The syntactic packaging of caused motion components in a second language: English learners of Chinese

• The study examines how Chinese L2 learners syntactically package caused motion.
• L2 learners arrived at an inter-language showing resemblance to the target system.
• Developmental changes occurred only when learners progressed to an advanced level.
• Learners can generally shake off their L1 pattern when encoding motion in an L2.

Previous studies of L2 acquisition of motion expressions have tended to focus solely on Indo-European languages and on spontaneous motion. This study expands the sphere of research by investigating how Chinese L2 learners, at different proficiency levels, acquire arguably more advanced linguistic skills in the syntactic packaging of caused motion information. Our results show firstly that learners are not trapped in their source pattern when packaging a set of particularly dense semantic information (Cause, Path and varied types of Manner), even, if they have not yet entirely acquired the target system. They have arrived at an inter-language, showing considerable resemblance to the target system rather than traces of the L1 influence. Further, no developmental tendency was observed at the initial and intermediate stages of acquisition; changes occurred only when learners progressed to an advanced level, suggesting that, unlike lexicalisation of motion components, syntactic strategies of packaging information are more complex and need to be adapted to over a longer period of time.