臺灣學齡前兒童華語量詞習得之再探討

Chinese Children's Acquisition of Classifiers Revisited

本研究旨在探討臺灣學齡前兒童對華語類別量詞(count classifiers)和計量量詞(mass classifiers)的習得(Cheng and Sybesma 1998, Tai 1994)。本研究共設計兩個實驗：圖片辨識測驗及圖片描述測驗。研究對象為45位以華語為母語的學齡前幼童，根據其年齡分成三組（第一組為三歲、第二組為四歲、及第三組五歲）。主要的研究發現如下：首先，學齡前兒童能夠分辨類別量詞和計量量詞之間的差異，此差異達到統計上的顯著，且不同於前人(Chien et al. 2003)，我們發現學齡前兒童在類別量詞的表現顯著優於計量量詞。其次，「年齡」的確對類別量詞和計量量詞的習得有所影響並達到統計上的顯著差異(Chien et al. 2003, Hu 1993, Loke 1991, Ying et al. 1983)，研究發現三歲到四歲是兒童習得量詞的關鍵期。量詞「個」是兒童最早習得的量詞，「標準量詞」對兒童來說難度最高，因此為最慢習得的量詞(Erbaugh 1986, Loke 1991)。

The present study explored Chinese children's acquisition of the count and mass classifiers (Cheng and Sybesma 1998, Tai 1994) by conducting two tasks, a comprehension task (i.e., the Picture Identification Task), and a production task (i.e., the Picture Description Task). Forty-five Chinese-speaking preschoolers participated in the study, and they were further classified into three age groups: Group 1 (3-year-olds), Group 2 (4-year-olds), and Group 3 (5-year-olds).The major findings of the present study are as follows. First, our subjects used count and mass classifiers significantly differently (p＜0.05). Different from Chien et al. (2003), it was found that our subjects performed better on count classifiers than on mass classifiers. Second, age effects were significant in response to overall count and mass classifiers (p＜0.05) (Chien et al. 2003, Hu 1993, Loke 1991, Ying et al. 1983). The age between three and four was found to be the critical stage in Chinese children's classifier development. Third, the results indicated that ge was the earliest acquired classifiers whereas standard measures caused the children major difficulties and were thus the latest acquired (Erbaugh 1986, Loke 1991).