Zhang (2001) is the first scholar who carried out an empirical study using a PT-derived hypothesis for Chinese L2 acquisition. Zhang (2001) has studied the development of a range of Chinese morphemes based on three Chinese L2 learners’ IL over a year in Australia. All of her participants, with different language learning backgrounds, produced the same acquisition sequence, according to the universal processing hierarchy (excluding the exceptional case). She has therefore claimed that
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the processing hierarchy proposed by PT can predict and explain the IL development of Chinese morphemes for L2 learners, and she has started to draw an initial profile for the Chinese processing sequence.
As stated in Chapter 2, the processing hierarchy categorizes morphemes into three types: lexical morphemes, phrasal morphemes and inter-phrasal morphemes. The category is classified based on the level of information exchange required for the production of the morphemes. In this case, Zhang (2001) aims to test the feasibility of applying the processing hierarchy to Chinese on the formal L2 acquisition of specific featured morphemes, including:
1) experiential marker –guo, 2) progressive marker zhengzai–, 3) attributive marker –de,
4) adjective marker –de, 5) possessive marker –de, 6) relative clause marker de, 7) v-comp marker, -de and 8) classifier.
Even though a few exceptional cases have occurred against the processing orders in Zhang’s study, these cases were accounted as the drawbacks of the research approaches. In the end, Zhang (2001) has categorized the eight morphemes into three different PT levels. In addition, Zhang’s attempt has verified that resources to handle the computation, with respect to Chinese language, are feasible on the basis of PT. PinYin is a good way to transcribe Chinese (character) and suits in LFG basis, which facilitates the PT employment.
To further the research, in 2008, Zhang (2008) did an advanced analysis on the previous data from Zhang (2001); she then produced explicit results consisting of the aspects of the syntactic development in Chinese, following the processing procedures. Details of the two studies have been shown below in Table 4.3. The grammatical morphemes and syntax are described respectively according to the types of information exchange they require (Zhang, 2001 and 2008).
80 Processing Procedure Information Exchange Zhang (2001) Zhang (2008)
5 S-bar procedure Main and sub-clause / /
4 S-procedure Inter-phrasal information
Relative clause marker de Topicalization: OSV, SOV 3 Phrasal
procedure
Phrasal information Classifier
V-comp marker -de
XP SV(O) / S XP VO: adv-fronting subordinate clause 2 Category
procedure
Lexical morphology Possessive marker –de Adjective marker -de Attributive marker –de Progressive marker zhengzai- Experiential marker -guo
Canonical SV(O): declaratives interrogatives (y/n, wh-, intonation)
1 Word/Lemma Words Single constituent Single words/constituents;
formulaic expressions
Table 4.3 Chinese Grammatical Development in PT (Zhang, 2001 and 2008)
Seen from the above table, apparently, the basic vocabulary and formulaic expressions in Chinese should be acquired at the initial stage according to the processing trajectory. At the lexical level, –de (ADJ) shares with –de (POSS) and –de (ATT) the same form, but not the same grammatical function. They all present as a marker of NP. In addition, the aspectual PROG marker zhengzai- and the EXP marker -guo contain semantic information relating to the shape of the action. zhengzai- refers to an action in progress at the moment of speaking, while –guo indicates an action that took place in the past which emphasizes that the agent has experienced a certain action or event. The retrieval of these five morphemes is directly triggered by conceptualization and requires no information exchange with other constituents.
Moreover, Pienemann, Di Biase and Kawaguchi (2005) have discussed that due to the low demands on grammatical processing constraints, SVO pattern can be processed at the early stage without unification and processing exchange. In addition, Chinese interrogative sentences normally keep the original canonical SVO order as in declarative sentences. Therefore, the five morphemes are expected to emerge at stage 2 as well as the SVO canonical order which relies on the direct mapping of the semantic roles onto the surface structure.
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nouns. Chinese has quite a variety of classifiers which relate largely to the meanings of the words they modify. In this case, the selection of the classifier in one entry shares the same feature of the head nouns within one NP. Take ‘yi ben shu’ (as one book) as an example. In this NP, the classifier matches the numeral word ‘yi’ (as one) and the noun ‘shu’ (as book). Therefore, the features are unified in each entry of the NP according to the value of the lexical items. If any value changes, the lexical entry would be marked as ungrammatical items. The classifiers are therefore the phrasal morpheme, which emerges after the category procedure is developed.
Similarly, V-COMP marker –de is to mark the complement element in a VP. In fact, the verb form should only subcategorize the subject, but in the example Ex3.7, the verb ‘zou’ (as walk) has two arguments, the subject and the V-COMP, which have been related regarding to the existence of –de. Therefore, due to the process of the information transfer occurring within this VP, V-COMP -de is categorized as a phrasal morpheme. From the consideration of syntactic aspect, the adv-fronting is simply the movement at the phrasal level, since only the adverbs are moved to the front and the sentence structure still remains in the canonical word order. Henceforth, the V-COMP marker –de and the adv-fronting is at the same stage of classifier.
In Zhang (2008), the subordinate clause also appears at stage 3. However, Chinese subordinate clause contains a vast variety which was not clearly defined in Zhang’s (2008) work. Obviously, not all types of Chinese subordinate clause can be acquired at the same level due to its complexity.
At stage 4, inter-phrasal information exchange between the grammatical constituents appears in the sentences. As in the left-branching Chinese language, de (RC), as a relative clause marker in Chinese, is recognized and categorized as an inter-phrasal morpheme which requires the recognition of the clause as a modifier, and the presence of a syntactic gap in the clause. This constructs a modifier-modified inter-phrasal relationship. In other words, the production of de (RC) requires information exchange between the modifying clause and the modified head noun, since the head noun functionally controls the empty category in the relative clause. In
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the example Ex3.8a, the insertion of de turns the original predicative constituent (‘ni gei qian’, as you gave money) into a nominal phrase (‘ni gei de qian’, as the money you gave). Thus, the information exchange across phrases has accomplished.
As for the syntactic consideration of inter-phrasal information exchange, the emergence of (certain types of) Chinese topicalization fits into this category, since the information exchange takes place between an internal function and a function at a salient position. The function of each phrase has been shifted during the movement of the ‘topic’. For this reason, it is placed at stage 4 of the processing hierarchy.
Noticeably, in both Zhang’s (2001 and 2008) studies, no grammatical items at stage 5 have been observed. However, this gap has been filled in by Gao (2005) which will be illustrated as follows.