The Study Of The Acquisition Of Verb Phrase Ellipsis Construction In Chinese Children

This research studies the understanding of the Chinese null object construction and the verb phrase ellipsis construction of the four and five years old children, which include interpretations ambiguity as well as locality effect typical properties. We investigate the question that at during which period of age do children have the similar understanding level as the adults do, and analyze whether or not do children show a kind of similarity to the interpretations of the Chinese null object construction and the verb phrase ellipsis construction, including interpretations ambiguity as well as locality effect typical properties. Thus, we further make a comparison to know whether these two types of structure have the similar syntactic structure. The research suggests that:First, as for the Chinese verb phrase ellipsis construction, children over five years old have the similar understanding level as adults do, but there exists a significant difference of understanding between the four years old children and adults. The results of this experiment prove that maturation hypothesis theory can explain why there is an age difference when children acquire some more complex linguistic knowledge.Second, children consider there is a similarity, existing in the interpretations of the Chinese null object construction and the verb phrase ellipsis construction, which include interpretations ambiguity as well as locality effect typical properties. Experimental studies find that no matter the four-year-old children or the five-year-old ones, they don’t show a significant difference to the understanding of the Chinese null object construction and verb phrase ellipsis construction, including interpretations ambiguity as well as locality effect typical properties, proving that the two types of ellipsis structure in Chinese have the similar syntactic structure.Theoretically, this study investigates the issue of similarity of the two verb phrase ellipsis constructions in Chinese from a perspective of children language acquisition, providing evidence for the question of whether the null object construction and the verb phrase ellipsis construction in Chinese have a kind of similarity. During the actual process of teaching, an insight into children’interpretation of the verb phrase ellipsis construction is conductive to understanding children’s grammatical development and can give teachers and parents some references.