DUGi

Catalan existential sentences produced by Chinese learners

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In this paper we intend to show how L1 influences the Catalan existentialsentences produced by Chinese learners of Catalan. This study is basedon data generated by means of semi-structured interviews to 6 adult learnersliving in North-Eastern Catalonia. In order to better understand the Catalanexistential sentences they produce, we also take into account their productionof attributive, locative and possessive sentences, as well as their use of theverbal inflection in L2 and the use of the clitic hi, which also appears in theexistential verb haver-hi. We conclude that all these factors are relevant toexplain why Catalan existential constructions are so difficult to acquire forChinese learners

This article has benefited from a grant of the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (FFI2009-07635 (FILO)), a grant of the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (FFI2012-31415), and a third one from the Universitat de Girona (Singular Action 2010: “Creating a corpus of Catalan speech produced by foreign learners”)

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