儿童情态语义的早期发展及论证意义

Early Development of Children’s Modal Semantics and Its Demonstrative Significance

本研究对三名1;07-4;06岁汉语儿童情态动词及其语义类型的习得进行了详尽考察,发现儿童的情态语义习得显示出强烈的从根情态向认识情态发展的倾向,并且情态语义的早期发展特征是基于单词义项的。通过对经验输入的详尽分析,本文认为输入时量对情态语义习得特征有重要作用,而输入方式则影响极小,但是就情态语义的发展特征来说,输入时量是必要不充分条件。本文认同蔡维天(2010)对各类情态语义句法分布的观察,把情态语义的发展特征看作情态语义句法分布特征在儿童习得中的映射。儿童拥有的隐喻认知机制为情态语义习得路径提供了计算的可能,而儿童语义计算方向与句法映射的情态语义发展方向又是一致的。

This study conducted a detailed investigation of the acquisition of modal verbs and their semantic types by three Mandarin children aged 1;07-4;06,and found that children’s acquisition of modal semantics shows a strong tendency to develop from root modality to cognitive modality,and this kind of developmental characteristics of modal semantics is based on lexical senses.We hold the point that the age and amount of input plays an important role,while the method of input has little effect on the acquisition of modal semantics through a detailed analysis of empirical input.In terms of the developmental features of modal semantics,input is a necessary but insufficient condition.We agreed with Tsai’s(2010)observation on the syntactic distribution of various types of modal semantics,and regarded the developmental characteristics of modal semantics as the mapping of the syntactic distribution of modal semantics onto children’s acquisition dimension.We believe that the metaphorical cognitive mechanism possessed by children provides the possibility of semantic calculation for the acquisition of modal semantics,in fact,the semantic calculation direction of children is consistent with the developmental direction of modal semantics mapped by their syntactic distribution.