第一語言習得中華語文情態助動詞「會」之研究

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系. 碩士論文 Master Thesis Graduate Institute of English National Taiwan Normal University. 第一語言習得中華語文情態助動詞「會」之研究. A Study of the Chinese Modal Verb Hui in First Language Acquisition. 指導教授: 陳純音博士 Advisor: Dr. Chun-yin Doris Chen. 研究生: 李翰綸 Student: Han-lun Alan Lee. 中華民國一百零七年六月 June, 2018.

(2) 摘要. 本研究主旨探討以華語為母語兒童對於中文情態助動詞「會」的語意習得，主要研究的議題包含兒童對該情態詞之五種語意理解、口語表現、習得順序、「會」的語意發展以及年紀因素。本研究語料來源包含: 詮釋測驗之是非題與 CHILDS 語料庫。研究對象包括三歲組、四歲組、五歲組、六歲組以及成人組各十六人，總共八十位。研究結果顯示: 多數兒童之語意詮釋不同於口語表達。其中孩童對於語意屬性較難分辨有諸多錯誤，孩童對於「會」的詮釋能力隨著年齡進步。口語表達方面，兒童對於「會」的某些語意尚未理解熟悉，五歲組與六歲組的部分表現與成人組相似。兒童的情態動詞「會」之習得順序部分支持前人研究成果。至於「會」的語意發展，本研究發現兒童的語意詮釋與口語表現皆不同於先前文獻。最後，年齡差異對於研究結果有顯著影響，三歲及四歲兒童仍處於詮釋部分「會」的語意階段，五歲及六歲雖能完全詮釋「會」的五種語意功能，但惟有部分達到成人表現；總言之，兒童對於「會」的語言習得隨年紀增長而提升，但仍尚未完全習得成人之語言能力。. 關鍵詞: 華語、第一語言習得、情態助動詞、會、語意. i.

(3) ABSTRACT The present study investigated children’s first language acquisition of the Mandarin Chinese modal hui with interpretation and corpus data. Five different meanings of hui were examined: the dynamic hui, the deontic hui, the epistemic hui, the generic hui, and the futurity hui. The interpretation data were obtained from twenty True/ False questions in an interpretation task, and the corpus data consisted of three hundred and twenty-nine tokens collected from the Chinese Corpora --- CHILDS. The participants were sixty-four Chinesespeaking children aged from 3 to 6, and they were further divided into four age groups. In addition, twenty Chinese adults were recruited as the control group. The results showed that most of the children found the dynamic hui was easier than the other four meanings of hui in the interpretation task. Concerning the children’s production of hui, they uttered more sentences with the dynamic hui and with the epistemic hui than those with the other three hui’s. In addition, the acquisition order of the children’s interpretation and the production of hui was mostly incompatible. Moreover, the children’s acquisition order found in interpretation and production of hui did not match the emerging sequence proposed in the literature. Finally, the results indicated that children at the ages of 3 and 4 could interpret the five meanings of hui; however, their production of the deontic hui was not found in the corpus. The ii.

(4) 5- and 6-year-olds also could interpret the five meanings of hui, and their utterances were partially adult-like.. Keywords: Mandarin Chinese, first language acquisition, modal, hui, semantics. iii.

(5) ACKNOWLEDGEMENT It is impossible for me to accomplish my master’s thesis without the assistance of many people. Their guidance and instructions are extremely precious of this thesis. It is my pleasure to convey the sincerest appreciation to them. First and foremost, I am going to express my deepest thankfulness to my advisor, Dr. Chun-yin Doris Chen, for her wholehearted teaching and passionate support. During this period of time, she always gave me encouragements and provided me many insightful suggestions. Dr. Chen is well known for her outstanding expertise of language acquisition, and I have learnt a great deal of knowledge from her. Without her considerate help and support, this thesis would not have been finished. It is hard for me to find words to describe my grateful appreciation to her. Moreover, I would like to thank my committee members, Dr. Jen-I Li and Dr. Rueih-Lirng Sharon Fahn. Their informative remarks and constructive comments helped me on the improvement of my master’s thesis. I sincerely appreciate their patient participation and valuable opinions. I would also like to show my gratefulness to the professors who taught me in the linguistics track in NTNU: Dr. Gerardo Fernández-Salgueiro, Dr. His-Yao Su, Dr. Hsiao-Hung Iris Wu, Dr. Hui-Shan Nissa Lin, Dr. Li-Hsin Ning, Dr. Miao- Ling Hsieh. They led me to the frontier of linguistics and developed me an interest of doing a research on linguistics. iv.

(6) In addition, I am really thankful my beloved classmates in the graduate program in NTNU: Amy Chen, Eddie Hsiao, Francis Chen, Joyce Jiang, Kabby Chen, Kelvin Guo, Louisa Zheng, Lois Du, Lily Wang, Nick Hu, and Shawn Li, listed in alphabetical order. My special thanks go to my best friends, Amy Chen and Shawn Li, who especially helped me in rating the participants’ utterances with strenuous efforts and uncomplaining attitudes. I was delighted and glad to have them as my companions in the master’s program. Last but not least, I am going to acknowledge my parents and my fiancée. They support me when I have dreams and resolutions to pursue. Moreover, they are always by my side once I thought I could not make it to finish my MA thesis. Undoubtfully, their unconditional love and faithful belief make me fortitudinous and stronger. Therefore, I would like to pay a great tribute to my lovely family by accomplishing this thesis.. v.

(7) TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHINESE ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................... i ENGLISH ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .................................................................................................. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................. viii LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ ix Chapter One Introduction............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Motivation ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Research Questions ....................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Significance of the Study .............................................................................................. 5 1.4 Organization of the Thesis ............................................................................................ 5 Chapter Two Literature Review ................................................................................... 7 2.1 Meanings of the Chinese Modal Hui ............................................................................ 7 2.2 Historical Emerging Sequence of the Chinese Modal Hui ........................................... 14 2.2.1 The Diachronic Sequence of the Chinese Modal Hui ........................................ 15 2.2.2 The Semantic Map of the Chinese Modal Hui................................................... 17 2.2.3 The Feature-based Classification of the Chinese Modal Hui ............................ 18 2.3 First Language Acquisition of Modal Verbs ................................................................. 21 2.3.1 Modyanova et al. (2009) .................................................................................... 21 2.3.2 Gaidagri (2014) .................................................................................................. 23 2.3.3 Wang (2014) ....................................................................................................... 26 2.3.4 Moscati et al. (2017) .......................................................................................... 29 2.3.5 Summary of Previous Empirical Studies ........................................................... 32 2.4 Summary of Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 34 Chapter Three Research Design ................................................................................... 35 3.1 Study I: Interpretation Task (Truth Value Judgement) .................................................. 35 3.1.1 Subjects .............................................................................................................. 36 3.1.2 Methods and Materials ....................................................................................... 37 3.1.3 Procedure ........................................................................................................... 41 3.1.3.1 Pilot Study............................................................................................... 41 3.1.3.2 Formal Study........................................................................................... 42 vi.

(8) 3.1.3.3 Scoring and Data Analysis ...................................................................... 44 3.2 Study II: Corpus Study.................................................................................................. 44 3.2.1 Subjects .............................................................................................................. 45 3.2.2 Procedure ........................................................................................................... 46 3.3 Summary of Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 48 Chapter Four Results and Discussion .......................................................................... 49 4.1 Children’s Interpretation of the Five Types of Hui ....................................................... 49 4.1.1 Overall Findings................................................................................................. 50 4.1.2 General Discussion ............................................................................................ 56 4.2 Children’s Production of the Five Types of Hui ........................................................... 59 4.2.1 Overall Findings................................................................................................. 59 4.2.2 General Discussion ............................................................................................ 64 4.3 A Comparison of Children’s Interpretation and Production of Hui .............................. 68 4.4 A Comparison of Children’s acquisition orders and Emerging Sequences .................. 72 4.5 Age Effect ..................................................................................................................... 77 4.6 Summary of Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 80 Chapter Five Conclusion ............................................................................................. 82 5.1 Summary of the Major Findings ................................................................................... 82 5.2 Limitations of the Present Study and Suggestions for Future Research ....................... 84 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................... 86 Appendix A: Test Items Used in the Formal Study ............................................................ 91 Appendix B: Test Items Used in the Pilot Study ............................................................ ....97 Appendix C: Consent Form ............................................................................................ ...100. vii.

