本研究旨在探討以中文為母語的學生對四類英語介系詞之第二語言習得，主要的議題包括對不同空間類型的介系詞之習得順序、介系詞之習得是否受到空間概念(接觸及非接觸)的影響、介系詞在具體及抽象意義上的習得是否不同、題型效應以及英語能力是否影響介系詞之習得。本研究採用兩個實驗題型：文法判斷題與語句完成題，試題皆以情境式對話呈現。受試者為八十位以中文為母語的大一學生以及二十位英語母語人士，依據其英語程度，分為初、中初、中高以及高四組。
整體實驗結果顯示，受試者在學習英語介系詞時，受到空間概念詮釋、第一語言轉移以及第二語言複雜度的影響。根據受試者的表現，在四種空間類型的介系詞中，面及體的介系詞表現最好，最易習得；而點及線的介系詞最讓受試者感到最困難。在空間概念的影響上，蘊含接觸概念的英語介系詞較易習得，而受試者對於蘊含非接觸概念的英語介系詞表現較差，較難習得。此外，受試者對介系詞在具體意義上的表現較好，而對於介系詞在抽象意義上的表現較差，顯示介系詞的抽象意義較難習得。在題型效應方面，受試者在文法判斷題的表現比語句完成題的表現來得好，顯示介系詞之理解優先於其表達。另外，英語程度的因素也證實會影響介系詞之習得，受試者的表現隨著其英語能力的提升而進步。

English prepositions are considered notoriously difficult that even learners at a high proficiency level in English may still have to contend with them (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman 1983, 1999). However, little research explored the issue in both comprehension and production of English spatial prepositions by Chinese EFL learners. Therefore, the present study aims to conduct an empirical study to investigate Chinese learners’ acquisition of four types of English spatial prepositions. A comprehension task (i.e., grammaticality judgment task) and a production task (i.e., sentence completion task) were designed, both of which were presented in conversations. Factors such as difficulty order, spatial information effects, context effects, task effects, and L2 proficiency effects were examined. The subjects were eighty college freshmen in Taiwan and they were further divided into four groups (low, mid-low, mid-high, and advanced) according to their English proficiency levels. In addition, twenty native speakers of English were recruited as a control group.
The overall results showed that the four geometric types of English prepositions exhibited different degrees of difficulty. Surface and Volume were found the easiest while Point and Line were found the most difficult to acquire. Moreover, English prepositions with the Contact spatial information were found easier than those with the Non-contact spatial information for the subjects to acquire, due to L1 interference and L2 semantic complexity. Furthermore, it was found that our L2 learners performed better on literal contexts, whereas they had more difficulty in acquiring English prepositions in metaphorical contexts owing to the lack of transparency and a high degree of conventionality of some extended meanings. With regard to task effects, our subjects consistently performed better on the comprehension task than the production task, implying that comprehension preceded production in L2 acquisition. Finally, with regard to L2 proficiency effects, it was found that the subjects at higher proficiency levels performed better than the lower proficiency groups, and the subjects’ performances improved with the increase in their proficiency levels.

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