摘要
Morphology is said to play a role in word acquisition. English psych adjectives are identified as a category of words with morphological complex gradience, which consists of free morphs, derivatives and inflections. Due to their morphological features, psych adjectives were considered the ideal candidates to test the effect of morphology on word acquisition. This study adopted a within-group research design, where a controlled productive test and a receptive knowledge test were developed and administered to English learners of an intermediate level. Results suggested that acquisition of the inflections was significantly different from that of free morphs and derivatives in the controlled productive test, but no difference was found in the receptive knowledge test. Comparisons of the two tests for the three word groups showed that the only significant difference occurred in the inflection word group. The overall results revealed that learners experienced much more difficulty in acquiring inflectional psych adjectives. In light of the dissociation of associative memory and rule memory, two possible explanations for the learning problems were offered： 1） learners failed to represent the inflections in associative memory, or 2） they have not proceduralized the morphology rules in rule memory.
英语心理形容词的构词主要有三种途径:零形态的自主词汇、派生词汇和曲折变化词汇。它们反映了形态能产力的梯级性。鉴于形态对词汇习得的可能影响,本文选择具有相同频率的英语心理形容词作为测试对象,设计词汇产出测试和词汇接受能力测试,以考察形态对词汇习得的影响。调查发现,曲折变化词汇的产出能力与零形态词汇和派生词汇的产出能力有显著差异,但在词汇接受能力测试上三组词汇无显著差异。自主词汇、派生词汇和曲折变化词汇的产出和接受能力之间的t检验发现,只有曲折变化词汇的产出和接受能力之间存在显著差异。测试结果表明,相比较自主词汇和派生词汇,曲折变化词汇更难习得。由于目标词汇来源同一频率且具有同等的语义特点,可以推断,曲折变化词汇的习得困难来源于形态特征,它们没有因频率等因素获得联想记忆的优先控制,而规则记忆对它们的处理还未达到自动化程度。
