Download pdf
From Monosyllabic to Disyllabic: A Study on Learners' Syllable Structure Preferences in Same-Morpheme Noun Acquisition by Indo-European Chinese Language Learners
- 1 Zhejiang University of Science & Technology, Zhejiang, China
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
This research investigates the monosyllabic and disyllabic syllable patterns that Indo-European Chinese language learners prefer for same-morpheme nouns. In a qualitative and quantitative study that used a mix of methods, information was collected from participants at beginner, intermediate and high-level proficiency levels to test for syllable structure preferences. Preferences were measured on tasks like the Noun Repetition Task and the Structure Selection Task, and examined for correlations with proficiency. The findings suggest that beginners learn more strongly disyllabic structures, possibly due to being exposed to polysyllabic structures in their own native tongues, whereas intermediate learners gradually move towards monosyllabic forms. Advanced learners favour monosyllabic forms with greater phonological flexibility. Statistical tests such as correlation and Chi-square test showed these patterns to be statistically significant. These results provide interesting data on phonological acquisition in second-language acquisition, which have implications for how language teachers can deliver instruction that accommodates learners’ proficiency-based syllable-construction preferences.
Keywords
syllable structure, monosyllabic, disyllabic, same-morpheme nouns, Chinese language learning
[1]. Taft, M. (2024). The importance of sublexical structure in the orthographic representation of monosyllabic words. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 1-9.
[2]. Green, V., & Birdsong, D. (2024). Binomials in English and French: Ablaut, rhyme and syllable structure. Linguistics, 0.
[3]. Garrido-Pozú, J. J. (2023). L2 speech segmentation for word recognition: The role of lexical stress and syllable structure. In R. Skarnitzl & J. Volín (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Prague: Guarant International.
[4]. Bright-Ajoku, C. A., & Ezenwafor-Afuecheta, C. I. (2023). Syllable structure and the association of tones in Koring. Nigerian Journal of African Studies (NJAS), 5(1).
[5]. Preciado Baron, A. K., et al. (2024). The syllable as a fundamental sub-lexical unit in phonological paraphasias: Evidence from Spanish-speaking aphasic patients. Aphasiology, 38(3), 389-411.
[6]. Sebina, B., & Otlogetswe, T. J. (2023). Syllable structure in Setswana personal names. Вопросы ономастики, 20(2), 174.
[7]. Kogan, N., & Saiegh-Haddad, E. (2023). The internal structure of the syllable in Russian and in Hebrew: Evidence from monolingual kindergarteners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 44(1), 101-129.
[8]. Alrasheedi, E. S. (2023). The effect of prefixation on syllable structure in Najdi Arabic. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 13(10), 2557-2564.
[9]. Wong, E. C. H., Wong, M. N., & Velleman, S. L. (2024). Tone sequencing performance in children with childhood apraxia of speech: Acoustic analyses. In Book of Abstracts of the International Child Phonology Conference (ICPC).
[10]. Raza, M. H., & Suhery, D. (n.d.). A phonological study of syllable structure and economy in Bahasa Indonesia: An OT account. Osmania Papers in Linguistics, 44(45), 1.
[11]. Hassani, H., et al. (2024). Development of Persian monosyllabic and disyllabic words for auditory test of adults and evaluation of their face validity using psychometric function. Auditory and Vestibular Research, 33(3), 202-207.
[12]. Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2023). Spelling-to-sound translation for English disyllables: Use of long and short vowels before single medial consonants. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.
Cite this article
Zhang,Y. (2024). From Monosyllabic to Disyllabic: A Study on Learners' Syllable Structure Preferences in Same-Morpheme Noun Acquisition by Indo-European Chinese Language Learners. Advances in Humanities Research,10,14-18.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer/Publisher's Note
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
About volume
Volume title:
© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who
publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this
series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published
version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial
publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and
during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See
Open access policy for details).