1,720,984 research outputs found
Collectivity, distributivity, and the interpretation of numerical expressions in child and adult language
No full textSentences containing plural numerical expressions (e.g., two boys) can give rise to two interpretations (collective and distributive), arising from the fact that their representation admits of a part-whole structure. We present the results of a series of experiments designed to explore children’s understanding of this distinction and its implications for the acquisition of linguistic expressions with number words. We show that preschoolers access both interpretations, indicating that they have the requisite linguistic and conceptual machinery to generate the corresponding representations. Furthermore, they can shift their interpretation in response to structural and lexical manipulations. However, they are not fully adult-like: unlike adults, they are drawn to the distributive interpretation, and are not yet fully aware of the lexical semantics of each and together, which should favor one or another interpretation. This research bridges a gap between a well-established body of work in cognitive psychology on the acquisition of number words and more recent work investigating children’s knowledge of the syntactic and semantic properties of sentences featuring numerical expressions.Peer reviewe
Mapping properties to individuals in language acquisition
No full textIn this research, I investigate the onset of children’s recognition that certain predicates -- predicates that are frequent and/or familiar to young children -- obligatorily apply at the individual level. The findings demonstrate that this knowledge is nascent at least by 3 years of age, and that it applies to groups of individuals referred to not only by count nouns, which have overt plural morphology, but also by object mass nouns, which lack it. Thus, I argue that children are driven by their conceptualization of the mereology of groups, rather than surface morphosyntax, and are sensitive to the fact that the lexical semantic representations of predicates may also tap into this structure
Meaning and context in children’s understanding of gradable adjectives
No full textThis paper explores what children and adults know about three specific ways that meaning and context interact: the interpretation of expressions whose extensions vary in different contexts (semantic context dependence); conditions on the felicitous use of expressions in a discourse context (presupposition accommodation) and informative uses of expressions in contexts in which they strictly speaking do not apply (imprecision). The empirical focus is the use of unmodified (positive form) gradable adjectives (GAs) in definite descriptions to distinguish between two objects that differ in the degree to which they possess the property named by the adjective. We show that by 3 years of age, children are sensitive to all three varieties of context–meaning interaction and that their knowledge of this relation with the definite description is appropriately guided by the semantic representations of the GA appearing in it. These findings suggest that children's semantic representations of the GAs we investigated and the definite determiner the are adult-like and that they are aware of the consequences of these representations when relating meaning and context. Bolstered by adult participant responses, this work provides important experimental support for theoretical claims regarding the semantics of gradable predicates and the nature of different types of ‘interpretive variability’, specifically semantic context dependence v. pragmatic tolerance of imprecision.This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Semantics following peer review. The version of record, Kristen Syrett, Christopher Kennedy, and Jeffrey Lidz (2010). Meaning and Context in Children's Understanding of Gradable Adjectives Journal of Semantics 27 (1): 1-35, is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffp011.Peer reviewe
The representation and processing of measure phrases by four-year-olds
No full textIn this paper we investigate young children’s understanding of Measure Phrases. We have narrowed our focus to so-called Attributive MPs such as 4-foot rope and 3-pound strawberries, where the MP appears in attributive position, because by four years of age, children demonstrate a mastery of a number of key linguistic components for interpreting such MPs
The role of cardinality in the interpretation of measurement expressions
No full textThe purpose of this brief article is to investigate four-year-olds’ interpretation of attributive measure phrases (MPs), such as 3-pound, and the role of cardinality in their responses. In two experiments, we demonstrate that four-year-olds appear to recognize that such MPs refer to a property of an individual, such as weight per unit (rather than the weight of an entire collection). Accordingly, they distinguish between attributive and pseudopartitive MPs. However, when the opportunity arises to treat the number word as referring to numerosity, children occasionally succumb to this pressure. We argue that the fundamental aspect of number word meaning that children take the first few years of life to master – that number words denote the cardinality of a set of discrete objects – is the precise aspect they must overcome in order to correctly interpret these expressions. However, the evidence suggests that four-year-olds are well on their way to doing so.Peer reviewe
Experimental Support for Inverse Scope Readings of Finite-Clause-Embedded Antecedent-Contained-Deletion Sentences
