| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 英語學系 === 97 === ABSTRACT
The present study aims to explore children’s acquisition of the Taiwanese ka construction. Four major constraints, i.e., Referentiality, Omission, Dynamicity, and Progressive, were examined in the present study. Property effects, sub-property effects, task effects, age effects and other related patterns were investigated in this pioneer research. A comprehension task (Grammaticality Judgment task, the GJ task) and a production task (a Picture-cued Production task, the PP task) were employed. Forty-eight preschoolers in Xinying City, Tainan County and sixteen adults were asked to participate in the experiment. The preschoolers were further divided into three age groups, ranging from 4 to 6.
The findings suggested that main properties, sub-properties, tasks, and age were all crucial factors in the acquisition of the Taiwanese ka construction. The four constraints were found to impose a different degree of difficulty on the subjects: Dynamicity > Referentiality > Progressive > Omission (from easy to difficult). The hierarchical sequence supports Pinker’s (1989) Theory of Conservativism. Concerning the sub-property effects, the present results argued for the previous theoretical analyses in that our subjects did prefer Nonstative to Stative, Definite/Generic to Indefinite, and Atelic to Telic. The above findings showed that in acquiring the contrast between elements permitted and prohibited in a certain construction, our children seemed to go through three developmental stages: Stage 1: No ContrastStage 2: Partial ContrastStage 3: Full Contrast. Moreover, it was found that our children performed better on the GJ task than on the PP task, supporting the view that comprehension is prior to production (Oviatt 1980, Brown 1987, Gerken and Shady 1996). In addition, it was found that age 5 was a transitional point for the acquisition of the Taiwanese ka construction and age 6 was the cutting age where our children achieved an adult-like grammar.
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