(9) LIST OF TABLES Table 2-1 Major Findings and the Limitations of the Previous Empirical Studies .............. 32 Table 3-1 Background Information of the Subjects in the Experimental Study .................. 37 Table 3-2 The Test Design of the Chinese Modal Hui in the Experimental Study .............. 39 Table 3-3 A Sample Question of the TVJ Task .................................................................... 40 Table 3-4 The Trial Question of Story 1 .............................................................................. 43 Table 3-5 Background Information of the Subjects in the Corpus Study ............................ 46 Table 4-1 Overall Mean Scores of Five Meanings of Hui ................................................... 50 Table 4-2 Overall P-values for the within-group between-type Differences ....................... 51 Table 4-3 Overall P-values for the within-type between-group Differences of Hui............ 54 Table 4-4 Subjects’ overall Productions of the Five Meanings of Hui ................................ 59 Table 4-5 Overall Chi-square for the within-group between-type Differences ................... 60 Table 4-6 Overall P-values for the within-type between-group Differences of Hui............ 63 Table 4-7 A Comparison of acquisition orders of Hui in Study I and II .............................. 69 Table 4-8 A Comparison of the Children’s Acquisition Orders in Study I with the Historical Emerging Sequences of Hui................................................................................. 73 Table 4-9 A Comparison of the Children’s Acquisition Orders in Study II with the Historical Emerging Sequences of Hui................................................................................. 76. viii.

(10) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2-1 The Semantic Map of Hui (Fan 2012:224) ..........................................................17 Figure 2-2 The Feature-based Classification of Hui (Wu 2009:70) ......................................19 Figure 2-3 The Mysterious Box (Moscati et al. 2017:1031)..................................................30 Figure 4-1 Subjects’ Overall Interpretations of Different Meanings of Hui .......................... 52 Figure 4-2 Overall Percentages of Each Group for the Five Meanings of Hui .....................61 Figure 4-3 Three Acquisition Stages of Hui ..........................................................................79. ix.

(11) Chapter One Introduction 1.1 Motivation It takes a great deal of effort to learn a word because learning a word requires the comprehension of its syntactic categories and its various meanings. On many occasions, a word might have more than one meaning in a sentence. Take an English modal verb like may for an instance, Lyons (1977) and Palmer (1986) argue that it can have various meaning, as can be seen below: (1) Mary may go home. In (1), a modal verb like may can have two different meanings in English: (a) the speaker uses may to give his/her permission to Mary to go home, and (b) the speaker uses may to express his/her judgement or to make a guess that Mary is probably on her way home. If a word has multiple meanings, it is polysemous (Lakoff 1987). Likewise, it is also common that a Chinese modal verb like hui ‘will’ can have more than one meaning (Wu 2009), as in (2) and (3): (2) Wo hui pei ni dao lao. I HUI accompany you until old ‘I will/may be with you until we are old.’. (Wu 2009:36). (3) Ta hui sha le he HUI kill PERF ‘He can/will kill you.’. (Wu 2009:36). ni. you. 1.

(12) In (2), hui can mean either ‘will’ or ‘may’. When it is interpreted as ‘will,’ the subject wo ‘I’ makes a promise that he/she will be with the object ni ‘you’ until they both get old. When hui means ‘may,’ it is predicted that an event is going to happen, i.e., the subject and the object will be together when they are old. However, hui, as in (3), can also have other meanings such as ‘can’ and ‘will’. When it has the meaning of ‘can,’ the speaker states that the subject ta ‘he’ has an ability to kill the object ni ‘you’. Nevertheless, if hui means ‘will,’ the speaker guesses that ta will kill ni in the future. Therefore, the meaning of hui is quite difficult to be distinguished, and it has been debated for decades (Her 1990, Guo 1995, Hsieh 2005, Fan 2012, Wang 2014). For instance, some researchers have proposed that hui should have three meanings (Guo 1995, Wang 2014); others claim that the modal verb hui might have four or nine meanings (Hsieh 2006, Fan 2012). In addition, if we review the Chinese modal hui from a historical perspective, we can see that the meanings of hui emerge at different stages. For instance, Zhang (2000), Liu (2001), Wu (2009), and Fan (2012) argue that the sequence of the Chinese modal hui is ability > permission > judgement. Therefore, how many meanings do the modal verb hui exactly have? And whether the emerging sequence of hui is correct? The answers to these questions remain unknown. As for children’s language acquisition, age has been argued as an important factor (Hirst & Weil 1982, Noveck 2001, Wang 2014, Moscati et al. 2017). According to the 2.

(13) findings of Wang (2014), children acquire different meanings of a Chinese modal verb at different ages, as shown in (4): (4) a. Children aged 3 acquire only basic modal meanings. b. Children aged 5 acquire more modal meanings. c. Children aged 8 master all modal meanings. On the contrary, Moscati et al. (2017) argue that basic modal meanings are acquired at the age of 2, while most modal meanings are acquired when children are 5 years old. Therefore, children’s modal acquisition is still debatable. Moreover, it is not difficult to find in the literature of language acquisition that most researchers collected data for their experimental studies with either a production task or an interpretation task (Modyanova et al. 2010, Moscati et al. 2017). Only a few researchers conducted a corpus study (Wang 2014, Gaidagri 2014), which can provide both symmetric and asymmetric evidence for the findings of empirical research. By comparing the result of an experimental study and the finding of a corpus study, we can investigate if there exists any similarity in these studies. Therefore, we consider both children’s interpretation and production of hui are important in language acquisition. In the present study, the interpretation of the Chinese modal hui by different age groups will be investigated with an experiment on its meanings. In addition, Chinese children’s production of hui in a corpus will also be 3.

(14) examined. Moreover, we will further compare the results of children’s interpretation and production of hui with its historical emerging sequence in detail.. 1.2 Research Questions According to previous studies (i.e., Guo 1995, Liu 2001, Hsieh 2006, Wang 2014), most of them either focus on the analysis of children’s modal acquisition or semantic meanings of hui. However, no one has taken both these two aspects into consideration. Hence, in the present study, we not only question about children’s interpretation and production of hui, but also compare our results with previous studies (Wu 2009, Fan 2012). Five main research questions are addressed as follows: 1) How do children respond to different meanings of the Chinese modal verb hui in an experimental study? 2) What is the acquisition order of meanings of the Chinese modal verb hui found in the children’s corpus? 3) Do children’s interpretation of the Chinese modal verb hui correspond to their production in the corpus? 4) Do the findings of the interpretation task and the production task support the historical emerging sequence of the modal hui? 5) At what age do children master various meanings of the Chinese modal verb hui?. 4.

(15) 1.3 Significance of the Study The studies of the Chinese modal verb hui have been conducted by many researchers via different measures (Huang 1999, Hsieh, 2005, Jiang 2007, Wang & Ma 2011, Fan 2012, Wang 2014). Most of them are rather concern about a theoretical approach of hui (Huang 1999, Hsieh, 2005, Jiang 2007, Wang & Ma 2011, Fan 2012) since their main focus is to analyze the meanings or derivations of hui. However, few researchers have done an empirical study on the interpretation and production of Chinese modal verb hui (Moscati et al. 2017), and their findings are still unclear and doubtful. Therefore, the present study explores Chinese children’s hui acquisition via their interpretation of its meanings and its production in a corpus by children at different ages. In addition, we sequencialize the meanings of the modal verb hui from an acquisition perspective and further compare the acquisition order of hui with its emerging sequence.. 1.4 Organization of the Thesis Chapter Two introduces the semantic meanings and developments of the Chinese modal verb hui, in which we not only discuss the meanings and developments of hui, but also review four empirical studies of the modal verb hui in first language acquisition. In Chapter Three, four sections are included: the subjects, methods and materials, 5.

(16) procedure, and results of the present study. Chapter Four discusses the major findings of hui. In Chapter Five, a conclusion and limitations of the present study are reported.. 6.

