This study investigates learners’ processing of English unaccusative verbs in the
inchoative frame (The door opened; Oil is spilling). Previous approaches explained
L2 difficulty with the inchoative construction in terms of learners’ L1 and their
perception of discourse or semantic factors hypothesized to be responsible for
common overpassivization errors (The door was opened). The purpose of the present
study is to complement the extant inventory by proposing an additional factor
instrumental in L2 processing. It is hypothesized that L2 use of unaccusative verbs is
contingent on learners’ familiarity with formulaic expressions exemplifying the
inchoative construction. The study focuses on the entrenchment of frequent phrases
like My jaw dropped in Czech and Polish learners. In a lexical decision task, their
reaction times for frequent expressions were found to be faster and fewer mistakes
were made than in the case of non-formulaic counterparts (My hair dropped)