Mental Representation Of English Verbal Inflectional Morphology In Chinese Learners' Mind

The dissertation would not have been completed without the encouragement and support of my teachers and friends. After the completion of this thesis, the moment has come to look back at a period of hard labor and to thank the people who were there to support me.I wish to express my heart-felt thanks to Professor Li Shaoshan, my supervisor, who aroused my interest in psycholinguistics, for his numerous suggestions, for his admirable patience and for his reading this thesis again and again while he is so busy all the time. I am also much indebted to all my teachers in my graduate studies, who have helped me to develop an interest in linguistic studies and to have a taste in many fields of linguistics. I would very much like to thank Professor Chenggong, who gave me enlightening lectures in morphology, urged me constantly even when I was still an undergraduate student, and encouraged me whenever I needed it. I am greatly obliged to many other teachers. They are: Professor Pan Yongliang, Professor Li Jingwei, who offered me great help in the past years and gave me quite interesting lectures; Professor Pu Jianzhong, who repeatedly gave me suggestions on the articles I wrote, without which, the articles would not have been published; and Professor Xu Lixin, who gave me valuable advice at the very beginning of this thesis.I have been helped all along by my friends, to whom I would like to express my gratitude. There is my dear friend, Chen Huihui, a professional programmer, who sacrificed her spare time to design the programs for me and repeatedly make adjustments to the programs to meet my requirements. Without her help, I would not have been able to finish this thesis on time. Deep thanks also go to Wei Shengying and Li Jingquan, who helped me to carry out the time-consuming experiments and encouraged me all the time during the past twelve months. I must also acknowledge my gratitude to Xiao Xuyue who selflessly shared his self-designed program with me, which, though not used in my experiments, enlightened me a lot in designing mine. Heart-felt thanks should also go to Professor Feldman, a famous researcher in this research area, who kindly and selflessly offered megreat help from the preparation period of this thesis to this moment. He sent me many of his papers in case they might be helpful when I turned to him as a stranger and answered my letters always as soon as possible. It is from this admirable professor whom I have never met in person before that I know what is the essence of being a researcher in the real sense, which might be the greatest treasure I got from the writing of this thesis. I am also very grateful to my parents who told me never to give up when I encountered difficulties. Finally, special thanks go to Zhang Decai, who offered me support when I needed it most. And last but not least, appreciation should be given to all the students in Company One, Department Three, for their patient participation in the experiments. Their names, though left out in the paper, will be remembered in the heart of the author.