영어 초점사 only의 중의성에 대한 한국인 영어 학습자의 이해 선호도에 관한 연구

Abstract

This study examines Korean EFL learners’ interpretations of ambiguous focuses in sentences with preverbal only (e.g., Max only carries the stones). Ambiguous sentences containing preverbal only are known to evoke three possible meanings depending on which of the following its scope is assigned to: a noun phrase (NP) as a direct object, a verb (V) or a verb phrase (VP). To investigate which default meaning is preferred in the comprehension of preverbal only, forty four Korean EFL learners and ten native English speakers participated in the study using a sentence completion task which differed from a picture-based Truth-value Judgment Task used in previous studies. Participants were asked to read a background story followed by a sentence with preverbal only and then fill in the blank in a following sentence with NP, V or VP contrast information depending on their preferred interpretation. As a result, Korean EFL learners as well as native English speakers were found to prefer the NP-focused interpretation as the default meaning. These results are discussed in relation to methodological issues and sentence processing principles.