Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Research Orientation 1
1.2 The Unaccusative Verbs:the Target of Research 1
1.3 Rationale for the Study 2
1.4 Key Research Questions 8
1.5 Organization of the Book 9
Chapter 2 In Search of Theoretical Foundation 10
2.0 Introduction 10
2.1 Empirical Basis of UTH 12
2.2 The Single-Argument Linking Rule 14
2.3 Three Stages of the Unaccusative Acquisition in L2 English 18
2.4 General Predictions of UTH 21
2.5 A General Comment on UTH 22
Chapter 3 Cross-linguistic Analysis of Unaccusativity 26
3.0 Introduction 26
3.1 An Overview of Unaccusativity 28
3.1.1 Unaccusative Hypothesis 29
3.1.2 Unaccusativity Hierarchy 30
3.1.3 Approaches to Unaccusativity 35
3.2 Unaccusativity of English and Other Languages 43
3.2.1 Deep vs.Surface Unaccusativity 43
3.2.2 Definiteness Effect(DE) 46
3.2.3 Diagnostics for Unaccusativity 47
3.2.4 The Passive vs.the Unaccusative 58
3.2.5 Summary 61
3.3 Issues Pertaining to Chinese Unaccusativity 61
3.3.1 Subclasses of Chinese Unaccusatives 62
3.3.2 Surface Unaccusativity 70
3.3.3 DE of Chinese Unaccusativity 72
3.3.4 Diagnostics for Chinese Unaccusativity 74
3.3.5 The Unaccusative and the Passive in Chinese 85
3.4 Summary and Conclusions 91
Chapter 4 Predictions on L2 Acquisition of Chinese Unaccusatives by English-L1 Learners 94
4.0 Similarities and Differences Between English and Chinese Unaccusativity:A Revisit 94
4.1 Implications of Cross-linguistic Differences for L2 Acquisition of Chinese Unaccusatives 97
4.1.1 L1 Transfer and Markedness Theories 97
4.1.2 Effect of Markedness on L2 Acquisition of Chinese Unaccusatives 100
4.2 Research Hypotheses 103
Chapter 5 The Empirical Study 107
5.0 Research Design 107
5.1 Participants 108
5.2 Instrumentation 112
5.2.1 Verb Tokens 113
5.2.2 Writing Production Task(WPT) 115
5.2.3 Grammaticality Judgment Test(GJT) 116
5.3 Data Collection 118
5.4 Data Preparations and Data Analysis 118
5.4.1 Scoring of WPT Data 119
5.4.2 Scoring of GJT Data 119
5.4.3 Data Preparations 119
5.4.4 Statistical Analysis 120
Chapter 6 Results for Research Hypotheses Testing 121
6.0 Introduction 121
6.1 Results for Hypothesis 1 121
6.2 Results for Hypothesis 2 125
6.3 Results for Hypothesis 3 127
6.4 Results for Hypothesis 4 131
6.5 Results for Hypothesis 5 133
6.6 Results for Hypothesis 6 136
6.7 Results for Hypothesis 7 140
6.8 Results for Hypothesis 8 142
Chapter 7 General Discussion 145
7.0 Introduction 145
7.1 Summary of Major Findings 146
7.1.1 Linguistic Finding:Chinese Unaccusativity Hierarchy 146
7.1.2 Empirical Findings 147
7.2 Unaccusative-Related Phenomena in L2 Acquisition of Chinese 153
7.3 Factors Involved in L2 Acquisition of Chinese Unaccusativity 157
7.3.1 Developmental Route of L2 Acquisition of Chinese Unergatives 157
7.3.2 Developmental Route of L2 Acquisition of Chinese Unaccusatives 158
7.3.3 Other Issues Concerning the Plough-shaped Route of Development 167
7.4 Summary 169
Chapter 8 Condusions,Pedagogical Implications,and Recommendations for Further Research 172
8.1 Conclusions:A Modified Developmental Model for L2 Acquisition of Chinese Unaccusatives 172
8.2 Pedagogical Implications 174
8.3 Recommendations for Further Research 176
References 178
Appendix A Tables 1-6 188
Appendix B Research Instruments 190
Appendix C An Example Test of HSK 209
List of Tables 62
3.1 Classifications of Chinese Unaccusatives 62
3.2 Distribution of Some Features of 18 Basic Chinese One-place Verbs 64
4.1 Significant Similarities and Differences Between English and Chinese Unaccusativity 95
5.1 Background Information About L2 Participants（N=60） 111
5.2 Means and Standard Deviations for Four Participant Groups 111
5.3 Scheffé Tests of Means for Four Participant Groups 112