No full textUnlike its overt counterpart, wh-movement, Quantifier Raising (QR) is typically assumed not to be able to cross a finite clause boundary. Two effects of this clause-boundedness constraint are that (a) a universal quantifier that is embedded in a finite clause is judged to be unable to take scope over an indefinite in subject position, and (b) in sentences in which antecedent-contained deletion (ACD) is embedded in a finite clause, a matrix reading is questionable—and extrawide scope over the indefinite subject even more so. However, counterexamples to this generalization about the QR locality constraint have surfaced over the years, and recent evidence demonstrates that the matrix reading is available, given certain linguistic and contextual manipulations. Cecchetto (2004) argues that if the quantificational phrase in an ACD sentence raises high enough by QR to take scope over the matrix VP, it should be able to take scope over an indefinite subject. Here, I provide experimental evidence that participants can indeed access the supposedly barred inverse scope reading of such ACD sentences and provide justifications that unambiguously signal this reading. These results, paired with those previously reported for the matrix reading, suggest that—at least in the case of ACD—there may be nothing in the grammar that a priori prevents QR out of a finite clause, and that interpretations arising from extrawide scope of a quantifier may be difficult to access for independent reasons.Peer reviewe
Events and agents in the acquisition of universal quantification
No full textAlthough not intended as such, Lucas Champollion’s paper, “Stratified reference: The common core of distributivity, aspect, and measurement,” could be read as a proposal about what children have to learn, at least in part, about measurement, pluralities, and quantification in natural language, and what the path of acquisition might look like for phenomena associated with these topics in both the verbal and nominal domain. Here, I extend his proposal to the acquisition of universal quantification, and specifically differences among "all" and "each"
Acquisition of Comparative and Degree Constructions
No full textThe structure of this chapter is as follows. In the next section, I present recent linguistic analyses of comparatives and degree constructions, with particular emphasis on their semantics. This discussion will also highlight the cross-linguistic variability observed among these constructions, and implications that this variability has for both linguistic theory and language acquisition. While the main focus here will be on explicit comparatives and other degree constructions (e.g., equatives, superlatives, so…that, too, and enough constructions), we will also touch upon implicit (i.e., positive form) comparison with gradable adjectives (adjectives such as tall), since such adjectives are an integral component of comparative expressions and expressions of measurement. It will become clear as we work through the theoretical accounts of comparatives and degree constructions that we might indeed expect to find interesting interactions between the syntax and semantics, and between the semantics and pragmatics - and that this interplay may help to explain the ostensibly protracted development of these constructions that has been discussed in the literature.
Guided by this linguistic theory, I will pose specific questions relevant to language learnability as it relates to the acquisition of these constructions. I will then review a range of studies that have investigated children's understanding of comparative phenomena. For each specific topic that I address, I will summarize what we know about children's acquisition and development of comparatives from a core set of studies, and highlight the open questions that remain. Finally, I will close by suggesting a number of possible directions for future acquisition research on comparatives and degree constructions.Peer reviewe
QR Out of a Tensed Clause: Evidence from Antecedent-Contained Deletion
No full textThis paper presents an argument based on evidence from experiments featuring Antecedent-Contained Deletion (ACD) sentences situated in carefully-manipulated discourse contexts, that covert movement is not grammatically constrained by tense. ACD is a form of Verb Phrase Ellipsis in which ellipsis is embedded in its antecedent. Under an account appealing to Quantifier Raising, the quantificational phrase containing the ellipsis site raises to a VP-external position, allowing the VP to become the antecedent. When ACD is embedded in a non-finite clause, such sentences are ambiguous, since multiple VPs can serve as an antecedent. However, when ACD is embedded in a finite clause, the range of interpretations has been claimed to be restricted, because of an independent ‘clause-bounded’ movement constraint on Quantifier Raising. However, there are exceptions to this generalization. I present evidence from an experimental investigation of finite-clause-embedded ACD sentences, relying on Cecchetto (2004), to demonstrate that under the right discourse conditions, the supposedly unavailable Matrix reading surfaces robustly, at a percentage that is surprising if the constraint were rooted in the grammar. I argue that these results call into question the source of this locality restriction, and propose that it has nothing to do with an arbitrary grammatical constraint on movement.Peer reviewe
Adjectives
No full textAdjectives are words that denote properties of objects, such as size (big), shape (round), color (red), texture (rough), material (wooden), state (sleeping), aesthetic qualities (beautiful), among many others. Adjectives are among the first words produced by young children
- …
