The purpose of this study is to analyze the typology of relative clauses(RCs) generated by the L2 Korean learners though the process of relativization, while also examining the relationship between the language universals and the usage behaviour of RC...
The purpose of this study is to analyze the typology of relative clauses(RCs) generated by the L2 Korean learners though the process of relativization, while also examining the relationship between the language universals and the usage behaviour of RCs in the Korean language.
RCs are one common feature that appears in all languages. However, the learning of RCs happens relatively later than other parts of language acquisition, either in first language acquisition or in second language aquisition. Also the strategy of relativization shows different tendencies among different languages. The appearance of relative nouns can be seen as a characteristic of RCs. Still, it is true that there are certain languages that do not have relative nouns or other kinds of relative words. There are also differences in the positional relationship between the RCs and the decorated noun. Furthermore, the behaviour of the RCs differs in accordance with the word orders of the languages, and sometimes the behaviour even differs between languages with the same word orders.
In this study, we examined the extent of the markedness via Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy(NPAH) developed by Keenan and Comrie (1977), and compared it with the relative constructions generated by the learners. As a result, we were able to identify the preferred relative constructions by the learners and the kind of relative constructions that the learners do not prefer to use. We also examined whether the outstanding characteristics among Korean children shown in the process of the acquisition of RCs also appear in the usage environment of RCs by the Korean language learners. This examination was conducted to see the relationship with the first language acquisition.
For the purpose of this study, 1800 relative sentences created by the learners of Korean language speaking English, French, Chinese, and Japanese were put to analysis. Also, we have set five hypotheses related to the typology, universals and acquisition of RCs. The hypotheses based on the typology and universals were established in order to examine the marked position of NPAH, preferences of relativization, and the relationship between the extent of markedness and appearances of errors. The hypothesis on the acquisition of RCs was set to see whether the patterns discovered in the acquisition of RCs were also present in the RCs usage environment of the learners. The results on the said examinations are as follows:
First, the markedness of NPAH and the appearances of errors in the sentences generated by the process of relativization turned out to have no particular correlation. The extent of markedness with NPAH appeared to be deeply related to the choice of relativization strategy before the relativization took place.
Second, the learners of Korean language tend to avoid the relativization of the genitives in a marked position in relationship with the NPAH. Instead, they showed a tendency of trying relativization in a more accessible, more unmarked position. Where the relativization of the genitives did happen, the accuracy was relatively lower compared to the relitivization at an unmarked position.
Third, for the learners who are learning Korean as a second language, the same functional preference toward RCs with the acquisition of RCs by Korean children appeared. Still, the preference was lower in case of adverb-adverb relative construction. Also, the relative constructions with the same function were not generated with a greater accuracy compared to the relative constructions with different functions. The reason could be that most of the errors made by the learners in RCs were attributable to the misuses of Korean attribute forms, which in turn function as the relative marker in Korean RCs. Therefore, the frequency of the errors was not determined by the function of the head noun within the main clause, nor inside the RCs.
Fourth, while we anticipated that the subject-subject relative construction will be the type of the highest preference by the learners, the analysis indicated that the highest preference was directed to object-subject relative construction, followed by subject-subject and object-object relative constructions.
Fifth, the characteristics of the Korean children appeared in their acquisition of the RCs were also found in the same usage environment by the learners of Korean language. That is, they tried to put the RCs at the beginning of the sentence, and, for this purpose, they sometimes omitted the subject or changed the word order of the sentences.
As we have seen so far, the L2 learners of Korean languages showed the following characteristics in the process of relativization.
First, the learners tended to connect two sentences with a conjunction, or a coordination, or even tried to make complemented sentences when faced with the difficulties in producing sentences by relativizations.
Second, the learners appeared to prefer simpler structures for their RCs. They were trying to minimize the numbers of the morphemes within the RCs, and preferred adjectives that decorates the head noun as the declinable words for their RCs.
In this study, we examined the preferred type of relative constructions by the learners with the sentences by relativization generated by the learners. As a result, we discovered that the preferred type of relative construction by the learners was the object-subject relative construction. Also, of the RCs with the same functions, the subject-subject and object-object relative constructions were also among the preferred relative constructions by the learners. The appearance of errors in GEN, which is the marked position of NPAH, appeared higher than in the relativization structures on a less marked position. However, the extent of the markedness and the relativization in the marked position of NPAH did not show any significant correlation. It was later discovered that this was due to the avoidance by the learners prior to the execution of relativization processes. Most of the errors appeared in the sentenced by relativization generated by the learners stemmed from the misuses of Korean attribute forms in most cases, and a higher rate of errors also appeared in sentences by relativization where the position of NPAH was unmarked. We found out that this was because of the failure in choosing appropriate Korean attribute forms, which plays a role of the relative marker within a relative clause, in consideration of the structure of the declinable words, phonic characteristics of the preceding syllables, tense, and shapes, and not because of the difficulties in the relativization itself.
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