同音詞素在詞彙分類的作用

Abstract

中文有兩大特性，第一，物體名稱通常為雙音節複合詞 (disyllabic compounds) ，第二，同音詞比例很高。屬於同一個類別 (category) 的物體，通常其名稱的第二個音節相同，因此，中文的同音詞素 (homophone) 在這種情況下對兒童物體分類可能具有正面的影響，即同音會促進兒童抽取出物體相似的特性或是功能上的相似性。中文另一項特點為同音詞是一個常見現象，不同種類的物體可能在名稱上會包含相同或相似的聲音，這個特性使兒童在學習時可能會把不同種類的東西誤認為同一類。從這兩個特性來看，中文的同音詞在詞彙學習上有優點也有缺點。本研究以兩個實驗來探討同音詞素對於兒童的詞彙分類究竟會不會產生影響。九十六位學齡前的幼童參與本研究，平均年齡分別為四歲及六歲。受試者必須判斷詞組內的詞是否屬於同一類。在第一個實驗中，物體名稱及類別名稱皆為真詞，受試者可以根據之前的經驗或是實驗時提供的圖片作為判斷依據。而在第二個實驗中，類別名稱皆為新詞 (novel words)，受試者必須根據實驗者所提供的故事內容來判斷哪些物體屬於同一類。實驗材料可分為三種，第一種是類別不同語音也不同的詞組 (non-member with different form)，第二種是類別不同語音相同 (non-member with same form)，第三種是類別相同但語音不同的詞組 (member with different form)。結果發現，語音對於幼童詞彙分類有很大的影響。學齡前幼童（尤其是四歲組的幼童）確實傾向將名稱發音相似的物體當成同一類。另一方面，當兒童在學習新的類別，而此類別內部成員很少且名稱分歧時，孩童即減少使用語音作為分類的依據。此外，隨著年齡及經驗的增加，兒童會逐漸使用語義而非語音來做為詞彙分類的準則。

In Mandarin, names of objects are usually disyllabic compounds. Items belonging to a category often share a final syllable that is the same as the name of the category, which often serves as the head of a compound. Since words ending with the same syllable are likely to belong to the same category, one strategy that can be used in lexical organization is judgment by the phonological forms of words. Nevertheless, another feature of Mandarin is the frequency of homophones. Words belonging to different categories often end with identical syllables. Therefore, children may mistake items of different categories as belonging to the same one. Given that there are both advantages and disadvantages in employing homophones in categorization, the present study is designed to examine whether homophonic heads of compounds influence children’s lexical organization when they are required to group items according to their meanings or perceptual features. Ninety-six Mandarin-speaking four- and six-year-old preschoolers participated in this study. With pictures provided, the participants were asked to judge whether certain pairs of objects belonged to the same category. There are three types of stimuli in this study, the NMDF (non-member with different final syllable), NMSF (non-member with same syllable), and MBDF (member with different syllable) types. In all three types of materials, the first item in a pair is a member of a category and shares the final syllable with the name of that category. However, the items presented as the second of the pairs in each of the three types are different. In the NMDF type of stimuli, the second item is a non-member of the category and its final syllable is different from that of the first item. The second item of a pair in the NMSF type of material is a non-member sharing the same final syllable with the first item. As to the MBDF type, the second item belongs to the same category as the first one but contains a different final syllable. The results showed that in addition to semantic knowledge, phonological form played an important role in children’s categorization. Homophonic morphemes were strong cues that lured children, especially the younger ones, to take items ending with the same syllable as belonging to the same category, even though visual cues (pictures) were provided. With increase of age and experience, children may find this phonology-driven strategy not always useful. They would gradually apply another more reliable strategy, the semantic one, in their judgment of category members.