A study on Cantonese restrictive and additive focus final particles in child acquisition
Mou Hoi Lam
Graduate Institute of Linguistics National Tsing Hua University

This study reports an imitation experiment study from 52 Cantonese-speaking children aged between 2 and 4 years of age and a naturalistic corpus study from 4 children at the same age on how and when children use SFPs (sentence final particles). Importantly, the thesis also attempts to give a more comprehensive syntactic analysis for Cantonese sentence-final particles.
The two studies examine the knowledge and the acquisition of the focus final markers (SFP2) and the SFPs sequences (SFP2 with other final particles) that have not been explored before particularly. Two hypotheses, the continuity theory (Pinker 1984) and the usage-based theory (Tomasello 2000), try to explain the major results that were the extremely high accuracy of single sentence final particles and the extremely low accuracy of the ungrammatical sequences in the experiment. The results indicate that early children have the grammatical competence for SFPs and the word order and SFP sequences. Moreover, when Cantonese-speaking children imitate utterances with SFPs in the ungrammatical word orders (e.g.,*zaa3 tim1), they corrected them spontaneously to canonical order almost all of the time. This finding provides converging evidence for children’s early sensitivity to the canonical order and the syntactic distance of different SFPs. On the other hand, comparing with scarce data in the corpus study, the great difference between the high accuracy of the single SFPs and the low accuracy of ill-formed sequences in the experiment argued that children do not purely repeat back and adult input frequency is irrelevant to the emergence order of SFPs. Thus, the experimental results can be explained adequately by the syntactic approach - split FocusP assumption I proposed since the syntactic distance between two SFPs will affect children’s difficulty to distinguish and acquire SFPs and sequences.
　Consequently, the thesis supports the continuity hypothesis proposed by Pinker (1984) but contrasts with Tomasello (2000)’s usage-based theory that children can learn the particular structures of the particular languages from input frequency. Data from the experiment and from the corpus are complementary and also shed light on the Cantonese SFPs system both in the syntactic and acquisition view. Moreover, the experimental data may provide more support and more information of SFPs emergence to the previous corpus studies; the findings can cast some light on the acquisition issue.

粵語限制及添加焦點句末助詞在兒童習得之研究
毛凱琳
國立清華大學語言學研究所

這篇論文主要探討２歲到４歲粵語小孩在習得限制及添加焦點句末助詞的情況。藉由進行引發模仿實驗來檢測52位小朋友其句末助詞的能力及知識，另外也從自然語料中研究4位跟實驗年齡相近的小朋友及大人其句末助詞出現的情況。此論文的重點為嘗試給粵語句末助詞提供一個比較合理的句法分析。
兩個研究主要檢視第2類句末助詞及句末助詞組合的習得，句末助詞連續的習得研究為前人還沒有提及過的。本論文藉由Pinker (1984)提出持續性的假設 (the continuity theory)及Tomasello (2000)所持有關大人輸入頻率(adult input frequency)的以運用為基底的理論(the usage-based theory)架構嘗試來解釋實驗的結果。 在實驗中的主要結果為單一句末助詞其正確率非常的高及不合語法的句末助詞組合其正確率卻非常的低。此結果顯示早期兒童已有句末助詞的能力及知道其句法順序。每當小朋友模仿不合語法的排列時例如: *咋添，大部份會自發性的將其糾正過來。此發現證明早期兒童對句法上的正確順序及不同句末助詞在句法之間的距離皆有敏感性。另一方面，把實驗跟語料庫的兩項研究相比之下，大人及小孩其句末助詞的自然語料相當的少，合語法及不合語法的句末助詞組合之間卻有很大的不對稱性，所以顯出小朋友並不是單純的重覆模仿，也顯示了句末助詞的習得順序不一定跟大人輸入訊息的頻率有關。因此實驗中的結果可由句法方面得到比較合理的解釋，因兩句末助詞在句法上間的差距較大，小朋友會較易區別出來; 若兩者間區別度非常小，小朋友則較難區別及習得此兩句末助詞。因此句末助詞在句法上的距離會影響兒童習得句末助詞的困難度及辨認度。
所以本篇論文的研究為較支持連續性的假說，而Tomasello (2000)的運用為基礎的理論(Usage-based theory)則比較不能解釋此實驗及自然語料這兩個研究的結果，因其兒童句末助詞的習得並沒有受到語料輸入的頻率所影響。此實驗可跟自然語料的研究作一互補的關係。同時透過本論文對句末助詞及其組合在句法上的分析與討論及在習得上的研究不僅為過去的文獻提供了支持及一些些的補充，也在兒童習得議題上提供了一點點的啟發。

References
Alleton, Viviane. 1981. Final particles and expression of modality in modern Chinese. ecole des hautes etudes en sciences socials, Paris. Journal of Chinese linguistics, Vol.9, 91-115.