(17) Chapter Two Literature Review In this chapter, both theoretical and empirical studies of the Chinese modal hui are reviewed. Section 2.1 introduces the various meanings of the modal hui in Chinese, and Section 2.2 discusses the emerging sequence of hui regarding its meanings, semantic map, and features. Section 2.3 presents four empirical studies of modal verbs in English and in Chinese. Finally, a summary of this chapter is provided in Section 2.4.. 2.1 Meanings of the Chinese Modal Hui Some researchers have argued that the Chinese modal hui can have different meanings (cf. Mei 1999, Yang 2001, Hsieh 2006). For example, both Yang (2001) and Hsieh (2006) claim that hui can be used to express permission, obligation, possibility, etc. From the previous research (Guo 1981, Krifka et al. 1995, Chou 1998, Huang 1999, Wu 2009, Fan 2014), we can also see that hui exhibits many different meanings, which can be further categorized into two types: main meanings and sub-meanings. Krifka et al. (1995), and Wu (2009), for instance, argue that habitual activities and natural laws can be grouped into a big category, which refers to any events or circumstances that are factual or actual on earth. Therefore, the present study only investigates the five meanings of hui. This is because they can be used to cover many sub-meanings and have been 7.

(18) addressed in a great number of studies (Guo 1995, Huang 1999, Yang 2001, Wu 2009, Fan 2012, Wang 2014) as well. Type 1 refers to the dynamic hui. Types 2 and 3 refer to the deontic hui and the epistemic hui. Finally, Types 4 and 5 are about the generic hui and the futurity hui.. Type 1. The dynamic hui The dynamic hui can be used to describe the physical or psychological ability of a subject (i.e., a human or an animal) to do things (c.f. Li & Thompson 1981, Huang 1999, Chang 2001, Hsieh 2006, Fan 2012), as can be seen in Examples (1) and (2). (1) Xiaowang hui bi zhuo yanjing kai che. Xiaowang HUI close ASP eyes drive car ‘Xiaowang can drive a car with his eyes closed.’ (2) Ta hui chang haoduo minnanyu gequ. he HUI sing many Taiwanese song ‘He can sing many Taiwanese songs.’. (Fan 2012:222). (Hsieh 2006:51). In (1), the speaker uses hui to indicate a situation that the subject Xiaoming has a physical ability to drive a car with his eyes closed. In (2), the speaker produces a sentence with hui to describe a state that the subject ta ‘he’ has a physiological ability to sing many Taiwanese songs. The difference between the physical and physiological hui is that the former one relates to a person’s manipulation of concrete objects, but the latter one associates to a person’s internal state (Hsieh 2006, Fan 2012). Moreover, in previous literature, the dynamic hui has been further divided into 8.

(19) sub-meanings like learned ability or good-quality ability (Tang 2000, Chang 2001, Fan 2012), as can be seen below. (3) Ren hui shuo hua. people HUI speak language ‘People can speak. / People know how to speak.’. (Chang 2001:9). (4) Zhe xifu hui shuohua. this daughter-in-law HUI speak ‘This daughter-in-law is quite outspoken.’. (Fan 2012:207). In (3), the speaker uses the modal hui to express that the subjects (i.e., people) have an ability to speak, and which ability should be learned or acquired individually (Chang 2001). In (4), the speaker uses hui to convey that the subject (i.e., the daughter-in-law) knows what to say to different addressees on different occasions. Each of these submeanings is related to the subject’s ability; therefore, we use the term ‘dynamic’ to cover these sub-meanings of hui in the present study.. Type 2. The deontic hui Guo (1995), Hsieh (2006), and Wu (2009) argue that the deontic hui can be used in a situation where a speaker gives a promise, threat or permission to the listener, and the both (i.e., the morally responsible agents) should take the responsibility and duty of the events, as shown in (5) and (6), both taken from Wu (2009:36):. 9.

(20) (5) Women yiding hui xuxin jieshou. we definitely HUI humble accept ‘We will definitely accept it humbly.’ (6). Ta hui sha le ni. he HUI kill PFV you ‘He will kill you.’. In (5), the subject women ‘we’ is making a promise that they will accept something like the result humbly. On this occasion, the speaker commits himself and his mates to ensure that this event will take place. On the contrary, in (6), the speaker uses the modal hui to threaten the listener that the subject ta ‘he’ will kill the object (i.e., the listener) ni ‘you’. Although, this hui can be further classified into sub-meanings such as imperative or desiderative in Wu’s (1996) study. However, these sub-meanings are associated with the person’s duty or responsibility of doing something, and we use the ‘deontic hui’ as one of the five meanings in the present study.. Type 3. The epistemic hui Lin & Tang (1991), Chou (1998), and Wang (2014) argue that this type of hui can be used to denote a speaker’s individual prediction 1 , comment, judgment or guess toward propositions, which may or may not happen eventually. Sentence (7) is an example that illustrates the modal hui can be used to give a comment on something:. 1. Prediction refers to a speaker’s guess or assumption, but it may not happen eventually (Palmer 1990). (i) Lisi dengyixia hui guoqu zhao ni. Lisi later HUI go search you ‘Lisi will go to see you later.’ (Chang 2001:70) 10.

(21) (7) Ta chi le qingjiao jiu hui bian luse le. it eat PFV green.pepper just HUI become green PFV ‘After eating green pepper, it will become green.’ (Wang 2014:57). In (7), the speaker is telling the listener that if the frog eats the green pepper it will become green. In this case, he is commenting on the event by his own judgement, but the event may not happen in the end. As pointed out by Guo (1981) and Chang (2001), the epistemic hui also can have a sub-meaning like contrary-to-expectation, which usually co-occurs with an adverb or a negator, contrasting to the previous propositions (Chang 2001), as in (8): (8) Ta hui bu gaoxing de. Ta HUI not happy DE ‘He will be unhappy.’. (Chang 2001:89). In (8), the speaker uses the epistemic hui and the negator bu ‘no’ to disagree with someone’s prediction that he will be happy. Though this type of hui has many submeanings, the term epistemic is most widely used in previous studies (Chang 2001, Wang 2014). Therefore, we use the ‘epistemic hui’ to cover all the sub-meanings related to people’s personal judgement prediction, comment, judgment or guess.. Type 4. The generic hui Krifka et al. (1995), Hsieh (2006), and Yang (2007) state the generic hui can be used to describe entities or situations which are natural and factual in the real world.. 11.

(22) According to Wu (1996), Huang (1999), Zhang (2000), Chang (2001), Fan (2012) this type of hui can be further classified into three sub-meanings. Chang (2001) indicates that the natural law hui is used to state a condition, which is always true in the world, as in (9). (9) Ren people. hui si. HUI die. ‘People will die.’. (Chang 2001:77). Fan (2012) proposes that the habitual hui is used to describe a habit of a person to do something, as in (10). (10) Xiaowang yi wendao yanwei jiu hui dapenti. Xiaowang one smell smoke just HUI sneeze ‘Xiaowang will sneeze when he smells the smoke.’ (Fan 2012:202). Zhang (2000) denotes that the general-characteristics hui refers to a condition that usually happens, as in (11). (11) Muji hui sheng dan. hen HUI lay egg ‘Hens will lay eggs.’. (Zhang 2000:17). In (9), the speaker explains a natural statement to the listener that the entity (i.e., ren ‘people’) will eventually die because it is impossible to find a person that will not die in the universe. In (10), similarly, the speaker uses hui to tell the listener that the person (i.e., Xiaowang) will sneeze once he smells the smoke, which has been his habitual reaction. As for (11), the speaker describes a statement to the listener that hens in 12.

(23) general lay eggs. Apparently, these three sub-meanings all consist of factual or common features in the real world; therefore, we will use the term ‘generic’ to cover these meanings in the present study.. Type 5. The futurity hui This type of hui can be used to denote events which are going to happen in the future according to schedules, plans, or forecasts (Yang 2007, Chang 2008). It is obvious that the futurity hui is similar to the epistemic hui to some degrees since they are both related to things that have not happened. However, they are not identical in that the former is related to existing schedules, plans or weather reports, but the latter is not (Fan 2012). Sentences below are examples that show hui can be used to denote the events according to the forecast and a person’s schedule, respectively: (12) Taifeng jinwan hui denglu. typhoon tonight HUI arrive ‘The typhoon is arriving tonight.’. (Yang 2007:111). (13) Zhuozi mingtian hui dao. table tomorrow HUI arrive ‘It should be the case that the table will arrive tomorrow.’ (Chang 2008:11). In (12), the speaker says that the typhoon will be arriving by predicting that this event is going to take place according to the weather forecast he has heard. In (13), similarly, the speaker tells the listener that someone will be delivering the table based on his schedule. In the present study, we conduct the term ‘futurity’ to cover these sub13.

