This study aims to examine how Chinese learners develop in their use and misuse of English modal verbs from Grade 7 to 9. Specifically, it examines form-function connections and explores the factors behind learners' development. The main focus is on the modal verbs "can," "could," "will," "would,"…

One hundred twenty-one third-grade Chinese children were assessed with a new morphological awareness task involving open-ended lexical compounding, in addition to completing other measures. With children's age, nonverbal intelligence, phonological awareness, and previously established measures of morphological awareness statistically controlled,…

Verbs are harder to learn than nouns in English and in many other languages, but are relatively easy to learn in Chinese. This paper evaluates one potential explanation for these findings by examining the construct of imageability, or the ability of a word to produce a mental image. Chinese adults rated the imageability of Chinese words from the…

The advantages and disadvantages of wider or narrower definitions of "pidginization" and "pidgin" are reviewed to determine the differences between pidgins and naturalistically learned second languages (L2s). It is argued that a wider definition is preferred because it avoids problematic counterexamples and captures…