本文旨在探討四歲到六歲的兒童與成人在中文動詞組刪略與空賓語結構的語句解釋之比較。研究者透過四個理解測驗 (comprehension task) 探討兒童在動詞組刪略與空賓語結構中語句解釋的表現，同時研究者進而比較兒童與成人在這兩種結構中表現的異同。在這四個實驗中，研究者分別於動詞組刪略與空賓語結構中檢視反身代詞 (reflexives) 及代名詞 (pronouns)。研究結果顯示：(1) 四歲的兒童已俱備此兩種結構的語言知識。(2) 兒童在解釋反身代詞的實驗中，對這兩種結構的語句解釋有所區分，反之，在解釋代名詞的實驗中，並無區分。(3) 成人的表現與句法理論並不一致，他們在解釋反身代詞在空賓語結構 (實驗二) 中的表現顯示：中文成人語法裡只容許鬆散釋義 (sloppy interpretation)。(4) 兒童於實驗二容許嚴格釋義 (strict interpretation) 達33%，而且兒童與成人的表現達顯著差異 (significant difference)。針對兒童與成人之間的顯著差異，研究者透過梯級隱涵 (scalar implicature)及其相關研究來解釋。對成人而言，合作原則 (Cooperative Principle) 這個語用規則，驅使他們在語意表達上要提供足夠情報。成人拒絕實驗二中實驗句的原因在於這些句子無法提供足夠情報。兒童的表現可以歸因於他們缺乏所需的語用知識。一旦兒童習得所需的語用原則，或者他們的處理能力 (processing capacity) 達到成人水準時，他們就能表現的與成人無異。

The purpose of this study is to investigate the performances of children between four to six years old in the acquisition of VP ellipsis constructions and null object constructions (NOC) in Mandarin Chinese. Four comprehension experiments are conducted to explore the children's performance of VP ellipsis constructions and null object constructions. This study also compares children's performance with adults' performance to further explore how children acquire these two constructions. In the four experiments, reflexives and pronouns are examined in these two constructions, respectively. Our results show: (1) Four-year-old children have already had the linguistic knowledge of VP ellipsis constructions and null object constructions. (2) Children differentiated these two constructions in interpreting reflexives, while in interpreting pronouns, they did not. (3) Adults' performance was inconsistent with syntactic theories; adults' interpretation of the reflexives in null object constructions (Experiment Ⅱ) shows only the sloppy interpretation is acceptable in Chinese adult grammar. (4) Children in Experiment Ⅱ accepted the strict interpretation 33% of the time, and the performance between children and adults is significant. Concerning the significant difference between children and adults, this study interprets from the previous studies of "scalar implicature." As for adults, a pragmatic principle- Cooperative Principle entreats them to be as informative as possible. Adults rejected the target sentences in Experiment Ⅱ because they were under-informative. Children's performance can be attributed to a lack of pragmatic competence. Once children acquire the pragmatic principles or their processing capacity reaches adult-like levels, they perform as adults do.

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