Department of Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA.
Int J Speech Lang Pathol. 2022 Aug;24(4):385-394. doi: 10.1080/17549507.2021.1981445. Epub 2021 Oct 10.
: This study addresses the question of whether sequential bilingual children's past tense marking development in their second language (L2) is affected by their knowledge of temporal marking in their first language (L1). We investigated whether Cantonese-English sequential bilingual children's knowledge of aspect markers in Cantonese (L1), along with external and internal factors, predicts their past tense marking in English (L2).: We examined 39 pre-school children's production of perfective aspect markers in Cantonese and regular and irregular past tense morphemes in English using a story-retell task administered in both languages.: The results showed that children produced significantly more irregular past tense verbs than regular past tense verbs in English. Their English irregular past tense use, but not regular past tense use, was predicted by their knowledge of aspect markers in Cantonese.: Findings suggest that semantic transfer between Cantonese and English might contribute to the early stages of acquiring English past tense marking. Clinically, the results could potentially lead to more informed assessment procedures and better diagnostic decision making for bilingual children.
本研究探讨了顺序双语儿童在第二语言（L2）中过去时标记的发展是否受到其第一语言（L1）中时间标记知识的影响。我们调查了粤语-英语顺序双语儿童对粤语（L1）中体标记的知识，以及外部和内部因素，是否可以预测他们在英语（L2）中过去时标记的使用情况。我们使用故事复述任务，分别在两种语言中对 39 名学前儿童的粤语完成体标记和英语规则和不规则过去时形态的产生情况进行了测试。结果表明，儿童在英语中使用不规则过去时动词的频率明显高于规则过去时动词。他们在英语中不规则过去时的使用情况，而不是规则过去时的使用情况，受到他们对粤语体标记知识的预测。研究结果表明，粤语和英语之间的语义转移可能有助于英语过去时标记的早期习得。从临床角度来看，这些结果可能会为双语儿童的评估程序提供更有意义的信息，并做出更好的诊断决策。
