Introduction

Abstract

Chinese schematic idioms are observed to behave productively in discourse with different selections of lexical morp2007hemes in the open slots (Zhang in Xin bian xian dai han yu [New modern Chinese]. Fudan University Press, Ji, 2002; Liu et al. 2021). Yet this productivity is not unrestrictive since possible morphemes filling the open slots must conform to certain constraints. How children learn the constraints on their productivity and how they work out the ultimate interpretation of an expression with new variations raises an interesting issue in language acquisition that has not been properly addressed in current literature. Therefore, this book aims to investigate the developmental learning of Chinese schematic idioms with young and adult native speakers in terms of three related constructional idioms, namely, XAXB, XAYB and AXBY (in which X and Y stand for the fixed morphemes, while A and B the open morphemes), and explore the possible factors that influence the learning process. Distributional and statistical analyses of the three structures from the constructional perspective identified four factors—input frequency, structural complexity, internal semantic relation and chunking effect of open morphemes—as potentially significant in the learning process. Subsequent experimental studies show that the acquisition of schematic idioms can be described as an interactive process shaped by all these factors at different age levels. The findings in the studies are further discussed in relation to the emergentist model in idiom learning (Langacker in Foundations of cognitive grammar. Stanford University Press, 1987; Bybee in Chicago Linguistic Society 34:421–435, 1998, Language 82:711–733, 2006, Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge University Press, 2010; Bybee and Hopper in Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure. John Benjamins, 2001; Goldberg in Constructions: aconstruction grammar approach to argument structure. The University of Chicago Press, 1995, Construction at work: the nature of generalization in language. Oxford University Press, 2006, Explain me this: creativity, competition, and the partial productivity of constructions. Princeton University Press, 2019; Tomasello in Constructing a language: a usage-based theory of language acquisition. Harvard University Press, 2003).