ORIGINAL RESEARCH
published: 05 January 2022
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.783366

The Effect of Chinese Proficiency on
Determining Temporal Adverb
Position by Native Japanese
Speakers Learning Chinese
Katsuo Tamaoka 1,2* and Jingyi Zhang 3
1

School of Foreign Languages, Hunan University, Changsha, China, 2 Graduate School of Humanities, Nagoya University,
Nagoya, Japan, 3 Center for Language and Cultural Studies, University of Miyazaki, Miyazaki, Japan

Edited by:
Yang Zhang,
University of Minnesota Health Twin
Cities, United States
Reviewed by:
Yunwen Su,
The University of Utah, United States
Michael Mansbridge,
Hokkaido University, Japan*Correspondence:
Katsuo Tamaoka
ktamaoka@gc4.so-net.ne.jp
Specialty section:
This article was submitted toLanguage Sciences,a section of the journal
Frontiers in Psychology
Received: 26 September 2021
Accepted: 30 November 2021
Published: 05 January 2022
Citation:
Tamaoka K and Zhang J (2022)
The Effect of Chinese Proficiency on
Determining Temporal Adverb
Position by Native Japanese
Speakers Learning Chinese.
Front. Psychol. 12:783366.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.783366

The present study aimed to investigate how native Japanese speakers learning Chinesechoose preferred positions for temporal adverbs depending on their level of Chinese
proficiency. A naturalness judgment task conducted on native Chinese speakers
showed that the most natural position for Chinese temporal adverbs was before thesubject and that placement after the locative prepositional phrase was incorrect. The
same task applied to native Japanese speakers found the most natural position forJapanese temporal adverbs was also before the subject. Further, when they appear at
the beginning of a sentence, they provide the time for the entire sentence. Accordingly,
temporal topicalization appears to influence naturalness decisions by both native
Chinese and Japanese speakers. A point of difference was that in Japanese, a temporaladverb placed after a locative prepositional phrase was judged to be acceptable. Whenthe same task was given to native Japanese speakers learning Chinese divided into
three Chinese proficiency level groups, placement before the subject was the most
preferred by the higher Chinese proficiency group. In addition, placement after thelocative prepositional phrase was unfavored by them while the same position was
frequently selected by the lower level group. As Chinese proficiency increases it appears
that the preferred temporal adverb position is before the subject and the placement after
the locative prepositional is judged to be unnatural. Thus, a sense of suitable temporaladverb positions in Chinese is influenced by the level of Chinese proficiency of native
Japanese speakers.
Keywords: temporal adverb, adverb position, Chinese proficiency, native Japanese speakers learning Chinese,
Chinese as a foreign language

INTRODUCTION
Because a verb in a Chinese sentence does not give a clear indication of time, temporal adverbs1 play
an important role in identifying when an event takes place. Tense in Chinese is typically indicatedby temporal adverbs such as zuótiān “yesterday” for past tense, jı̄ntiān “today” for present tense,and míngtiān “tomorrow” for future tense. Textbooks for teaching Chinese as a foreign language(e.g., Liu, 2012; Jiang et al., 2015; Ma et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2021), related grammar books (e.g.,
1Time words such as zuótiān “yesterday”, jı̄ntiān “today” and míngtiān “tomorrow” in Chinese referred to as shíjiāncí “timewords”. Yuan (2021) explained that shíjiāncí is classified as a sub-category of nouns, rather than of adverbs. However, inthe present study, we treated time words as temporal adverbs.

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topicalized OSV order of Zuòyè wo zuòwán le. O(homework) S(I)V(finish) Asp. Because topicalized structure is frequently seenin Chinese, Chinese is referred to as a topic-comment structure
language. Thus, it is hypothesized that, although the canonicalword order of Chinese is typically defined as SVO, the topicalizedorder of OSV, which is frequently observed, is highly accepted.
In relation to Chinese word orders, Sun and Givón (1985)
investigated how frequently different word orders occur in
Chinese. As Chinese is a pro-drop language (the subject is often
omitted), frequencies of VO and OV word orders were counted.
The study reported that the VO order was overwhelmingly foundin both written and spoken Chinese corpora. More precisely,
direct objects occurred after the verb in 94% of expressions in
the written corpus and in 92% in the spoken corpus. Conversely,
the OV order appeared far less frequently. Sun and Givón (1985)
strongly asserted that the canonical order of Chinese is SVO.
Furthermore, a survey of sentence acceptance decisions by
Yu and Tamaoka (2018) comparing a single sentence withthree different word orders in Chinese (i.e., SVO, SOV, OSV)
concluded that SVO was the most acceptable word order in
Chinese. Therefore, the unmarked canonical word order ofChinese is identified as SVO while the orders of SOV and
OSV are considered to be the marked orders (Chu and Wang,2016). In sum, topicalization is a marked discourse feature, andnon-canonical OSV and SOV orders are based on the distinct
information-based structure.

