{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/115700"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/115700","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"L1 and L2 processing of Chinese VO compounds","abstract":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2024-05-01","abstract_html":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2024-05-01","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Maeng, Junghwan"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"East Asian Languages and Cultures","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Packard, Jerome","Christianson, Kiel","Ionin, Tania","Shih, Chilin"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-05","date_published":"2022-05","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:55Z","subjects":["Chinese morphology","second language acquisition","psycholinguistics","Chinese separable words"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["© 2022 Junghwan Maeng"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115700","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Packard, Jerome","Christianson, Kiel","Ionin, Tania","Shih, Chilin"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Maeng, Junghwan"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2022-05","2022-04-18"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["East Asian Languages and Cultures"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Chinese morphology","second language acquisition","psycholinguistics","Chinese separable words"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["© 2022 Junghwan Maeng"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115700"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2024-05-01","The student, Junghwan Maeng, accepted the attached license on 2022-04-15 at 22:07.","The student, Junghwan Maeng, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2022-04-15 at 22:52.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2022-04-18 at 16:04.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17660 on 2022-11-11 at 12:46:58","While words are considered as the minimal unanalyzable units in syntax, separable VO compounds appear to be manipulated via phrase-level rules with each constituent behaving as a syntactic free word. The dual status of VO compounds has been long been debated among linguists, and varying perspectives have been offered to define their representations in the lexicon. Also, in second language acquisition of Chinese, VO compounds have been pointed out as one of the most challenging features for learners because their understanding of VO compounds may be biased towards lexical representations. Given the unique position of VO compounds in Chinese linguistics and second language acquisition of Chinese, the present study examined the L1 and L2 processing of VO compounds using psycholinguistic methods to address the following research questions: 1. Are VO compounds accessed as phrases or words by L1 and L2 speakers? 2. Can L1 and L2 speakers process the syntactic structure of VO compounds efficiently during online processing? Regarding the first research question on the lexical access of VO compounds, Experiments 1 and 2 in the present study used a lexical decision task and a self-paced reading task respectively and proved that VO compounds exist as words in the L1 mental lexicon. Furthermore, it was found that learners rely on the morpheme-level information and distinguish VO and VV compounds based on the form class of morphological components. With respect to the second research question on the syntactic processing of VO compounds, Experiment 3 using a self-paced reading confirms that learners tend to rely heavily on the lexical storage as they were found to favor the ungrammatical suffixation of VO compounds (VO+aspect) over the grammatical suffixation (V+Aspect+O). Furthermore, learners’ over-acceptance of the ungrammatical suffixation appears to fossilize as their ability to process the syntactic reanalysis of VO compounds remains unchanged even with increase in proficiency level. Experiment 4 examined the structural processing of VO compounds that are presented in non-separated forms using a visual priming lexical decision task. In Experiment 4, both L1 and L2 speakers were found insensitive to the syntactic structure of non-separated VO compounds as no structural priming effect was obtained from VO phrases. Furthermore, L2 learners were found sensitive to the morphological components of Chinese compounds. The inhibitory effect of VV compound primes preceding VO compound targets suggests that learners actively employ a decomposition process and were disrupted by the mismatch of form class in the morphological components between VO and VV compounds. In summary, the present study proposes that VO compounds are stored as words in the L1 mental lexicon, and the syntactic analysis takes place as a post-hoc operation when required by a context. Also, it is suggested that L2 learners’ over-reliance on lexical storage may prevent them from processing the syntactic analysis of VO compounds in a native-like manner."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["L1 and L2 processing of Chinese VO compounds"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Packard, Jerome","Christianson, Kiel","Ionin, Tania","Shih, Chilin"],"dc:creator":["Maeng, Junghwan"],"dc:date":["2022-05","2022-04-18"],"dc:description":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2024-05-01","The student, Junghwan Maeng, accepted the attached license on 2022-04-15 at 22:07.","The student, Junghwan Maeng, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2022-04-15 at 22:52.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2022-04-18 at 16:04.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17660 on 2022-11-11 at 12:46:58","While words are considered as the minimal unanalyzable units in syntax, separable VO compounds appear to be manipulated via phrase-level rules with each constituent behaving as a syntactic free word. The dual status of VO compounds has been long been debated among linguists, and varying perspectives have been offered to define their representations in the lexicon. Also, in second language acquisition of Chinese, VO compounds have been pointed out as one of the most challenging features for learners because their understanding of VO compounds may be biased towards lexical representations. Given the unique position of VO compounds in Chinese linguistics and second language acquisition of Chinese, the present study examined the L1 and L2 processing of VO compounds using psycholinguistic methods to address the following research questions: 1. Are VO compounds accessed as phrases or words by L1 and L2 speakers? 2. Can L1 and L2 speakers process the syntactic structure of VO compounds efficiently during online processing? Regarding the first research question on the lexical access of VO compounds, Experiments 1 and 2 in the present study used a lexical decision task and a self-paced reading task respectively and proved that VO compounds exist as words in the L1 mental lexicon. Furthermore, it was found that learners rely on the morpheme-level information and distinguish VO and VV compounds based on the form class of morphological components. With respect to the second research question on the syntactic processing of VO compounds, Experiment 3 using a self-paced reading confirms that learners tend to rely heavily on the lexical storage as they were found to favor the ungrammatical suffixation of VO compounds (VO+aspect) over the grammatical suffixation (V+Aspect+O). Furthermore, learners’ over-acceptance of the ungrammatical suffixation appears to fossilize as their ability to process the syntactic reanalysis of VO compounds remains unchanged even with increase in proficiency level. Experiment 4 examined the structural processing of VO compounds that are presented in non-separated forms using a visual priming lexical decision task. In Experiment 4, both L1 and L2 speakers were found insensitive to the syntactic structure of non-separated VO compounds as no structural priming effect was obtained from VO phrases. Furthermore, L2 learners were found sensitive to the morphological components of Chinese compounds. The inhibitory effect of VV compound primes preceding VO compound targets suggests that learners actively employ a decomposition process and were disrupted by the mismatch of form class in the morphological components between VO and VV compounds. In summary, the present study proposes that VO compounds are stored as words in the L1 mental lexicon, and the syntactic analysis takes place as a post-hoc operation when required by a context. Also, it is suggested that L2 learners’ over-reliance on lexical storage may prevent them from processing the syntactic analysis of VO compounds in a native-like manner."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115700"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["© 2022 Junghwan Maeng"],"dc:subject":["Chinese morphology","second language acquisition","psycholinguistics","Chinese separable words"],"dc:title":["L1 and L2 processing of Chinese VO compounds"],"dc:type":["text","Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["East Asian Languages and Cultures"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:55Z"}