(24) meanings of hui since they are all about events that can be predicted according to some existing evidence or plans. To sum up, the Chinese modal hui has many different sub-meanings discussed in previous studies. However, since these sub-meanings can be covered by the five main meanings. For instance, dynamic hui can be used to cover physical, physiological, learned, and good-quality ability. Deontic hui includes the notion of threat, promise, obligation, permission etc. Epistemic hui is used to indicate individual’s prediction, judgement, comment or guess. Generic hui involves the concept of natural law, habitual characteristics, and generic-characteristics. Futurity hui covers the scheduled, planned or forecasted events. Therefore, we fundamentally use these five main meanings to investigate children’s acquisition of the Chinese modal hui.. 2.2 Historical Emerging Sequence of the Chinese Modal Hui The emerging sequence of the Chinese modal hui has become a controversial topic for a long time. For example, Chang (2001), Wu (2009), and Fan (2012) investigate it with different approaches such as Diachronic Sequence, Semantic Map, and Featural Derivation. Therefore, in this section, we review these three approaches to the Chinese modal hui. In Section 2.2.1, the Diachronic Sequence of the Chinese modal hui will be presented. Section 2.2.2 reports the Semantic Map of the Chinese modal hui. Finally, the Featural Derivation of hui will be discussed in Section 2.2.3. 14.

(25) 2.2.1 The Diachronic Sequence of the Chinese Modal Hui Regards to the analysis of modal verb hui from the semantic perspective, Zhang (2000), Liu (2002), Wu (2009), and Fan (2012) argue that the prototype of hui was rooted from a verbal form to the various modal meanings. Especially, Liu (2002) scrutinizes 10 classical pieces of Chinese literature and points out that hui is used as a verb in the medieval time. For example, it can mean ‘gather’ as in (14) and ‘understand’ as in (15) in the literature SHISHOUXINYU and ZUTANGJI in the Tang Dynasty. In both sentences, the morpheme hui does not have any modal usage, and they perform as a main verb instead (Liu 2002): (14) Hui ji Mingli ye. HUI together Mingli PAR ‘People gathered the works of the Mingli.’ (15) wo hui Chan hui dao. I HUI Dharma HUI doctrine ‘You understand the Dharma and doctrines’. (Chang 1993: Pinzao 53/88). (Shi 1996:365). In (14), the verb hui has a meaning of ‘gathering something’. Likewise, in (15), it not only shows the same usage, but also has a meaning of ‘understanding something’ (Liu 2002). It was not until the Wu Dai Dynasty that the meanings of hui have been found in different forms of Chinese literature. For instance, the dynamic hui and the deontic hui have been found in DUNHUANG BIAN WEN, as can be seen below: 15.

(26) (16) Hui zhi juan. HUI weave silk ‘I can weave silks.’. (Wu 1996:1260). (17) Xiaohan hui dangcheng yulu. Strong man HUI endure rain.water ‘A strong man must can overcome any frustrations.’. (Wu 1996:461). In (16), the speaker used the meaning of the dynamic hui to describe that the subject has an ability of weaving silks. In (17), the deontic hui can be used to denote a condition that the strong man has the responsibility to overcome anything; therefore, it has the meaning of ‘someone must can do something’ (Liu 2002). With regard to other meanings, Liu (2002) states that the meaning of the epistemic hui can be found in the literature in the Song Dynasty, and it has been widely used in the ZHUZIYULEI, as can be seen below: (18) You ge ding shu, yongbu hui cha. have CLA fixed number never HUI deviate ‘The dates of the calendar are fixed, so they will never deviate.’ (Yang 2001:2213). In (18), people doubted about the accuracy of the calendar; therefore, Zhuzi (i.e., the speaker) used the meaning of epistemic to comment that the dates of the calendar are fixed so that we do not have to worry about it. However, Liu (2002) does not mention any generic hui or futurity hui in her study. Therefore, the development of hui can be ordered as: verb > dynamic > deontic > epistemic according to Liu’s (2002) study. 16.

(27) 2.2.2 The Semantic Map of the Chinese Modal Hui A semantic map can be used to depict the development of a word or morpheme from the prototype to its expanded meanings by using lines, graphs, arrows, and other figures (Traugott 1989, Bybee 1994, Haspelmath 2003). Take the English modal can for instance, Bybee (1994) argues that the prototype of it was rooted from the sense of personal ability to the necessity and possibility. On the contrary, take the Chinese modal for example, Fan (2012) analyzes the modal hui by the concept of the Semantic Map, as can be seen in Figure 2-1:. physical Ability understand. possibility. mental dynamic good-quality ability. deontic Habitual. permission epistemic futurity. Figure 2-1 The Semantic Map of Hui (Fan 2012:224). In Figure 2-1, the prototype of the Chinese hui was a verb with the meaning of ‘understand something’. From this, three main modal meanings of it were developed, such as mental dynamic, deontic and epistemic. Moreover, Fan (2012) addresses that some additional meanings of hui should be found on the map. First, the mental dynamic hui is divided into two sub-meanings (i.e., physical ability and good-quality ability) according to a person’s abilities (see Section 2.1). Second, the habitual hui is stretched 17.

(28) from the good- quality ability hui, for example, if a person is good at playing card games, he is highly possible to form a habit to play it under this situation. Third, the futurity hui is developed from the deontic hui. This meaning can be used to denote an event or statement based on a schedule, plan or forecast. Fourth, the physical ability hui can further expand to the possibility and permission hui’s (Fan 2012). Overall, according to Fan (2012), the order of main meanings of hui is as follows: verb > dynamic > deontic > epistemic = futurity.. 2.2.3 The Feature-based Classification of the Chinese Modal Hui The Feature-based Classification is an approach that aims to investigate the semantic features of a modal verb (Huang 1999, Hsieh 2006, Wu 2009, Fan 2012). In this classification, each meaning of a modal not only will be labeled with a feature, but also will be arranged into a figure. For instance, Wu (2009) states that the Chinese modal hui can have four features. The epistemic hui is marked [+ epistemic], and the dynamic and deontic hui’s are marked [- epistemic]. Moreover, [- epistemic] can be further divided into [+ deontic] and [- deontic]. Figure 2-2 shows the features of hui in a figure:. 18.

(29) modality [-epistemic]. [+epistemic] (epistemic) judgement. [-deontic]. [+deontic]. (dynamic) ability. (deontic) desire. volition…. obligation.... Figure 2-2 The Feature-based Classification of Hui (Wu 2009:70). In this figure, Wu (2009) states that the semantic feature extension is from [- deontic] to [+ deontic], and finally to [+ epistemic] based on Greenburg’s (1966) Markedness Theory. By which theory, the dynamic hui is ranked as an unmark feature, which is much earlier than the deontic (more marked) and epistemic modals (most marked). Therefore, the order of these three meanings is: dynamic > deontic > epistemic. Furthermore, Guo (1995), and Parafragou (1998) indicate that the dynamic modal is the easiest and that deontic may cause a little difficulty for children, whereas epistemic modal will be the hardest modal in first language acquisition. Based on the concept of the Feature-based Classification, Fan (2012) also analyzes the modal hui and further utilizes features like proposition/event 2 , inside/outside 3 , 2. 3. The proposition feature is about a person’s guess or judgement; and the Event feature is about a person’s ability, volition, or duty (cf. Palmer 2001). The features of inside and outside refer to the source of an event or action. For example, the modal verb can, on the one hand, can be used to describe a person’s ability, such as Zhangsan can speak English. On the other hand, it also can be used to denote a person’s ability, such as Zhangsan can run (Fan 2012). 19.

