The development of using function word “zài” to learn novel verbs in young Mandarin speakers

The present research examined whether Mandarin-speaking children could use function words to learn novel verbs and recognize verbs in a new sentential context. In Experiment 1, 3- to 6-year-old children were taught two novel verbs supported by the verb marker “zài.” The 5- and 6-year-old children successfully used the function word “zài” to learn novel verbs, but the 3- and 4-year-olds failed to interpret the novel words as verbs. In Experiment 2 and 3, the children had to recognize the newly learned verbs in new sentences containing a different function word (a different verb-biased marker “le” or a non-verb-biased marker “shì”). Results showed that the 5-year-old children could recognize the newly learned verbs with another verb-biased marker “le,” but only the 6-year-old children could recognize the newly learned verbs with the non-verb-biased marker “shì.” The study verified that Mandarin-speaking children could use the function word “zài” to determine a novel word as a verb and revealed that such an ability appeared between the ages of 4 and 5 years. In addition, the ability to extend a newly learned verb across different morphosyntactic markers is developed in 5- to 6-year-olds.