THE POST-VERBAL PRONOUN KEOI IN CHILD CANTONESE:A CORPUS-BASED STUDY

粤语动后人称代词“佢”－基于儿童语料库的习得研究

周蒋玲(Jiangling Zhou) ； 叶彩燕(Virginia Yip)

《Journal of Chinese Linguistics》 49卷2期 (2021/06) Pp. 379-419

摘要

This study investigates the acquisition of the third person pronoun keoi5佢with inanimate referents in post-verbal position (henceforth, KEOI) in Hong Kong Cantonese. Following a linguistic analysis of KEOI vis-à-vis its equivalents it in English and tā它in Mandarin Chinese, we conducted a corpus-based study on the use of KEOI in 9 Cantonese-English bilingual children (1;03-4;06) and 3 Cantonese monolingual children (1;10-2;09) in naturalistic settings. Results show that Cantonese-speaking children mainly used KEOI as a canonical object of verbal predicates expressing irrealis bounded disposal events, indicating their early sensitivity to the aspectual properties of KEOI-clauses. While monolingual children were consistently adult-like in using KEOI, bilingual children produced unbounded KEOI-clauses unattested in their monolingual peers and the adults. They also used higher rates of realis KEOI-clauses and demonstrated interchangeable use between KEOI and it in code-mixed utterances. Our findings lend support to the proposal that KEOI marks bounded disposals with irrealis results or states. Input and language experience are shown to influence the acquisition of KEOI-clauses, with cross-linguistic influence of English likely induced by the interplay among ambiguity of input in Cantonese, extensive exposure to English and regular processing of the English pronouns.

關鍵字

Cantonese pronoun keoi5 ； First language acquisition ； Cross-linguistic influence ； Boundedness ； Irrealis

並列摘要

本文研究儿童对香港粤语里位于动词后方、指代无生命事物的人称代词“佢”的习得。我们分析了粤语代词“佢”的句法分布及“佢”字句的体貌特点，将“佢”与英语代词“'it＂和普通话代词“它”进行对比，并通过儿童语料库观察9名粤－英双语儿童（1;03至4;06岁）及3名粤语单语儿童（1;10至2;09岁）在自然语言环境中对“佢”的使用情况。研究发现粤语儿童在习得初期对“佢”字句的体貌特点敏感，代词“佢”主要用作动词谓语句的常规宾语，这些句子通常表达“有界（bounded）”“未然（irrealis）”的处置事件（disposal events）。粤语单语儿童对“佢”字句的使用与成人语法一致，粤－英双语儿童则产出单语儿童和成人都不使用的“佢”字句，他们使用“佢”字句表达“已然（realis）”事件的频率更高，且出現“佢”和英语代词“it＂互用的语码混杂现象。我们的研究结果支持把粤语“佢”字句分析为表达“有界”“未然”事件的处置结构，并显示输入和语言经验会影响“佢”字句的习得。英语对粤－英双语儿童“佢”字句的习得产生了跨语言影响，可能是粤语“佢”字句存在输入歧义以及双语儿童广泛接触英语和频繁加工英语代词等因素相互作用的结果。

並列關鍵字

粤语代词“佢” ； 一语习得 ； 跨语言影响 ； 有界性 ； 未然