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Every language have some modal expression what express the possibility and necessity, for example there are modal verbs and modal adverbs in English, and modal verbs, modal adverbs and possible complement for Mandarin Chinese. However in Mandarin Chinese, some modal expressions have similar semantic functions, as ¡§¯à(neng)¡¨, ¡§·|(hui)¡¨, ¡§¥i¥H(keyi)¡¨and possible complement, it could cause confusions to the learners. Furthermore, all of these modal expressions could translated as ¡§할 수 있다¡]hal su itda¡^¡¨ in Korean, so Korean learner would feel that is very difficult. Therefore, this study will contrast the modal expressions of Mandarin Chinese and Korean, and contrast novel¡m¶É«°¤§ÅÊ(Love of the beautiful women)¡nin Mandarin Chinese and Korean, try to explain the problems what the Korean learners could have when they acquire the modal expressions in Mandarin Chinese. Palmer¡]1986¡^classify the modality as epistemic modality, deontic modality and dynamic modality. And he classify the deontic modality as permission, obligation and promise, classify the dynamic modality as volition and ability. Hofmann(1993) classify the dynamic modality as ability and capability, and Porter(2009) classify as ability and opportunity. Present paper would accept the classification of Palmer mainly and refer to the classification of Hofmann and Portner, classify the modality as epistemic modality, deontic modality and dynamic modality, the deontic modality include obligation and permission, and the dynamic modality include volition, ability, capability and opportunity. The result of the study, the counterparts of modal expressions in Mandarin Chinese and Korean is very complicated. The ¡§¯à(neng)¡¨, ¡§·|(hui)¡¨, ¡§¥i¥H(keyi)¡¨and possible complement are equivalent to ¡§¡]으¡^ㄹ 수 있다¡]eul su itda¡^¡¨ altogether, but only negation of ¡§¯à(neng)¡¨, ¡§¥i¥H(keyi)¡¨and possible complement are equivalent to the negation of ¡§¡]으¡^ㄹ 수 있다¡]eul su itda¡^¡¨ , it will cause the difficulty of Korean learners.

Heritage speakers of Chinese languages in Asia: Sociocultural factors that affect their proficiency in Mandarin Chinese discusses several of the reasons that some Asian ethnic Chinese are more proficient at Mandarin Chinese than others. This research was conducted in Taiwan between 2009 and 2011. Research subjects were of Chinese ethnicity, citizens of Asian nations and regions other than the People’s Republic of China or the Republic of China ( Taiwan ), and present in Taiwan as students of Mandarin Chinese and/or various academic subjects. The research question consisted of an overarching question and three sub-questions; the overarching question was: What is the experience of heritage speakers of Chinese languages in Asian countries where Mandarin is not the dominant language?, and the three sub-questions were: 1.) What sociocultural factors result in heritage speakers’ Mandarin learning/development being enhanced?; 2.) What sociocultural factors result in heritage speakers’ Mandarin learning/development being suppressed/not enhanced?; and 3.) Why are ethnic Chinese from non-Chinese nations studying Mandarin in Taiwan ? The researcher also unearthed what is possibly a new paradigm for a “heritage speaker of Mandarin Chinese” in an Asian context. Heritage Mandarin speakers in an Asian context may be a hybrid construct: speakers of a Chinese language with solid skills in the home language, a high degree of contact with Mandarin Chinese in the environment, and the capacity to rapidly acquire Mandarin and enhance one’s skills readily via the advantage of scaffolding at a higher starting point due to already being versed in one or more Chinese language. Some of the salient sociocultural factors which were shown to enhance the Mandarin skills of this population were: similarity of home’s or region’s Chinese language to Mandarin, exposure to Mandarin in the environment, policies favorable to or accepting of this language group and culture, and Mandarin as a medium of classroom instruction. Reasons for studying in Taiwan included its low costs and authentic Chinese environment. It is hoped that this study will inform efforts in the teaching of Mandarin to heritage speakers. It is further hoped that stakeholders who deal with heritage speaker issues consider not only the sociocultural factors explored in this research, but also the importance of considering the effects of language contact between heritage languages and similar languages and dialects. / text

This thesis examines some selective cases of morphophonemic alternation in Mandarin Chinese. It presents analyses of the function -of the retroflex suffix -r and describes several conditions for tone sandhi. The suffix -r functions not simply as a noun formative. Some of the suffixed forms have consistently different meanings from the roots on which they are based. The suffix -r also plays a role in poetry as a time-filler to make each line of a poem fulfill the requirements of the strict number of characters and rhyme. This thesis also explains what causes the tone pattern of words such as xiaojie and jiejie to be pronounced differently. These tonal changes are found to be related to the way in which a word is formed. Compounding, reduplication and suffixation differ with respect to how they effect tone sandhi. Tone alternations in actual speech are explored to determine how tone sandhi produces each pronunciation and how grammatical structure and other factors are relevant.

