Differences in Korean learners’ acquisition of causative expressions: focus on learners’ proficiency level

Abstract This study examines the learning patterns of intermediate and advanced Korean learners in acquisition causative expressions according to their proficiency sentence type. We measured grammatical knowledge using three types grammaticality judgment tasks (GJTs) self-paced reading (SPRTs) differing time limit modality. included GJT A' score (RT) for SPRTs’ target spillover regions. The results showed that learners’ accuracy morphological lexical causatives was lower than syntactic causatives, while causatives. Learners a timed written aural GJTs untimed GJT. In SPRT, took twice as long process regions native speakers even longer Advanced had RT. low correct rate suffix substitution adjectival root questions, questions on markers, causee case postpositions morphological, syntactic, confusion with active sentences has implications understanding expression levels.