Zhu, 1982; Peng et al., 2005; Qi, 2005; Maruo, 2010; Lu, 2011;
Miake, 2012), and linguistic literature (e.g., Zhao, 2001; Liao,
2005; He, 2011; Guan, 2013; Suzuki, 2014; Hirayama, 2017, 2019,
Kanemoto, 2018) explain that temporal adverbs are placed either
before or after the subject. For instance, “I will drink afternoon
tea at the neighbor’s house tomorrow” is expressed in the orderof Subject (I) + Adverb (tomorrow) + Prepositional Phrase (atthe neighbor’s house) + Verb (drink) + Object (afternoon tea)as in Wǒ míngtiān zài línjū jiā hē xiàwǔ chá. The temporaladverb (Adv) is placed after the subject “I” and before the locative
prepositional phrase (PP) “at the neighbor’s house”, resulting in
the order of SAdv(time)PP(place)VO. These temporal adverbs
may also be placed before the subject in the order of Adv(time)S
PP(place)VO. However, a temporal adverb occurring after alocative phrase seems to be less preferred (Chao, 2011).
Similarly, temporal adverbs in Japanese are also placed either
before or after the subject (Koizumi, 1993; Sun and Koizumi,2011). For example, a Japanese sentence such as Ane-ga kinôdaigaku-de eigo-no zyugyô-o uke-ta meaning “Yesterday my older
sister took an English class at the university” is ordered S (myolder sister) + Adv (yesterday) + PP (at the university) + O (anEnglish class) + V (took). The temporal adverb kinô “yesterday”
may also be placed after the prepositional phrase (PP). Positionsof temporal adverbs in Japanese appear to be more flexible
than in Chinese.
In contrast, temporal adverbs in English are usually placed ateither the beginning or the end of a sentence as in “Yesterday
we played golf at the park” or “We played golf at the park
yesterday”. Temporal adverbs do not usually appear in the middle
of a sentence in English, consequently their placements are notparallel to those of Chinese and Japanese temporal adverbs.
Temporal adverbs in both Chinese and Japanese can be placedin three possible positions, (1) Adv(time)S PP(place)VO, (2)S PP(place)Adv(time)VO, and (3) S Adv(time) PP(place)VO,making Japanese an ideal language for comparison with Chinese.
The present study first clarifies differences in temporal adverb
positions between Chinese and Japanese. The study theninvestigates how native Japanese speakers learning Chinese areinfluenced by their first language. Finally, the study examines
how their level of Chinese proficiency influences their choices ofpreferred positions for temporal adverbs.

TOPIC-COMMENT STRUCTURE
RELATED TO TEMPORAL ADVERBS
Based on Romance languages such as French, Italian and Spanish,
Cinque (1999) proposed a universal hierarchy of functional
categories of adverbs. Studies on Japanese adverbs (e.g., Saeki,
1975; Nakau, 1980; Noda, 1984; Kudo, 2000, 2007; Koizumi andTamaoka, 2006, 2010; Sun and Koizumi, 2011) also indicatethat Japanese adverbs fundamentally follow Cingue’s universal
hierarchy. Within the framework of this universal hierarchy,
Koizumi (1993) asserted that Japanese temporal adverbs are
identified as inflectional phrase (IP) adverbs which are positioned
either before or after the subject. In fact, an experiment on
sentence processing by Koizumi and Tamaoka (2006) indicatedthat sentences with a temporal adverb before the subject(tempAdv + S + O + V: M = 1,419 ms, M refers to a mean while
ms refers to milliseconds) were processed equally as fast as thosewith a temporal adverb after the subject (S + tempAdv + O + V:
M = 1,401 ms). In turn, both of these were processed significantly
faster than those with a temporal adverb after the object(S + O + tempAdv + V: M = 1,579 ms). Since previous studies on
Chinese temporal adverbs (e.g., Zhao, 2001; Liao, 2005; He, 2011;
Guan, 2013; Suzuki, 2014; Hirayama, 2017, 2019, Kanemoto,2018) have proposed that temporal adverbs can be placed either
before or after the subject, it seems that temporal adverbs in both
Chinese and Japanese can reasonably be classified as IP adverbs.
In accordance with topic-comment structure (Li andThompson, 1981; Xu and Langendoen, 1985; Shi, 2000; Chao,2011), native Chinese speakers may prefer to place a temporaladverb before the subject. For example, the action, “my friend

WORD ORDERS IN CHINESE
Topic-comment structure is often discussed in relation to
the Chinese language (e.g., Li and Thompson, 1981; Xu andLangendoen, 1985; Shi, 2000; Chao, 2011). An English question
such as ‘Have you finished your homework?’ is asked in Chineseas Ni zuòwán zuòyè le ma? S(you) V(finish) O(homework)
Asp Q (Asp refers to the aspect le while Q refers to thequestion marker ma). However, the object is often made into the
topic, especially in conversation, as in Zuòyè ni zuòwán le ma?
O(homework) S(you) V(finish) Asp Q. In this type of question,
the subject ni “you” is often dropped when asking the question
conversationally. The answer to this question ‘I have finishedthe homework’ may be in either the canonical SVO order of
Wo zuòwán zuòyè le S(I) V(finish) O(homework) Asp or the
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before or after yuqì fùcí (modality) or before or after shíjiān(temporal). As Chao (2011) suggested, Peng et al. (2005)
claimed that in correct word order, shíjiān (temporal) comes
before dìfāng (locative). However, the present study questions
whether native Japanese speakers use the same word orderfor temporal and locative phrases relative to the subject inJapanese, and furthermore, whether those Japanese speakers
learning Chinese as a foreign language also show the sametendency in Chinese.
With these assumptions and questions in mind, the present
study investigated temporal adverb positions in four steps. In thefirst step (Experiment 1), temporal adverb positions perceived bynative Chinese speakers were tested by a questionnaire surveyof naturalness decisions. Experiment 1 clarified the preferred
positions of temporal adverbs in Chinese transitive sentences.
In the second step (Experiment 2), the same questionnaire
survey was given to native Japanese speakers using the equivalentJapanese sentences. In the third step, differences in temporaladverb positions between Chinese and Japanese were comparedusing these results. In the fourth step, a selection task using
three temporal adverb positions of (1) Adv(time)S PP(place)VO,(2) SAdv(time)PP(place)VO, and (3) S PP(place)Adv(time)VOwas given to native Japanese speakers learning Chinese. Basedon their scores on a Chinese language proficiency test, native
Japanese speakers were divided into higher, middle and lower
Chinese proficiency groups. Frequencies of selection for temporaladverb positions were then compared among the three groups.
Through these steps, the present study clarified how native
Japanese speakers learning Chinese were affected by differencesin positions of Chinese temporal adverbs according to their levelof Chinese proficiency.

