时间：2017年3月20日（周一）下午2:00-3:30

　　地点：语言所大会议室

　　主持人：王伟（副研究员）

　　主题报告：The Acquisition of Japanese Case-Marking on Monolingual and Bilingual Children: How Argument Omission Impacts the Acquisition?

　　报告人：赵 曌（日本广岛大学 博士生）

　　摘要：This study investigates how monolingual and bilingual children recognize the speech with an argument omission by focusing on object case-marking in Japanese transitive sentence, a language that allows a high percentage of argument omission. Although Japanese, monolingual children struggle to acquire object case-marking because of “insufficient input”, they can acquire it by the age of seven (e.g., Omaki, Kobayashi, Lassotta, Rizzi and Franck, 2012). However, it is still unclear how children acquire case-marking. Mistakes in Japanese case-markings are not uncommon for bilingual children even when their language ability iswell-developed.

　　In study 1, we compared the effectiveness of the argument-omitted sentence and full-argument sentence on monolingual children’s (ages four to seven) learning of artificial case-marking via short exposure. Meanwhile, study 2 considers whether bilingual children (ages four to nine) can learn artificial case-marking through exposure to argument-omitted and full-argument sentences. In study 1, the monolinguals first watched and imitated four single action scenarios while listening to sentences with two non-lexical syllables, “po” (artificial subject marker) and “bi” (artificial object marker). Half of the participants learned full-argument sentences (“saru po ushi bi oshita: monkey-NOM cattle-ACC pushed”), and the rest learned argument-omitted sentences with one argument omitted (“saru po/bi oshita: monkey-NOM/ monkey-ACC pushed”). In the later test, participants completed forced-choice discrimination of scenarios after hearing sentences (OSV, OV, SV and SOV) with either “po”or “bi”. In study 2, bilinguals learned argument-omitted sentences that are effective for monolinguals in study 1. Contrary to study 1, the bilinguals in study 2 were subjected to argument-omitted sentences only.

　　A mixedeffect model for children’s responses (correct or incorrect answer) showed that, in study 1, the argument-omitted group comprehended OSV (β=0.92, z=1.99, p= .0466) sentences well. However, the full-argument group fared poorly in sentence comprehension. Results indicated that argument-dropped exposure was useful for monolinguals in learning the object case-marking, but not full-argument exposure. For study 2, the argument-omitted group also comprehended OSV sentences well as compared to chance level (χ2=15.08, p< .001).

　　The results showed that bilinguals successfully learn case-marking when they are exposed toargument-dropped sentences. Children probably pay attention to case-marking when they process argument-dropped sentences since this is the only way to understand a sentence.

　　This study suggested that simpler sentences may work better for learning purposes, specifically for the languages with high percentages of argument omission.