The Error Analysis Of The Acquisition On Chinese Existential Sentences For The Learners Of English Background

Existential sentence is one of the special sentences of modern Chinese, which has always been concerned by Chinese experts. Although in English there is the existential sentence, too, it is very different in many ways from that in Chinese. Learners of English background, influenced by their mother tongue: English, often speak sentences that are not consistent with those of Chinese existential sentences. We think it important to strengthen the study of the Chinese existential sentences for the following three reasons: (a) Many experts and scholars mainly focus on the sentence itself in the study of Chinese existential sentences, and only a small number do research from the perspective of the foreign language teaching; (b) Existential sentence is a special sentence of Chinese, so it is worthy to be studied; (c) Because of the differences in many aspects between Chinese and English existential sentences, many learners of English background have a variety of errors in the process of acquiring Chinese existential sentences. Therefore, it is a subject worthy of our study.This paper is on the basis of the research of previous experts and scholars, referring to the second language acquisition theory, interlanguage theory and error analysis theory, and uses comparative analysis approach to study the learners of English background'acquisition of Chinese existential sentences. We not only induct the error types, analyze the reasons for such errors, but put forward solutions to such problems. During the process of study, we find:"you"sentence is the pattern mastered best by learners of English background;"zai"sentence is also one of the frequently--used sentences by the learners of English background, secondly to the"you"sentences; On the"shi"sentence, the native speakers of English are lacking in understanding of its semantic. It is easy for them to replace"shi"with"you"and confuse"there be"with the general verb semantics, high error rate. As to the sentence difficulty level, the"V +zhe/le"sentence is used relatively high.According to the study of the learners of English background'errors on their acquiring of the Chinese existential sentences , we conclude that the major errors when learners of English background acquire the Chinese existential sentences is omission, error plus, the wrong order, avoiding and so on. The reasons for generating these errors include negative transferring, generalization of the target language, to master irregular target language rules and so on. We suggest: In the primary stage, we propose the textbooks deal with"zai"and"you"sentence only, indicate the differences between the two and precautions for them. For intermediate-stage students, textbooks should thoroughly deal with the characteristics of"shi"sentence, and note the analysis of"you"and"zai"sentences at the same time. For advanced-stage students, textbooks should focus on the existential sentences taught in paragraphs or chapters, especially looming sentence, in order to give students a better understanding about the unique semantic conditions and pragmatic functions of existential sentences.