How do L2 learners of Japanese acquire 'outer-relationship' noun-modifying constructions? (Dedicated to the Memory of Dr. SASAKI Yoshinori)

本研究では、KYコーパスで韓国語・中国語・英語母語話者が使用した外の関係の名詞修飾節を取り出し、学習者がどのような外の関係を使用しているかを分析し、また日本語母語話者の使用と比較した。その結果、①「陳述度が高い修飾節に「話」「考え」などの名詞を付加する形」と「陳述度の低い形容詞的な修飾節」の二つのタイプの外の関係が多く使われる、②中国語母語話者以外は日本語話者に比べ被修飾名詞の異なり数は多くない、③付加するかどうかの規則が非常に複雑である「という」に関しては、母語話者の使い分けに近いものになっている、ことがわかった。本研究では、これらの結果から、学習者の外の関係は、修飾構造を体系として捉え生産的に広げていくというよりも、記憶された個々の用例を中心に進む(N. Ellis 2003)のではないかという議論を行う。This paper analyzes the use of Japanese noun-modifying clauses by second language learners focusing on “outer-relationship” constructions. OPI interviews of 90 learners of Japanese whose L1s are English, Korean, and Chinese were analyzed, and were compared with those of Japanese native speakers. The results show that (1) learners start to use “outer-relationship” constructions of two types at the early stages, one being the construction in which a highly clausal modifier is attached to a head noun, the other being the construction with phrasal or lexical modifier, (2) type frequency of head nouns that learners used are lower than that of Japanese native speakers, expect for Chinese native speakers, and (3) advanced learners mostly use toiu ‘appositive that’ in the similar way as Japanese native speakers, although the rules for when to use toiu is very complex. Based on these results, it is suggested that “outer-relationship” constructions are not developed creatively with systematic rules but develop from memorized exemplars (N. Ellis, 2003)