PDF《Title children》

8 question-words, i t2 a ffiF B SF what (subject position) ii H fl SF ff 5F what (object position) iii 7§k M A who (subject position) iv jft { @ A who (object position) v T&

Bt where vi jjH W when vii K M why viii i? ;

g| how in Cantonese-speaking preschoolers based on the experiences of its predecessors: 1. Syntactic complexity of questions was controlled, varying specific question-words. 2. The amount of information depicted in the pictorial stimuli was constant across pictorial stimuli;

and was made perceptual salient and realistic, where it was possible.

3 In addition, the underlying reason of the developmental sequence of responses to different question-words will be discussed with an attempt to reflect the underlying conceptual development. The error patterns of the responses will also be investigated. METHOD SUBJECTS Eighty-four native Cantonese-speaking preschool children, aged from 3;

0 to 5;

11, participated in the study. They were divided into

6 six-monthly groups with each group consisted of

7 boys and

7 girls: 3;

0-3;

5, 3;

6-3;

ll, 4;

0-4;

5, 4;

6-4;

ll, 5;

0-5;

5;

5;

6-5;

ll. All subjects were attending private nursery-schools/ kindergartens in the Eastern District, Hong Kong Island. Classroom teachers reported all children exhibited normal developmental and behavioral characteristics of their age groups. MATERIALS QUESTIONS Thirty-six questions were constructed as stimuli. They can be divided into three sets. The three sets of questions were the same syntactically and different in the use of transitive verbs ( '

chase'

[xE] , '

hit* [JT]and '

push'

[JH] ) and character names to construct the questions. In each set, the

12 questions were separated into two batches : (1) what and who questions;

(2) when, where, why and how questions (Appendix 1).

4 Wltat (t3*g?*gF)mft. who (MMA)questions The first batch of questions constituted question-words - who (M0A) and what (?? ff Mr*MF) placed m different sentence positions which produced four kinds of who and what questions: what-sub, what-obj, who-sub and who-obj. They were paired up with one another to form different combination of question-pairs (what-who question-pairs;

subject-object question-pairs) which provided ambiguous context in the picture stimulus for each other when one of the members of the question pair was asked. Therefore there were a total of

8 questions. The syntactic frames of the

8 questions are as follows (question A to H, Appendix 1): chase [JJU who [ M A ] ginzkm iboy mm wt im mi push [Jt] what [tln W*W] who mmxi what [WW^W] chase [21] hit [fj] girl [MPi I boy [J§f?] Iff push [ft] Where (MW. when (MR^X why (jg?^)aiid how fgfrgg) questions The second batch of questions constituted question words - where (MM)f when (M&

&

), why (M 0) and how (MM). Each question-word was placed in between the subject and the transitive verb of the l [RJf] is an utterance particle.

5 question which generated four questions in total in each question set. The syntactic frame of the four questions is as follows (question I to L, Appendix 1): where [D$? Jftg] boy / girl / father /mother when [%?W] mm itttm n^m i\mm why [K#P] how [jKrfU] chase [SH] push [|g] m PICTURES There were thirty-six pictorial stimuli and each of them was used to elicit response for one of the thirty-six questions (APPENDIX 2). What ( ft a?F*gF) and who (MMA ) question pictorial stimuli The a........