L2 counterpart. Verbs of existence and ap...

In this paper, I present syntactic evidence from copular constructions in Irish to show that there are two distinct semantic "be" constructions: a predicative construction and an equative one. The task of isolating different semantic structures is made especially difficult by virtue of the fact that we can have no direct evidence for them. All semantic structure is mediated through syntactic ph...

There is cross-linguistic variation in the choice of the verbal copula used to express the HAVE relation. Many languages use be instead of have. For example, Turkish and Latin use be systematically and most other languages (including English) do so at least in certain constructions. There are also languages where a copula is not required (some Bantu languages, Malagasy for certain constructions...

Abstract Task-based language teaching is considered an effective way to achieve a harmony between grammar and communication. The present study investigates two different ways of teaching modal verbs: task-based versus traditional approaches. To this purpose, an Oxford Placement Test was administered to select 40 homogeneous participants out of a larger population who took this test. The selecte...

this paper provides an analysis of persian verbs within the framework of optimality theory. to be more specific, it mainly cocentrates on past and present stems of persian verbs. since analyzing this subject within the derivational framework would result phonological rules which are not natural, it is analysed by optimality theory which is one of the constraint-based approach. based on this, we...

since motion verbs of russian language is one of those complex issues in russian language syntax, iranian students who are learning russian language face problems when learning this grammatical category. these problems in learning appear in two stages. a)the stage of learning and understanding the meaning of these verbs in the russian language itself; b) the stage of transition of these verbs f...