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Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 14:6 (2024) ► pp.856–885

What looks native-like may not necessarily be native-like

Evidence from L2 Chinese covert objects

ORCID logo | Shanghai Jiao Tong University
ORCID logo | Shanghai Jiao Tong University | University of Cambridge
A substantial body of research has investigated null arguments in L2 Chinese, showing that they can be native-like. However, recent linguistic research has demonstrated convincingly that some ‘missing’ arguments in Chinese should be viewed not as ‘null’ arguments but as a result of movement and ellipsis. These advances necessitate a revaluation of the issue of ‘null’ arguments in previous L2 studies which largely overlooked the role of ellipsis in accounting for missing arguments in L2 Chinese. To fill the lacuna, this study recognises the above recent advances and examines whether missing objects in English speakers’ L2 Chinese parallel sentences are a result of verb raising and VP ellipsis and are genuinely native-like. Results of a picture-description task and an acceptability judgement task suggest that although L2ers, like native Chinese speakers, can accept and produce missing objects in Chinese, their native-like performance is driven by mechanisms different from those of native Chinese speakers (i.e., the missing objects are erroneously used as null objects in L2 Chinese). The findings advance our understanding of L1 vs. L2 different mechanisms for phonetically unrealised objects in Chinese, suggesting that what looks native-like in L2 may not necessarily be native-like.
Keywords: second language acquisition, Mandarin, null arguments, ellipsis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Covert objects in Chinese parallel sentences
  • 3.Covert objects in L2 Chinese
  • 4.The current study
    • 4.1Research questions
    • 4.2Participants
    • 4.3Experiment
      • 4.3.1Picture-description priming task
        • 4.3.1.1Procedure and materials
        • 4.3.1.2Results
      • 4.3.2Acceptability judgement task
        • 4.3.2.1Procedure and materials
        • 4.3.2.2Results
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Summary of findings
    • 5.2Discussion
      • 5.2.1Research question 1: Can English speakers allow phonetically unrealised objects in parallel sentences in their L2 Chinese?
      • 5.2.2Research question 2: Are phonetically unrealised objects in parallel sentences in L2 Chinese grammars subject to the verbal identity condition?
        • 5.2.2.1Overwhelming evidence of null objects in the Chinese input
        • 5.2.2.2Overgeneralization of null objects
        • 5.2.2.3Lack of positive evidence in the Chinese input for the distinction between null and covert objects
      • 5.2.3Research question 3: Is L2ers’ performance consistent in both on-line and off-line tasks?
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Competing interests
  • Data availability statement
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 September 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.22090.xu
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