THE ACQUISITION OF DATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS BY THAI LEARNERS OF ENGLISH BY MR. TEERAWAT PONGYOO A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING LANGUAGE INSTITUTE THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC YEAR 2017 COPYRIGHT OF THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY Ref. code: 25605521320084LVF THE ACQUISITION OF DATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS BY THAI LEARNERS OF ENGLISH BY MR. TEERAWAT PONGYOO A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING LANGUAGE INSTITUTE THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC YEAR 2017 COPYRIGHT OF THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY Ref. code: 25605521320084LVF THAMMASAT I.]NIVERSITY LANGUAGE INSTITUTE DISSERTATION BY MR. TEERAWAT PONGYOO ENTITLED THE ACQUISITION OF DATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS BY THAI LEARNERS OF ENGLISH was approved as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English Language Teaching) on March 11, 2018 Chairman hyrh*, P/-",./,..,.,,^ril (Assi stant Professor Supakorn Phoocharoensil, Ph. D. ) ./) ( t | , Member and Advisor Yot*at'u fuVbtululA.) (Associate Professor Pornsiri Singhapreecha, Ph.D.) Member Member Member l*- fun*yakl, (PannaPanna Ch4arongCh4larongakul, Fh.D. ) Director {/.h-* (Associate Professor Supong Tangkiengsirisin, Ph.D.) (1) Dissertation Title THE ACQUISITION OF DATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS BY THAI LEARNERS OF ENGLISH Author Mr. Teerawat Pongyoo Degree Doctor of Philosophy Major Field/Faculty/University English Language Teaching Language Institute Thammasat University Dissertation Advisor Associate Professor Pornsiri Singhapreecha, Ph.D Academic Years 2017 ABSTRACT This study investigated the acquisition of dative constructions, Prepositional Dative (PD) and Double Object (DO), by Thai learners of English. Based on the Minimalist framework (Chomsky, 1995), DO contains a strong feature that requires an overt and costly DP-movement, while PD does not. The less economical PD was predicted to be acquired by Thai learners of English more easily than the more costly DO. Regarding Case-checking in DO, [Spec, vP] has a strong D feature triggering an overt DP movement to check off a dative Case. In respect of L1, dative constructions in Thai are expressed in PD, Thai DO (THEME GOAL), and Serial Verb Constructions (SVC). Assuming that there are development stages and beginning learners are more likely to be affected by L1 grammar than advanced learners, the former group was predicted to exhibit L1 structures, i.e. Thai DO (THEME GOAL) and Serial Verb Constructions (SVC), while the latter group was predicted to reject L1 structures. Both the Minimalist predicted (PD, DO) and L1 constructed (Thai DO, SVC) sentence types were examined. Because Thai DO differs from English DO in word order, determined by strong vs. weak D features in [Spec, vP], the beginners should accept Thai DO, which is more economical, and reject English DO. Ref. code: 25605521320084LVF (2) Sixty Thai student participants varying in English proficiency (beginning, intermediate, and upper intermediate) were tested on the same Acceptability Judgment (AJ) and Elicited Production (EP) tasks. Results confirmed Minimalist-related hypotheses. Particularly, PD was accepted and produced more frequently than DO, across AJ and EP. As regards feature checking, Thai learners were more aware of the ungrammaticality arising from feature-checking than a word order of V PP NP as predicted. As for the influence of L1, the beginners accepted both Thai DO and English DO, while the upper intermediate group rejected Thai DO but accepted English DO, which partially confirmed our prediction. Concerning SVC, the barely accepted hand and send in SVC, but the more advanced groups strongly rejected them. In terms of developmental stages, this study found an increase in rejection on test sentences (Thai DO and SVC) constructed with L1 grammar, in tandem with an increase in proficiency. These findings suggest the followings. Firstly, feature checking of strong T and v is accessible by L2 learners at the early stage. Secondly, L1 transfer is minimal in both EP and AJ tasks; even among the beginners, both Thai DO and SVC constructions were marginally produced. As evidenced by the beginners’ AJ results, the average acceptance score of Thai DO was not significantly higher than that of English DO. Finally, hand and send in SVC were merely accepted in positive values by the beginners. This suggested that L2 learners possibly avoided less economical constructions from L1 such as SVC through the process of L2 acquisition. Keywords: second language acquisition, dative, Thai learners, Minimalist Program Ref. code: 25605521320084LVF (3) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to my research advisor, Associate Professor Pornsiri Singhapreecha, Ph.D, who provided valuable guidance throughout the study. It was a great privilege to work under her supervision. My intellectual debt is to Professor Shigenori Wakabayashi, Ph.D, who gave me constructive comments and warm encouragement. Without his guidance and persistent help this paper would not have been possible. Special thanks should also be given to my university, Thammasat University for scholarship throughout my study (Thammasat Ph.D. Scholarship, Academic Year, 2014) and the LITU staff members for their valuable support. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the executives and administrators of the institutions in this study for their permission to conduct the research with their students. I would particularly like to thank Ms. Apisara Sritulanon, my M.A classmate, who encouraged me to keep continuing my Ph.D. journey. Moreover, I also thank all the people who have supported me in completing this work directly and indirectly. Last but not least, I would like to express my deepest thank to my family. Mr. Teerawat Pongyoo Ref. code: 25605521320084LVF (4) TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ (1) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................ (3) TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................ (4) LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................... (7) LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................... (8) LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................... (9) CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 1 1.1 General Perspective ......................................................................................... 1 1.2 Research Methodology .................................................................................... 9 1.3 Scope of the Study......................................................................................... 12 1.4 Organization of the Study ............................................................................. 12 CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE ................................................................ 14 2.1 Faculty of Language ...................................................................................... 16 2.2 Operations in Computational System of Human Language .......................... 20 2.2.1 Numeration and Selection .......................................................... 20 2.2.2 Features and Derivations ............................................................ 22 2.2.3 Economy Conditions and Syntactic Operations ......................... 28 2.3 English Dative Puzzles and Solutions ........................................................... 31 2.3.1 Semantic Analyses of Dative Constructions .............................. 32 2.3.2 Government and Binding Theory ............................................... 35 2.4 MP Solutions to Dative Puzzles .................................................................... 39 2.4.1 Prepositional Dative ................................................................... 40 2.4.2 Double Object ............................................................................ 42 2.5 Thai Dative Constructions ............................................................................. 44 2.5.1 Prepositional Construction of Thai Dative verbs ....................... 47 2.5.2 Double Object Construction of Thai Dative Verbs .................... 49 2.5.3 Serial Verb Construction of Thai Dative Verbs ......................... 51 2.6 Issues in Relation to L2 Acquisition of Datives ............................................ 53 2.6.1 UG and the Role of L1 Transfer ................................................ 53 2.6.2 L1 Acquisition of Datives .......................................................... 56 2.6.3 Research on L2 Acquisition of Datives ..................................... 58 Ref. code: 25605521320084LVF (5) CHAPTER 3 HYPOTHESES ..................................................................................... 64 3.1 Selection Criteria of Dative Verbs ................................................................ 65 3.1.1 Phonological Rule ...................................................................... 65 3.1.2 Animacy of GOAL ..................................................................... 65 3.2 Dative Verbs under Investigation