Abstract：Syntactic initiation, word order and component structure, recursion, and functional markers are the minimum syntactic knowledge for Mandarin-speaking children. Acquisition of those syntactic knowledge marks the basic formation of the “syntactic skeleton” of Mandarin-speaking children, and can outline milestones in the syntactic development of Mandarin-speaking children based on their age of acquisition. By examining the early longitudinal productive data of five Mandarin-speaking children, it was found that their syntactic acquisition process is as follows: (1) Using the acquisition of intonation words and holophrase as markers, children enter the embryonic stage of syntactic development around one year old through prosodic features (intonation); At the age 1;05 and 1;06 when children enter the stage of double-word sentences, they are sensitive to word order parameters, and various kinds of simple component structures begin to emerge. In the two to three months after the production of double-word sentences, there is an explosive growth, and functional category markers also emerge at the same time. (2) The acquisition of recursive knowledge is slightly later than that of simple component structures with fewer words. When children are around the age of 2;00, they are sensitive to object relative clauses, and subject relative clauses are produced around the age of 2;04, while relational clauses involving more complex embedded knowledge can be output until the age of 3;00 or even after. Compared with the syntactic development process of Indo-European-speaking children, the syntactic development of Mandarin-speaking children has both commonalities and differences, thus holding certain typological significance.
张云秋，彭鹏程，晁代金. 普通话儿童句法发展的里程碑[J]. 语言战略研究, 2024, 9(4): 45-58.
Zhang Yunqiu, Peng Pengcheng and Chao Daijin. Milestones in the Syntactic Development of Mandarin-Speaking Children. , 2024, 9(4): 45-58.
