3.2 Methods and Materials
3.2.2 Study II
As mentioned in Section 3.2.1, Acceptability Judgment tasks are mainly used to test L2 learners’ preferences for different cleft types (Liao 2014, Mai & Yuan 2016), whereas GJ tasks assess L2 learners’ understanding of the syntactic structures of
Mandarin clefts. By conducting an AJ task, we could investigate Japanese-speaking learners’ interpretation of different cleft sentences. Therefore, an AJ task was considered
to be suitable for Study II.
1 In the formal test, the test items were presented in Mandarin Chinese. Since our subjects have reached the intermediate level, we assumed that they were able to read the Chinese characters in this task.
( ) a. Zhangsan shi Xiaoming xihuan de.1 Zhangsan SHI Xiaoming like DE ‘It is Xiaoming who likes Zhangsan.’
( ) b. Xiaoming xihuan Zhangsan shi de.
Xiaoming like Zhangsan SHI DE
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3.2.2.1 An Analytical Framework
According to Xie (2008) and Liao (2014), L2 learners’ performance is affected by
cleft type differences. Therefore, to clearly examine whether JSLs cleft interpretation is influenced by the substitution of focus phrases as previous studies have claimed, a new classification was necessary to help us conduct an in-depth investigation.
In this section, analytical frameworks for the sentence configuration of Mandarin clefts and pseudo-clefts are presented in (1a) and (1b), respectively.
(1) a. Cleft Configuration: Subject + shi + cleaved XP + (de)2
b. Pseudo-Cleft Configuration: Sentence + (de) + (Noun) + shi + cleaved XP
The 2 major types and 10 subtypes of Mandarin clefts and pseudo-clefts are illustrated as follows.
Type 1: S + shi + cleaved NP + de
In a Mandarin cleft, the cleaved NP can be either definite or indefinite as in (2a) and (2b), respectively.
(2) a. Zhe xie hua shi Mali xihuan de.
this CL flower SHI Mary like DE ‘It is Mary that likes these flowers.’
b. Chuanghu shi yige nanhai dapo de.
window SHI one-CL boy broke DE
‘It is a boy that broke the window.’ (Zhang 2012, p.144)
2 In some types of cleft sentences, de is omitted.
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‘It is Xiaoming that like you.’
b.*Ta shi didaji chang de.
he SHI arrive airport DE
*’It is arrived at the airport that she has.’
In (3), the VP in the focal part of (3a) is transitive, whereas the VP in the focal part of (3b) is intransitive. When an intransitive VP is inserted, the sentence becomes ungrammatical.
Thus, in Mandarin VP clefts, the cleaved VP must be transitive.
Type 3: S + shi + cleaved PP + (de)
Lee (2005), Liao (2014), Tang (1980), and Xie (2008) have noted that a cleaved PP that denotes location is grammatical in Mandarin Chinese.
(4) a. Wo jiari shi zai tushuguan dushu de.
I weekend SHI in library study DE
‘It is in the library that I studied during the weekend.’
b. Zhangsan shi cong zhejian yinhang touqian de.
zhangsan SHI from this bank stole DE ‘It is from this bank that Zhangsan stole money.’
In Mandarin Chinese, two types of prepositions, namely zai and cong, denote location.
These prepositions can form a PP and be the focal part of Mandarin clefts.
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Type 4: S + shi + cleaved ADJP + (de)
An adjective phrase as the cleaved XP can denote size as in (5):
(5) Zhe jian fangzi shi henda de.
this CL house SHI big DE
‘It is big that this house is.’ (Liao 2014, p.40)
Moreover, de in an ADJ cleft can be optional in Mandarin Chinese, as in (6):
(6) Zhe ge nusheng shi hen piaoliang.
this CL girl SHI very beautiful ‘It is very beautiful that the girl is.’
Thus, an ADJP can be in the focal position of a Mandarin cleft and de is optional.
Type 5: S + shi + cleaved ADVP + (de)
The ADVP in a Mandarin cleft sentence can be either a time adverbial or a manner adverbial:
(7) a. Women shi zuotian gang renshi (de).
we SHI yesterday just meet DE
‘It was yesterday that we met each other for the first time.’
. b.Wo shi manman kaiche de.
