The acquisition of wh-question constructions in Mandarin Chinese by L1 isiXhosa-speaking and L1 English-speaking high school learners

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigates the acquisition of main clause wh-questions in MandarinChinese, at an elementary stage of language learning, by first language (L1) EnglishandL1 isiXhosa-speaking high school learners. English is termed a 'wh-movementlanguage because the wh-expression moves from its canonical position in the clauseinto a sentence-initial position. In English, the wh-feature is said to be marked andstrong ([uwh*]), resulting in movement of the wh-expression. isiXhosa and Mandarin,however, are both 'wh-in-situ languages because the wh-feature is claimed to beunmarked and weak ([uwh]), resulting in the wh-expression receiving its phoneticspell-out 'on site. According to the Initial Hypothesis of Syntax (IHS; Platzack,1996), unmarked features are present in a learner's L1 (and L2/L3) initial state as the'default features. The [-movement] parameter associated with the selection of theunmarked [uwh] feature results in in-situ wh-question constructions and is claimed tobe the first parameter tested against target language (TL) input. Consequently, theacquisition of in-situ wh-questions is expected to be unproblematic.It was tested whether L1 isiXhosa (L2 English L3 Afrikaans) participants wouldoutperform L1 English (L2 Afrikaans) participants on a set of wh-question tasks as aresult of facilitative L1 transfer, or whether results would be comparative due to theunmarked [uwh] feature's early instantiation in the participants' Mandarininterlanguage grammar. Sentence formation, oral production, grammaticalityjudgement and sentence translation tasks were administered to 20 participants. Resultsdid not reveal a statistically significant difference between the two groups'performance, but an analysis of the participants' errors revealed different patternsindicative of L1 and L2 (or L3) transfer. Both groups failed to fully acquire thecorrect wh-in-situ structure in Mandarin and transfer from English or Afrikaans wasevident, resulting in a close to even split between wh-movement and wh-in-situstructures being produced or rated as grammatical.The two groups' production/selection of both wh-in-situ and wh-movement questionsat an elementary stage of language acquisition suggests that the unmarked [uwh]feature associated with the [-movement] parameter is instantiated in their early TLStellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.zaiiigrammars, but that transfer of the [+movement] parameter is still prevalent at thisstage. It is predicted that without the necessary morphological competence required torecognise that the marked strong [uwh*] feature of wh-movement languages is notinstantiated in Mandarin, variability will persist in the form of transfer from thelearners' previously acquired grammars until Mandarin input is sufficient to eliminatethe selection of the [uwh*] feature and application of the [+movement] parameter.This study supports the claim that unmarked features are present in a learner's initialstate. Crucially, however, results indicate that L3/L4 (and, by assumption, L2)acquisition does not only commence with the most economical derivations, but that allother previously acquired linguistic knowledge forms the basis for the learner's initialhypotheses about the TL grammar. As such, it is claimed that the IHS does not haveprecedence over cross-linguistic influence. Finally, it is also revealed that, as withchild language acquisition, wh-words are acquired in a specific order by adults too,and that this acquisition order is based on the syntactic and semantic complexity ofthe wh-word in question.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University