A Contrastive Study Of Children’s Acquisition Of The Interrogative&Non-interrogative Shenme In Mandarin Chinese

This thesis makes a contrastive study on Mandarin Chinese speaking children·sacquisition of interrogative and non-interrogative shenme what·. According to studythe longitudinal follow-up copra and controlled experiments, this thesis tries to explainthis phenomenon by the markedness feature of language and from the angles of syntaxand semantics in formal linguistics.This thesis studied32Mandarin speaking children·s acquisition of interrogativeand non-interrogative usages of shenme what· in total: the longitudinal follow-upcopra came from two Mandarin Chinese speaking children AJR and LSY·s naturallinguistic data from their14months old to25months old. Investigators interviewedthe two children about once a month, and used CLAN to transcript the data. This thesisselected the dialogues between caretakers and children that included shenme what·.The controlled experiments included10adults and30Mandarin speakin g children whoare aged from2;03to6;10. The subjects were divided into3groups in terms of theirage, each group includes10subjects. The experiments materials were32colorfulpictures. Because the longitudinal follow-up copra study only collected children·sacquisition of interrogative usage of shenme what·, the controlled experimentsfocused on the following points: the subjects· ability to answer what· questionscorrectly; children·s acquisition of arbitrary reference shenme what·; children·scomprehension of negative arbitrary reference shenme what· and negator mei not·+shenme what·; children·s comprehension of the2interpretations of negator mei not·+shenme what·.The copra study showed us that early in1;02, children gave appropriateresponses to shenme what· questions occasionally. And when they were around1andhalf years old, the appropriate verbal responses appeared. Around2years old, childrencould answer most what· questions correctly. And the individual differences existedbetween the two children as LSY·s acquisition developed quicker than AJR·s. LSYproduced what· question from1and8months old. Around2years old, he couldproduce all kinds of what· questions.The controlled experiment showed that after two years old children could answernearly95%what· questions correctly. They acquired the empty reference andaffirmative arbitrary reference usage of shenme what· firstly. They often confusednegative arbitrary reference usage of shenme what· and negator mei not·+shenme what·. From3to4years old, children could interpret negative arbitrary referenceshenme what· accurately. They acquired the totally negative meaning of negator mei not·+shenme what· firstly and acquire the partial negative meaning later. Theircomprehension of negator mei not·+shenme what· is similar to adults when they arearound6years old.