한국어 복수 표지 ‘-들’ 사용에 대한 언어 습득 연구 —중국인 고급 학습자의 명사 복수 표지를 중심으로—

Abstract

Soyoung Kim. 2022. The Study on the Acquisition of the Korean Plural Marker -Tul—Based on Noun Plural Marking by Chinese L2 Learners of Korean. Studies in Modern Grammar 115, 159-185. Korean plural marking on nouns exhibits less restriction in realization than the Chinese one. The Korean plural marker -tul can be attached not only to nouns denoting an inanimate object or abstract notion but also to generic or proper nouns, which its corresponding plural marker ‘们’ in Chinese cannot. The study investigates the acquisition of Korean plural marking on four types of nouns such as inanimate nouns, abstract nouns, generic nouns and proper nouns by Chinese L2 learners of Korean. By employing a multiple-choice task, thirty Chinese learners with high Korean proficiency level as well as thirty Korean adult native speakers were instructed to read a context that introduces plural entities and then choose an appropriate noun plural marking to refer to them among the three choices such as a noun without -tul, a noun with -tul and both of the forms possible. As a result, both of the participant groups had in common attaching –tul to generic nouns the most and abstract nouns the least. However, Korean adults strongly preferred to use a plural noun regardless of the noun types whereas Chinese learners demonstrated different plural marking depending on them. The findings are discussed in terms of L1 transfer and methodological issues.