Investigating the acquisition of Chinese object focus VdeO clefts by L1 Italian learners: Evidence from production and experimental data

This paper investigates L2 acquisition of object focus clefts (OFCs) in Chinese, which highlight an object referring to a completed, discourse-given event. It examines whether L1 Italian learners can produce OFCs in appropriate contexts and recognize their pragmatic function, using a triangulated approach combining a discourse completion task for production and a pragmalinguistic judgment test for comprehension. A total of 106 Italian learners (beginner to advanced) and 35 native Chinese speakers participated. Results show that while native speakers predominantly use OFCs appropriately, learners rarely produce them. Beginners rely on canonical SVO or -le sentences, whereas intermediate and advanced learners show greater syntactic variety, mainly using topicalized or fronted objects. The data confirm this trend: learners fail to recognize the pragmatic contexts for OFCs, rating alternative structures as more acceptable. The absence of OFC production and recognition likely stems from multiple factors, notably challenges at the syntax–pragmatics interface, with intralinguistic interference contributing as learners overlook the distinct pragmatic functions of alternative object-highlighting strategies they employ.