Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-j4x9h Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-12T10:36:25.194Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The development of aspectual marking in child Mandarin Chinese

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2009

JIDONG CHEN  and
YASUHIRO SHIRAI
JIDONG CHEN*
Affiliation:
California State University at Fresno
YASUHIRO SHIRAI
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Jidong Chen, Department of Linguistics, California State University at Fresno, 5245 North Backer Avenue, PB 92, Fresno, CA 93740. E-mail: jchen@csufresno.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Cross-linguistic research on the development of tense-aspect marking has revealed a strong effect of lexical aspect. But the degree of this effect varies across languages. Explanation for this universal tendency and language-specific variation is still an open issue. This study investigates the early emergence and subsequent development of four grammatical aspect markers in Mandarin, -le (perfective), zai (progressive), -zhe (durative), and -guo (experiential), in the longitudinal speech data of four children acquiring Mandarin Chinese. It was found that the emergence of grammatical aspect marking generally follows the predictions of the aspect hypothesis, perfective -le predominantly appearing with telic verbs, whereas progressive zai is almost exclusively used with activity verbs. However, the typological features of Mandarin also affect the early uses of -le, which is used with stative predicates more frequently than predicted, and the input patterns play an important role in children's aspect marking. The results support a usage-based learning process in accord with a language-specific system of aspectual semantics, rather than a strong universal association of grammatical aspect and lexical aspect.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 1 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Aksu-Koç, A. (1998). The role of input vs. universal predispositions in the emergence of tense-aspect morphology: Evidence from Turkish. First Language, 18, 255–280.Google Scholar
Andersen, R., & Shirai, Y. (1994). Discourse motivations for some cognitive acquisition principles. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16, 133–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andersen, R. W., & Shirai, Y. (1996). The primacy of aspect in first and second language acquisition: The pidgin–creole connection. In Ritchie, W. C. & Bhatia, T. K. (Eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 527–570). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Antinucci, F., & Miller, R. (1976). How children talk about what happened. Journal of Child Language, 3, 169–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arin, M. L. (2003). Aspect, tense and mood: Context dependency and the marker le in Mandarin Chinese. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Lund University.Google Scholar
Bickerton, D. (1981). Roots of language. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma.Google Scholar
Bickerton, D. (1984). The language bioprogram hypothesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 7, 173–188.Google Scholar
Bloom, L., Lifter, K., & Hafitz, J. (1980). Semantics of verbs and the development of verb inflection in child language. Language, 16, 386–412.Google Scholar
Bronckart, J. P., & Sinclair, H. (1973). Time, tense and aspect. Cognition, 2, 107–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bybee, J., Perkins, R., & Pagliuca, W. (1994). The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chang, H.-H. (2002). Child acquisition of the aspect marker -le in Mandarin Chinese. Unpublished master's thesis, Michigan State University, East Lansing.Google Scholar
Chao, Y.-R. (1968). A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cheung, H.-T. (1998). Pingjun huayu changdu zai zhongwen de yingyong [The application of MLU measurement to Mandarin Chinese]. Ting Yu Hui Kan [Journal of Hearing Science], 13, 36–48.Google Scholar
Comrie, B. (1976). Aspect: An introduction to the study of verbal aspect and related problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dahl, Ö. (1985). Tense and aspect systems. New York: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Diessel, H. (2004). The acquisition of complex sentences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Erbaugh, M. (1978). Acquisition of temporal and aspectual distinctions in Mandarin. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 15, 30–37.Google Scholar
Erbaugh, M. (1982). Coming to order: Natural selection and the origin of syntax in the Mandarin-speaking child. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.Google Scholar
Erbaugh, M. (1992). The acquisition of Mandarin. In Slobin, D. I. (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition (Vol. 3, pp. 373–455). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gavruseva, E. (2002). Is there primacy of aspect in child L2 English? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5, 109–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, A. E., Casenhiser, D. M., & Sethuraman, N. (2004). Learning argument structure generalizations. Cognitive Linguistics, 15, 289–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, C.-C. (2003). Mandarin temporality inference in child, maternal and adult speech. First Language, 23, 147–169.Google Scholar
Huang, M. (1987). Aspect: A general system and its manifestation in Mandarin Chinese. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rice University.Google Scholar
Jin, L., & Hendriks, H. (2005). The development of aspect marking in L1 and L2 Chinese. Working Papers in English and Applied Linguistics, 9, 69–99.Google Scholar
Klein, W., Li, P., & Hendriks, H. (2004). Aspect and assertion in Mandarin Chinese. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 18, 723–770.Google Scholar
Li, C., & Thompson, S. A. (1981). Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, P. (1990). Aspect and Aktionsart in child Mandarin. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Leiden.Google Scholar
Li, P., & Bowerman, M. (1998). The acquisition of grammatical and lexical aspect in Chinese. First Language, 18, 311–350.Google Scholar
Li, P., & Shirai, Y. (2000). The acquisition of lexical and grammatical aspect. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Lieven, E., Pine, J., & Baldwin, G. (1997). Lexically-based learning and early grammatical development. Journal of Child Language, 24, 187–220.Google Scholar
