Measures of syntactic complexity such as mean length of T-unit have been common measures of language proficiency in studies of second language acquisition. Despite the ubiquity and usefulness of such structure-based measures, they could be complemented with measures based on usage-based theories, which focus on the development of not just syntactic forms but also form-meaning pairs, called constructions (Ellis, 2002). Recent cross-sectional research (Kyle & Crossley, 2017) has indicated that indices related to usage-based characteristics of verb argument construction (VAC) use may be better indicators of writing proficiency than structure-based indices of syntactic complexity. However, because cross-sectional studies can only show general trends across proficiency benchmarks, it is important to test these findings in individuals over time (Lowie & Verspoor, 2019). Thus, this study investigates the developmental trajectories of second language learners of English across two academic years with regard to syntactic complexity and VAC sophistication.

中文翻译：

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使用句法复杂性和复杂性指标衡量纵向写作发展

句法复杂性的度量，例如 T 单元的平均长度，一直是第二语言习得研究中语言能力的常用度量。尽管这种基于结构的度量普遍且有用，但它们可以与基于使用理论的度量相辅相成，这些理论不仅关注句法形式的发展，还关注称为结构的形式-意义对的发展（Ellis，2002）。最近的横断面研究 (Kyle & Crossley, 2017) 表明，与基于用法的动词变元构造 (VAC) 使用特征相关的指标可能比基于结构的句法复杂性指标更好地衡量写作水平。然而，由于横断面研究只能显示跨能力基准的一般趋势，随着时间的推移，在个人身上测试这些发现很重要（Lowie & Verspoor，2019）。因此，本研究调查了英语第二语言学习者在句法复杂性和 VAC 复杂性方面跨两个学年的发展轨迹。