eats Shanghai crabs” took place zuótiān wanshàng “yesterdaynight”. In other words, when “yesterday night” is placed at the
beginning of the sentence, a listener is able to easily understandthat the action of eating Shanghai crabs took place “yesterdaynight” before listening to the whole sentence. If this is the case,from the production perspective, a speaker will prefer to specify
the time first, and then follow that with the content. Fromthe perception perspective, once the time is specified at the
beginning of a sentence, a listener can more easily understandthe rest of the sentence. This condition fits nicely into thetemporal adverb version of topic-comment structure: a temporaladverb becomes the “topic” while the rest of the sentence is a“comment”. In this study, we call this phenomenon “temporal
topicalization”. If this assumption of temporal topicalizationis true, then native Chinese speakers will prefer the temporaladverb position before the subject rather than after the subject.
Furthermore, if the preference for temporal topicalization is auniversal phenomenon, native Japanese speakers will also show apreference for placing a temporal adverb before the subject at the
beginning of a sentence.
Nevertheless, in order to avoid confusion in word order,
temporal adverbs are typically introduced after the subject within
the framework of the basic SVO order (e.g., Sun and Givón, 1985;
He, 2011; Suzuki, 2014; Hirayama, 2017, 2019; Kanemoto, 2018;
Yu and Tamaoka, 2018) in teaching Chinese as a foreign language
in a Japanese university. A typical word order is:(temporal adverb) + Subject + temporal adverb +Verb + Object(Taken from Kanemoto, 2018, p.30; Suzuki, 2014, p.20)
Locating the adverb before the subject is also possible asindicated by “temporal adverb” in parentheses. Before thispoint of basic order is taught to native Japanese speakers
learning Chinese, their preference may have been to place
the temporal adverb after the subject. However, it may be
hypothesized that, once Japanese learners encounter more
Chinese sentences, they may begin to show a preference fortemporal adverbs placed before the subject. As learners’ Chinese
proficiency level increased, their choices for sentence naturalnesschanges gradually from the position after the subject to that
before the subject.
Temporal and locative information is also related to word
orders. Chao (2011) states that “Other things being equal, there
is in Chinese a slight preference for time to come before place”(p. 124). If this is true, then native Chinese speakers should show
a lesser degree of preference for temporal adverbs placed after
the locative prepositional phrase. Furthermore, Peng et al. (2005)
summarized the word order before the verb as follows:

EXPERIMENT 1: PREFERRED POSITION
OF CHINESE TEMPORAL ADVERBS
Using a naturalness decision task, Experiment 1 investigatedpreferences for Chinese temporal adverb positions by native
Chinese speakers.

Participants
Thirty-eight native Chinese speakers (30 females and 8 males)living in China were recruited online for this study. They
participated in Experiment 1 after giving informed consent.
They ranged in age from 18 years and 2 months to 58 years
and 1 month. The average age was 24 years and 7 months
with a standard deviation of 9 years and 6 months on the day
the questionnaire was conducted. This study was conducted
online, thus enabling participation from all over China. Someparticipants may have spoken dialects of standard Mandarin
Chinese. However, as these dialects are based on common
syntactic knowledge, they will not have affected the result of
naturalness decisions for written sentences.

Yǔqı̀ fùcı́ + Shı́jiān + Dı̀fāng + Duı̀xiàng
Modality + Temporal + Locative + PP(object)+ Zěnmeyàng +Dòngcı́+ Manner/Resultative + Verb
(Taken from Peng et al., 2005, p. 291)

Materials
Stimuli consisted of sentences which included temporal adverbs,
in one of three possible positions in a Chinese transitive

This word order does not include the subject because thesubject is often dropped. The subject may be placed either

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In order to clarify the differences among the three temporaladverb positions, simple contrasts were conducted on thenaturalness decisions by native Chinese speakers. As shownin Figure 1 (indicating significances based on the results ofsimple contrasts in participant analyses), the temporal adverb
position before the subject was judged to be more natural than
the temporal adverb position after the subject [F 1(1,37) = 7.84,
p < 0.01, ηp 2 = 0.18] but not significant in item analysis[F 2(1,11) = 2.41, p = 0.149, ns, ηp 2 = 0.18]. Item analysis did notreach a significant level. This null significance may have beencaused by the small number of sentence stimuli for item analysis.
The temporal adverb position before the subject was also judged
to be more natural than that after the locative prepositional
phrase [F 1(1,37) = 269.56, p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.88; F 2(1,11) = 281.07,
p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.96]. Furthermore, the temporal adverb
position after the subject was also judged more natural than thetemporal adverb position after the locative prepositional phrase[F 1(1,37) = 243.59, p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.87; F 2(1,11) = 293.21,
p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.96].

sentence with a locative prepositional phrase, PP(place) as
shown in (1) to (3).
(1) Adv(time) + S + PP(place) + V + O᱘ཙကကzuótiānjiějie
Adv(time) S
依

൘

伏า

ਲ਼

zài
PREP

shı́táng
NP(place)

chı̄
V

ҶǄ

fàn
le.
O
Asp
“The elder sister had a meal at the restaurant yesterday.”(2) S + Adv(time) + PP(place) + V + O
ကက

᱘ཙ

൘

伏า

ਲ਼

jiějieS

zuótiān
Adv(time)

zài
PREP

shı́táng
NP(place)

chı̄
V

依

ҶǄ

fàn
O

le.
Asp

Discussion(3) S + PP(place) + Adv(time) + V + O
ကက

൘

伏า

jiějie
S

zài
PREP

shı́táng
zuótiān
NP(place) Adv(time)

依

ҶǄ

fàn
O

le.
Asp

᱘ཙ

Experiment 1 indicated that the most natural position perceived
by native Chinese speakers was the position before the subject.
The position after the subject was the second most natural andwas also judged as having a high degree of naturalness. This
result may be explained by temporal topicalization within the

ਲ਼

chı̄
V

TABLE 1 | Naturalness of three temporal adverb positions in Chinese.

A temporal adverb such as zuótiān “yesterday” was placed in
the sentence initial position and before the subject in sentence(1), the position after the subject in sentence (2) and the position
after a locative prepositional phrase in sentence (3). Using 12
different sentences, each in the three different word orders (36sentences in total) with temporal adverbs in the past tense wereprepared for the first experiment. All stimulus sentences arelisted in Supplementary Appendix 1.

Temporal adverb (adv) positions

M

SD

SE

Adv(time) S PP(place) V O

0.87

0.78

0.13

S Adv(time) PP(place) V O

0.68

0.53

0.13

S PP(place) Adv(time) V O

−1.40

0.78

0.09

Adv(time) = temporal adverb. S = subject, PP(place) = locative prepositional
phrase, V = verb, and O = object. M = mean, SD = standard deviation, andSE = standard error.

Procedure
Using an online questionnaire survey from (wenjuan.com), all
36 sentences (12 sentences × 3 word orders) were randomly
presented to native Chinese speakers for a naturalness decisiontask. A 5-point Likert scale ranging from −2 (not natural at all) to+2 (completely natural) was used with a positive score indicatinga natural range and a negative score indicating an unnaturalrange. Native Chinese speakers were allowed to respond at theirown pace for each question.

Data Analysis and Results
Means, standard deviations, and standard errors for naturalness
judgments by native Chinese speakers for the three temporaladverb positions are reported in Table 1. An analysis of variancewith repeated measures was conducted for the three temporaladverb positions. The main effect of the positions was significant
in both participant analysis [F 1(2,74) = 229.32, p < 0.001,
ηp 2 = 0.86] and item analysis [F 2(2,22) = 191.81, p < 0.001,
ηp 2 = 0.95].

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FIGURE 1 | Means of naturalness depending on Chinese temporal adverb
positions. **p < 0.01 and ***p < 0.001.

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framework of the topic-comment structure in Chinese (Li andThompson, 1981; Xu and Langendoen, 1985; Shi, 2000; Chao,2011). The “topic” of a temporal adverb is presented at the
beginning of the sentence before the subject, with the rest of thesentence being a “comment”. Native Chinese speakers feel this
topic-comment information structure is the most natural. Yet,
positions both before and after the subject were still perceived
as being in the highly acceptable range. In contrast, the meanof naturalness for the temporal adverb placed after the locative
prepositional phrase was rated at −1.40. Since −2.0 indicates
an extreme “not natural at all” rating, this score is considered
to indicate an incorrect position for placement of a temporaladverb. Against the claim of “a slight preference for time to comebefore place” by Chao (2011), p. 124, Experiment 1 indicated thatnative Chinese speakers rejected a temporal adverb placed after alocative prepositional phrase as a constituting a natural sentence.

(6) S + PP(place) + Adv(time) + V + OᕏǡMeans, standard deviations, and standard errors for naturalness
judgments by native Japanese speakers for the three temporaladverb positions are reported in Table 2. The analysis ofvariance with repeated measures was conducted for the threepositions in Japanese sentences. The main effect of the positions
was significant both in participant analysis [F (2,296) = 272.54,
p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.65] and item analysis [F 2(2,22) = 472.85,
p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.98].
In order to clarify the differences among the three temporaladverb positions, simple contrasts were conducted on thenaturalness decisions. As shown in Figure 2, the results showedthat the temporal adverb position before the subject was judged
to be more natural than that after the subject [F 1(1,148) = 13.87,
p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.09; F 2(1,11) = 10.42, p < 0.01, ηp 2 = 0.49].
The temporal adverb position after the subject was also judged tobe more natural than that after the locative prepositional phrase[F 1(1,148) = 357.41, p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.71; F 2(1,11) = 1157.52,
p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.99]. Furthermore, the temporal adverb position
after the subject was judged to be more natural than that after
the locative prepositional phrase [F 1(1,148) = 291.25, p < 0.001,
ηp 2 = 0.66; F 2(1,11) = 535.13, p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.98].

Materials
Stimuli consisted of sentences which included temporal adverbs,
in one of three possible positions in a Japanese transitive sentence
as shown in (4) to (6).
(4) Adv(time) + S + PP(place) + V + O㾻ǴǄSensyû
otôto-ga ima-deeiga-omi-ta.
Adv(time) S
NP(place) O
V-PST“The younger brother watched a movie in the living room
last week.”

TABLE 2 | Naturalness of three temporal adverb positions in Japanese.

(5) S + Adv(time) + PP(place) + V + O
ᕏǡ

‫ݸ‬䙡

otôto-gaS

Sensyû
ima-deAdv(time) NP(place)ት䯃Ǽ

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mi-ta

Data Analysis and Results

One hundred and forty-nine native Japanese speakers (62 females
and 87 males) living in Japan and taking a Chinese classat a national university in Japan were recruited online. They
participated in Experiment 2 after giving informed consent. They
ranged in age from 18 years and 4 months to 36 years and0 month. The average age was 19 years and 2 months with astandard deviation of 1 years and 6 months on the day thequestionnaire was conducted. Most of these native Japanese
speakers were from Miyazaki prefecture in Japan. Althoughaccents in this area differ from the Tokyo Standard Japanese,grammatical characteristics are shared by all native Japanese
speakers. Therefore, the Japanese participants would not havebeen affected in judging word orders of temporal adverbs.

᱐⭫ȧ

㾻ǴǄ

eiga-oV-PST

Using an online questionnaire survey form (Google Forms),
36 sentences (12 sentences × 3 word orders) were randomly
presented to native Japanese speakers who were asked to rate
how natural a presented sentence was on a 5-point Likert scalefrom −2 (not natural at all) to + 2 (completely natural). Native
Japanese speakers were allowed to respond to each question
at their own pace.

Participants

ት䯃Ǽ

᱐⭫ȧ

Procedure

Using a naturalness decision task, Experiment 2 investigatedpreferences for Japanese temporal adverb positions by native
Japanese speakers.

