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Article published In:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 9:3 (2019) ► pp.468–503

Aspectual interpretation and mass/count knowledge in Chinese-English bilinguals

| National Institute of Education
| National Institute of Education

Given recent interest in interface properties in bilingual acquisition, this study examined Chinese-English adolescent bilinguals' acquisition of English telicity – a property whose semantic interpretation (aspectual completion versus incompletion) is influenced by morphosyntax (mass/count distinction). Differences between Chinese and English exist in both mass/count (Chierchia, 1998) and telicity (Soh & Kuo, 2005). Despite existing L2 literature on telicity and mass/count, the relationship between these two areas in learning has not been adequately addressed. A naturalness rating task (on telicity) and a grammaticality judgment task (on mass/count) were administered on 120 bilingual participants (11 and 14 year olds). Our results overall show that mass/count knowledge was acquirable whereas telicity was only partially so. There was a small correlation between these two areas of knowledge. We discuss our results in terms of the role of linguistic input, interface variation, methodological issues, and the nature of telicity marking in Chinese.

Keywords: interface hypothesis, morphosyntax-semantics interface, telicity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Learning of the syntax-semantics interface
      • 2.1.1Co-acquisition of properties
    • 2.2Telicity and cross-linguistic differences
    • 2.3Mass/count distinction and cross-linguistic differences
    • 2.4L2 Studies on telicity and mass/count knowledge
  • 3.Research questions
  • 4.The study
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Task for telicity (semantics)
    • 4.3Task for mass/count (morphosyntax)
    • 4.4Results
      • 4.4.1Telicity (semantics)
      • 4.4.2Mass/count knowledge (morphosyntax)
      • 4.4.3Relationship between telicity and mass/count
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Summary of study
    • 5.2Variation within interfaces
    • 5.3Co-acquisition of properties
    • 5.4Reconfiguration of telicity
    • 5.5Morphosyntax precedes semantics
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.16032.yin
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