中文Wh-疑問詞之第一語言習得

Abstract

有鑑於日常提答問時所運用的構句策略，中文在疑問句句構上主要呈現三大類型－是非問句、選擇問句、wh-問句。然，就目前所知，尚未有關於完整的中文wh-疑問詞研究（Li, Chen& Yang 2015），因此，此篇論文主要針對此議題探討六大常用的疑問詞（Fahn 2003），並依據其句法功能分為兩大類－主語wh-疑問句與賓語wh-疑問句。根據研究數據結果顯示，疑問詞的使用頻率由高至低按順序排列為：什麼、誰、什麼時後、哪裡、怎麼以及為什麼，此順序對應英文疑問字詞分別為what、who、when、where、how、why。在此篇研究中，其他近義字詞也納入數據採計範圍內。因時間與學校等考量因素，此篇未能採錄三歲以下的幼童之口語表現，且僅採樣臺灣中部以北的地區學校。此研究一共收集並分析六十名中文為母語者的語料，從中發現符合文獻中所述孩童習得主語wh-疑問句先於賓語wh-疑問句（如Erbaugh 1982，Bloom, Merkin & Wootten 1982）。此呈現出孩童的早期語言發展是由具象（約三歲）到抽象（約七歲）概念，然，疑問詞why因認知與語言上具複雜特性，鮮少出現在口語表達中。

As people inquire about things, there are several strategies used to form questions in Chinese, such as by asking binary questions (also called yes-no questions), producing disjunction questions with wh-words or question particles, and forming content questions to search for information. On the other hand, if people want to raise questions, they have to know the process of making interrogative sentences. While forming sound interrogatives and recognizing when to use them play a vital role in human communication, only a few studies investigated the acquisitional aspect of Chinese interrogatives (Li, Chen& Yang 2015). Hence, in this study, the learning path of Chinese interrogatives is studied with the aim to fill the gap from previous research (Fahn 2003). From the statistical analysis, children produce wh-question in specific order from shenme ‘what’, shei ‘who’, shenme shijian ‘when’, nali ‘where’, zenme ‘how’ to weishenme ‘why’. These wh-words are categorized into two classifications—wh-argument and wh-adjunct. Children acquire wh-argument earlier and perform better than with wh-adjunct (e.g., Erbaugh 1982, Bloom, Merkin& Wootten 1982), which reflects children’s early language development from concrete (around age 3) to abstract description or inquiry (around age 7). The wh-word weishenme ‘why’ is the last one emerging in speech, no matter in Chinese or in English, due to cognitive complexity. The biggest limitation here is the recruitment of participants aged equal and below two years old. This study only included participants in northern Taiwan, so the future studies can include participants in other cities.Aside from the first language acquisition, the study on second or third language acquisition on interrogatives is suggested as compared to the performance of the bilingual participant in this study.