ᕏǡ

‫ݸ‬䙡

The temporal adverb sensyû “last week” was placed before
the subject in sentence (4), the position after the subject insentence (5) and the position after the locative prepositional
phrase in sentence (6). Twelve sentences in the three word
orders (36 sentences in total) with temporal adverbs of pasttense were prepared for Experiment 2. All stimulus sentences arelisted in Supplementary Appendix 2.

EXPERIMENT 2: PREFERRED POSITION
OF JAPANESE TEMPORAL ADVERBS

‫ݸ‬䙡

ት䯃Ǽ

otôto-ga
ima-deSensyûS NP(place) Adv(time) O

᱐⭫ȧ

㾻ǴǄ

eiga-o
O

mi-ta
V-PST

Temporal adverb (adv) positions

M

SD

SE

Adv(time) S PP(place) V O

1.57

0.52

0.04

S Adv(time) PP(place) V O

1.38

0.55

0.05

S PP(place) Adv(time) V O

0.08

0.97

0.08

Adv(time) = temporal adverb. S = subject, PP(place) = locative prepositional
phrase, V = verb, and O = object. M = mean, SD = standard deviation, andSE = standard error.

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Experiment 2 for the three temporal adverb positions are
depicted in Figure 3. The analysis of variance with repeatedmeasures (the factor of adverb positions was the repeatedmeasure while the factor of first languages was the nonrepeated measure) was conducted for the three positions for both
Chinese and Japanese sentences. There were significant main
effects for positions [F (2,372) = 369.35, p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.67]
and for the participants’ first languages [F (1 ,186) = 5574.15,
p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.97]. Furthermore, there was a significant
interaction between the two factors of positions and languages[F (2,372) = 18.69, p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.09]. These results
indicated that (1), as shown in Experiments 1 and 2, temporaladverb positions affect sentence naturalness scores, (2) sentence
naturalness scores differ between the Japanese and Chinese
languages, and (3) both factors of temporal adverb positions andfirst languages influence sentence naturalness scores.
After analyzing the differences in the three temporal adverb
positions in Experiments 1 and 2, our analysis focused on
the differences in naturalness scores between the Chinese andJapanese languages. As shown in Figure 3, the same degree ofdifference (0.70 points as indicated by 1 in Figure 3) was foundin positions both before and after the subject. An independent
samples t-test was used to analyze the difference in naturalness
scores for each temporal adverb position for both native Chineseand Japanese speakers. Due to the fact that Levene’s test for
sample distributions indicated differences between samples ofnative Chinese and Japanese speakers [F = 15.93, p < 0.001],
a t-test which does not assume equal distributions was used toanalyze scores for the position before the subject. The result
indicated a significant difference between the two languages[t(47.08) = 6.65, p < 0.001, Glass 1 = 0.52]. The effect size
was measured by Glass’s delta (1), because both sample sizes
and sample distributions differed in naturalness scores between
native Chinese and Japanese speakers. Likewise, for the position
after the subject, Levene’s test for sample distributions indicateddifferences between the samples of native Chinese and Japanese
speakers [F = 6.49, p < 0.05]. Therefore, a t-test which does
not assume equal distributions was used. The result indicated asignificant difference between the two languages [t(48.46) = 3.74,
p < 0.001, Glass 1 = 0.55].
The largest difference was found in the position after thelocative prepositional phrase at 1.48. For this position, once
again, Levene’s test for sample distributions indicated differences
between samples of native Chinese and Japanese speakers[F = 7.75, p < 0.01]. Thus, a t-test which does not assume
equal distributions was applied. The result indicated a significant
difference between the two first languages [t(84.65) = 10.58,
p < 0.001, Glass 1 = 0.97].

FIGURE 2 | Means of naturalness depending on Japanese temporal adverb
positions. **p < 0.01 and ***p < 0.001.

Discussion
Experiment 2 showed that the most natural position perceived
by native Japanese speakers was also that of the position
before the subject. As with native Chinese speakers, native
Japanese speakers also appear to employ temporal topicalization
within the framework of a topic-comment structure (Li andThompson, 1981; Xu and Langendoen, 1985; Shi, 2000; Chao,2011). A temporal adverb presented at the beginning of asentence before the subject provides the time when the rest of thesentence takes place. Therefore, temporal topicalization appears
to function for naturalness perceived by both native Chinese andnative Japanese speakers. The position after the subject was also
judged to be the second most natural. This result supports thepremise that both Chinese and Japanese temporal adverbs are
IP adverbs (Koizumi, 1993). However, unlike in Chinese, themean of naturalness for the temporal adverb after the locative
prepositional phrase had a positive score of 0.08. This rating falls
within an acceptable range of naturalness. Therefore, the position
after the locative prepositional phrase is not considered to beincorrect in Japanese even though this location is considered to
be incorrect in Chinese.

NATURALNESS COMPARISON OF
TEMPORAL ADVERB POSITIONSBETWEEN CHINESE AND JAPANESESENTENCES

Discussion

The scores for sentence naturalness decisions were compared
to confirm the difference in the positions of temporal adverbs
between the Chinese and Japanese languages.

The difference in naturalness scores for temporal adverb
positions before and after the subject was equal at 0.70. Thisdifference may have been a result of decisions made by native
Chinese speakers being stricter than those made by native
Japanese speakers. However, the difference for the position
after the locative prepositional phrase was very large at 1.48.
This result suggests that a temporal adverb placed after the

Data Analysis and Results
The mean naturalness scores judged by both native Chinese
speakers in Experiment 1 and native Japanese speakers in

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FIGURE 3 | Naturalness scores for Chinese and Japanese temporal adverb positions. 1 indicates the difference in naturalness scores. ∗∗∗ p < 0.001.

locative prepositional phrase in a Chinese sentence is considered
incorrect whereas the same order in a Japanese sentence isconsidered acceptable. A noticeable difference between the
Chinese and Japanese languages is seen in the positional relationof a temporal adverb and a locative prepositional phrase.

