A comparative study on Korean college English learners’ sentence acceptability of English and Korean sluicing

Abstract

This study aims to compare the sentence acceptability of English and Korean sluicing among Korean college English learners, focusing on the presence of prepositions and postpositions as well as the occurrence of ‘it' and ‘geu-ge.' The results of this study show that the sentence acceptability was higher when prepositions appeared exclusively in the merger type of English sluicing, whereas in Korean sluicing, it was significantly higher when postpositions appeared in both the merger and sprouting types. This turns out to be ultimately attributed to syntactic and semantic elaboration effects. Specifically, when ‘it' and ‘geu-ge' appear in reduced remnants, the high sentence acceptability observed in both merger and sprouting types of English and Korean sluicing may reflect the influence of native language transfer among Korean college English learners. Additionally, this study explored whether postpositional or prepositional phrases are obligatory arguments or adjuncts plays a crucial role in sentence acceptability in both Korean and English sluicing.