Navigating Mandarin Subtleties: Korean Speakers' Acquisition of Mandarin Negative wh-Pronoun Construction

The current study investigates the comprehension of Mandarin Chinese's mei…shenme (not-what) construction among Korean-speaking learners, particularly their acquisition of the 'none' and 'insignificance' readings of this negative wh-pronoun construction. The 'insignificance' reading in Mandarin, which is analogous to the English word "hardly", represents a subtle and frequently used aspect of the language. However, this nuance is absent in Korean, which only conveys the 'none' reading and communicates a complete negation of the sentence. The 'insignificant' reading involves syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic interplay, posing a potential challenge for L2 (second language) learners. Adopting the same truth value judgment task from the L1 (first language) acquisition study by Huang and Crain (Lang Acquis 21(4):339-364, 2014), we found that Korean-speaking learners of Mandarin follow a developmental trajectory similar to L1 learners, acquiring the 'none' reading before the 'insignificance' reading. The observed acquisition of the 'insignificance' reading by advanced learners prompts a careful reconsideration of the Interface Hypothesis, which posits that linguistic properties involving external interface such as pragmatics are particular challenging for L2 acquisition. Overall, the study suggests that inherent linguistic structures are instrumental in initial learning stages, but the extent of exposure to naturalistic language use is also indispensable for the mastery of language subtleties.