Verb Typology and Chinese Speakerʼs Acquisition of Japanese Aspect

Focusing on Differences in Construal and Input

Abstract

　The grammatical form -te iru to describe a resultative meaning is considered one of the most difficult for Japanese language learners to acquire. At the same time, there are studies which suggest that the level of difficulty in understanding the -te iru form depends on the corresponding expression in the learnerʼs native language. In this study, we divided the Japanese verbs with -te iru forms that express a resultative meaning into four types—“wallet falls,” “car stops,” “turn the switch on,” and “chair breaks”—from a Japanese-Chinese contrastive perspective. Subsequently, we carried out a fill-in-the-blank picture description task to evaluate the understanding of -te iru as a resultative meaning in each category on 49 native Chinese speakers who were advanced Japanese learners. We observed differences in the degree of difficulty between the types. The forms -ta and aru/iru were found to contrast with -te iru, but the constrasting nuances differed between types. The differences could be explained by the differences in construal between Chinese and Japanese languages and ambiguous input which learners receive. The study is significant as it clarified that the difference in the degree of difficulty in grasping the -te iru form depends on the verb category, and additionally provided an explanation in terms of the influence of the native language and input.