Valency errors in the texts of non-native speakers learning polish as a foreign language in the light of corpus PoLKo
Abstract
The present article addresses valency errors in writings of non-native speakers learning Polish as a foreign language. Valency is a key element in a foreign language acquisition, and yet there are no studies on valency errors based on em-pirical data for Polish as a foreign language.
Therefore, this study presents the first attempt to examine valency errors based on data from the Polish Learner Corpus PoLKo. The pilot analysis deals with different proficiency levels (A1-C1) and nation-alities (Slavic and non-Slavic) of learners.
The corpus material has shown that valency errors are present across all language levels and for different nationalities. Neverthe-less, valency errors are more common in prepositional phrases among learners with uninflected mother tongue.
Further investigation into the subject is obviously needed, and it may be expected that it will bring new results and new conclusions, along with the development of PoLKo.