This study examined word class effects on Yi students' L2 Chinese word associations. 108 stimulus words, consisting of 36 nouns, 36 verbs, and 36 adjectives, were chosen from Corpus of Modern Chinese, with their frequencies and concreteness being strictly controlled. 80 students from grade 4 and 85 students from grade 10 finished the word association test successfully. The data collected were analyzed under a three-layer framework. The findings show that meaning-based associations seize a predominant position in all the three word classes, among which the semantic network of adjectives develops best. Meanwhile, phonological association is also an important connection mode for the three word classes, although adjectives trigger a relatively lower proportion. All the three word classes can elicit a substantial proportion of encyclopedic associations, with nouns demonstrating the highest triggering rate. As for the subcategories of paradigmatic and syntagmatic associations, nouns are dominated by synonymous, determinative and hierarchical associations, verbs by governing and synonymous associations, and adjectives by determinative, synonymous and antonymous associations.