中文被動句裡語言特性之第一語言習得

Abstract

本研究採用實證研究方式，探討母語為中文之兒童被字句的語言能力與發展過程，主要分析被字句常見的句法及語意的語言特性，包含長短被動、及物性、不幸性以及有生命性。研究對象為幼稚園大班、小學二年級、小學四年級孩童及一組成人對照組，每組人數皆為二十人。每人皆須完成兩個測驗：第一個測驗為理解測驗，研究對象根據所提供句子的句法和語意完成接受度判斷測驗，第二個測驗為產出測驗，研究對象根據所提供的圖片與提示，說出被字句。 研究發現，如同Eckman (1977) 標記性理論所提，在中文為母語孩童習得句法和語意語言特性過程中，無標記之語言特性比有標記之語言特性更加容易習得。此外，孩童對於被字句中語言特性整體理解及表達能力是一致的。總的來說，對於中文被動句，幼稚園大班孩童仍需要更多的時間才能擁有與成人一樣的語言能力。對於小二孩童而言，唯獨不及物之被動句仍具挑戰性，其整體表現已趨近於大人。對於小四兒童而言，已完全具備大人的語言能力。因此，本研究結果，中文為母語之孩童於九歲方能完全習得中文被字句。

The study aims to explore Chinese children’s first acquisition of the Mandarin Chinese bei construction from an empirical perspective by examining syntactic properties (i.e., passivization and transitivity) and semantic properties (i.e., adversity and animacy) of the construction. The participants were kindergarteners, Grade 2 and Grade 4 students, and also an adult group, and each age group consisted of twenty subjects. All the participants were asked to complete two tasks in context: a comprehension task (i.e., an acceptability judgement task) and a production task (i.e., a picture-description task). The results of the present study are as follows: as Eckman (1977) claimed, our Chinese children acquired the syntactic and semantic unmarked properties before the marked ones of the bei construction. In addition, Chinese children’s comprehension and production of the bei construction were consistent. All in all, the KS group needs more time to acquire adult grammar of the bei construction. Grade 2 mastered most linguistic features of the construction except for [-trans] of transitivity, and Grade 4 performed almost adult-like. Thus, the result showed that our Chinese children didn’t master the bei construction until the age of nine.