Ph. D. Thesis
A Study on the KSL Learners’ Use of Korean
Past Tense Marker ‘-었/əss/-’
Gi-nam Jang
Department of Korean Language Education as a Second Language
Graduate School
Yeungnam University
(Supervised by Dong-ju ...
Ph. D. Thesis
A Study on the KSL Learners’ Use of Korean
Past Tense Marker ‘-었/əss/-’
Gi-nam Jang
Department of Korean Language Education as a Second Language
Graduate School
Yeungnam University
(Supervised by Dong-ju Choi)
Abstract
The goal of this is to examine how learners of KSL (Korean as a Second Language) use the time-based expression (“Time Talk” or Tense). Most studies in the second language acquisition area have focused on how second language learners come to recognize time-based expressions (or tense). Aspect hypothesis (hereafter “AH”) is taken into consideration as a representative case in many languages to be understood as a cross linguistic phenomenon. The concept of this study is similar with AH, and focuses on the issues involved if AH is adopted by learners of KSL, and how they use time-based Korean expressions in multiple points of view.
The data of this study are obtained from articles written by KSL learners and all data were examined to assure proper application. This study also attempted to analyze how the examined cases were differently adopted according to learners’ levels, appearance of temporal adverbial, meaning or characteristics of predicate, and syntax structure (conclusive type and connective type).
This study can be summarized as follows;
Theoretical discussion on temporal expression was dealt with in Chapter Two. This study specifically defined the term of tense as a grammatical category that shows a temporal position of event, process, and state as a role of deictic category. Although trichotomous antagonism of past, present, and future tenses was shown in some cases, it was regarded as a dichotomous antagonism of past, and ‘non-past’ from the reference of earlier research. In addition, this study addressed the relationship between temporal adverb and tense, introducing AH, in which semantic characteristics of predicate affects learners’ acquisition in learning Aspect (past tense expression of ‘-었/əss/-’).
Chapter Three dealt with the issue of how learners of KSL use the past tense expression ‘-었/əss/-’. Accuracy, diversity of connective predicate, the different uses by the appearance of temporal adverbial, and the difference of the semantic characteristics of predicate, were addressed in this chapter. The results can be summarized as follows;
(1) According to the survey on the aspect of past tense expression
‘-었/əss/-’ in the conclusive type, the advanced-level group shows an accuracy of 89.75% while the lower-level group shows an accuracy of 30.61%. Advanced learners used ‘-었/əss/-’ 710 times with 238 different verbs (which means 2.98 times with one verb on average), while lower-level learners used ‘-었/əss/-’ 259 times with 83 different verbs (which means 3.12 times of use with one verb on average). Advanced learners used ‘-었/əss/-’ in more verbs, more times, but less times per one verb, indicating they use ‘-었/əss/-’ in a greater variety of verbs. These results can be supported by the survey showing that cumulative frequency on 80 high frequency verbs was 74.08% in advanced learners, and 98.84% in lower-level learners. The proportion of verbs used once was 55.4% in advanced learners compared to 40.9% in lower-level learners.
(2) The appearance of temporal adverbial seemed influential in accuracy of using ‘-었/əss/-’. The accuracy rate was 66.37% with temporal adverbial and 60.89% without temporal adverbial, which shows the appearance of temporal adverbial has a positive influence in the accurate use of ‘-었/əss/-’. Advanced learners and low-level learners have an accuracy gap of 2.95% and 3% respectively, while the intermediate level has an 8.63% gap. This result indicates that the appearance of temporal adverbial is not influential to the accuracy of ‘-었/əss/-’ overall, but it can be influential to intermediate learners whose language proficiency is higher than that of beginners.
(3) The semantic characteristics of verbs can affect the use of ‘-었/əss/-’. The learners of KSL showed high accuracy in using ‘-었/əss/-’ in order of accomplishment verbs, achievement verbs, activity verbs, psych verbs and state verbs. There was a 42% gap in accuracy between the advanced group and the beginner group in the case of accomplishment verbs and achievement verbs, and there was a gap of over 60% in the case of activity verbs and state verbs. This result shows that learners may acquire the proper use of ‘-었/əss/-’ later with activity verbs and state verbs. The acquisition of Korean temporal expression of ‘-었/əss/-’ has similar aspects with AH. AH predicted that the acquisition of past tense can be acquired in order of accomplishment verbs and state verbs, however the result of this study showed similar accomplishment degree with those two verbs. Additionally, the learners showed higher accuracy in using psych verbs than with state verbs.
Chapter Four dealt with the aspect of how the past tense expression of ‘-었/əss/-’ was used in a conjunctive sentence. There were three kinds of case studies because the appearance of ‘-었/əss/-’ has varied meanings. The ‘first case’, when the use of ‘-었/əss/-’ is not allowed; the ‘second case’, when there is no difference of meaning regardless of ‘-었/əss/-’; and the ‘last case’, when there is a difference of meaning with or without ‘-었/əss/-’.
(1) In the ‘first case’, there were 38 uses of ‘-었/əss/-’ even though the use of ‘-었/əss/-’ was ungrammatical. These errors were caused by the failure to acquire the restrictions on the use of ‘-었/əss/-’ in the conjunctive sentence. However, it is a different case without ‘-었/əss/-’ in the past tense. In the ‘second case’, it is difficult to notice the difference, for the case is always correct regardless of ‘-었/əss/-’. Acc
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