中介语中的题元层级——母语为日语的学习者对汉语心理动词习得研究

Thematic Hierarchy in Interlanguage:A Study of the Acquisition of Chinese Psych Verbs by Japanese Learners

题元是动词论元所扮演的语义角色,题元层级指的是这些论元在句中出现的先后顺序。文章采用可接受性判断和组句两种测试工具,通过研究母语为日语的学习者对汉语心理动词的习得情况,考察题元层级在中介语中的作用。测试结果表明,学习者在习得心理动词过程中容易接受和生成不符合汉语语法规范的＂经验者——动词——客体＂句式,说明题元层级对中介语有一定的制约作用。但是,随着语言水平的提高,学习者能够习得汉语心理动词的论元结构,并达到汉语本族语者的水平。

Different arguments play different thematic roles,which form a hierarchy according to the sequence of their appearance.The present research,using an acceptability judgment test and a sentence making test,explores the constraint of thematic hierarchy on Japanese-speaking learners＇ acquisition of Chinese psych verbs.Psych verbs are not used in selecting Experiencer as object in both Chinese and Japanese.If L1 transfer exists,L2 learners will not have any difficulty with the syntactic structure of Chinese psych verbs.While few causative errors are found in the Japanese-Chinese interlanguage,L2 learners are liable to wrongly accept and make sentences where the Experiencer argument occurs at the subject position and the Theme argument the object position.It is concluded that interlanguage is constrained by thematic hierarchy but the constraint is not absolute or permanent.With the increase of L2 proficiency,L2 learners are able to acquire native-like representation on the argument structure of the target language.