Procedure
Using Google Forms, Japanese participants were asked to choose
the most natural sentence in which a temporal adverb wasplaced in one of three different positions. To ensure they
understood the meaning of the words used in the Chinese
sentences, the meanings of the words were provided to them.
The meanings were presented in the following way: zuótiān“yesterday” in Chinese meaning kinô in Japanese, jiìjie “(my)elder sister” meaning ane in Japanese, shítáng “restaurant”
in Chinese meaning syokudô in Japanese, chı̄ fàn “to havea meal” in Chinese meaning gohan-o teberu in Japanese.
A set of three Chinese sentences was then chosen from thesentence stimuli of Experiment 1 (a total of 12 sets shownin Supplementary Appendix 1) and randomly presented toeach Japanese participant. Because this study focused on thegrammatical aspect of word order, providing lexical meanings
would not have affected the results.

EXPERIMENT 3: CHANGES INTEMPORAL ADVERB POSITIONSDEPENDING ON CHINESE KNOWLEDGE
OF NATIVE JAPANESE SPEAKERSLEARNING CHINESE
Experiment 3 investigated choices of Chinese temporal adverb
positions by native Japanese speakers learning Chinese as aforeign language. Based on scores of a Chinese comprehension(or proficiency) test, these choices were analyzed in order to
identify the influence of first language based on the resultsof Experiments 1 and 2, and of their levels of Chinese
language proficiency.

Analysis and Results for Each Set of
Sentences
Twelve sets of three sentences containing temporal adverbs were
presented to 149 native Japanese speakers resulting in a total of
1,788 responses. Frequencies of sentence choices are reported inTable 3. A Chi-squared test of goodness-of-fit was conducted
for each set across the three temporal positions. As shown in
Table 3, all sets showed significantly fewer selection frequencies
for the position after the locative prepositional phrase. The
result showed that Japanese participants consistently chose thetemporal adverb location in Chinese, S PP(place) Adv(time) O
V less frequently in all sentences. The results of a Chi-squared
test of goodness-of-fit applied to all 12 sentence sets are shownin Table 3.

Participants
A total of 149 native Japanese speakers enrolled in a Chinese classas a foreign language at a national university in Japan participatedin Experiment 3. They were the same participants who took partin Experiment 2. None of them had been exposed to a Chinese
speaking environment. The details of their gender and age arelisted in Experiment 2.

Materials and Procedure
The Chinese stimulus sentences including temporal adverbs were
the same as those used in Experiment 1.

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Determining Temporal Adverb Positionby the three Chinese proficiency groups. The result wassignificant [χ2 (4) = 118.73, p < 0.001]. Because the residuals (e)are assumed to be normally distributed, ±1.96 is interpreted to beat the border of the 5% significant level. The standard residuals
in Table 5 showed clear tendencies across the three Chinese
proficiency groups.
For the position before the subject, the higher level Chinese
proficiency group (282 times, e = 4.5, e refers to the standard
residual) selected the temporal adverb before the subject
significantly more frequently than did the middle group (213times, e = −0.5). The middle group selected this positioneven more frequently than did the lower group (135 times,e = −4.3). For the position after the subject, all standard
residuals were within the range of ±1.96, suggesting nodifferences in frequencies of choice among the higher (274times, e = −0.2), the middle (296 times, e = 0.8) and the lower(240 times, e = −0.6) groups. In contrast, for the position
after the locative prepositional phrase, the opposite trend wasobserved. The higher level Chinese proficiency group (56 times,e = −5.8) selected the temporal adverb position after the locative
prepositional phrase significantly less frequently than did the
middle group (115 times, e = −0.6). Furthermore, the middle
group also selected this position less frequently than did the lower
group (177 times, e = 6.7).

Analysis and Results for All Sets
Together Based on Chinese Proficiency
To investigate the effect of Chinese proficiency of native Japanese
speakers, a Chinese proficiency test was conducted face-to-face ina classroom on the 149 Japanese participants. The test consistedof seven parts: (1) 10 points for lexical knowledge, (2) 10
points for transcription from pı̄nyı̄n to Chinese characters, (3)10 points for quantifiers (4) 10 points for sentence types, (5)10 points for grammatical knowledge, (6) 5 points for Japaneseto Chinese translation, and (7) 5 points for understanding ofbasic conversations. The points in the seven parts added up
to a maximum score of 60 points. The Cronbach’s reliability
coefficient for the Chinese proficiency test (N = 149) was very
high at 0.924 (a whole test is provided in Supplementary
Appendix 3).
The mean (M) of the Chinese proficiency test for the 149
Japanese participants was 47.75 points with a standard deviation(SD) of 9.25 points. Based on the scores of this test, the 149
participants were divided into three groups of higher (n = 51,
M = 56.35, SD = 1.87), middle (n = 52, M = 49.44, SD = 2.14), andlower (n = 46, M = 36.30, SD = 7.28) proficiencies. Frequencies ofchoice for the three temporal positions were calculated for each of
the three Chinese proficiency groups. The results of frequencies
in percentages are shown in Table 4. The average percentages
among the three Chinese proficiency groups across the temporaladverb positions are depicted in Figure 4.
The Chi-squared test of independence was conducted on
frequencies of choice across the three temporal adverb positions

Discussion
As shown in the frequency percentages in Figure 5, the three
Chinese proficiency groups of native Japanese speakers learning

TABLE 3 | Frequencies of selections and the results of Chi-squared test of goodness-of-fit.
Chinese sentence with temporaladverbs

Adv(time) S
PP(place)

S Adv(time)PP(place)

S PP(place)
Adv(time)

