The Acquisition of Verb Argument Realization in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract

Discourse-information structure has been found to shape the realization of verb argument structure. This study investigates the effects of grammatical roles, information status, and animacy of verb arguments on verb argument realization in the speech of Mandarin-speaking children, in comparison with that of their caregivers. The data are drawn from two naturalistic longitudinal corpora of two monolingual Mandarin-learning children (ages 1;07–3;09). All verb arguments were coded for core grammatical roles (Agent, Subject, Object), information status (given vs. new), and animacy (animate vs. inanimate). The results indicate that both child and adult speech generally conform to PAS: the preferred quantity of lexical arguments or new information is no more than one, new and lexical arguments tend to often occur in the Object role, and Agents tend to be given and non-lexical. Children’s and caregivers’ speech are thus shaped by similar discourse-pragmatic factors, though adherence to some constraints varies across dyads and constraints, likely reflecting differences in interactional contexts, caregiver input, and children’s developmental status. These findings suggest that Mandarin-acquiring children are sensitive to discourse-pragmatic constraints in argument realization from early on, aligning with discourse-pragmatic probabilistic approaches to language acquisition.