A syntactic-based approach to the perception and production of English verbs’ argument structures by Iranian EFL learners

Figures & data

Figure 1. A Monotransitive Structure.

Figure 2. The underlying structure of an Un-accusative verb parallels.

Table 1. Classification of participants based on the Oxford Quick Placement test

Alte level	Paper and pen test score		Council of Europe level
	Part 1 score out of 40	Part 1 score out of 60
0 Beginner	0–15	0–17	A1
1 Elementary	16–23	18–29	A2
2 Lower intermediate	24–30	30–39	B1
3 Upper intermediate	31–40	40–47	B2
4 Advanced		48–54	C1
5 Very advanced		54–60	C2

Table 2. The hierarchy of difficulty of syntactic categories in the translation test

Verb types	Right	Correct mean	Wrong	Wrong mean	Total
Ditransitive	1081	67.56	119	7.43	1200
Intransitive	1149	71.81	49	3.06	1198
Transitive	1198	74.87	2	0.12	1200
Grand Mean		71.41		3.53

Table 3. Descriptive statistics of the argument structures across proficiency in the translation test

Argument structures	Proficiency	N	Mean	SD
Transitive	Elementary	30	15.96	.18
	Lower-intermediate	30	15.96	.182
	Upper-intermediate	15	16.00	.00
Intransitive	Elementary	30	15.16	.74
	Lower-intermediate	30	15.23	.67
	Upper-intermediate	15	15.80	.41
Ditransitive	Elementary	30	13.43	1.85
	Lower-intermediate	30	14.80	1.27
	Upper-intermediate	15	15.60	.63
Grand Mean			15.43

Table 4. Results of the one-way ANOVA in translation test

Argument structures	Sum of square	df	Mean square	F	Sig.
Transitive Between groups	0.013	2	0.007	0.248	0.781
Within groups	1.933	72	0.27
Total	1.947	74
Intransitive Between groups	4.387	2	2.193	4.945	0.010
Within groups	31.933	72	0.444
Total	36.320	74
Ditransitive Between groups	54.420	2	27.210	12.909	0.000
Within groups	151.767	72	2.108
Total	206.187	74

Table 5. The hierarchy of difficulty of syntactic category in Grammaticality Judgment Test

Verb types	Right	Correct means	Wrong	Wrong means	Total
Transitive	206	68.66	604	37.75	810
Intransitive	453	151	546	34.12	999
Ditransitive	679	226.3	521	32.56	1200
Grand Mean		148.65		34.81

Table 6. Descriptive statistics of the argument structures across proficiency in Grammaticality Judgment Test

Argument structures	Proficiency	N	Mean	SD
Transitive	Elementary	30	6.80	4.40
	Lower-intermediate	30	8.00	3.29
	Upper-intermediate	15	10.5	2.10
Intransitive	Elementary	30	7.03	4.54
	Lower-intermediate	30	8.60	4.12
	Upper-intermediate	15	12.73	1.10
Ditransitive	Elementary	30	8.20	3.40
	Lower-intermediate	30	9.20	3.77
	Upper-intermediate	15	9.83	3.20
Grand Mean			8.95

Table 7. Results of the one-way ANOVA in Grammaticality Judgment Test

Argument structures	Sum of square	df	Mean square	F	Sig.
Transitive Between groups	139.413	2	69.707 5.035	13.844	0.000
Within groups	362.533	72
Total	501.947	74
Intransitive Between groups	326.900	2	163.450 4.432	36.880	0.000
Within groups	319.100	72
Total	36.320	74
Ditransitive Between groups	40.420	2	20.210 5.213	3.877	0.025
Within groups	375.367	72
Total	415.787	74

Table 8. Paired-samples t-test for syntactic categories in perception and production tests

Mean	Std. deviation	Std. error mean	t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)
-19.94	5.66	.653	-30.51	74	.000