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The acquisition of comparative constructions by English learners of Chinese: An explorative study from a college Chinese language classroom

Abstract This explorative study reports how three types of comparative constructions in Mandarin Chinese, namely adjectival, adverbial and differential comparatives, are acquired by English learners in a college Chinese-language classroom. We start with a hypothesis that the syntactic structures of the adverbial comparative and the differential comparative will be a potential challenge to learners because these two constructions are neutralized in English comparatives. However, the results of the three in-class tests we conducted indicate that learners have more difficulty with the adjectival comparative and the adverbial comparative than the differential comparative. Based on these results, we discuss effects of L1 transfer, difficulties in acquiring structures that involve optional components, and differences between heritage and non-heritage learners in learning Chinese as a second language.