Acquisition of preposition stranding and pied-piping in wh-questions

Abstract

The study investigated the preference of Turkish EFL learners for preposition stranding and pied-piping in constructing wh-questions and whether they experience problems in the acquisition of null-preposition constructions. A 15-item elicited production test was given to 43 Turkish learners with an advanced English proficiency level. The participants were asked to make wh-questions out of the words that were put in mixed order. The results showed that there was no significant difference between preposition stranding and pied-piping in their preferences in constructing wh-questions; however, they erroneously omitted the prepositions in wh-questions. The results did not provide enough evidence to support the hypothesis that L1 transfer was responsible for the preference for preposition stranding or pied-piping and null-preposition constructions in wh-questions.