Preferred Argument Structure in Mandarin child language

Abstract

This study investigated whether Preferred Argument Structure (Du Bois, 1987) is characteristic of early child Mandarin (2;2-3;1), and whether the patterns observed in child Mandarin can be explained by the account of human-ness suggested by Everett (2009). The results showed that Mandarin child language conforms to the constraints of Preferred Argument Structure, but that it does not support the related hypothesis of an ergative structuring of discourse. Both the factor of human-ness (Everett, 2009) and that of role types contribute to the accusative patterning observed in the data. The results are discussed in relation to children’s sensitivity to the association between discourse and grammar, and to the referential strategies used by adults in conversations with young children.

本研究檢視是否「首選論元結構」(Du Bois, 1987)呈現於漢語兒童語言中，並且探討Everett (2009)所提出的論點是否能夠解釋所獲得的研究結果。結果顯示漢語兒童語言符合首選論元結構的制約，但是並不符合其所假設的作格結構。語料中所觀察到的受格結構可以人類指涉因素(Everett, 2009)及語法角色因素來解釋。針對研究結果，本研究進一步以兒童對言談與語法間之聯繫的敏感度，以及成人與兒童對話時所使用的指涉策略加以討論。