(30) realis/ irrealis4, possibility/ necessity5to analyze the dynamic, deontic, and epistemic hui’s. The features of different meanings of hui are presented in (19): (19) a. dynamic [event, inside, irrealis, possibility] b. deontic [event, outside, irrealis, necessity] c. epistemic [proposition, outside, irrealis, necessity/possibility] (Fan 2012:219). As pointed out by Fan (2012), the dynamic hui is developed first because it has the feature of inside, which is less complicated than the outside feature. Likewise, Li (2001) and Yang (2001) state that the evolution of the dynamic hui is from inside rather than outside. Second, the deontic hui is developed earlier than the epistemic hui, although they both have similar features. However, the deontic hui has a feature of event, which is stronger than proposition of the epistemic hui. The event feature denotes a clear incident or action, but the proposition feature does not (Bybee 1994, Auwera & Plungian 1998, Fan 2012). Therefore, the development of the Chinese modal hui is dynamic > deontic > epistemic. In conclusion, both Wu (2009) and Fan (2012) use the concept of the Featurebased Classification to analyze the modal hui, and their findings indicate that the development path of dynamic > deontic > epistemic is the most convincing.. 4. 5. The realis feature refers to a state or event which is always true in the real world. By contrast, the feature of irrealis is about a state or event which may or may not be true in the world (Givon 1994). The necessity and possibility features refer to the probability of a thing which may occur in the world (Fan 2012). 20.

(31) 2.3 First Language Acquisition of Modal Verbs In this section, we will review four empirical studies of modal verbs in English and in Chinese. Section 2.3.1 presents a study of the English modals can, may, must, and will, and Section 2.3.2 discusses an analysis of children’s modal utterances in English. Section 2.3.3 introduces language acquisition research of the Chinese modal hui with a focus on its pragmatic functions. Finally, a study on children’s interpretation of might and may is discussed in Section 2.3.4.. 2.3.1 Modyanova et al. (2009) Modal verbs can be used to express a person’s judgement, desire, or obligation, and they can have various meanings in a sentence. For example, a speaker can use the modal may to indicate the possibility or necessity of an action or event (Kratzer 1991, Modyanova et al. 2010). In first language acquisition, some researchers (Jackendoff 1972, Bernnan 1993, Bhatt 1997, Papafragou 1998, Wurmbrand 1999) point out that children may be confused about the various meanings of a modal verb according to their interpretation and cognitive ability6. Therefore, Modyanova et al. (2009) designed two video scenarios: deontic scenario and epistemic scenario, each of which contained the English modal verbs can, may, must and will.. 6. The Theory of Mind (TOM) refers to a subject’s cognitive ability, which shows a subject is aware of an object’s mental state and further interprets the state by his/her own (Papafragou 1998). 21.

(32) In their experiment, they recruited 51 children from the ages of 3 to 11 years old and 39 adult students. The procedure of the experiment consisted of four main steps. In Step 1, the experimenters expected the answers before the participants watched the videos. In Step 2, they presented to the participants some videos with conversations and sentences with modals. In Step 3, the subjects were asked to answer the questions. Finally, in Step 4, the experimenters showed the correct answers to the participants. By this approach, Modyanova et al. (2009) aimed to investigate whether children’s interpretation matched the experimenters’ expectation. If they matched, the child subjects were expected to say that they understood the modality force7, and vice versa. An example for the deontic scenario is as follows: (20) A mom and a kid are in the park. The kid said: Look! A bike. The mom said: You can ride the bike, just be careful. Then comes a black screen. The participants will be asked: What will happen next?. Modyanova et al. (2009) found that the child subjects could distinguish the differences between the deontic and epistemic modals when they were 6 and 8 years old. However, the 3-, 4- and 5-year-old participants faced some difficulties and misinterpreted the deontic and epistemic modal verbs. Therefore, the older children in. 7. Modyanova et al. (2010) argue that children’s answer must match the experimenters’ expectation in the deontic scenario because it denotes a necessity. By contrast, children’s answers may or may not match the expectation in the epistemic scenario since it only indicates a possibility. 22.

(33) their study not only could interpret various meanings of the modal verbs, but also could distinguish the differences between modal meanings. Consequently, they stated that their results were similar to the previous findings (Well 1979), indicating that children acquired the deontic modals when they were 6-year-old, and acquired the epistemic modals at the age of 8. Nevertheless, there are some limitations of Modyanova et al.’s study. For instance, their subject numbers were not balanced since they recruited 51 kids, but they only had 39 adult participants. Moreover, most of the children could not differentiate the modals can, will, must and may clearly since some of them misinterpreted the meaning of the modals can and will. Finally, since they only conducted one experiment in this study, it would be challenging for them to avoid task bias.. 2.3.2 Gaidagri (2014) Adults can use modal verbs to convey their opinions and comments toward some states or events. However, some children cannot distinguish the meanings of modals, such as deontic and epistemic (Kratzer 1977, Leech 1986, Sweetser 1990, Palmer 2001, Hirsch & Wexler 2007). For example, Hirsch & Wexler (2007) point out that some children may show misunderstandings and confusions when acquiring deontic and epistemic modals.. 23.

(34) Therefore, Gaidagri (2014) conducted a qualitative longitudinal study on two native English-speaking children (i.e., John 1;11 and Liz 2;10) by investigating their production of deontic and epistemic modals. In the study, she collected children’s utterances by an approach named First of Repeated Uses 8 (Snyder 2007) to examine whether Brown’s (1973) or Hirst & Weil’s (1982) findings9 are correct. Totally, she collected 71 modal utterances produced by John, in which there were 12 and 59 deontic modals (i.e., will, might, must, shall, can). The frequency rate was 74% for the deontic meaning and 26% for the Epistemic meaning. Moreover, the first deontic modal used by John was the verb can when he was 1:11 years old. Example (21) is an utterance of John with a deontic modal verb can: (21) Mot: Is it stuck? Chi: I can’t do shoes. Mot: Put on her shoe.. Gaidagri (2014:180). With regard to the epistemic, the first modal verb used by John was might when he was 2:07. The second and third epistemic modal verbs in John’s utterances were found when he was at the ages of 2:08 and 2:09, respectively. Example (22) shows John’s utterance with an epistemic modal verb might:. 8. 9. First of Repeated Uses is a method which can be used to collect a speaker’s target utterances to investigate the frequency and tendency of the utterances. Brown (1973) claims that 2-year-old children can acquire deontic modal verbs before epistemic ones. On the contrary, Hirst & Weil (1982) argue that 3- to 6-year-old children acquire epistemic modals before deontic ones. 24.

(35) (22) Inv: Well, I think it’s best on the floor. Chi: Think. Chi: Mh. Chi: might be. Chi: might be yeah.. Gaidagri (2014:181). As for the subject Liz, Gaidagri (2014) collected 420 modal utterances, 33 of them contained epistemic modals and 397 of them deontic modals. The frequency rate for the epistemic was 8% and 92 % for the deontic. It was found that when Liz was 2 years old, she already had an ability to produce various epistemic and deontic modals, such as can, will, might, shall, should, could, and would (Gaidagri 2014). Liz’s utterances with an epistemic modal and a deontic modal can be seen in (23) and (24), respectively: (23) Mot: I tell you where it might fit. Mot: there. Chi: might there. Mot: did it? Mot: oh yeah.. (Gaidagri 2014:182). (24) Chi: fish. Chi: Liz can’t fix. Mot: all right. Mot: ok.. (Gaidagri 2014:182). Gaidagri (2014) found that John was able to use to the deontic modal (i.e., 1;11 years old) earlier than the epistemic one (i.e., 2;07 years old). On the contrary, Liz used the epistemic meaning (i.e., 2 years old) before the deontic (i.e., 2;01 years old). For the acquisition order, John’s order was: deontic > epistemic; and Liz’s order was: epistemic > deontic. Therefore, it was difficult to conclude whether Brown’s (1973) or 25.

