Abstract

 The researches of recursion could be traced back to the last century but could hardly be seen in the field of language learning. Recursion means to use the same grammatical rule in a single structure, which is aimed to make individuals be able to express more complex thoughts. Nominal structure is an initial part of recursion . However, in the existing literature, there is little research which is related to the acquisition of recursion in children. Some overseas researchers focused on the L1 acquisition of nominal recursion in monolingual English-speaking children . They aimed at testing children’ s ability to produce recursive nominal phrases. But at the present stage, researches on Chinese children’s L1 acquisition of nominal possessive structure recursion seem to be ignored. 

   This thesis focuses on Chinese children’s ability to output nominal possessive structure recursion of L1 and the researcher uses the method of eliciting and producing children’s recursive structure, that is, children are given two matters with a little difference. Under the situation of being told how to describe one of them, they are induced to produce the other. The purpose is to find out what are the features of Chinese children’s L1 acquisition of nominal possessive structure recursion in different range of age, and then to find out the exact age when Chinese children could comprehend nominal possessive recursive utterance completely and produce it. The result of this study would function as a reference for teaching. 

   Key words: nominal possessive structure recursion, L1 acquisition , Chinese children 

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

Chapter One Introduction-１

1.1 Background of the Study-１

1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study-１

1.3 Organization of The Thesis-２

Chapter Two Literature Review-３

2.1 Definitions of Key Terms-３

2.1.1 Recursion-３

2.1.2 Nominal possessive structure recursion-４

2.2 Key Theories of Support (Chomsky’s Innateness Hypothesis)-５

2.2.1 Universal Grammar(UG) theory and Language Acquisition Device(LAD) theory-５

2.2.2 Uniform Acquisition Theory-６

2.3 Related studies-６

2.3.1 Studies on Chinese Children’s Acquisition of Recursion-６

2.3.2 Studies on English Children’s Acquisition of Nominal Recursion--- Elmo’s sister’s ball-８

Chapter Three Research Methodology-９

3.1 The Setting-９

3.2 The Participants-１１

3.3 Data Collection-１１

3.4 Data Analysis-１３

Chapter Four Results and Discussion-１５

4.1 Exact Age to Start to Master Nominal Possessive Structure Recursion-１５

4.2 Features in Different Range of Age-１５

4.2.1 Children of Group One-１６

4.2.2 Children of Group Two and Three-１６

4.2.3 Children of Group Four-１７

Chapter Five Conclusion-１８

5.1 Major Findings-１８

5.2 Study Implications-１８

5.3 Limitations-１９

References-２０

Appendix: A Small Test of Nominal Possessive Structure Recursion-２１

文献综述报告-２６