Abstract
The objective of this study is to compare the semantic distinctions among zhidao-type mental verbs, including zhidao, dong, liaojie, and mingbai. It also aims to investigate the order of acquisition and errorsmade by second language (L2) learners of Chinese concerning these verbs. The Module-Attribute Representation of Verbal Semantics (MARVS), as proposed by Huang et al. (2000. The module-attribute representation of verbal semantics: From semantics to argument structure. International Journal of Computational Linguistics & Chinese Language Processing 5(1). 19-46), was adopted to analyze the semantic features, collocation types, and syntactic functions of the four verbs. TheMARVS emphasizes that a verb can have more than one sense, and that each sense has its own event information structure. One group of 16 intermediate-level L2 Chinese learners and another 16 native speakers of Chinese were asked to complete a zhidao synonym task. The results showed that the four mental verbs were challenging for the participants because they fall into two categories in their mother tongue, resulting in a "one-to-many" phenomenon in the acquisition of L2 Chinese. The participants' scores on the four verbs, in descending order, were zhidao, dong, liaojie, and mingbai, corresponding to the degree of information processing. In terms of error types, the participants made the most errors with mingbai, where they most frequently used zhidao instead. Additionally, dong was often incorrectly substituted for liaojie due to the similarity in meaning between the two verbs.
Translated title of the contribution | The acquisition order of zhidao-type nearsynonyms in Chinese |
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Original language | Chinese (Traditional) |
Pages (from-to) | 305-331 |
Number of pages | 27 |
Journal | Chinese as a Second Language Research |
Volume | 12 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2023 Oct 1 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Education
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language