1
I prefer go English L2 Verb Complement Errors
Mary Lou Vercellotti, University of Pittsburgh
Nel de Jong, Queens College of CUNY
Abstract
Analysis
Infinitival and gerundive verb complements can
pose difficulties for L2 learners because English
verbs vary on which type of complement they
require or allow. Some take only a gerund (I
enjoy walking) or an infinitive (I want to walk)
while others allow both forms (I like walking/to
walk.). With no straightforward rule to apply,
English L2 learners must memorize each individual
verb with the acceptable verb complement(s).
This poster describes the use and accuracy of
verb complements in over 200 minutes of recorded
speech from a training task in which students
spoke about a given topic three times (Nation,
1989). Participants were 23 high-intermediate
students in an intensive English program in a
large university. They had explicit knowledge of
verb complements from their regular language
classes, but the instruction in this study was
implicit, since no instruction was given to
produce or to attend to the target structure.
Verbs that could take both structures were the
most common (67.4) but the least accurate. It
appears the students had more difficulty choosing
which verb complement form to use when both were
allowed. This suggests that the variability of
input impedes acquisition. As a result, students
often produced only the base form of the verb
complement ( I like walk), which accounted for
72 of the errors in this category. It is argued
that the students were not always able to apply
their explicit knowledge correctly in a
spontaneous production task.
Verb Complement Forms Produced

• Students produced more infinitival than
  gerundival verb complements.
• 13 of verb complements were ambiguously produced

Introduction
Accuracy in Verb Complement Structures

• English Verb Complement Structure
• Some matrix verbs only allow a gerund I
  enjoy watching
• Some matrix verbs only allow an infinitive
  I want to study
• Some matrix verbs allow variation I
  like playing / to play
• Historical language change with gerundives
  increasing (Fanego, 2004)
• with infinitive entrenchment of collocations
  (esp. emotive verbs)
• The verb complement structure is also difficult
  because
• Gerundival ing has the same form as progressive
  ing
• Infinitival to has the same form (and historical
  meaning) as the preposition to (Duffley, 2000).

Accuracy by Matrix Verb Requirement
Variable Verb Complement Errors
Methods

• Participants 23 high-intermediate English L2
  (mixed L1) students
• Previous explicit verb complement instruction in
  grammar class.
• Verbs were grouped by acceptable verb complements

• Matrix verbs that allow either form were most
  common and had the most errors (85 accuracy)
• When either form is allowed, the most common
  error was producing only the root verb with
  neither morpheme (n 39)
• Two-thirds of the errors for the infinitive only
  matrix verbs was producing only the root verb
  (n14).

verb gerund verb infinitives verb gerund OR infinitive
I enjoy watching old movies. My friend agreed to go hiking with me. I cant stand waiting in line, I cant stand to wait in line.
appreciate, avoid, dislike, enjoy, keep (dont) mind, miss, practice agree, appear, can(t) afford, decide, learn, mean, offer, plan, refuse, seem, volunteer, wait begin, continue, hate, like, love, prefer, start
Conclusions

• Errors were not often a result of a mismatch
  between matrix verb and verb complement.
• The most common error overall was producing only
  the root in the verb complement, with neither the
  infinitival to marker nor the gerundival -ing.
• These findings suggest that
• the students could not always apply their
  explicit knowledge of verb complement structure
  during this production task, which indicates that
  this structure has not been fully proceduralized
  (DeKeyser, 1997)
• the variation may impede acquisition
• the increased processing demands of the verb
  complement structure may result in a lack of
  production of the grammatical markings (to and
  ing)
• teachers may want to focus more instruction on
  verb complement structure as the forms are shared
  with the preposition to and the progressive ing.
• Follow-up analysis will include the number and
  length of pauses around the verb complement
  structure as a measure of monitoring and possible
  reliance of explicit knowledge.

• There is a high frequency of learner-centered
  matrix verbs that can take verb complements in
  the speaking class textbook series, especially
  considering the low number of verbs (Juffs,
  1998).
• Students have exercises to fill in the correct
  form (gerund or infinitive) for the given matrix
  verb.
• Data was collected during a production task in
  which students spoke of a topic for 4 minutes,
  then again in 3 minutes, and then in 2 minutes
  (Nation, 1989).
• No instruction given to produce or attend to verb
  complement structure.
• This production task is assumed to require
  implicit knowledge.
• Students gave 3 speeches per session x 3 sessions
  in one month
• Nominative non-finite verb complements were
  analyzed.
• Can these English L2 learners spontaneously
  produce correct verb complement structures?
• Are errors a result of the idiosyncratic
  requirement of the matrix verb?

Results
References

• The number of verb complements were topic
  dependent a comparison between topic/session is
  not relevant.
• The students mean accuracy average was 82.2
  (s.d.12)
• Few instances of variation of structure from
  recording to recording within one activity
  repetition did not seem to affect accuracy.
• Few instances of on-line corrections of the verb
  complement
• Two corrections (ex. like stay , like to
  stay)
• Four incorrect (ex. I like to do, do it myself ,
  to doing it myself)

DeKeyser, R. M. (1997). Beyond explicit rule
learning Automatizing second language
morphosyntax. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition, 19, 195-221. Duffley, P. (2000).
Gerund versus infinitive as complement of
transitive verbs in English The problems of
tense and control. Journal of English
Linguistics 28, 221-248. Fanego, T. (2004). Is
cognitive grammar a usage-based model? Toward a
realistic account of English sentential
complements. Miscelanea A journal of English and
American studies 29. 23-58. Juffs, A. (1998). The
acquisition of semantics-syntax correspondences
and verb frequencies in ESL materials. Language
Teaching Research 2, 2, 93-123. Nation, P.
(1989). Improving speaking fluency. System, 17,
377-384.
Acknowledgement
Funding for this research is provided by the
National Science Foundation, Grant Number
SBE-0354420 to the Pittsburgh Science of Learning
Center (PSLC, http//www.learnlab.org).