A corpus-based study of native speakers’ and Taiwanese EFL learners’ use of the adverb just

Abstract

The polysemous adverb just is frequently used by efl learners, but many learners are still unaware of how just should be used. The aim of this study is to examine how frequently different meanings of the adverb just are employed by native speakers and Taiwanese efl learners in their essays and to identify the differences in the lexico-grammatical patterns. Drawing data from one native-speaker corpus and two Taiwanese efl learner corpora, we investigated ( i) the overall frequencies of just, ( ii) the frequencies of just by meaning categories, and ( iii) the lexico-grammatical patterns of the different meanings of just, as well as their semantic and syntactic features. Results showed that the overall frequencies of just were similar in the native speaker and learner corpora, but there was a smaller variety of the use of adverbial just in the learner corpora. By examining the lexico-grammatical patterns, we found that the meanings of the adverbial just were induced in the following patterns: first, when it modified different syntactic structures; secondly, when it co-occurred with specific contextual clues; and, thirdly, when it interacted with particular tense/aspect of a verb. In addition, semantic features and lexical choices had a pivotal role in determining whether the use of a particular sense of just was acceptable in a sentence. By providing corpus-based teaching material for the uses of adverbial just, it is hoped that our study will shed light on the perplexing issue of adverb acquisition.