类别还是特征?汉语形容词语义映射的儿童习得研究  

Category or Property?The Semantic Mapping of Adjectives in Child Mandarin

作　　者：吴庄 李慧琳 WU Zhuang;LI Hui-lin

机构地区：[1]广东外语外贸大学外国语言学及应用语言学研究中心/广东外语外贸大学英语语言文化学院,广东广州510420 [2]广东外语外贸大学英语语言文化学院,广东广州510420

出　　处：《外语导刊》2024年第4期21-29,158,共10页Foreign Languages Bimonthly

基　　金：国家社会科学基金项目“汉语儿童语言中的信息结构研究”(20BYY085)。

摘　　要：与名词的语义映射具有高度的跨语言普遍性不同,形容词的语义映射似乎表现出跨语言的差异:如果一种语言中受形容词修饰的名词脱落现象越常见,则使用该语言的儿童就越可能将形容词的语义映射为事物的类别,而不是特征。针对4个儿童自然语料库中的儿向语分析表明,在汉语儿童接受的语言输入中,受形容词修饰的名词大量脱落,名词短语表层结构上仅保留形容词,却仍然具有指称性。采用图片选择任务对60名汉语儿童测试表明,汉语儿童在习得语言初期倾向将形容词映射为事物的类别而不是特征,与名词短语的语义映射类似,随着年龄增长,儿童逐渐习得形容词与基于事物特征的共性之间的联系。这说明儿童早期的形容词语义映射倾向受到具体语言中形容词的分布模式影响。Unlike the semantic mapping of nouns,which is highly universal across languages,the semantic mapping of adjectives seems to exhibit greater cross⁃linguistic variation:the more frequently the nouns modified by adjectives are dropped in a language,the more likely children will map the adjectives to categories of things,rather than their properties.An analysis of child⁃directed speech in four Mandarin child language corpora shows that noun dropping is a common phenomenon in the input,which means many nominals that children are exposed to have only adjectives,albeit referential.Using the picture selection task,this study tests 60 Mandarin children on their semantic mapping of adjectives,and finds that initially they tend to map adjectives onto category,rather than property,on a par with the semantic mapping of nouns.It is at a later stage that Mandarin children acquire the association between adjectives and properties.The results indicate the semantic mapping of adjectives in early child language is influenced by the distribution of these words in the input of the specific language.

关 键 词：儿童语言习得 汉语儿童 形容词 语义映射 语言输入 名词脱落 儿向语 

分 类 号：H193.1[语言文字—汉语]