Ma, X.-W. (1987). Beijing fanyan-li-de -zhe [-zhe in Beijing dialect]. Fangyan [Dialectology], 1, 17–22.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Mapstone, E. R., & Harris, P. L. (1985). Is the English present progressive unique? Journal of Child Language, 12, 431–441.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Min, R.-F. (1994). The acquisition of referring expressions by young Chinese children: A longitudinal study of the forms and functions of early noun phrases. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Catholic University of Nijmegen.Google Scholar
Olsen, M. B., & Weinberg, A. (1999). Innateness and the acquisition of grammatical aspect via lexical aspect. In Greenhill, A., Littlefield, H., & Tano, C. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 529–540). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Pinker, S. (1984). Language learnability and language development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rocca, S. (2007). Child second language acquisition: A bi-directional study of English and Italian tense-aspect morphology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salaberry, R. (1999). The development of past tense verbal morphology in classroom L2 Spanish. Applied Linguistics, 20, 151–178.Google Scholar
Sano, T., & Hyams, N. (1994). Agreement, finiteness, and the development of null arguments. In Gonzales, M. (Ed.), Proceedings of the 24th North East Linguistic Society (pp. 543–558). Amherst, MA: GLSA.Google Scholar
Shi, Z. (1988). The present and past of the particle “le” in Mandarin Chinese. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Shirai, Y. (1991). Primacy of aspect in language acquisition. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Shirai, Y. (1993). Inherent aspect and the acquisition of tense/aspect morphology in Japanese. In Nakajima, H. & Otsu, Y. (Eds.), Argument structure: Its syntax and acquisition (pp. 185–211). Tokyo: Kaitakusha.Google Scholar
Shirai, Y. (1994). On the overgeneralization of progressive marking on stative verbs: Bioprogram or input? First Language, 14, 68–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shirai, Y. (1997). On the primacy of progressive over resultative state: The case of Japanese -teiru. Japanese/Korean Linguistics, 6, 512–524.Google Scholar
Shirai, Y. (1998a). The emergence of tense-aspect morphology in Japanese: Universal predisposition? First Language, 18, 281–309.Google Scholar
Shirai, Y. (1998b). Where the progressive and the resultative meet: Imperfective aspect in Japanese, Korean, Chinese and English. Studies in Language, 22, 661–692.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shirai, Y. (2009). Temporality in first and second language acquisition. In Klein, W. & Li, P. (Eds.), The expression of time (pp. 167–193). New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Shirai, Y., & Andersen, R. W. (1995). The acquisition of tense-aspect morphology: A prototype account. Language, 71, 743–762.Google Scholar
Shirai, Y., Slobin, D. I., & Weist, R. M. (1998). Introduction: The acquisition of tense-aspect morphology. First Language, 18, 245–253.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (1997). The universal, the typological, and the particular in acquisition. In Slobin, D. I. (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition: Vol. 5. Expanding the contexts (pp. 1–39). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Smith, C. S. (1991). The parameter of aspect. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.Google Scholar
Stoll, S. (1998). The role of aktionsart in the acquisition of Russian aspect. First Language, 18, 351–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoll, S. (2005). Beginning and end in the acquisition of the perfective aspect in Russian. Journal of Child Language, 32, 805–825.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tai, J. H.-Y. (1984). Verbs and times in Mandarin Chinese: Vendler's four categories. In Testen, D., Mishra, V. & Drogo, J. (Eds.), Papers from the parasession on lexical semantics of the 20th regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 289–296). Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society.Google Scholar
Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics: Vol. 2. Typology and process in concept structuring (pp. 213–288). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Tardif, T. (1993). Adult-to-child speech and language acquisition in Mandarin Chinese. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yale University.Google Scholar
Teng, S.-H. (1974). Verb classification and its pedagogical extensions. Journal of the Chinese Teachers Association, 9, 84–92.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (1992). First verbs: A case study of early grammatical development. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2000). First steps toward a usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cognitive Linguistics, 11, 61–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vendler, Z. (1967). Linguistics in philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Wagner, L. (2001). Aspectual influences on early tense comprehension. Journal of Child Language, 28, 661–681.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weist, R. M. (1986). Tense and aspect: Temporal systems in child language. In Fletcher, P. & Garman, M. (Eds.), Language acquisition (pp. 356–374). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weist, R. M., Pawlak, A., & Carapella, J. (2004). Syntactic–semantic interface in the acquisition of verb morphology. Journal of Child Language, 31, 31–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weist, R. M., Wysocka, H., Witkowska-Stadnik, K., Buczowska, E., & Konieczna, E. (1984). The defective tense hypothesis: On the emergence of tense and aspect in child Polish. Journal of Child Language, 11, 347–374.Google Scholar
Wu, R.-J. R. (2002). Discourse-pragmatic principles for temporal reference in Mandarin Chinese conversation. Studies in Language, 26, 513–541.Google Scholar
Xiao, R., & McEnery, A. (2004a). Aspect in Chinese: A corpus-based study. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Xiao, R., & McEnery, A. (2004b). A corpus-based two-level model of situation aspect. Journal of Linguistics, 40, 325–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar