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Article published In: ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 117/118 (1997) ► pp.1–26

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Acquisition of Chinese Aspect

An Analysis of the Interlanguage of Learners of Chinese as a Foreign Language

 | Department of Modern and Classical Languages University of Houston (U.S.A.)
Published online: 1 January 1997
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https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.117-118.01wen
Abstract
This study investigates the acquisition of Chinese aspect markers of -le, -guo, and -zhe by English-speaking learners at the university level. The speech and written data produced by students at two different levels of proficiency were collected, compared and analyzed. The results show that English-speaking learners of Chinese acquire the perfective aspect marker -le and the past experience marker -guo before the durative aspect marker -zhe. The process by which learners acquire the aspect markers appears be meaning-based and can be summarized into: 1) looking for logical temporal sequences; 2) using time adverbials and conjunction for the time references; 3) using lexical aspects and word meanings; and 4) using pragmatic cues with the aspect markers of -le and -guo. Learners, especially at the lower level of proficiency, rely more on the time adverbial expressions and lexical aspects than learners at the more advanced level.
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Cited by (8)

Cited by eight other publications

Guo, Yanyu
2025. Disentangling aspect and tense in L2 acquisition. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism DOI logo
Wang, Jia
2023. Discussion. In Interfaces and Features in Second Language Acquisition, ► pp. 207 ff. DOI logo
Cui, Songren & Kuo-ming Sung
2022. Aspect. In A Reference Grammar for Teaching Chinese, ► pp. 117 ff. DOI logo
Fang, Shaohua & Yi Xu
2022. Processing and acquisition of temporality in L2 Mandarin Chinese: Effects of grammatical and lexical aspects. Frontiers in Psychology 13 DOI logo
Xu, Yi
2020. Perfective -le Use and Consciousness-Raising among Beginner-Level Chinese Learners. Languages 5:2 ► pp. 16 ff. DOI logo
Xu, Hai, Xiaofei Lu & Vaclav Brezina
2019. Acquisition of the Chinese Particle le by L2 Learners: A Corpus-Based Approach. In Computational and Corpus Approaches to Chinese Language Learning [Chinese Language Learning Sciences, ], ► pp. 197 ff. DOI logo
Mueller, Charles M
2018. Initial acquisition of tense-aspect morphology in an artificial language. Second Language Research 34:4 ► pp. 517 ff. DOI logo
Jin, Limin & Henriette Hendriks
2004. Le marquage de l’aspect en chinois LM et LE. Acquisition et interaction en langue étrangère 20 ► pp. 51 ff. DOI logo

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