Bilinguals have the sole option of conversing in one language in spite of knowing two languages. The question of how bilinguals alternate between their two languages, activating and deactivating one language, is not well understood. In the current study, we investigated the development of this process by researching bilingual children's abilities to selectively integrate lexical tone based on its relevance in the language being used. In particular, the current study sought to determine the effects of global conversation-level cues versus local (within-word phonotactic) cues on children's tone integration in newly learned words. Words were taught to children via a conversational narrative, and word recognition was investigated using the intermodal preferential-looking paradigm. Children were tested on recognition of words with stimuli that were either matched or mismatched in tone in both English and Mandarin conversations. Results demonstrated that 3- to 4-year-olds did not adapt their interpretation of lexical tone changes to the language being spoken. In contrast, 4- to 5-year-olds were able to do so when supported by informative within-word cues. Results suggest that preschool children are capable of selectively activating a single language given word-internal cues to language.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the preliminary validity of a newly developed dynamic assessment of narrative language in Mandarin Chinese. Two studies are reported in this thesis. Study 1 included 31 second grade participants and Study 2 included 43 first grade participants. All participants were enrolled in a Chinese immersion program in an elementary school in Utah. A dynamic assessment of narrative language was administered to each participant in Mandarin Chinese. A teacher rating was also included in Study 1. Results indicated that the dynamic assessment investigated in this thesis demonstrated some similar characteristics with other valid dynamic assessments of narrative language. As hypothesized, participants in Study 1 made gains from pretest to posttest after the teaching phase. Gain score from pretest to posttest and static teacher rating did not significantly correlate with modifiability rating. Modifiability rating and posttest score were significantly correlated in both studies. There is also no significant group difference between the participants in Study 1 and Study 2 on modifiability rating. These results are promising. However, more research will need to be conducted to further examine the dynamic assessment due to the limitations of the current studies.

