Date:
May 2001
Page No.:
90
Writer(s):
Lynne Hansen, Yung-Lin Chen, Brigham Young University, Hawaii
This study compares second language (12) acquisition and attrition sequences
of the syntax and semantics of numeral classifier systems in light of
considerations of markedness, frequency, and the regression hypothesis. In
classifier data elicited from English-speaking adult learners and attriters of two
East Asia languages, Japanese and Chinese, we find in the attrition of both
languages, in both syntax and semantics, a regression of the acquisition
sequence. An implicational semantic scale, the Numeral Classifer Accessibility
Hierarchy, cOinciding closely with the relative frequencies of the classifiers in
input, appears to provide a path of least resistance for the learning and the loss
of the semantic systems.
PDF:
