Abstract: This study analyses the use by writers of German as a foreign language (GFL) of pronominal adverbs (PA), a usage domain in which even advanced learners struggle to attain native-like proficiency. A contrastive interlanguage analytical approach is adopted drawing on the Falko essay corpora of highly proficient GFL learners (NNS) and native speakers (NS). Quantitative analysis reveals that NNS underuse PA by a margin of 0.7 to 1, confirming earlier results from online chat-data by mid-proficient NNS. Contextual analysis shows that the distribution of PA over syntactic functions is similar in both Falko groups, but also that highly proficient NNS combine PA with a narrower range of matrix words than NS and overuse some highly frequent PA in non-target-like combinations. On the other hand, use of PA by highly proficient NNS shows a greater similarity to NS than to mid-proficient NNS in terms of syntactic and semantic variety. Proficiency level can therefore be regarded as a predictor of native- like use of PA.

Keywords: German as a foreign language – use of pronominal adverbs – contrastive interlanguage analysis – context analysis – Falko essay corpora