(36) Hirst & Weil’s (1982) findings are correct. To sum up, there are some limitations of Gaidagri’s study. For instance, the participants recruited in the study were not enough. Moreover, according to Lyons (1977) and Palmer (2001), a modal verb like may can have more than deontic and epistemic meanings. Meanings other than these two were neglected by Gaidagri. In addition, the way Gaidagri calculated the frequency rates was not clearly presented in her study, for example, 8 % for the epistemic and 92% for the deontic, etc.. 2.3.3 Wang (2014) Guo (1995) and Hsu (2011) claim that Chinese children acquired various meanings of a Chinese modal at different ages in their studies. For example, the children in Guo (1995) acquired the dynamic hui, deontic hui and epistemic hui when they were at the ages of 3, 5, and 8, respectively. Thus, the acquisition order, as stated in Guo (1995), is dynamic > deontic > epistemic. Wang (2014) further conducted a language acquisition study with a focus on the pragmatic functions of hui, which aimed to test whether Guo’s (1995) findings were correct or not. In her study, eight Chinese children were divided into two groups, each of which had four child subjects. The younger age group consisted of children aged from 2;7 to 3;2, and the older age group contained four children aged from 4 to 5;4. It was found that the subjects could produce the modal hui utterances with various 26.

(37) pragmatic functions. Examples (25) shows a child’s utterance with the dynamic hui, in which the child Lee used hui to please his mother to help him because he could not fold the paper. The pragmatic function of hui in this sentence is pleasing: (25) Lee: Mama, zhe zhong de wo bu Mom this CL de I not ‘Mom, I can’t fold this one.’. hui zhe. HUI fold (Wang 2014:38). However, in (26), the child Yin used the dynamic hui to describe an event that the little monkey can sit on the floor. The pragmatic function of hui in this sentence is reporting: (26) Yin: Xiao houzi hui zuo zuo ō. little monkey HUI sit sit PART ‘This little monkey can sit.’. (Wang 2014:42). In (27), the child Qin used the dynamic hui with the function of boasting to show his ability of building a house: (27) Qin: Wo hen hui zuo o. I very HUI make PART ‘I am very good at making this.’. (Wang 2014:48). As for the deontic hui in the child subjects’ utterances with different pragmatic functions, Wang (2014) found that the subjects mostly used hui to make a promise. An example of the pragmatic function of promising for hui used by the subjects is illustrated in (28):. 27.

(38) (28) Buo: Wo hui gen ta shuo I HUI with he say ‘I will apologize to him.’. duibuqi. sorry (Wang 2014:50). Example (28) shows that the kid Buo produced the deontic hui in his utterance to guarantee that he would apologize to someone. With regard to the epistemic hui, the subjects were found to mostly use it with the pragmatic functions of arguing and puzzling. With these two functions of hui, they conveyed their individual judgement or opinion toward someone or something, as can be seen below: (29) Sen: Bu hui, zhe ge bu hui. Not HUI this CL not HUI ‘No, it will not be like this.’ (Wang 2014:53) (30) Qin: Qiguai le zenme hui you zhe ge. strange PAR why HUI have this CL ‘It’s strange. Why is there this kind of block?’ (Wang 2014:57) In (29), the child Sen used the epistemic hui in his utterance to argue against with someone; on the contrary, in (30), the child Qin used the epistemic hui to question the existence of the block (i.e., hui’s function of puzzling). Overall, Wang (2014) stated that her findings were similar to Guo’s results because the dynamic hui and deontic hui could be found in younger (i.e., 3- and 5-year-old) children’s utterances. However, the younger children and the older ones performed 28.

(39) differently. The former still had difficulty in producing the epistemic hui with the puzzling function; however, the latter (i.e., 8-year-olds) could master all the pragmatic functions of hui in speech. Therefore, according to Wang (2014), the children’s acquisition order of hui is dynamic > deontic > epistemic, which is identical with Guo’s (1995) findings. Nevertheless, there are some limitations that Wang (2014) faced. First, her subject pool was too small. Second, the experimenters and mothers asked the child subjects too many questions in the experiment. Therefore, the child subjects’ production might be affected by the adults (Wang 22014). Finally, age has been argued to be an important factor affecting the acquisition of modals (cf. Bassano 1996), but Wang (2014) did not discuss the effect of this factor clearly in her study.. 2.3.4 Moscati et al. (2017) Some researchers (Well 1979, Palmer 1986, Noveck 2001, Chen & Ma 2017) have discussed about the acquisition of different meanings of modal verbs for a long time. For example, Palmer (1986) states that 3 years old children have been already able to use the dynamic, deontic and epistemic meanings. However, Noveck (2001) argues that children are still confused about the epistemic modals when they are 5 years old. Thus, Moscati et al. (2017) investigated children’s utterances of the epistemic modal verbs might and must. In their study, a total of 14 child subjects aged from 4;6 to 5;6 were 29.

(40) recruited together with 16 adults as the control group. The experiment (i.e., Mysterious Box) consisted of four steps. In Step 1, the participants were asked to have a look at the animals in green boxes. In Step 2, the green boxes were closed so that the participants could not see the animals. In Step 3, the participants were asked to guess the animal in an orange box by producing an utterance with a modal might or may. Finally, in Step 4, all the boxes were opened, and the participants could check whether their answers matched the test items or not. Figure 23 shows the Mysterious Box used in Moscati et al.’s study:. Figure 2-3 The Mysterious Box (Moscati et al. 2017:1031). During the whole process, the participants were wearing a visual world paradigm, which recorded their eye ball movements 10 . After they finished the experiments, Moscati et al. (2017) analyzed the participants’ data with three different focuses for each sentence. Firstly, they analyzed the beginning of the sentence and the end of the modal (i.e., A monkey). Second, the modal and the main verb (i.e., must/might be) were. 10. All the pictures have been divided into 4 interest areas (IAs): 1. An orange box, 2. A green box with mentioned animals, 3. A green box with unmentioned animals, and 4. A plate with a fruit. 30.

(41) examined. Third, the rest of the sentence like the preposition or object (i.e., in the orange box) was scrutinized. Overall, Moscati et al. (2017) found that the participants could distinguish and manipulate the modal verbs might and must. The percentages for the two modal verbs were 86.9 % for might and 97.6 % for must. However, some of the participants were confused with the game. For example, they did not know which modal was suitable to use. In the eye tracking experiment, Moscati et al. (2017) found that both groups of the participant (i.e., children and adults) had different results. For instance, the adults were more careful about producing the preposition and the object (i.e., in the orange box). On the contrary, some younger children could produce sentences with modal verbs, but they seemed unsure about the meanings of the modals might and must. To sum up, Moscati et al. (2017) concluded that the participants had ability to produce sentences with epistemic modals, since most of them performed as well as the adults. Moreover, they claimed that the 5- year-old children already could master the epistemic modal verbs. Nonetheless, there are still some limitations of Moscati et. al.’s (2017) study. First, they did not explain the age effect on the acquisition of modals clearly. Moreover, different researchers might classify a modal verb differently. For example, the modal must is said to have both the meanings of deontic and epistemic in previous studies 31.

(42) (Lyon1977, Palmer1986). Moscati et al. (2017) mainly used it as an epistemic meaning in their research. Therefore, a study on children’s acquisition of the deontic meaning can be further conducted.. 2.3.5 Summary of the Previous Empirical Studies The major findings and limitations of the empirical studies (Modyanova et al. 2010, Gaidagri 2014, Wang 2014, and Moscati et al. 2017) reviewed in Section 2.4: Table 2-1 Major Findings and the Limitations of the Previous Empirical Studies Major Findings Modyanova et al. (2010). 1. Acquisition order: Dynamic > Deontic > Epistemic 2. Age: Dynamic (3 yrs), Deontic (6 yrs), Epistemic (8 yrs). Gaidagri (2014). 1. Acquisition order: Deontic > Epistemic. Epistemic > Deontic 2. Age: Deontic (1yr) and Epistemic (2 yrs). Wang (2014). 1. Acquisition order: Dynamic> Deontic> Epistemic. 2. Age: Dynamic hui (3 yrs old), Deontic hui (5 yrs old), Epistemic hui (8 yrs old). 32. Limitations 1. Subjects: The number of participants was not balanced. 2. Task: Only one task (video scenario) 1. Subjects: The pool was small and there was no control group. 2. Task: Only one task (corpus study). 1. Subjects: The number of subjects was not sufficient and there was no control group. 2. Task: Only one task (corpus study).

