First, the number of the child participants were not enough. Since, we only recruited 16 people each for the 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old child groups and one control group (totally 80 people). Holland, Thomson and Henderson (2006) suggest that it is more suitable for one to recruit at least 90 participants in the qualitative study, otherwise, the outcome will be affected by the number of participants.
Second, it is noticeable that the analysis of the Chinese modal hui has been conducted by many researchers (Guo 1995, Yang 2001, Wu 2009, Fan 2012, Wang 2014, Chen & Ma 2017), and most of them supported the view that the dynamic hui can be acquired before the deontic hui and the epistemic hui. Only few researchers (Hirst &
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Weil 1982 and Gaidagri 2014) report that the epistemic meaning can be acquired before the deontic meaning by the children. Therefore, more literature reviews need to be addressed and discussed.
Last but not least, regarding the children’s production of hui, the present study collected data only via a corpus by Chang (1998). It was found that the children were
forced to utter sentences under certain fixed topics and genres. Furthermore, the experimenters usually intentionally asked the children some questions with the different meanings of the modal hui. As a result, their production of hui may be influenced by the experimenters. In order to investigate children’s utterance of hui more impartially, a corpus study without a fixed theme or scenario might be conducted in the future.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Part A. English References
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Bhatt, R. 1998. Obligation and possession. Papers from the UPenn/MIT roundtable on argument structure and aspect, MITWPL 32:21-40.
Biber, D. 2009. A corpus-driven approach to formulaic language in English.
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Crain, S., & McKee, C. 1985, October. The acquisition of structural restrictions on anaphora. In Proceedings of NELS 15:94-110.
Chou, T. J. 1998. The evolution of modal verb HUI in Mandarin Chinese. Manuscript.
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Cheng, Y. 2003. A study on the diachronic development of Chinese modals from the perspective of the dialectal comparison. Journal of Taiwanese Languages and Literature, 1.1:107-143.
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Guo, J. S. 1995. The interactional basis of the Mandarin Modal neng ‘can’. Modality in Grammar and Discourse, ed. by J. Bybee and S. Fleischman, 205-238.
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Hirst, W., & Weil, J. 1982. Acquisition of epistemic and deontic meaning of modals.
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Huang, Y. C. 1999. A Semantic Study of Modal Verbs in Chinese. Unpublished MA thesis, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei.
Huang, C. R., Ahrens, K., Chang, L. L., Chen, K. J., Liu, M. C., & Tsai, M. C. 2000.
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Hirsch, C., & Wexler, K. 2006. Children’s passives and their resulting interpretation.
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Part B. The Chinese Reference
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Q8:
阿河走到了一個海邊。烏龜傷心的對阿 河說: 「海鷗死掉了。」
阿河回答: 「動物都會死掉的，所以，
你會死…」。
請問「你會死」，是不是說動物死掉都
是很正常的事情，對不對?
Q9:
阿河到了一片田裡面。小狗狗告訴阿河 說:「會下大雨喔! 已經下了好幾天的 大雨了!」
請問「會下大雨喔」是不是說，等一下 馬上就要下大雨了，對不對?
Q10:
烏龜和阿河看見前方有隻大鯊魚在游來 游去。阿河大叫: 「大鯊魚會吃那個 人!」
請問「大鯊魚會吃那個人」是不是說大 鯊魚很常吃人，對不對?
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Q9:
小獅這時候在路上看見一位學生走好慢 喔!
小獅: 「蝸牛會動喔?」
蝸牛: 「蝸牛會有生命啊! 」
請問「蝸牛會有生命啊」。是不是說，蝸
牛本來就有生命，對不對?
Q10:
小獅擔心他們壓壞眼鏡。
小獅說: 「小心，你們會壓到眼鏡。」
請問「你們會壓到眼鏡」是不是說他們 等一下就要壓到太陽眼鏡了，對不對?
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Appendix B
Test Items Used in the Pilot Study
小獅 5 歲了。獅子爸爸希望他去學校上 課，但是小獅不喜歡上學。
我們一起陪小獅去學校上課，好不好?
Trial:
太陽會升起來，對不對 只需要回答對或錯就好囉!
Q1:
小獅遲到了。
老師: 「不可以遲到，知道嗎?」
小獅: 「好，我會聽話的。」
請問「我會聽話的」是不是小獅答應老師 以後遵守規定? 對不對?
Q2:
小獅經過了一家麵包店，他想說偷吃一口 就好。
老闆: 「這樣是錯的? 不可以這樣。」
小獅: 「對不起。我下次不會了。」
請問「我下次不會了」是不是說小獅自己 覺得他以後不再偷吃麵包了，對不對?
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