A Comparative Study between English and Persian Unaccusative and Unergative Verbs

Transitivity alternation refers to the causative/inchoative alternation of some unaccusative verbs. Different languages of the world use different patterns to show transitivity alternation morphologically. While in some languages like English it is demonstrated by using zero or no overt lexical marking, many other languages (e.g. Spanish, Turkish, and Japanese) use overt morphological markers to show transitivity. This study aims to investigate the degree to which the similarities and/or mismatches between English and Persian influences the use of unaccusative and unergative verbs by L2 Iranian learners of English. Based on different verb types in English and Persian, seven verb categories were identified as the basis for the purpose of comparison. Participants of this study were 116 undergraduate students of English. A forced-choice elicitation task including 48 items was developed based on these seven categories of verbs. A proficiency test was also used to divide participants into high and low proficiency groups. The analysis of the data revealed findings more in line with transfer at the morphology rather than transfer at the argument structure level (Montrul, 2000). Alternating unaccusatives (break, spill, cook) with similar equivalent structures for transitive/intransitive pairs in Persian and non-alternating unaccusatives (appear) with different structures for transitive/intransitive pairs in Persian seem to be the most difficult verb categories for Iranian EFL learners. The effect of proficiency level was also significant on the recognition of correct structures by these learners.

Keywords:

Unaccusative , Unergative , Transfer , Syntax , Argument Structure