주어의 유생성이 비대격 동사 처리에 미치는 영향: 한국인 영어 학습자들 중심으로

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of subject animacy on the processing of English unaccusative verbs among Korean learners. Employing a self-paced reading task and grammaticality judgment task, the research reveals significant differences based on subject animacy. Sentences with animate subjects led to increased reading times, especially at verb regions, reflecting cognitive burdens due to Korean learners' tendency to assign an agentive role to animate subjects. Conversely, sentences with inanimate subjects, although structurally less familiar in Korean, facilitated smoother processing, demonstrated by shorter reading times and higher grammaticality judgment accuracy. Additionally, verb type (change-of-state vs. change-of-location) interacted significantly with animacy, indicating more pronounced difficulty with animate subjects paired with change-of-state verbs. These findings underscore the cognitive challenges arising from syntactic and semantic differences between Korean and English. The study highlights the importance of explicit instruction and repeated exposure to unaccusative structures with inanimate subjects to address common learner errors. This research provides a theoretical and practical foundation for enhancing second language pedagogy related to unaccusative verb processing among Korean learners of English.