I SHI slowly drive DE ‘It is slowly that I drive.’
The focal phrase in (7a) is a time ADVP Mandarin cleft, whereas that in (7b) is a manner ADVP. The two cleft types are both grammatical in Mandarin Chinese. Moreover,
de in the ADVP clefts is optional, similar to ADJP clefts.
Type 6: S + de shi + cleaved NP
By observing NP pseudo-clefts in Mandarin Chinese, we found that the focused NP can be either definite or indefinite.
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indefinite NP. This type of cleft is commonly used in Mandarin Chinese.
Type 7: S + V + de shi + cleaved VP
Another pseudo-cleft type in Mandarin Chinese is the VP pseudo-cleft type (Xie 2008). In a Mandarin VP pseudo-cleft, the VP must be transitive.
(9) a. Zhangsan zuo de gongzuo shi dasao fangjian.
Zhangsan do DE work SHI tidy up room
‘What Zhangsan did was tidy up the room.’ (Ishihara 2012, p58) b. *Zhangsan zuo de shi dida jichang.
Zhangsan did DE SHI arrive airport
*‘What Zhangsan did was arrive at the airport.’
When an intransitive verb is placed in the focal part of the cleft sentence, as in (9b), the
result is ungrammatical. Therefore, the VP in the focal part must be transitive.
Type 8: S + V + shi + cleaved PP
When the cleaved XP is a PP denoting location, the resulting Mandarin pseudo-cleft sentence is grammatical (Lee 2005).
(10) Zhangsan jiandao Mali (*de) shi zai donjing chezhan.
Zhangsan meet Mary (DE) SHI at Tokyo station ‘Where John met Mary was at Tokyo station.’
In a PP-focused Mandarin pseudo-cleft, de is unnecessary. Adding de results in the ungrammaticality of the sentence.
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Type 9: S + V + de + shi + cleaved ADJP
In an ADJP pseudo-cleft, de and shi are both required, as demonstrated in (11). This
differs from their ADJP cleft counterparts such as (5) and (6).
(11) Ta zhang *(de) shi hen shuai.
he look DE SHI very handsome ‘The way how he looks is very handsome.’
In an ADJP cleft sentence, de is optional, but in the ADJP pseudo-cleft sentence,
de is obligatory. If de is omitted, the sentence becomes ungrammatical.
Type 10: S + V + shi + cleaved ADVP
For Mandarin ADVP pseudo-clefts, the ADVP can be either a time adverbial, as in
(12a), or a manner adverbial, such as (12b).
(12) a. Wo yujian Zhangsan (*de) shi zuotian.
I meet Zhangsan DE SHI yesterday ‘When I met John was yesterday.’
b. Xiaoming xie zuoye shi hen kuai di.
Xiaoming write homework SHI very quickly MOD ‘How Xiaoming write his homework is very quickly.’
The ADVP can be in the focal position of Mandarin pseudo-clefts. If de is added to the sentence, the result is ungrammatical. Hence, in ADVP pseudo-clefts, de is not required.
In this section, the 2 major types and 10 subtypes of Mandarin clefts and pseudo-clefts are outlined. We designed test items for Mandarin pseudo-clefts and pseudo-pseudo-clefts on the basis of our observations and classifications in the preceding sections.
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3.2.2.2 The Acceptability Judgment Task
For the AJ task, each of the 10 cleft sentence subtypes comprised two sentences;
four fillers were designed as distractors.
Table 3-4 Test Items for the Acceptability Judgment Task
Constructions Cleft Types Questions
Cleft Construction NP 2 Qs 6,8
VP 2 Qs 2,17
PP 2 Qs 4,14
AP 2 Qs 10,13
ADV 2 Qs 9,19
Pseudo-Cleft Construction NP 2 Qs 1,7
VP 2 Qs 12,20
PP 2 Qs 21,22
AP 2 Qs 15,18
ADV 2 Qs 3,23
Fillers 4 Qs 5,11,16,24
Total 24
In the AJ task, subjects were instructed to judge the acceptability of each test item and then select an answer from the note column on the basis of their preference for the sentence. Table 3-5 shows an example.
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Table 3-5 A Test Sample of the Acceptability Judgment Task
Question Answer Note For a complete version of the task, please refer to Appendix B.