Native speakers and learners of Mandarin predict upcoming arguments in dative constructions based on categorical and gradient verb constraints

Abstract

This study investigated the predictive use of dative verb constraints in Mandarin among home-country-raised native speakers and classroom learners (including both sequential L2 learners and heritage speakers). In a visual world eye-tracking experiment, participants made anticipatory looks to the upcoming argument (recipient versus theme) following categorical restrictions of non-alternating verbs and gradient bias of alternating verbs before the acoustic onset of the disambiguating noun. Crucially, no delay or reduction in the prediction effects was observed among L2 learners and heritage speakers in comparison with home-country-raised native speakers. Mandarin proficiency and dominant language (English versus other) did not modulate prediction effects among classroom learners. These findings provide direct support for the assumption of error-driven learning accounts of the dative alternation, that is, language users actively predict upcoming arguments based on verb information during real-time sentence processing.