Bergsma, W. 2000a. Children’s interpretation of Dutch sentences with the focus particle alleen ‘only’. Proceedings of the Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition 1999. Potsdam.
Bergsma, W. 2000b. Dutch children’s understanding of the particle ook ‘also’. Paper presented at the ‘Semantics Meets Acquisition’ workshop, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, March 31-April2, 2000.
Chan, Marjorie K.M. 1998. Sentence particles je and jek in Cantonese and their distribution across gender and sentence types. The Ohio State University. Engendering Communication: Proceedings of the Fifth Berkeley Women and Language Conference. April 24-26, Berkeley, California. Edited by Suzanne Wertheim, Ashlee Bailey, and Monica Corston-Oliver. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Women and Language Group. 117-128.
Chao, Y. R. 1947. Cantonese Primer. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Havard University Press.
Cheung, Hung-Nin. 1972. Cantonese as spoken in Hong Kong. The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspect of the Theory of Syntax. MIT Press, Cambridge Mass.
Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cohen Sherman, J., & Lust B. 1993. A Note on Continuity of Universal Grammar: Response to Cairns, McDaniel and Hsu, Cognition, 48 (2), pp. 195-197.
Crain, S. 1991. Language acquisition in the absence of experience.Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14, 597-659.
Crain, S., W. Ni and L. Conway. 1994. Learning , parsing and modularity. In C. Clifton, L. Frazier, and K. Rayner (eds) Perspectives on Sentence Processing. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Dyer, Ball. J. 1888. Cantonese Made Easy. Fourth Edition. Hong Kong: Kelly and Walsh Ltd.
Fung, Roxana S.-Y. 2000. Final particles in standard Cantonese: semantic extension and pragmatic inference. Ph.D. Dissertation, the Ohio State University.
Hsu, Una Yu-Ling. 1989. Mandarin Sentential Particles and Particle Questions. Thesis, National Hsing Hua University.
Kayne, R. 1989. Facets of Romance Past Participle Agreement, in P. Beninca, ed.
□Dialect Variation and the Theory of Grammar, Foris Publications, Dordrecht
Killingley, Siew-Yue. 1993. Cantonese. Munchen. Lincom Europa.
Klein, Wolfgang, Li, Ping and Henriette, Hendriks. 2000. Aspect and Assertion in Mandarin Chinese. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 18, 723-770.
Kwok, Helen. 1984. Sentence Particles in Cantonese. Hong Kong: Center of Asian, University of Hong Kong.
Kuo, Chen-Hsiu. 2006. Mandarin Non-Canonical Word Orders in Sentence Processing. Thesis, National Hsing Hua University.
Lai Mei Fung. 2003. Some linguistic properties of tim in Cantonese. Master of Arts in Chinese Linguistics. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Law, Ann. 2002. Cantonese sentence-final particles and the CP domain. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 14.
Law, Sam-Po. 1990. The Syntax and Phonology of Cantonese Sentence-Final Particles. Ph.D. Dissertation, Boston University.
Lee, Thomas Hun-Tak. 2002. Two types of logical structure in child language. Hunan University. Journal of Cognitive Science, 3, 155-182.
Lee, Thomas Hun-Tak. 2003. The acquisition of additive and restrictive focus in Cantonese, manuscript, City University of Hong Kong.
Lee, Thomas Hun-Tak. 2005. The acquisition of additive and restrictive focus in Cantonese. POLA Forever, 71-114.
Lee, Thomas Hun-Tak, and C. Wong 1998. Cancorp-The Hong Kong Cantonese Child Language Corpus, Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale vol. 27, no. 2: 211-228.