χ2 test of goodness-of-fit

1

姐姐昨天在食堂吃饭了。

59

64

26

χ2 (2) = 17.17, p < 0.001

2

弟弟前天早上在公园玩游戏了。

55

63

31

χ2 (2) = 11.67, p < 0.01

3

妹妹今天早上在教室上汉语课了。

54

70

25

χ2 (2) = 20.95, p < 0.001

4妈妈昨天上午在超市买牛奶了。

53

69

27

χ2 (2) = 18.09, p < 0.001

5爸爸昨天晚上在家看电影了。

49

66

34

χ2 (2) = 10.33, p < 0.01

6

哥哥昨天下午在操场踢足球了。

50

70

29

χ2 (2) = 16.93, p < 0.001

7

姐姐今天上午在图书馆写作业了。

50

74

25

χ2 (2) = 24.17, p < 0.001

8

弟弟去年冬天在日本滑雪了。

51

68

30

χ2 (2) = 14.59, p < 0.001

9奶奶上个星期在饭店吃中国菜了。

56

64

29

χ2 (2) = 13.54, p < 0.001

10

爷爷去年在日本学日语了。

52

70

27

χ2 (2) = 18.78, p < 0.001

11爸爸前天晚上在公司开会了。

51

65

33

χ2 (2) = 10.36, p < 0.01

12

哥哥前天在学校唱中文歌了。

50

67

32

χ2 (2) = 12.34, p < 0.01

630

810

348

Total

The sentences with the temporal adverb position after the subject are presented in the table.
TABLE 4 | Frequencies and percentages of sentence choices based on Chinese proficiency.
Chinese proficiency

Adv(time) S PP(place)n%

S Adv(time) PP(place)%n

S PP(place) Adv(time)
n

%

Total

Higher group282

46.08%

274

44.77%

56

9.15%

612

Middle group

213

34.13%

296

47.44%

115

18.43%

624

Lower group135

24.46%

240

43.48%

177

32.07%

552

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Determining Temporal Adverb Position

FIGURE 4 | Percentages of frequencies in temporal adverb positions classified by three Chinese proficiency groups.

Chinese showed a clear tendency of choice in temporal adverb
positions. The higher level Chinese proficiency group chose, indecreasing order of frequencies, the position before the subject,
the position after the subject and the position after the locative
prepositional phrase. This trend was the same as obtained inExperiment 1 for native Chinese speakers. The higher levelgroup was able to recognize suitable temporal adverb positions
at the same rate as demonstrated by native Chinese speakers.
The middle Chinese proficiency group most often chose theposition after the subject as predicted by previous studies (e.g.,Zhao, 2001; Liao, 2005; He, 2011; Guan, 2013; Suzuki, 2014;
Hirayama, 2017, 2019; Kanemoto, 2018), but the selection of theposition after the locative prepositional phrase was still frequent.
This pattern of results suggests some degree of uncertainty inchoice of suitable temporal adverb positions. Among the three
Chinese proficiency groups, the lower level group most frequently

chose the position after the locative prepositional phrase. Thislocation was judged as incorrect by native Chinese speakers inExperiment 1, but perceived as acceptable by native Japanese
speakers in Experiment 2. The lower level group may havebeen influenced by their sense of appropriate temporal adverb
position in Japanese.

GENERAL DISCUSSION
The findings of the present study consisted of two parts. The firstpart relates to temporal adverb positions in Chinese as perceived
by native Chinese speakers (Experiment 1) and in Japanese bynative Japanese speakers (Experiment 2). The second part relates
to choices of Chinese temporal adverb positions by three different
Chinese proficiency groups of native Japanese speakers leaning
Chinese as a foreign language (Experiment 3). Findings of the twoparts are as follows:

Temporal Adverb Positions in Chineseand Japanese

TABLE 5 | Results of Chi-squared test of independence with standard residuals.
Temporaladverblocation

ValuesAdv(time) S
PP(place)

Frequency

282

213

135

630

Expected freq

215.6

219.9

194.5

630

Std residual

4.5

−0.5

−4.3

S Adv(time)PP(place)

S PP(place)
Adv(time)

Chinese proficiency

Based on a naturalness decision task, the present study suggested
a clear naturalness preference for Chinese and Japanese temporaladverbs positions.
First, temporal adverb positions both before and after the
subject were judged as highly natural by native Chinese speakers.
According to the universal hierarchy of functional categories
of adverbs (Cinque, 1999), Japanese temporal adverbs are
categorized as IP adverbs (Koizumi, 1993; Koizumi and Tamaoka,
2006; Sun and Koizumi, 2011). The results of both Experiment 1
in Chinese and Experiment 2 in Japanese indicated that temporaladverb positions before and after the subject were judged to behighly natural. Therefore, Chinese temporal adverbs appear toalso be identifiable as IP adverbs.

Higher group Middle group Lower group Total

Frequency

274

296

240

810

Expected freq

277.2

282.7

250.1

810

Std residual

−0.2

0.8

−0.6

Frequency

56

115

177

348

Expected freq

119.1

121.4

107.4

348

Std residual

−5.8

−0.6

6.7

Std residual refers to a standard residual.

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FIGURE 5 | Comparison of temporal adverb positions in Chinese assumed from previous studies and positions identified in Experiment 1.

Second, the results of both Experiment 1 in Chinese andExperiment 2 in Japanese indicated that sentences with temporaladverbs before the subject were judged to be more natural thanthose with the adverb following the subject. Previous studies(He, 2011; Suzuki, 2014; Hirayama, 2017, 2019; Kanemoto,2018) proposed that the basic position of temporal adverbs in
Chinese is after the subject although the position before thesubject is also acceptable. Other studies (e.g., Zhao, 2001; Liao,
2005; Guan, 2013) have proposed that temporal adverbs canbe placed either before or after the subject. However, contrary
to assumptions by previous studies depicted in Figure 5(i), thepresent study, illustrated in Figure 5(ii), concluded that theposition before the subject was the most natural. This result
may be explained within the framework of the topic-comment
structure (Li and Thompson, 1981; Xu and Langendoen, 1985;
Shi, 2000; Chao, 2011). A temporal adverb presented at the
beginning of the sentence before the subject provides the timeat which the rest of the sentence takes place. In this study, thisinformation structure of temporal topicalization strongly appears
to influence naturalness decisions by both native Chinese andJapanese speakers.
Third, contrary to the suggestion of “a slight preference fortime to come before place” by Chao (2011), a temporal adverb
occurring after a locative prepositional phrase was perceived to bevery unnatural, or “incorrect”. This phenomenon is illustrated by
an X in Figure 5(ii). Since Japanese temporal adverbs occurring
after a locative propositional phrase were judged to be within
the acceptable range, this unacceptability of this positioning in
Chinese appears to be a unique occurrence. Unlike in many
languages of the world, a verb in a Chinese sentence does notconvey a clear indication of time. Therefore, there seems to
be a clear tendency in Chinese for temporal information to beprocessed before locative information.
In sum, naturalness of temporal adverb positions perceived bynative Chinese speakers indicated a clear tendency contrary to thepreferred positions assumed from previous studies.

