中文條件句之第一語言習得

Abstract

本研究旨在探討以 中文為母語的兒童對條件句之第一語言習得。主要研究五種中文條件句在標記性、語境、題型及年齡是否會影響兒童對此結構的習得。為了避免潛在的實驗效應，本研究採用兩種實驗題型，解釋測驗與模仿測驗。研究對象包含實驗組：依年齡三到七歲分為五組，每組18人，共90人；及對照組：18位中文為母語的成人。 實驗結果顯示，在條件句的習得中，標記性、語境、題型及年齡皆對兒童認知及表達造成影響。五種條件句可分為無標記性及標記性。對兒童而言，無標記性的句首條件副詞條件句最容易習得，而最讓兒童感到困難的則是標記性的句末條件副詞條件句。此現象同時印證了無標記條件句較標記條件句較早習得之假設。在語境方面，受試者在假設條件句表現地較反事實條件句佳，呼應文獻中兒童的認知發展模式為假設先於反事實。而題型效應則顯示受試者在解釋題型中明顯表現地比模仿測驗好，說明此結構的理解優先於表達。此外，模仿測驗的其他句型分析中，五種不同於標的句型大多來自於受試者較不熟悉的標記性條件句。而受試者最常使用插入策略，亦即插入無標記性的句首條件副詞。在年齡效應方面，六歲是兒童習得中文條件句的轉變期，同時也於此時達到成熟階段。In first language acquisition, conditionals are regarded as one of the most complicated syntactic constructions, enjoying extensive discussion in the literature. However, few researchers have conducted an empirical study to investigate the competence and performance of Chinese children’s acquisition of conditional sentences. Therefore, the present study aims to probe into Chinese children’s development by investigating the markednesss issues, scenario differences, task effects, production analysis and age effects on the five types of conditionals. A comprehension task (i.e., interpretation task) and a production task (i.e., imitation task) were assigned to 90 Chinese children (aged 3-7), divided into five age groups, and a control group of 18 Chinese speaking adults. The overall results indicated that the markedness, scenarios, tasks and age were determinant factors in the acquisition of Mandarin Chinese conditionals. The five types exhibited different degrees of difficulty. Type 2 (i.e., clause-initial adverbial conditionals) was found the easiest, and Type 1 (i.e., double adverbial conditionals) and Type 4 (i.e., non-wh-word conditionals) were relatively easier than Type 5 (wh-word conditionals) and Type 3 (i.e., clause-final adverbial conditionals). The results also showed that children performed better on the unmarked types (Types 1, 2 and 4) while the marked types (Types 3 and 5) were found challenging. Concerning the scenarios, it was found that the hypothetical conditionals were acquired prior to the counterfactual conditionals, a result in accord with the literature. As for the task effects, the subjects performed the comprehension task significantly better than the production task. With regard to the production data, it was found that most of the children’s production resulted from Type 3 and Type 5. In addition, Insertion was commonly used by most subjects and they tended to add an unmarked clause-initial conditional adverbial ruguo ‘if’ to produce typical conditional sentences. Finally, it was found that age six was a cutting point where our children performed significantly better than preschoolers and reached the adult grammar.