CUHK electronic theses & dissertations collection

本文研究兩位粤英雙語兒童的詞彙發展，當中以研究他們的名詞及動詞發展模式為主。在過往關於兒童詞彙發展的文獻中，很多學者均對於名詞傾向(noun bias)是否屬於普遍存在(universal)的現象，存着不少的討論。大部份學者於英語等語言中發現此名詞傾向，並認為是由於名詞概念對兒童而言較為明顯及容易掌握的緣故。然而，在普通話及粤語等語言中，學者並未能找出此名詞傾向，並認為原因是這些語言的結構特徵都比較強調動詞，例如代名詞省略(pro-drop)等。本文透過語料庫，追蹤性研究兩位粤英雙語兒童的詞彙發展，並把結果與相應的單語兒童作比較，從而討論詞類傾向的跨語言共性(universality)及語言特定(language-specific)的因素，以及在詞彙發展中的跨語言互動(cross-linguistic influence)。本文的研究結果，顯示了在兒童的詞彙發展中，名詞傾向屬於語言特定(language-specific)的現象，而非所有語言的共性。在整段由1;06至3;00追蹤期之中，單語及雙語兒童的英語詞彙發展均持續地出現了名詞傾向的現象，而這現象並沒有在粤語中出現。英語的名詞比例平均維持在60%以上，英語名詞也發展得比動詞快。相反，在整段追蹤期之中，粤語的名詞比例均比英語的小。語言特定的因素(language-specific factors)，包括零論元是否被認可(licensing of null arguments)，以及名詞及動詞的詞彙化模式(lexicalization patterns of nouns and verbs)，能以解釋為何名詞傾向能在英語中找到，而不能在粤語中找到。另外，本研究也發現粤英雙語兒童的詞彙發展中的跨語言互動(cross-linguistic influence)，他們粤英之間的名詞及動詞對應詞(translation equivalents)收窄了這兩種語言之間在名詞及動詞比例上的差異。英語方面，比例上，雙語兒童比單語兒童獲得更多動詞。由於粤語的語言結構特徵較強調動詞，因此雙語兒童首先獲得很多粤語動詞，這促使他們獲得這些動詞的英語對應詞(English equivalents)，從而降低了其英語名詞比例。而粤語方面，比例上，雙語兒童比單語兒童獲得更多名詞。由於英語的語言結構特徵較重視名詞，因此雙語兒童首先獲得很多英語名詞，這促使他們獲得這些名詞的粤語對應詞(Cantonese equivalents)，從而提升了其粤語名詞比例。This thesis investigates the lexical development in two Cantonese-English bilingual children, focusing on the developmental patterns of their nouns and verbs. In the literature, a controversial issue centres on whether the noun bias is universal in children’s lexical development. Many researchers have found a noun bias in English and other languages, and attributed it to the advantage that the concepts encoded by nouns are easier and more salient for children. However, the noun bias was not observed in children acquiring languages like Mandarin and Cantonese, and some researchers have attributed this to properties of these languages including pro-drop which favour verbs. We conduct a longitudinal corpus-based study of two bilingual children in comparison with their monolingual counterparts, to address the issues of universality and language-specific effects of word category bias and cross-linguistic influence at the lexical level.The findings show evidence that the noun bias is language-specific but not universal in the lexical development of children. A noun bias was consistently shown in English but not in Cantonese for both monolingual and bilingual children throughout the period of investigation from 1;06 to 3;00. In English, the proportion of nouns to nouns + verbs remained greater than 60% on average and nouns always developed faster than verbs. In contrast, whereas the proportion of nouns to nouns + verbs in Cantonese remained lower than that in English for the entire period of investigation. We argue that language-specific factors such as the licensing of null arguments and the lexicalization patterns of nouns and verbs can account for the differences in the occurrence of noun bias in children’s lexical development in English and Cantonese.Evidence for cross-linguistic influence is also observed in the lexical development in Cantonese-English bilingual children. Their translation equivalents for nouns and verbs between English and Cantonese narrow the differences in the proportion of nouns and verbs between these two languages. In English, the bilingual children acquired proportionately more verbs than their monolingual counterparts. Having acquired many verbs first in Cantonese, a pro-drop language which favours verbs, facilitated the bilingual children’s acquisition of the English equivalents of these verbs, leading to a decrease in the proportion of nouns to nouns + verbs in English. In Cantonese, the bilingual children had a greater proportion of nouns than their monolingual peers. Having acquired many nouns first in English, a non-pro-drop language which favours nouns, facilitated the bilingual children’s acquisition of the Cantonese equivalents of these nouns, resulting in the increase in the proportion of nouns to nouns + verbs in Cantonese.Detailed summary in vernacular field only.Detailed summary in vernacular field only.Detailed summary in vernacular field only.Shum, Ka Yee."December 2012."Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 161-168).Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.Abstracts also in Chinese; includes Chinese.Abstract --- p.iAcknowledgements --- p.vList of Tables --- p.viiiList of Figures --- p.xList of Abbreviations --- p.xiiTable of Contents --- p.xiiiChapter Chapter 1: --- Introduction --- p.1Chapter 1.1 --- The “noun bias“ in early lexical development --- p.1Chapter 1.2 --- Definition of word categories --- p.2Chapter 1.2.1 --- Differences in the distinction of word categories across languages --- p.2Chapter 1.2.2 --- Definitions of nouns and verbs --- p.3Chapter 1.3 --- Defining the “noun bias“ --- p.5Chapter 1.3.1 --- Criteria for “noun bias“ in the acquisition --- p.5Chapter 1.3.2 --- Criteria for “noun bias“ in this thesis --- p.7Chapter 1.4 --- Issues in bilingual lexical development --- p.9Chapter 1.5 --- Organization of the thesis --- p.11Chapter Chapter 2: --- Issues in Early Lexical Development --- p.14Chapter 2.1 --- Gentner’s (1982) claim: The noun bias is universal --- p.14Chapter 2.1.1 --- Natural Partitions Hypothesis --- p.14Chapter 2.1.2 --- Relational Relativity Hypothesis --- p.15Chapter 2.1.3 --- Gentner’s study of monolingual children acquiring six languages (1982) --- p.16Chapter 2.1.4 --- Gentner and Boroditsky’s study of Navajo-speaking children (2009) --- p.17Chapter 2.1.5 --- Other studies of monolingual children in favour of the noun bias --- p.19Chapter 2.2 --- Tardif’s (1996) claim: The noun bias is language-specific --- p.21Chapter 2.2.1 --- Tardif’s studies of monolingual children acquiring Chinese languages (1996, 2006b, 2008) --- p.21Chapter 2.2.2 --- Other monolingual studies arguing against the noun bias --- p.27Chapter 2.2.3 --- Factors leading to the non-existence of a noun bias --- p.29Chapter 2.3 --- Reasons for conflicting results --- p.34Chapter 2.3.1 --- Different methods of sampling children’s vocabulary data --- p.34Chapter 2.3.2 --- Different ages of the children --- p.35Chapter 2.4 --- Previous cross-linguistic longitudinal studies in lexical development --- p.36Chapter 2.4.1 --- Liu’s comparative study of lexical development in English, Mandarin and Cantonese (2007) --- p.37Chapter 2.4.2 --- Dhillon’s comparative study of lexical development in English, Spanish and Mandarin (2010) --- p.38Chapter 2.5 --- Previous studies of lexical development in bilingual children --- p.39Chapter 2.5.1 --- Bilingual studies involving two European languages --- p.40Chapter 2.5.2 --- Bilingual studies involving an European language and an Asian language --- p.41Chapter 2.6 --- Research Questions --- p.44Chapter Chapter 3: --- Hypotheses and Methodology --- p.46Chapter 3.1 --- Universality of early noun advantage --- p.46Chapter 3.2 --- Language-specific properties in relation to lexical category bias --- p.47Chapter 3.3 --- Cross-linguistic influence --- p.49Chapter 3.3.1 --- Cross-linguistic influence in the domain of syntax --- p.49Chapter 3.3.2 --- Cross-linguistic influence in the domain of lexicon --- p.50Chapter 3.3.3 --- Language dominance --- p.51Chapter 3.4 --- Methodology --- p.52Chapter 3.4.1 --- Subjects --- p.53Chapter 3.4.2 --- The monolingual and bilingual data --- p.56Chapter 3.4.3 --- Classification of nouns and verbs in Cantonese and English --- p.57Chapter 3.4.4 --- Data analysis --- p.68Chapter 3.5 --- Summary --- p.73Chapter Chapter 4: --- Results and Discussion --- p.74Chapter 4.1 --- Lexical composition in early English --- p.75Chapter 4.1.1 --- Number of noun types and verb types and N/(N+V) ratios in English --- p.75Chapter 4.1.2 --- Number of noun tokens and verb tokens in English --- p.76Chapter 4.1.3 --- Cumulative nouns and verbs in English --- p.77Chapter 4.1.4 --- Differences between Cantonese-English bilingual children and the monolingual English-speaking child --- p.79Chapter 4.1.5 --- Comparison between Cantonese-dominant and English-dominant bilingual children --- p.84Chapter 4.1.6 --- Summary --- p.84Chapter 4.2 --- Lexical composition in early Cantonese --- p.85Chapter 4.2.1 --- Number of noun types and verb types and N/(N+V) ratios in Cantonese --- p.85Chapter 4.2.2 --- Number of noun tokens and verb tokens in Cantonese --- p.87Chapter 4.2.3 --- Cumulative nouns and verbs in Cantonese --- p.88Chapter 4.2.4 --- Differences between Cantonese-English bilingual children and the monolingual Cantonese-speaking child --- p.91Chapter 4.2.5 --- Comparison between Cantonese-dominant and English-dominant bilingual children --- p.95Chapter 4.2.6 --- Summary --- p.99Chapter 4.3 --- Translation equivalents of nouns and verbs in Cantonese-English bilingual children --- p.100Chapter 4.3.1 --- English nouns and verbs with Cantonese equivalents --- p.100Chapter 4.3.2 --- Cantonese nouns and verbs with English equivalents --- p.104Chapter 4.3.3 --- Summary --- p.109Chapter 4.4 --- Comparison of lexical composition between Cantonese and English of the bilingual children --- p.109Chapter 4.4.1 --- Proportion of nouns to verbs on the basis of word types and cumulative development --- p.110Chapter 4.4.2 --- Language-specific considerations in early lexical development --- p.113Chapter 4.4.3 --- Summary --- p.124Chapter 4.5 --- Analysis of morphological and syntactic markings on nouns and verbs in Cantonese-English bilingual children --- p.124Chapter 4.5.1 --- Morphological and syntactic markings on English nouns and verbs --- p.125Chapter 4.5.2 --- Morphological and syntactic markings on Cantonese nouns and verbs --- p.130Chapter 4.5.3 --- Summary --- p.141Chapter 4.6 --- Summary of major findings --- p.141Chapter Chapter 5: --- Conclusions --- p.145Chapter 5.1 --- Conclusions --- p.145Chapter 5.2 --- Limitations and suggestions for further research --- p.147Appendices --- p.149Chapter Appendix 1: --- Translation equivalents for nouns and verbs in Cantonese-English bilingual children --- p.149Chapter Appendix 2: --- Total tokens of five most frequent nouns and five most frequent verbs produced by each child in each language --- p.160References --- p.16