Second Language Acquisition of Chinese Conjunction Er (`And`): A Corpus-Based Study

Abstract

本文研究漢語「而」的習得，將「而」劃分為從屬標記類 (subordinator er)、補語標記類(complementizer er)、對等連接類(coordinator er)，以及篇章銜接類(discourse marker er)等四大類十一小類。研究結果發現，相較於漢語母語者，中級語言水平的學習者傾向使用大量從屬連接功能的「而」來連接具主從屬關係的子句，而其以「而」來銜接不同句子或段落的比例則偏低；另一個重要的結果是我們的研究顯示了一個中介語的特色，也就是隨著漢語水平的提升，學習者連接的成分也由句內成分的連接，發展到句子與句子或更大成分的連接。至於偏誤產生主要是來自於學習者未能顧及不同連接成分所應受到的語意和語法的限制。

This study investigates L2 learners’ acquisition of the conjunction er in Chinese and their general performance in conjoining clauses within a four-tier categorization of er. Our findings show that at the initial stage, learners tend to use er to connect clauses that involve a subordination relation. The preponderance of this use of er by intermediate learners is in sharp contrast with the finding that native speakers use more er’s to conjoin sentences/paragraphs instead. Equally remarkable is the progress that learners made from conjoining at an intra-sentence level to an inter-sentence level, showing a developmental pattern in interlanguage. Finally, non-target errors are found to be largely due to an under-differentiation of the syntactic and semantic requirements of different conjuncts.