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Article published In:
When Corpus Linguistics meets acquisition of Korean: Implications on the use of Korean corpora for developmental research on Korean
Edited by Gyu-Ho Shin
[Korean Linguistics 18:2] 2022
► pp. 209–238

Verb conjugation errors by learners of Korean

An entropy-based analysis of learner corpus

| Yonsei University , South Korea

This study aims to identify patterns of verb conjugation errors that learners of Korean manifest and the factors that influence these errors through an analysis of an error-annotated learner corpus. For this purpose, a paradigmatic relations-based description of language acquisition was proposed. The predictability of each conjugation class was estimated by way of entropy, a tool for measuring predictability. Using entropy allowed us to compare the regularity of each class in detail. The results showed that there are 332 verb conjugation errors that can be classified into three types of errors: errors with vowel endings, errors with lower entropy, and errors with higher entropy. The frequency of the first two types suggests that learners make errors when producing frequently used conjugated forms and with more predictable classes. Considering this study’s reproducibility and the reliability of its procedures and the results, its findings are expected to make a substantial contribution to the study of error analysis using error-annotated learner corpora.

Keywords: error-annotated learner corpus, verb conjugation, entropy, predictability
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Analysis of Korean error-annotated learner corpora
    • 2.2Korean verb conjugation and regularity
    • 2.3Transition of viewpoints: Syntagmatic relations-based description and paradigmatic relations-based description
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Regularity measurement using entropy
    • 3.2Analysis of conjugation errors in learner corpus
      • 3.2.1Information about the error-annotated corpus
      • 3.2.2Extracting paradigm predictive errors
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Analysis by type
    • 4.2Analysis by level
  • 5.Conclusion: Implications of the use of Korean corpora for developmental research on Korean
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 30 September 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/kl.20008.lee
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