A Study of Chinese Relatives Produced by L2 Learners:A Typological Perspective

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1674-8921.2015.02.008

Abstract

Abstract: As shown by typological observations, Chinese relative clause (RC) is prenominal, which is typologically rare in Verb-Object languages. Thus Chinese RC might be a difficult structure to acquire for learners whose first language does not have this type of word order. Based on a comparative corpus analysis of Chinese RCs produced by English, Japanese, and Korean learners, this study investigated the commonalities and differences between the distributions of Chinese RCs produced by the three groups of learners. The learner corpus data show that the distributional patterns of Chinese RCs produced by these second language learners, regardless of their first language, conform in varying degrees to typological generalizations derived from natural language observations as well as some minor disparities.

CLC Number:

H319

LI Jinman. A Study of Chinese Relatives Produced by L2 Learners:A Typological Perspective[J]. Contemporary Foreign Languages Studies, 2015, 15(02): 34-39.

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