The Acquisition Of Mandarin Sentence Final Particles

Sentence Final Particles (SFPs) in Mandarin Chinese constitute a functionalcategory that typically occurs in the sentence final position. On one hand, they bear noreferential content, but contribute rich information concerning the speaker’s attitude tothe proposition. On the other hand, the same particle can occur in many contexts withsubtle differences in meaning. As a functional category, the use of SFPs can revealwhether child grammar is essentially different from that of adult. Since SFPsare categorized into the CP domain, they serve as a window to explore the CPstructure of Mandarin in early grammatical development.Given such a theoretical background, the present study will explore howMandarin-speaking children use SFPs in the initial state and whether adult input playsan important role in language acquisition. To address these questions, we have drawn onthe production data of four Mandarin-speaking children from the BJCELA corpus andanalyzed the developmental patterns and children’s use of SFPs NE, BA, MA1, and MA2before age two. We believe that our study will not only enhance our understanding ofacquisition of this particular category in child Mandarin, but also contribute to the long-standing debate over the initial state of functional categories in child grammar.The data show that children are able to productively use SFPs NE, BA, MA1,and MA2before age two in various sentence types including declaratives,imperatives and interrogatives to express different meanings. Results further showthat there is no statistically significant correlation between adult input and childproduction, but children’s production of some SFPs are very similar to that ofadults. Even though adult input does not play a decisive role, it is stillnecessary for children to pick up the triggering data in the specific languageinput. Findings of the present study support the claim that functional categoriesare available to children in the initial state.