英语动名词可学得性问题初探

A Tentative Study of the Learnability Problem Concerning the Learning of English Gerunds

本文旨在研究英语动名词的可学得性问题。在汉语中，短语切割机、学习机都遵循同一结构“名词前动词修饰语＋名词”，但切割机能译成ａｃｕｔｉｎｇｍａｃｈｉｎｅ而学习机则不能译成ａｓｔｕｄｙｉｎｇｍａｃｈｉｎｅ。在无人指教的情况下，中国的英语学习者是否注意到这一区别？他们能否判别汉语里哪些名词前动词修饰语有对应的英语动名词表达法，哪些没有？为探讨以上提出的问题，笔者对２８０名中国的英语学习者进行了调查。结果表明，绝大多数受试好象都无法区分汉语里哪些名词前动词修饰语有对应的动名词表达法，哪些没有。看起来目的语里的某些知识是很难学会的。

The present study tackles a learnability problem concerning the learning of English gerunds by Chinese EFL learners. Specifically, Chinese phrases like 游泳衣、切割机、出版社can be expressed as a swimming suit, a cutting machine, a publishing house,yet other phrases such as 学习机、预备铃、援救队can not be rendered into *a studying machine, *a preparing ring, *a saving team although they follow the same pattern ″Verb modifier + Noun″ as the former phrases. In the absence of negative evidence, do learners eventually have the ability to distinguish Chinese prenominal verb modifiers (PVMs) with English gerundive equivalents from those without ? The above problem is approached through a linguistic analysis of English gerunds and Chinese PVMs. The analysis shows that in Chinese a verb and a noun can be combined into a noun phrase if the verb indicates the purpose of the noun, resulting in the pattern ″Verb modifier + Noun″, however, the corresponding English pattern ″Gerund + Noun″, where the gerund denotes the use of the modified noun, can only be applied to some verbs. The linguistic analysis leads to the hypothesis that Chinese EFL learners may overgeneralize the use of English gerunds ( i.e. They may assume that all Chinese phrases following the pattern ″Verb modifier + Noun″, where the verb denotes the purpose of the noun, can be translated into English noun phrases containing a gerund ). To test this hypothesis, an empirical study was conducted in which 280 subjects, including those who had received instructions on English gerunds and those who had not, were required to perform in a judgement task (i.e.translations from Chinese to English). The results showed that most subjects did overgeneralize the use of English gerunds, and that even the 30 postgraduates did not seem to be able to separate out Chinese PVMs with English gerundive counterparts from those without. In other words, some aspects of the grammar of gerunds seem to be unlearnable for Chinese EFL learners. The study also has its limitations, and it calls for further study in the field. However, it is hoped that the findings of the present study will shed light on the learnability theories and open up new vistas for the research on learnability — unlearnability ( Yip, 1995).