Existential and locative constructions in Mandarin Chinese

International audienceDespite previous studies (cf. among others C.-T. defining characteristics of existential sentences in Chinese (including potential equivalents of locative inversion in English) have remained controversial. This is shown to be due to the failure to acknowledge the existence of two different constructions, the existential construction (ExC) 'Ø V DP' where a sentence-initial phrase indicating location (PlaceP) is not required, on the one hand, and the locative construction (LoC) with an obligatory PlaceP, on the other: 'PlaceP V DP'. Only the ExC can serve as a diagnostic context for unaccusative verbs, whereas the LoC allows for a wide range of verbs, including a subset of unergative verbs. Furthermore, two types of LoC need to be distinguished, depending on the type of aspect (perfective aspect-le vs imperfective aspect-zhe), giving rise to different semantics. Both have, however, in common that the PlaceP occupies the subject position (SpecTP), not the topic position, and that it is merged in SpecTP, not moved there, as evidenced by the systematic lack of a corresponding source structure with the PlaceP in postverbal position

Two Types of Logical Structure in Child Ianguage

In this paper, we investigate the emergence of two types of logical elements in child language, nominal quantifiers and focus particles. Quantifier noun phrases such as those in a sentence like A nurse looks after every child exhibit both the subject wide scope and inverse scope readings which are represented by means of operator-variable structures subject to conditions on binding. The relative scope of quantifiers is determined not only by syntactic structure, but by quantifier type and thematic roles. Focus particles like also and only partition the semantic structure of the sentence into a presupposition and an assertion. They induce bound variable structures by creating a variable in the focus position, resulting in an open sentence. First, we examine the availability of scopedependent interpretations in Mandarin-speaking children, as well as their sensitivity to the scopal effects of quantifier type and thematic hierarchy. Clear theta role effects were found among all age groups, beginning from the fouryear- olds, in accordance with the thematic hierarchy. Children were sensitive to the distinction between mei ("every") and suoyou ("all") in their assignment of inverse scope. Our data can be interpreted as evidence in support of approaches to scope that crucially incorporate quantifier type into the structural representation. Secondly, we explore the use of focus particles in two-to threeyear- old children whose first language is Cantonese, with both additive and restrictive focus signaled by means of preverbal adverbs and sentence final particles. It was found that additive focus particles were not produced before two years of age, but began to be used before three years old. Restrictive focus markers did not begin to be used spontaneously and productively until shortly after 3;0, emerging later than the additive focus markers, confirming the greater complexity of universal quantification relative to existential quantification. The two studies point to the early emergence of logical structures in children's language

Development of a mandarin-speaking child's comprehension of wh-questions

On s'attache ici à décrire le développement de la compréhension des interrogatifs chez un enfant entre l'âge de 17 ;0 à 24 ;0 parlant le mandarin. Les données se composent d'enregistrements au magnétophone et de notes personnelles. Les questions posées sont les suivantes : Quand et comment l'enfant apprend-il à distinguer entre les interrogatifs et les autres parties du discours ? Quelles stratégies de réponse adopte-t-il face aux interrogatifs employés par les adultes ? Quelles sont les évolutions dans sa compréhension des questions avec shenme "quoi ?", nali "où ?" et shei "qui ?" ?On apporte des éléments qui permettent de répondre que l'enfant, face aux questions qu'il ne comprend pas, s'appuie sur la répétition d'éléments se trouvant dans la question et sur des réponses stéréotypées. Les informations recueillies indiquent que la compréhension des interrogatifs peuvent suivre plusieurs phases de développement. Enfin, on compare les niveaux de compréhension et de production de phrases avec des interrogatifs chez l'enfant.Lee Hun-tak Thomas. Development of a mandarin-speaking child's comprehension of wh-questions. In: Cahiers de linguistique - Asie orientale, vol. 18 1, 1989. pp. 29-62

Cancorp: The Hong Kong Cantonese child language corpus

This paper introduces Cancorp, a one million character child language corpus constructed to study the early grammatical development Cantonese-speaking children in Hong Kong. The characteristics of the corpus as well as computerization problems encountered when building a corpus in Chinese, in particular a dialect corpus, are described. Some findings on early Cantonese grammar concerning functional categories, null arguments, wh words, prepositions and focus adverbs are discussed.Cancorp est un corpus du langage enfantin d'un million de caractères conçu pour étudier les premiers développements de la grammaire dans le langage des enfants parlant le cantonais à Hong Kong. Les caractéristiques de ce corpus sont décrites ici ainsi que les problèmes d'informatique rencontrés dans la création d'un corpus en chinois, en particulier en chinois dialectal. Certaines des découvertes portant sur les catégories fonctionnelles, les arguments nuls, les mots wh, les prépositions et les adverbes de focus sont également discutés.Lee Hun-tak Thomas, Wong Colleen. Cancorp: The Hong Kong Cantonese child language corpus. In: Cahiers de linguistique - Asie orientale, vol. 27 2, 1998. pp. 211-228

Quantification and individuation in the acquisition of Chinese classifiers

25 page(s

Acquisition of negation in a Mandarin-speaking child

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