韵律信息在汉语儿童习得歧义结构中的作用  

Mandarin⁃Speaking Children's Use of Prosodic Cues in the Acquisition of Ambiguous Structures

作　　者：周鹏 李婧 ZHOU Peng;LI Jing

机构地区：[1]浙江大学外国语学院,浙江杭州310058

出　　处：《外语导刊》2024年第4期1-10,158,共11页Foreign Languages Bimonthly

摘　　要：对歧义结构的理解和加工一直是心理语言学研究的热点,但已有研究多关注成人,缺少对儿童习得该结构的考察。为了探索儿童习得歧义结构的内在机制,本研究通过实验任务考察3至5岁汉语儿童如何利用韵律信息解读歧义问句。汉语中的“怎么”问句存在歧义,它既可以提问事件的方式(“方式解读”),也可以提问事件的原因(“原因解读”)。实验通过“问答任务”考察汉语儿童是否可以利用韵律信息建立起这两种对应的解读。实验结果显示,汉语儿童在习得“方式解读”和“原因解读”的时间进程上表现出不对称性:3岁时就已经可以利用韵律信息建立“方式解读”,但直到5岁才能利用韵律信息建立“原因解读”。我们在“句法树生长假说”的理论框架下进一步探讨了儿童习得歧义结构的内在机制。The comprehension and processing of ambiguous structures has long been investigated in psycholinguistic research.However,previous studies mainly focus on adultsprocessing,with very limited research looking at children’s acquisition of relevant structures.To explore the underlying mechanism of children’s acquisition of ambiguous structures,we conduct an experimental study to investigate how 3⁃to 5⁃year⁃old Mandarin⁃speaking children use prosodic cues to interpret ambiguous“zenme”questions.The wh⁃adjunct“zenme”in Mandarin is ambiguous,which can be used to question either the manner(“manner reading”)or the cause(“causal reading”)of an event.A Question/Answer Task is devised to examine whether Mandarin⁃speaking children could use prosodic cues to establish these two interpretations correspondingly.The results reveal that Mandarin⁃speaking children exhibit an asymmetry in the time course of acquiring the“manner reading”as opposed to the“causal reading”.Children at age 3 already show proficiency in deriving the“manner reading”by relying on prosodic cues,but they are not yet able to establish a fully adult⁃like“causal reading”by using the same cues until 5 years of age.We then discuss the underlying mechanism of children’s acquisition of ambiguous structures within the framework of the“Growing Trees Approach”.

关 键 词：儿童语言习得 韵律信息 歧义结构 “怎么”问句 句法结构 

分 类 号：H193.1[语言文字—汉语]