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Acquisition of the Syntax and Semantics of Light Verbs in Mandarin Bilinguals
Acquisition of the Syntax and Semantics of Light Verbs in Mandarin Bilinguals
상세정보
- 자료유형
- 학위논문 서양
- 최종처리일시
- 20260202105215
- ISBN
- 9798291565643
- DDC
- 401
- 서명/저자
- Acquisition of the Syntax and Semantics of Light Verbs in Mandarin Bilinguals
- 발행사항
- [Sl] : University of Michigan, 2025
- 발행사항
- Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2025
- 형태사항
- 213 p
- 주기사항
- Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-02, Section: A.
- 주기사항
- Advisor: Abner, Natasha;Pires, Acrisio.
- 학위논문주기
- Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Michigan, 2025.
- 초록/해제
- 요약This dissertation investigates the acquisition of the syntax and semantics of light verb constructions in Mandarin by adult English-Mandarin bilinguals-specifically, heritage Mandarin speakers and L2 Mandarin speakers whose first language is English. In these constructions, light verbs contribute limited semantic content to the verb phrases they form with dependent nouns, raising important questions for syntactic theory (Huang 1997, 2015; Lin 2001, 2014).One question concerns how the verb phrase da dianhua '(tele)phone/call (someone)' is derived from the light verb da 'hit' and the noun dianhua 'telephone,' since the literal meaning would be 'hit (the) telephone.' This study explores two possible syntactic analyses for Mandarin light verbs: a one-lexeme (V) analysis and a two-lexeme (v-V) analysis. I present empirical data illustrating the properties of light verbs and how their meanings can be differentiated from lexical meanings. Specifically, I show that passive, topicalization, and V-V-kan reduplication structures reveal clear distinctions between light and lexical verb meanings. Based on these properties, I argue that the two-lexeme analysis better accounts for the observed data, as it better predicts syntactic differences between the two types of verbs. This dissertation further examines which acquisition theory best captures the syntactic knowledge of different groups of English-Mandarin bilinguals. The findings show that Mandarin L2 speakers struggle to acquire the syntactic distinctions between lexical and light verbs, lending support to the Bottleneck Hypothesis and the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis. The syntactic and semantic complexity of these constructions poses particular challenges, and L2 speakers seem to have difficulty adjusting the relevant feature settings from English to Mandarin. In contrast, the results provide additional support for the proposal in the literature that heritage speakers are "native" speakers rather than L2 learners. The performance of Mandarin heritage speakers closely resembles that of homeland Mandarin native speakers, although it is not entirely the same, indicating that even if heritage speakers successfully acquire the syntactic distinction between light and lexical verbs, some of their grammar may diverge from the homeland native speakers', depending on factors such as language experience. Despite the inherent complexity of Mandarin light verbs, heritage speakers acquire these properties in a way that mirrors the acquisition by homeland native speakers. This finding addresses important questions about the acquisition of complex syntactic features in heritage languages. Overall, this dissertation presents new empirical evidence on the bilingual/L2 acquisition of light verb structures, a previously understudied phenomenon in this domain, highlighting the important and distinctive contribution of the study of Mandarin bilingualism to the understanding of language acquisition.
- 일반주제명
- Linguistics
- 일반주제명
- Bilingual education
- 일반주제명
- Language arts
- 키워드
- Bilingualism
- 키워드
- Syntax
- 키워드
- Semantics
- 기타저자
- University of Michigan Linguistics
- 기본자료저록
- Dissertations Abstracts International. 87-02A.
- 전자적 위치 및 접속
- 로그인 후 원문을 볼 수 있습니다.
MARC
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■007cr#unu||||||||
■020 ▼a9798291565643
■035 ▼a(MiAaPQ)AAI32271750
■035 ▼a(MiAaPQ)umichrackham006384
■040 ▼aMiAaPQ▼cMiAaPQ
■0820 ▼a401
■1001 ▼aChiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy.
■24510▼aAcquisition of the Syntax and Semantics of Light Verbs in Mandarin Bilinguals
■260 ▼a[Sl]▼bUniversity of Michigan▼c2025
■260 1▼aAnn Arbor▼bProQuest Dissertations & Theses▼c2025
■300 ▼a213 p
■500 ▼aSource: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-02, Section: A.
■500 ▼aAdvisor: Abner, Natasha;Pires, Acrisio.
■5021 ▼aThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Michigan, 2025.
■520 ▼aThis dissertation investigates the acquisition of the syntax and semantics of light verb constructions in Mandarin by adult English-Mandarin bilinguals-specifically, heritage Mandarin speakers and L2 Mandarin speakers whose first language is English. In these constructions, light verbs contribute limited semantic content to the verb phrases they form with dependent nouns, raising important questions for syntactic theory (Huang 1997, 2015; Lin 2001, 2014).One question concerns how the verb phrase da dianhua '(tele)phone/call (someone)' is derived from the light verb da 'hit' and the noun dianhua 'telephone,' since the literal meaning would be 'hit (the) telephone.' This study explores two possible syntactic analyses for Mandarin light verbs: a one-lexeme (V) analysis and a two-lexeme (v-V) analysis. I present empirical data illustrating the properties of light verbs and how their meanings can be differentiated from lexical meanings. Specifically, I show that passive, topicalization, and V-V-kan reduplication structures reveal clear distinctions between light and lexical verb meanings. Based on these properties, I argue that the two-lexeme analysis better accounts for the observed data, as it better predicts syntactic differences between the two types of verbs. This dissertation further examines which acquisition theory best captures the syntactic knowledge of different groups of English-Mandarin bilinguals. The findings show that Mandarin L2 speakers struggle to acquire the syntactic distinctions between lexical and light verbs, lending support to the Bottleneck Hypothesis and the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis. The syntactic and semantic complexity of these constructions poses particular challenges, and L2 speakers seem to have difficulty adjusting the relevant feature settings from English to Mandarin. In contrast, the results provide additional support for the proposal in the literature that heritage speakers are "native" speakers rather than L2 learners. The performance of Mandarin heritage speakers closely resembles that of homeland Mandarin native speakers, although it is not entirely the same, indicating that even if heritage speakers successfully acquire the syntactic distinction between light and lexical verbs, some of their grammar may diverge from the homeland native speakers', depending on factors such as language experience. Despite the inherent complexity of Mandarin light verbs, heritage speakers acquire these properties in a way that mirrors the acquisition by homeland native speakers. This finding addresses important questions about the acquisition of complex syntactic features in heritage languages. Overall, this dissertation presents new empirical evidence on the bilingual/L2 acquisition of light verb structures, a previously understudied phenomenon in this domain, highlighting the important and distinctive contribution of the study of Mandarin bilingualism to the understanding of language acquisition.
■590 ▼aSchool code: 0127.
■650 4▼aLinguistics
■650 4▼aBilingual education
■650 4▼aLanguage arts
■653 ▼aBilingualism
■653 ▼aChinese linguistics
■653 ▼aSyntax
■653 ▼aLanguage acquisition
■653 ▼aSemantics
■690 ▼a0290
■690 ▼a0279
■690 ▼a0282
■71020▼aUniversity of Michigan▼bLinguistics.
■7730 ▼tDissertations Abstracts International▼g87-02A.
■790 ▼a0127
■791 ▼aPh.D.
■792 ▼a2025
■793 ▼aEnglish
■85640▼uhttp://www.riss.kr/pdu/ddodLink.do?id=T17359795▼nKERIS▼z이 자료의 원문은 한국교육학술정보원에서 제공합니다.
