Development of the relative clause among Chinese-speaking learners of Korean

The development of relative clauses (RCs) has been examined through various theoretical frameworks, including the Markedness Hypothesis, the Surface Configuration Hypothesis, the Dependency Locality Theory, and the Absolutive Hypothesis. This study tested these hypotheses using 18 months of spontaneous spoken data collected from Chinese-speaking learners of Korean. A total of 1,178 sentences containing RCs were extracted and analyzed. The study investigated the frequency of occurrence, the timing of initial emergence, and the syntactic error rates of different RC patterns over time. Predicate types were classified based on their obligatory arguments, and the frequency and error rates for each type were examined. Additionally, the study examined the distribution of predicate types, as well as the relationship between predicate types and the grammatical roles played by head nouns within the relative clause. The results revealed that among the 1,178 RCs, subject RCs occurred most frequently, followed by direct object and oblique RCs. However, no clear differences were observed between direct object RCs and oblique RCs in terms of their timing of appearance and error rates. These results suggest that the Markedness Hypothesis, the Surface Configuration Hypothesis, and the Dependency Locality Theory may have limitations in explaining the observed patterns. Notably, the study found that RCs involving predicates with simpler argument structures were acquired more easily than those with more complex ones. Specifically, the developmental sequence of RCs followed this order: intransitive verbs without obligatory oblique arguments > transitive verbs > intransitive verbs with obligatory oblique arguments > ditransitive verbs. Overall, the results support the Absolutive Hypothesis in explaining the development of RCs across different predicate types.关系从句（relative clauses）的发展已通过多种理论框架得到研究，包括标记性假说（Markedness Hypothesis）、表层结构假说（Surface Configuration Hypothesis）、依存局部性理论（Dependency Locality Theory）以及通格假说（Absolutive Hypothesis）。本研究采集了时长18个月的自然口语语料，数据来自以汉语为母语的韩语学习者，并以此对上述假说进行了检验。研究共提取并分析了1178句包含RCs的语句，考察了不同RCs句式的出现频率、初始出现时序以及随时间变化的句法错误率。研究依据谓词的必选论元对谓词类型进行分类，并检验了各类谓词的出现频率与错误率。此外，还考察了谓词类型的分布特征，以及谓词类型与关系从句内中心名词所承担的语法角色之间的关联。研究结果显示，在1178个RCs中，主语RCs出现频率最高，其次为直接宾语RCs与旁格RCs。但在初始出现时序与错误率方面，直接宾语RCs与旁格RCs未表现出显著差异。上述结果表明，标记性假说、表层结构假说以及依存局部性理论在解释本次观测到的发展模式时或存在局限性。值得注意的是，本研究发现，论元结构更简单的谓词所引导的RCs，比论元结构更复杂的谓词所引导的RCs更易习得。具体而言，RCs的发展顺序遵循如下层级：不带必选旁格论元的不及物动词 > 及物动词 > 带必选旁格论元的不及物动词 > 双及物动词。总体而言，研究结果支持通格假说，可用于解释不同谓词类型下的RCs发展规律。