(43) Moscati et al. (2017). Age: The 5-year-old children have already acquired the epistemic meaning.. 1. Subjects: The subjects were not enough. 2. Task: Only two test items in one picture. Wang (2014) and Gaidagri (2014) were more concerned about the production of modal verbs. They both conducted a qualitative longitudinal study to investigate children’s utterances of modal verbs. By contrast, Modyanova et al. (2010) and Moscati et al. (2017) concentrated on the study of children’s interpretations of modal verbs. It was found in these four studies that the interpretation and production of older children were better than those of younger ones. Moreover, Modyanova et al.’s (2010) and Wang’s (2014) findings indicated that children’s acquisition order was dynamic> deontic> epistemic. However, these four studies had different findings about the age effect. For example, Modyanova et al. (2010) and Wang (2014) found that the children acquired the dynamic, deontic and epistemic meanings when they were 3-, 5- and 8-year-old. On the contrary, Gaidagri (2014) and Moscati et al. (2017) concluded that their children could acquire the epistemic modal at the early ages (i.e., 2-year-old and 5-year-old, respectively). Nevertheless, there are some limitations of these four studies. Firstly, the number of their participants was small (Modyanova et al. 2010, Wang 2014, Gaidagri 2014). 33.

(44) Moreover, some of them (Modyanova et al. 2010, Moscati et al. 2017) did not concern the different meanings of modal verbs in their studies. Lastly, many of them (cf. Modyanova et al. 2010, Wang 2014, Gaidagri 2014) only conducted one task in their experiments.. 2.4. Summary of Chapter Two In Chapter Two, we have introduced the theoretical and empirical studies of modal verbs in English and in Chinese. The Chinese modal hui can have five basic meanings: the dynamic hui, the deontic hui, the epistemic hui, the generic hui and the futurity hui. Moreover, the development of dynamic > deontic > epistemic is the most convincing one according to previous studies (i.e., Guo 1995, Wu 2009, Wang 2014). With regard to the empirical studies, we have found that children acquired the dynamic meaning before the deontic and epistemic ones. They not only could acquire the dynamic hui with ease, but also mastered it in the early ages. However, most of the children were found to get confused or have difficulties in acquiring the deontic and epistemic modals. In addition, it was found that children acquired the deontic and epistemic meanings at the ages of 5 and 6; however, some of the researchers found that children acquired these meanings after 8. In the following chapter, the research design will be introduced to investigate these issues.. 34.

(45) Chapter Three Research Design In this chapter, the research design of the present study is discussed. Section 3.1 introduces our subjects, methods and materials, and procedures of the experimental study. The background of the subjects and research procedures of the corpus study are presented in Section 3.2. Finally, a summary of this chapter is provided in Section 3.3.. 3.1 Study I: Interpretation Task (Truth Value Judgement) In language acquisition, a truth value judgement (TVJ) task has been commonly used to test whether children can interpret the meanings of a target sentence (cf. Crain & McKee 1985). In such a task, researchers may provide toys, pictures, or videos to ask subjects questions, and the subjects need to respond with ‘True’ or ‘False.’ In this way, data can be quickly and easily analyzed (Eisele and Lust 1996). Therefore, Hirst & Weil (1982), Noveck (2001), and Hsu (2011) used a TVJ task to investigate children’s modal acquisition and found that their subjects acquired modal verbs successfully by the age of 6- to 8-year-old. Hence, the present study designed a TVJ task to examine children’s interpretation of the Chinese modal hui.. 35.

(46) 3.1.1 Subjects In their studies of the Chinese modal hui (Guo 1995 and Wu 2014), some researchers recruited children aged 3-, 5- and 8-year old as their subjects and argued that children acquired the meanings of the dynamic hui at the age of 3, the deontic hui at the age of 5, and the epistemic hui at the age of 8. Nevertheless, they could not claim that 4-, 6- and 7-year-olds might have acquired these three meanings of hui since they skipped these age groups. In the study of English modals, Noveck (2001) and Moscati et al. (2017) invited children aged 4- and 5-year-old as their experimental subjects and found that some of their subjects neither comprehended test items nor answered questions correctly. Hence, we recruited the subjects aged from 3 to 6 years old to see if they could interpret the Chinese modal hui11. The number of the subjects in the experimental study (ES) was sixty-four Taiwanese children in kindergartens in Tainan, and sixteen adults were also recruited as the control group, as can be seen below:. 11. Seven- and eight-year-old subjects will not be included in the present study since the results of the pilot study showed that these subjects had already acquired all the meanings of hui by the age of 6. 36.

(47) Table 3-1 Background Information of the Subjects in the Experimental Study Group. Age Range. Number. ES-1. 3-year-olds. 3;0~3;11. 16. ES-2. 4-year-olds. 4;0~4;11. 16. ES-3. 5-year-olds. 5;0~5;11. 16. ES-4. 6-year-olds. 6;0~6;11. 16. ES-Controls. 19-year-olds. 19;0 or above. 16. As Table 3-1 shows, there were five age groups of the experimental subjects, and each group consisted of 16 subjects. All the subjects had no physical problems, such as deaf, mute, blind, etc.. 3.1.2 Methods and Materials In the literature of language acquisition, there are two main approaches to collect data: quantitative and qualitative (Larsen-Freeman & Long 1991). A qualitative approach can be used to collect subjects’ utterances, sounds or speeches during a long period of time (Janet Holland, Rachel Thomson and Sheila Henderson 2016). However, this approach usually takes researchers a lot of time and effort (Hiroshi 1976). On the contrary, a quantitative approach not only provides us with an opportunity to collect data in a short period of time, but also helps us analyze data with ease (Hopkins 2000). 37.

(48) Hence, the present study followed Moscati et al. (2017) to conduct a quantitative study with an experiment consisting of truth value judgement questions to investigate children’s modal acquisition. To avoid ambiguity and misunderstanding, conversations in stories with pictures were provided for each test item. In the literature, some researchers like Liu (2009) and Hsu (2011) have conducted syntactic and pragmatic studies of the Chinese modal verbs via a quantitative approach; however, they did not test Chinese children’s interpretation of the modal hui. Regarding the meanings of hui, we examined the five meanings of it, as discussed in Chapter Two: the dynamic hui, the deontic hui, the epistemic hui, the futurity hui and the generic hui. Four test items were designed for each modal meaning, yielding a total of 20 test items, as shown below.. 38.

(49) Table 3-2 The Test Design of the Chinese Modal Hui in the Experimental Study Type T1. T2. T3. T4. T5. Modal Meaning Dynamic. Deontic. Epistemic. Generic. Futurity. Definition A person’s physical or physiological ability. Test Item. No. of Items. Wo ye hui pao. ‘I can run.’. 4. Question No. Story 1: Q5 (T), Q6 (F) Story 2: Q4 (T), Q7 (F). A person’s Wo hui tinghua promise, threat, or de.. 4. permission, etc.. ‘I will be obedient.’. A person’s knowledge, judgement, wish, etc.. Ahe haipa senlin hui you da mangshe. ‘Ahe is worried that a big python will appear in the forest.’. 4. The most common and widespread features, natural laws, etc.. Shengwu hui you shengmìng. ‘Creatures are living.’. 4. A schedule-based event or an action which is going to happen in the future. Wo hui qu zhu pengyou jia. ‘I am going to stay in my friend’s. 4. Story 2: Q1 (T), Q2 (F). Story 1: Q2 (F), Q8 (T) Story 2: Q6 (F), Q9 (T) Story 1: Q4 (F), Q9 (T) Story 2: Q8 (T), Q5 (F). 20. 39. Story 1: Q1 (T), Q10 (F) Story 2: Q3 (T), Q10 (F). house.’ Total. Story 1: Q3 (F), Q7 (T).