Cette thèse est consacrée à l’étude des syntagmes nominaux sémantiquement pluriels en chinois mandarin et aux interprétations collective et distributive qui leur sont associées. Elle offre une analyse des formes de pluralité suivantes : le syntagme coordonne par gen, les nominaux modifiés par le suffixe -men, ainsi que les sujets ou les objets des groupes verbaux modifies par quan (‘tout’-flottant). A propos du syntagme coordonne par gen, nous montrons que la conjonction gen dans le syntagme ‘A gen B’ lexicalise une contrainte de pluralité nominale par le biais de restrictions sur les conjoints. Notre argument est bâti sur trois points principaux, à savoir que la catégorie des conjoints est nécessairement [+N], que le syntagme coordonne par gen n’introduit que des individus pluriels dans le discours et que ce syntagme porte la valeur sémantique pluriel [+Pl]. Nous passons aussi en revue différents types de prédicats afin de retracer la distribution des interprétations collective et distributive des syntagmes coordonnés par gen. Ensuite, nous nous penchons sur le suffixe -men et sur l’expression formée par ce suffixe et un nom commun ou un nom propre. Notre examen couvre principalement deux questions, celle de la nature de -men et celle de la (in)définitude de l’expression suffixée par -men en mandarin. Nous soutenons que -men n’est pas un marqueur collectif mais plutôt un marqueur pluriel. Cependant, ce marqueur n’est pas obligatoire, à la différence des marqueur du pluriel tels que -s dans les langues occidentales, le mandarin étant une langue à classificateur. Quant à l’(in)définitude de l’expression suffixée par -men, nous admettons que c’est un pluriel défini, mais ceci du fait que -men ne s’attache qu’aux pronoms personnels et aux noms d’humains, noms qui occupent le hautde la hiérarchie d’animacité. Donc l’expression suffixée par -men hériterait de la définitude en partie de la nature de son domaine fortement individué. Enfin, nous nous intéressons a l’interprétation distributive des syntagmes nominaux dans la phrase ou figure l’adverbe quan (‘tout’-flottant). Nous affirmons que quan impose la lecture distributive de manière autonome et nous en proposons une analyse en tant que modificateur de prédicat d’évènement. Quan cible un nominal relie par un θ-rôle et encapsule dans ce rôle l’instruction de distribution. La distributivité renforcée par quan implique une relation distributive entre deux entités : le nominal qui est sémantiquement pluriel et l’évènement pluriel / The thesis invested the research on the semantically plural nominal phrases in Mandarin Chinese and on their collectif and distributif interpretations. It offered an analysis of the following form of pluralities : the coordinated phrase with gen, the nominals modified by the suffix -men, and the subjects or the objects of the VP modified by quan (the floating quantifier). Concerning the coordinated phrase with gen, we will show that the conjunction gen of the phrase ‘A gen B’ lexicalize the constraint of the plurality via the restrictions on the conjoint elements. Our argument is mainly based on three points : 1) the category of the conjuncts is necessarily [+N] ; 2) coordinated phrases with gen introduce only the plural individuals in the discourse and 3) this nominal phrase characterizes the semantic plural value [+Pl]. We will also examine the different types of predicates in order to retrace thedistribution of collective and distributive interpretations of the coordinated phrases with gen. Then, we look into the suffix –men and the expressions formed by this suffix and a common noun or a proper noun. The investigation will mainly concern two questions : the question of the nature of –men and the question of the (in)definitude of the expressions suffixed by –men in Mandarin Chinese. We will argue that –men is not a collectif marker, but preferably a plural marker. However, different from plural markers in the western languages for exemple –s, the marker –men in Mandarin Chinese which is typically a classifer language, is not obligatory. Regarding the (in)definitude of the expressions suffixed by -men, we will admit that they are definite plurals, because of the fact that –men attaches only to only to personal pronouns and humain nouns, the nouns which occupy a high hierarchy of animacity. In consequence, the expressions suffixed by –men partly inherit the definitude of the nature of its considerably individuated domain. Finally, we are interested in the distributive interpretation of the nominal phrases in the sentences wherethe adverbial quan (the floating quantifier) appeares. We will claim that quan imposes the distributive reading in an autonomous manner and we will put forward an analysis of adverbial quan as a modifier of event predicate. Quan targets nominals linked by θ-roles and encapsulate in this role the instruction of distribution. The distributivity reinforced by quan involves a distributive relation between two entities : the nominal which is semantically plural and the plural event.

This study examined the Voice onset time (VOT) of Mandarin and English initial position stops as produced by native American-English speaking learners of Mandarin and also native speakers. The study primarily investigated the role of second language experience on native-like production of L2 VOT for the Mandarin stops /p, t, k, ph, th, kh/ and additionally examined any evidence for phonetic drift in the L1 English VOT as a result of L2 Mandarin learning and acquisition. To achieve this, the production of L2 Mandarin and L1 English by native AmericanEnglish speaking learners of Mandarin of two different levels of experience (beginner and advanced learners) were compared to that of monolingual Native speakers of Mandarin andEnglish. In total, thirty native American-English speaking learners of Mandarin, eight monolingual native Mandarin speakers, and eight monolingual American-English speakers participated in the study. Data was elicited via participants reading aloud prepared lists of Mandarin and/or English words. Statistical testing indicates that as a group beginner learners produced significantly different mean VOT than native Mandarin speakers for all six stops. In contrast, the advanced learner group's mean VOT only significantly differed with native speakers for /t/, indicating native-like VOT for the remaining five stops. Individual analysis of VOT data for L2 Mandarin long-lag stops /ph, th, kh/ showed that advanced (7 of 15) and even some beginner (3 of 15) participants were capable of producing native-like VOT for the whole set of long-lag stops and also that a number of participants were able to produce native-like VOT for some but not all of the long-lag stops. Logistic regression analysis examining the effect and influence of L2 experience and demographic related variables indicates only gender and Mandarin-speaking church missionary service to have a significant effect on native-like VOT probability with females and returned missionaries significantly more likely to achieve native-like VOT. Analysis of learner participants' L1 English VOT showed that for all three of the English long-lag stops (/p, t, k/), advanced learners of Mandarin produced significantly longer VOT than monolingual English speakers, indicating L1 phonetic drift in the form of assimilation towards the longer length of Mandarin long-lag stops. Significant difference was only found between beginner learner English VOT and monolingual VOT for /p/, suggesting instances of significant L1 drift increase when more L2 experience has been gained.