Pre-final endings of Korean indicate tense, aspect, and modality and several pre-final endings of Korean are combined side-by-side. Such pre-final endings which have complex meanings and forms are not easy to be acquired especially for learners whose ... Pre-final endings of Korean indicate tense, aspect, and modality and several pre-final endings of Korean are combined side-by-side. Such pre-final endings which have complex meanings and forms are not easy to be acquired especially for learners whose mother tongue is Chinese, which is isolating language . Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to examine Chinese learners’ sequence and pattern of acquisition of pre-final endings’ tense, aspect, modality meaning and sequence and pattern of acquisition of pre-final endings’ combined structures. In chapter Ⅰ of this study, research questions are established by identifying the need and purpose of the study and reviewing the prior studies. First research question is about acquisition of the meaning of tense, aspect, and modality of pre-final endings and the meaning of epistemic modality and deontic modality. Second research question is about acquisition of structure in which two or three pre-final endings are combined. Additionally, both research questions aimed to explore whether a factor of proficiency level has an effect. In chapter II, first, the concept and system of tense, aspect, and modality are described. Then, theories and hypotheses related to the acquisition of tense, aspect, and modality were reviewed. In addition, it explored how tense, aspect, and modality are expressed by focusing on Korean pre-final endings. After discussing the order, principle, and constraints of combination of tense, aspect, modality pre-final endings, it examined the meaning of pre-final endings’ combined structures. Chapter III described the study method. In this study, a grammatical judgment task was developed. 60 Chinese learners of Korean and 30 Korean native speakers were sampled. Through a proficiency test, Chinese learners of Korean were divided into 30 in the upper group and 30 in the lower group. By quantifying their grammaticality test results, implicational table was created and two-way analysis of variance and post-comparison analysis were conducted. Chapter IV analyzed the results of the study. First, leaners acquired in order of meaning of tense, aspect, and modality of ‘-eoss-’ and had a difference according to proficiency level. Second, learners acquired in order of deontic modality of ‘-gess-’, epistemic modality of ‘-gess-’, epistemic modality of ‘-deo-’, and epistemic modality of ‘-eoss-’ and did not have a difference according to proficiency level. Third, learners first acquired ‘-eosseoss-’, and ‘-eossdeo-’ of which two adjacent pre-final endings have similar meaning. ‘-eossgess-’, and ‘-gessdeo-’ of which meaning is in conflict were later acquired and there was no difference according to the proficiency level at the time. Fourth, learners first acquired ‘-eosseossgess-’ which is not combined with ‘-deo–’ regardless of whether the meaning of adjacent three pre-final endings is similar or collides. ‘-eosseossdeo-’, and ‘-eossgessdeo-’ which is combined with ‘-deo-’ were acquired later. At this time, there was no difference according to the proficiency level. Moreover, Chinese learners acquired the meaning of past tense while they did not acquire pre-final endings’ combined structures. This implies that if the grammatical category of target language that is not in the native language of a learner is language universal, acquisition is possible whereas if the grammatical category of target language is language specific, acquisition is difficult. Furthermore, learners did not acquire epistemic modality well. Particularly, as they did not acquire ‘-deo-’, they did not understand the meaning when ‘-deo-' was used alone, although they grasped the meaning through other pre-final endings in a coupled structure containing ‘-deo-'. Chapter V summarized the results of the study and described educational implications and the significance of the study. The educational implications of this study are as follows. First, if the form and the semantic function have a one-to-many relationship, it is effective to additionally explain the target grammar when other meanings appear after teaching the core meaning first. Second, for epistemic modality, teachers should explain the meaning explicitly, present enough examples and lead learners to use. Third, for the combined structure of grammatical morpheme, teachers should provide enough input and learners should be taught such that they can reach the stage of production from the stage of understanding. This study has the following significance. First, it discussed tense, aspect, and modality together. Second, it defined the meaning of pre-final endings’ combined structures in depth. Third, by targeting the leaners whose mother tongue is Chinese which is different from Korean based on language typology, it examined the possibility of acquisition of second language in accordance with mother tongue. Fourth, this study looked at both static and dynamic aspects of acquisition. In future, further research, which observes various aspects of learners' understanding and production through various tasks by targeting learners of other languages, will hopefully follow.
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