Verb semantics in second language French: Transitivity, unergativity and unaccusativity

This study investigates the acquisition of verb semantics by L1 Arabic-L2 French learners. We examine the effect of proficiency and the L1 transfer on the interlanguage of beginning and advanced adult learners of L2 French. We used a context-based acceptability judgment task with correction to test transitivity, unergativity, pure unaccusativity and alternating unaccusativity using (un)-grammatical illustrative sentences that are similar or different in the two languages. We tested two groups of beginning and advanced learners of L2 French and a group of French native speakers. We used non-parametric tests for within- and between-group comparisons. The results confirmed the influence of the L1 transfer and proficiency on the performance of the beginner and advanced learners respectively. The L2 beginners had instances of under-causativization affecting transitive verbs and over-passivization marking unergative verbs. Further, pure unaccusative verbs were prone to over-passivization while alternating unaccusative verbs presented substantial under-causativization and over-passivization. Comparatively, the L2 advanced learners attained nativelike proficiency on transitivity and unergativity. However, under-causativization affected alternating unaccusative verbs and over-passivization pure unaccusative verbs. The study fills a gap in the empirical research on the acquisition of verb semantics in L2 French by Arabic speakers. • The L2 French beginners under-causativize transitivity and over-passivize unergativity. • Their performance on pure unaccusativity shows errors of over-passivization. • Beginning L2 French has under-causativized and over-passivized alternating unaccusativity. • The L2 advanced learners over-passivize pure unaccusativity and under-causativize the alternating type.