Lee, Thomas Hun-Tak & A. Lawnn. 2000. Evidential final particles in child Cantonese. The proceedings of the thirtieth annual Child language research forum. Edited by eve V. Clark. Stanford Lingusitics Association, 131-138. City University of Hong Kong and Chinese University of Hong Kong,
Lee, Thomas Hun-Tak, and A. Lawnn. 2001. Epistemic Modality and the Acquisition of Cantonese Final Particles. In Mincecharu Nakayama (ed) Issues in East Asian Language Acquisition, 67-128. Tokyo: Kuroshio Publishers.
Lee, Thomas Hun-Tak, Wong, Colleen H. & Wong, Cathy S.P. 1995. Functional categories in child Cantonese. Paper presented at the Seventh International Conference on the Cognitive Processing of Chinese and Other Asian Languages, Hong Kong.
Lee, Thomas Hun-Tak and Yiu, Carine. 1998. Focus and aspect in the Cantonese final particle ‘lei4’. Paper presented at the 5th Annual Research Forum YR Chao Center for Chinese Linguistics, UC Berkeley, March, 21-22.
Leung, Chung-Sum. 1992. A study of sentence final particles in Hong Kong Cantonese. Mphil. Thesis. Hong Kong Polytechnic University. (in Chinese)
Leung, Wai Mun. 2005. On the Synchrony and Diachrony of Sentence-final Particles: The Case of Wo in Cantonese. Electronic resources.
Li, Boya. Li. 2006. ChineseFinal Particles and the Syntax of the Periphery. Utrecht: LOT.
Li, Charles N. and Thompson, Sandra A. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Li, Cherry Ing. 1999. Utterance-Final Particles in Taiwanese: A Discourse-paragmatic Analysis. Taipei: The Crane Publishing CO. LTD.
Li, P. and M. Bowerman. 1998. The acquisition of lexical and grammatical aspect in Chinese. First Language 18: 311-350.
Luke, Kang Kwong. 1990. Utterance particles in Cantonese Conversation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Luke, Kang Kwong. 2000. Sentence particles in Cantonese. Workshop on Cantonese particles. Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Luke, Kang Kwong and O. T. Nancarrow. 1997. Sentence particles in Cantonese: A corpus-based study. Paper presented at the Yuen Ren Society meeting, March, University of Washington.
Lust, B. 1994. Functional Projection of CP and Phrase Structure Parameterization: An Argument for the Strong Continuity Hypothesis. In Lust, B., Whitman, J., & Suner, M. (Eds.), Cross Linguistic Perspectives. Volume I: Heads, Projections, and Learnability. Lawrence Erlbaum, 85-118.
Lust, B. 1999. Universal Grammar: The "Strong Continuity" Hypothesis in First Language Acquisition. In T. Bhatia, & Wm. Ritchie (Eds.), Handbook of Child Language Acquisition, pp. 111-156.Academic Press.
Lust, B., Whitman, J., & Suner, M. (Eds.). 1994. Syntactic Theory and First Language Acquisition: Cross-Linguistic Perspectives, Volume 1 Heads, Projections, and Learnability. Hillsdale, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Lust, B., Barbier, Boser, K., Foley, C., Kapur, S., Nuñez del Prado, Z., Suñer, M., & Whitman, J. 1994. General Introduction: Syntactic Theory and First Language Acquisition: Cross-Linguistic Perspectives. In Lust, B. et al. (Eds.), Syntactic Theory and First Language Acquisition: Cross-Linguistic Perspectives. Lawrence Erlbaum, Volume I, xxi-xxxvii; Volume II, xxiii-xxxix.
Lust, B., Flynn, S. & Foley, C. 1996. What children know about what they say:
Elicited imitation as a research method for assessing children’s syntax. In D.
McDaniel, C. McKee, & H.S. Cairns (Eds.), Methods for assessing children’s
syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Lust, B., Hermon, G., & Kornfilt, J. (Eds.). 1994. Syntactic Theory and First Language Acquisition: Cross-Linguistic Perspectives. Volume 2. Binding, Dependencies and Learnability. Hillsdale: NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc.
Major, Diana. 1974.The acquisition of modal auxiliaries in the language of children. The Hague: Mouton.
Matthews, S and Yip, V. 1994. Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar. London & New York:Routledge.
O'Grady, W. 1997. Syntactic development: The University of Chicago Press.
