詞序效應對兒童中文關係子句理解的影響

Word Order Effect in Children’s Garden Path of Relative Clauses

本研究探討是否習得國語為母語的兒童運用「名詞─動詞─名詞」的詞序策略來理解OO 類的關係子句。真假值判斷實驗的結果顯示年齡較大的兒童（平均5 歲11 個月）理解測驗句之正確率為93%，而年齡較小的兒童（平均4 歲9 個月）有46%會誤將關係子句的主語理解為主要動詞的賓語，且兩組兒童之間的差異顯著(t(29) = 2.685, p < 0.02)。由於習得國語為母語的兒童3、4 歲時已能正確使用關係子句（Su 2004），本研究中年齡較小之兒童的理解錯誤應視為反映出兒童在理解上需要重新分析句子結構時的困難，與成人在語句理解的電腦連線實驗中的表現模式類似。

This study examines whether Chinese-speaking children use the NVN word order strategy to comprehend OO relative clauses. The results of a truth value judgment test showed that children in the older group (mean age 5;11) interpreted the test sentences correctly 93% of the time, but children in the younger group (mean age 4;9) wrongly considered the subject NP of the relative clause as the object of the main verb 46% of the time. The difference between the two age groups was significant (t(29) = 2.685, p < 0.02). Since Chinese-speaking children by 3 to 4 years old can produce relative clauses accurately (Su 2004), the comprehension errors from the younger children here are taken to reflect the difficulty of reanalyzing the sentences when they are led into a garden path, similar to the patterns found from adults in on-line sentence processing experiments. 本研究探討是否習得國語為母語的兒童運用「名詞─動詞─名詞」的詞序策略來理解OO 類的關係子句。真假值判斷實驗的結果顯示年齡較大的兒童（平均5 歲11 個月）理解測驗句之正確率為93%，而年齡較小的兒童（平均4 歲9 個月）有46%會誤將關係子句的主語理解為主要動詞的賓語，且兩組兒童之間的差異顯著(t(29) = 2.685, p < 0.02)。由於習得國語為母語的兒童3、4 歲時已能正確使用關係子句（Su 2004），本研究中年齡較小之兒童的理解錯誤應視為反映出兒童在理解上需要重新分析句子結構時的困難，與成人在語句理解的電腦連線實驗中的表現模式類似。