Acquisition of Chinese Verb Separation by Adult L2 Learners

Chinese verb separation is a grammatical construction in which bimorphemic compound separates and expands into phrase. For example, to say “sang one song”, must insert the aspect marker le classifier phrase yī shǒu between chàng gē ‘sing-song’ as (sing-LE-one-classifier-song). Adult second language (L2) learners face at least three problems related acquiring separation: patterns are complex numerous, classroom oral input limited, L1 transfer often fails. To better understand L2 learners’ acquisition of separation, this study tested 28 adult L2-Chinese learners. Three tasks were administered online: decomposition, grammaticality judgment, translation. On average, only 37% verbs accurately decomposed, 63% judged be grammatical, 19% orally produced with correct pattern. particularly decomposition production, thus extremely challenging for acquire—even advanced relatively large vocabulary size. The results discussed terms Unified Competition Model pedagogy.