Young Chinese-speaking Children’s Understanding of the Correspondence Between Verb Meaning and Argument Structure

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1、YoungChinese-speakingchildren’sunderstandingofthecorrespondencebetweenverbmeaningandargumentstructureLuJiang1andEtsukoHaryu11UniversityofTokyoAccordingtothesyntacticbootstrappingtheory,thesentencestructureinwhichaverbappearsisausefulcuetoinferringitsmeaning(Gleitman,1990),becauseargumentstructuresro

2、ughlycorrespondtothetypesofverbmeaning.Forexample,averbthatappearsinasentencewithasingleargument(e.g.,“Shecame”)typicallydescribesanon-causativeevent,whileaverbthatappearsinasentencewithtwoarguments(e.g.,“Shepushedhim”)islikelytorefertoacausativeevent.Previousresearchhasreportedthatevenyoungchildren

3、usethisknowledgeaboutsyntax-semanticscorrespondencetoinferverbmeanings.Thatis,youngchildrenmapaverbthatappearsinasentencewithtwoargumentstoacausativeeventaswellastheymapaverbinasentencewithoneargumenttoanon-causativeevent(e.g.,Naigles,1990;Naigles&Lehrer,2002;Lidz,Gleitman,&Gleitman,2003).Isthisbeca

4、usechildrenarebornwiththisabstractknowledge?Ordochildrenacquirethisknowledgebyobservingthatverbswithsimilarmeaningsarelikelytoappearinsimilarconstructions?ItisdifficulttodeterminewhichisthecaseifweconsideronlydatafromEnglish-speakingchildren.BecauseEnglishdoesnotallowargument-dropping,childrenlearni

5、ngEnglishobservethataverbthatappearsinasentencewithoneargumentusuallydenotesanon-causativeeventandthataverbthatappearsinasentencewithtwoargumentstypicallydescribesacausativeevent.Thus,evenifEnglish-speakingchildrenaresensitivetothecorrespondencebetweenverbmeaningandargumentstructurefromveryearlyon,w

6、ecannottellwhethertheyarebornwithsuchknowledgeortheyhavelearneditbyobservingthelanguageinput.ThesetwopossibilitiesmaybebetterinvestigatedbyexaminingwhetherChinese-speakingchildrenunderstandthissyntax-semanticcorrespondence.Chineseallowsargument-dropping:Subjectsorobjects,orevenboth,arefrequentlydrop

7、pedinutterances.Indescribingthecausativeeventinwhichaboypushesagirl,forexample,itisequallygrammaticaltosay“Theboypushed”(droppingtheobject),“Pushedthegirl”(droppingthesubject),or“Pushed”(droppingthebo