Acquisition of Control Structures in Infinitival Clauses among Chinese Learners of English

This paper presents a study of control problem, more specifically how Chinese learners of English choose a controller in the infinitival clause embedded under the control verb in English. Persuade and tell are object control verbs which are unmarked; promise and ask (a question) are subject control verbs which are marked. Due to the lack of a clear cut between finite and non-finite clauses and overt morphological agreement, the Chinese counterparts of the four control verbs have some different control properties. Therefore, an experiment is carried out to examine how Chinese learners acquire control structures in English. The result is analyzed under two theoretical frameworks - L1transfer theory and Markedness Differential Hypothesis. The conclusion is that Chinese learners of English have a higher accuracy rate when selecting controllers for object control verbs than for subject control verbs. Moreover, the accuracy of controller selection improves with increase in level of English proficiency. The asymmetry in accuracy rate shows that markedness affects L1 transfer and also supports the Markedness Differential Hypothesis.