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Preferred Temporal Adverb Positions
Based on Chinese Proficiency
Frequency percentages for the three temporal adverb positions
selected by native Japanese speakers learning Chinese as a foreign
language also displayed a distinct tendency based on their levelof Chinese proficiency. There were three major categories ofpreferred temporal adverb positions: (1) in relation to the locative
prepositional phrase, (2) in relation to the position before thesubject, and (3) in relation to the position after the subject.
The position after the locative prepositional phrase should beconsidered to be incorrect as it was perceived to be very unnaturalin Experiment 1. However, as illustrated in Figure 6(i), native
Japanese speakers with lower Chinese proficiency were most
likely to choose this position (32.07%). As Chinese proficiency
increased, the percentage selecting this position decreased:
18.43% by native Japanese speakers with the middle Chinese
proficiency group in Figure 6(ii) and 9.15% by those in thehigher Chinese proficiency group as seen in Figure 6(iii). Because
this position was perceived as acceptable in Japanese temporaladverbs in Experiment 2, the lower Chinese proficiency group,and to some degree the middle Chinese proficiency group,
may have experienced interference from their first languageof Japanese. In contrast, the higher Chinese proficiency group
may have acquired a sense that this position is incorrect.
Level of proficiency in Chinese clearly reflected the unfavored
selection of temporal adverbs positioned after the locative
prepositional phrase.
For temporal adverbs occurring before the subject, the higher
the level of Chinese proficiency by native Japanese speakers, themore often this was the preferred position. The percentages of
selection increased steadily from the lower (24.46%) to the middle(34.13%) to the higher (46.08%) Chinese proficiency level. Thosewith higher proficiency may have applied temporal topicalization
within a topic-comment structure (Li and Thompson, 1981; Xu
and Langendoen, 1985; Shi, 2000; Chao, 2011). This information
sequence would be applied to temporal adverbs occurring at the10

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FIGURE 6 | Preferred temporal adverb positions based on levels of Chinese proficiency.

This phenomenon of “temporal topicalization” could be further
investigated using both spoken and written corpora. It should beassumed that in spoken language temporal adverbs occur more
frequently before the subject while in written language temporaladverbs occur more frequently after the subject. In addition,
this use of topicalization most likely reduces the cognitive load
for sentence processing. Further studies could enhance ourunderstanding of the efficient production and comprehension of
speech, particularly in the context of foreign language acquisition.
An educational implication also arises from the present study.
Future educational materials for use by leaners of Chinese as aforeign language could explicitly incorporate the initial findings
from this study and from studies subsequent to this one. In
particular, the following three points might be included inteaching materials: (1) temporal adverbs can be placed either
before or after the subject, (2) temporal adverbs can be placed
before the subject in the sentence-initial position as in the English“Last night we ate Shanghai crabs” to clearly indicate the time ofan event, and (3) temporal adverbs should not be placed after alocative prepositional phrase.

beginning of a sentence before the subject. Thus, this appears
that a sense of suitable temporal adverb positions in Chinese isinfluenced by level of Chinese proficiency.
For temporal adverbs positioned after the subject, the order
falls within the framework of the SVO basic order. This
instructional approach is commonly practiced in order to avoid
confusion in word order among Japanese leaners of Chinese asa foreign language in Japanese universities (e.g., Suzuki, 2014;
Kanemoto, 2018). As shown in Figure 6, this application seems
to be highly accepted by all three Chinese proficiency groups withselection rates at 43.48% by those with lower proficiency, 47.44%
by those in the middle group, and 44.77% by those with higher
proficiency. The Chinese teaching approach appears to be very
effective for native Japanese speakers.

Implications
Both theoretical and educational implications regarding Chinese
word order of temporal adverbs arise from this study.
The theoretical implication of the study is that the topiccomment information structure of topicalization will be viewed
as the likely candidate for the determination of word order.
In the past, word order of languages has been fundamentally
determined based on syntactic structure. However, the present
study has suggested that time information is placed at the
beginning of the sentence in the form of temporal adverbs.

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DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will bemade available by the authors, without undue reservation.

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ETHICS STATEMENTFUNDING

The studies involving human participants were reviewed
and approved by Research Ethics Committee of Humanities
Department at Nagoya University. The participants provided
their written informed consent to participate in this study.

This study was supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Japan
Society for the Promotion of Science (#19H05589, PI:
Masatoshi Koizumi at Tohoku University, Japan). The
allotment of this grant to KT was managed by Nagoya
University, Japan. This study was also supported by
the Grant-in-Aid for Japan Society for the Promotionof Science (#21K13055, PI: JZ at the University ofMiyazaki, Japan).

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
KT constructed the theoretical framework, designed theexperiments, performed the statistical analyses, and wrote
the draft of the manuscript. JZ conducted the experiments,
administered the Chinese comprehension test, and combined
the data for the statistical analyses. Both authors contributed tothe article and approved the submitted version.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALThe Supplementary Material for this article can be foundonline at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.
2021.783366/full#supplementary-material

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January 2022 | Volume 12 | Article 783366