(50) As can be seen in Table 3-2, the 20 test items embedded in two stories, each of which had an introduction, a trial question, and pictures for the 10 test items along with True/False questions. Table 3-3 illustrates a sample question in the TVJ task: Table 3-3 A Sample Question of the TVJ Task Scene 1 The subject saw:. The subject heard: Xiao Shi chidao le. Baby Lion is late. Laoshi: Bu keyi chidao, zhidao ma?' Teacher: "Don’t be late, OK?" Xiao Shi: Hao, wo hui tinghua de.' Baby Lion: "OK, I'll be obedient." Scene 2 The subject saw:. The subject heard: Qingwen Xiao Shi daying laoshi guaiguai tinghui, dui-bu-dui? ‘Baby Lion promises the teacher that he will be obedient, doesn’t he?’. For a complete version of the TVJ task in the experimental study, please refer to Appendix A. It is expected that with the findings of our experiment we can see which. 40.

(51) meaning of hui is easier for children to interpret, and whether they acquire these meanings at different ages.. 3.1.3 Procedure 3.1.3.1 Pilot Study A pilot study was conducted on December 26, 2017 to ensure the quality of the research design and test items. There were 10 True/False questions designed in the TVJ task (See Appendix B) for the five meanings of hui. The subjects were 15 Chinese students from Ming Dao Elementary School in Taipei (5 students each for the age group: 8-, 10- and 12-year-old), and 5 adults as the control group. The results of the TVJ task showed that different age groups interpreted the Chinese modal hui differently. Of the five meanings of hui, there was no clear pattern shared by the three age groups regarding futurity hui and generic hui. As for the other three meanings of hui, the 8- and 12-year-old subjects scored higher on the dynamic hui and the deontic hui than on the epistemic hui, i.e., dynamic > deontic > epistemic (from high to low). Their responses were close to those of the adult group. This order supports the arguments of Lyons (1977) and Palmer (1986) that the acquisition order of modal meanings is dynamic > deontic > epistemic. Nevertheless, the order for the 10year-old subjects was deontic > dynamic > epistemic, which was not found in the previous literature. There are some limitations of the pilot study. For example, the 41.

(52) subject pool was small, and the test items were not enough. As a result, the findings might not be reliable; therefore, it is necessary to conduct a further study to investigate children’s acquisition of the modal hui.. 3.1.3.2 Formal Study In order to improve the reliability and validity of the present research, more subjects were recruited, and more test items were included to investigate the acquisition order and the meanings of hui among different age groups. All the child subjects in the formal study were selected from kindergartens in Tainan, and the adult participants were recruited from National Taiwan Normal University. Since our subjects were kindergarteners, it is rather important to provide a consent form (see Appendix C) and receive approvals from their parents. This form reported the research motivation, expectation and details of the present study. After the parents and subjects signed the consent form, we kept the subjects’ personal information confidential and started to conduct the experiment (i.e., the TVJ task) individually. As mentioned in Section 3.1.2, there were two stories in the TVJ task, and each story had an introduction and a trial question, together with 10 pictures and 10 T/F questions. For example, the subjects were shown an introduction as in (1) before Story I was told:. 42.

(53) (1) Yi tian you yi tian, Ahe manmandi changda le. Tutu gege xiwang Ahe xuehui zhaogu ziji, suoyi Tutu gege gei Ahe henduo renwu. Women yiqilai bang Ahe wancheng renwu, hao ma? ‘Day after day, Ahe has gradually grown up. Brother Tutu hopes that Ahe can take care of himself. So, he gives Ahe many tasks. Let’s help Ahe to complete the tasks, OK?’. After the introduction, we started our trial question to ensure our subjects understood what they were supposed to do during the task. Table 3-4 presents the trial question of Story 1: Table 3-4 The Trial Question of Story 1 Scene 1 The subject saw:. The subject heard: Ta hui tiaosheng. ‘He can jump rope.’ Scene 2. The subject heard: Nai chang tu, dui-bu-dui? ‘Is that picture correct?’. 43.

(54) After the subjects finished the trial question, we began with Story I, which consisted of scenarios and conversations, and they judged the test items by answering True or False. All their answers were recorded by the experimenter. This task took each subject approximately 30 minutes to complete.. 3.1.3.3 Scoring and Data Analysis As we discussed in Section 3.1.3.2, there were 20 True/ False questions in the TVJ task. If the subjects answered a question correctly, one point was given. However, if their answer was wrong, they received zero point. The scores were keyed into an Excel file and later ran by an R-Studio software, using the ANOVA to analyze the data. By this function, we obtained the analytic statistics and values of each group. It is to see if children’s interpretation of hui varies among different age groups, and to explore children’s acquisition order of hui within each age group (Tang 1979, Guo 1994, Huang 1999, Chang 2001).. 3.2 Study II: Corpus Study One of the convenient platforms for Taiwanese researchers (i.e., Huang et al. 2000, Lee 2015) to collect data is the Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese. However, there are some restrictions on this corpus. First, factors like gender, age or education backgrounds are not shown. Second, there are no Chinese children’s token 44.

(55) or utterance. Therefore, the present study did not consider the Sinica Corpus because it cannot provide any utterance of the Chinese modal hui produced by Chinese children. Consequently, the present study used the Chinese Corpora – CHILDES, which is a multilingual corpus established by Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pennsylvania with the grant from the National Science Foundation in 1999. It contains a wild range of linguistic fields, such as language acquisition, discourse, sociolinguistics, and so on. The Chinese Corpora –CHILDES is one of the important corpora, which contains children’s utterances produced by 728 child subjects collected by one Taiwanese, seven Chinese, and three Cantonese researchers. The child subjects are 158 Cantonese, 566 Chinese and 4 Taiwanese children. Hence, the present study obtained the utterances from The Chinese Corpora –CHILDES to investigate children’s production of the Chinese modal hui.. 3.2.1 Subjects As we mentioned, the present study conducted an experimental study with an interpretation task and a corpus study. To our knowledge, few researchers have conducted a language acquisition study of hui with a corpus approach, although Chen and Ma (2017) have employed a study of the language acquisition of the Chinese modal verbs like hui ‘will,’ keyi ‘can,’ xiang ‘want,’ etc. However, they investigated 1- and 2year-old children and found few tokens of hui produced by the subjects. Apparently, 45.

(56) their findings were not sufficient to support their claim that hui should have three meanings. Therefore, the present study collected the utterances of hui from 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-years-old subjects in the Chinese Corpora –CHILDES, as Table 3-5. Table 3-5 Background Information of the Subjects in the Corpus Study Group. Age Range. Number. CS-1. 3-year-olds. 3;0~3;9. 16. CS-2. 4-year-olds. 4;1~4;8. 16. CS-3. 5-year-olds. 5;7 ~5;10. 16. CS-4. 6-year-olds. 6;2~ 6;7. 16. As Table 3-5 shows, each age group consisted of sixteen children. (i.e., children in the group CS-1 were all 3-year-old children). They were kindergarteners interviewed individually in the library at school in Hsinchu, and Chinese is their native language.. 3.2.2 Procedure In the formal study, we collected the utterances from the 3-, 4- , 5-, 6- year-old children and the adults in the collection of Chang 1 and Chang 2 in the Chinese Corpora --- CHILDS. In this collection, we randomly selected 80 subjects, and each age group included 16 subjects. All the utterances of the subjects were checked to see if they contain the modal hui. If yes, we underlined the whole utterance, as can be seen below: 46.

(57) (2) EXP: Senlin hui fasheng shenme shiqing? forest HUI happen what thing ‘What will happen in the forest?’ EXP: Senlin hui zenyang? forest HUI how ‘What will the forest become?’ CHI: Hui you yige. Laohu. HUI have a tiger ‘There will be a… tiger.’. (Chang, 1998). The two raters who helped with the coding of the pilot study were invited to evaluate the meanings of hui according to the present classifications, as illustrated in Table 3-2. They mainly focused on the utterances of hui produced by the children in the dialogues selected by the researcher and decided on the type of its meaning. If the two raters disagreed on the coding, a third rater was asked to take another look at the utterances. After the coding was completed, we counted the frequency of each meaning of hui, and further keyed in all the types of hui to an Excel file. We later ran an analytic software R-studio, using Chi-square to calculate children’s utterances of hui within each age group and each meaning of hui to see if children acquire the meanings of the modal hui at different ages. We also saw if the acquisition order found in the corpus supports the previous literature (Guo 1995, Noveck 2001, Moscati et al. 2017).. 47.