Pinker, S. 1984. Language Learnability and Language Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Pinker, S. 1994. The language Instinct, the New Science of Language and Mind. London, Penguin Books.
Rizzi, L. 1994. Some notes on linguistic theory and language development: the case of root infinitives. Language Acquisition 3:371-393.
Rizzi, L. 1997. The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery. In Liliane Haegeman (ed.) Elements of Grammar: Handbook in Generative Syntax. Dordrecht:Kluwer, 281-337.
Radford, A. 1990. Syntactic theory and the acquisition of English syntax: the nature of early child grammars of English. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Radford, A. 1995. Children-architects or brickies? In D. MacLaughlin and S. McEwan, eds., Proceedings of the Boston University Conference on Language Development 19, Cascadilla Press, Somerville, Massachusetts.
Radford, A. 1995. Phrase structure and functional categories. In Fletcher, P. & B. MacWhinney. eds. The handbook of child language. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Shen, Li. 2004. Aspect agreement and light verb in Chinese: a comparison with
Japanese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 13, 141-179.
Slobin, D. I., and C. Welsh. 1973. Elicited imitation as a research tool in developmental psycho-linguistics. In C. A. Ferguson and D. I. Slobin, eds., Studies of child language development. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Smith, Carlota. 1991. The Parameter of Aspect. Kluwer Academic Plublisers.
Susan H. Foster-Cohen. (1995). Other Children, Other Languages: Issues in the Theory of Language Acquisition. Language, Vol. 71, No. 2, 414-415. edited by Yonata Levy
Tang, Sze-Wing. 1998. Parametrization of Features in Syntax. Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, Irvine.
Tang, Sze-Wing. 1999. A Parametric Theory of V-to-T movement and its Consequences. Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Annual Research Forum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, December, 11-12.
Tang, Sze-Wing. 1999. The Interaction of Sentence Final Particles and V-Movement. Western Conference on Linguistics, The University of Texas at El Paso, October, 28-31.
Tang, Sze-Wing. 2000. Focus as an Anchoring Condition. International Symposium on Topic and Focus in Chinese, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, June, 21-23 (with Lee, Thomas H.-T.)
Tang, Sze-Wing. 2002. Asymmetric distribution of Cantonese sentence final particles. Studies in Chinese Linguistics, 2 (Serial No. 14), 75-84.
Tang, Sze-Wing. 2003. Properties of ngaang and the syntax of verbal particles in Cantonese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 31(2), 245-269.
Tang, Sze-Wing. 2003. Properties of the verbal particle gam2 in Cantonese. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Cantonese and Other Yue Dialects, 570-586. Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Publishers.
Tang, Sze-Wing. 2006. Syntactic properties of sin in Cantonese interrogatives. Zhongguo Yuwen, 312, No. 3, 225-232. Also collected in Linguistics and Philology, 8, 88-95. Information Center for Social Sciences, RUC.
Tomasello, M. 2000. Do young children have adult syntactic competence? Cognition, 74, 209-253.
Tomasello, M. 2000. First steps toward a usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cognitive Linguistics 11-1/2, 61-82.
Tomasello, M. 2003. Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Harvard University Press.
Sybesma, R. and Boya Li. 2007. The dissection and structural mapping of Cantonese sentence final particles. Lingua, Volume 117, Issue 10, 1739-1783.
Wei, Ting-Chi. 2006. Mandarin VP-deletion, focus particles, and E-type pro. Ms. National Kaohssiung Normal University.
Wexler, K. and P. Culicover. 1980. Formal principles of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Whitman, J., Lee, K-O., & Lust, B. 1991. Continuity of the Principles of Universal Grammar in First Language Acquisition: The Issue of Functional Categories. In NELS Proceedings of the North Eastern Linguistics Society Annual Meeting, 21. University of Quebec at Montreal. University of Massachusetts: Amherst, pp. 383-397.
White, Lydia. 1982. Grammatical theory and language acquisition. Dordrecht, Holland ;Foris .
Yeh, Meng. 1990. The Stative Situation and the Imperfective Zhe in Mandarin. Thesis, University of Texas at Austin.
Yiu, Carine Yuk Man. 2001. Cantonese final particles Lei, Zyu and Laa: An aspectual study. M.Phil. thesis, Hong Kong: The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Zeno, Vendler. 1967. Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornall University.