Entrenchment and preemption are theorized to constrain the novel use of well-attested constructions. This study tested the effects of these two mechanisms in second language (L2) learners’ acceptance of English denominal verbs (DVs). Two groups of Chinese English-L2 speakers (fourth-year English major students and teachers of English) judged the acceptability of English locatum (e.g.,Lucywateredthe rose) and location (e.g.,Lisaboxedthe apples) DVs. Results based on both corpus and introspective frequencies show that the fourth-year learners’ judgments on the acceptability of all DVs were significantly negatively influenced by the frequency of nominal forms of the DVs, suggesting that entrenchment constrains L2 learners from accepting English DVs. Results based on introspective frequency demonstrate that the teachers’ judgments on the acceptability of all DVs were significantly negatively affected by the frequency of alternative verbs, demonstrating that preemption has a role to play in restricting L2 learners’ acceptance of English DVs. Moreover, the obtained DV frequency based on both corpus and learners’ introspection is a significant factor that helps all the participants’ acceptance of the English DVs, suggesting that the more frequently a DV is used, the more likely L2 learners are to judge it as acceptable.

This article reports on two studies, testing how three different types of input (skewed first, skewed random and balanced) affect second language (L2) learning of English present counterfactual (IF-Is) and past counterfactual (IF-IIs) conditionals, two constructions differing in complexity. The experiment included a proficiency test, a pretest, a posttest and a delayed posttest for both IF-Is and IF-IIs. Results suggest that the three types of input did not affect learning gains within the two complexity conditions. However, there was a difference in learning gains between the two conditions, namely that more gains were made in the simpler condition (i.e. IF-Is). In a follow-up study, effects of intralingual influence were tested. Participants who had studied IF-Is were taught the more complex construction, IF-IIs. Again, there were three different types of input (skewed first, skewed random and balanced). Results suggest that participants who received skewed input had higher gains and were less influenced by IF-Is they had learned before. Based on this, we concluded that skewed first input was able to effectively reduce the influence of IF-Is on IF-IIs during L2 learning.