On the Acquisition of "Some" and "All." Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, No. 9 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Cross-linguistic patterns in the acquisition of quantifiers
Chris Cummins, Darinka Anđelković, Jess Overweg, Anja Fengler, Ira Noveck, Savic Maja, Sirli Zupping, Ewa Haman, Daniela Gatt, Sari Kunnari, Maria-José Ezeizabarrena, Svetlana Kapalková, Anna Gavarró, Napoleon Katsos
Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words as well as the cogni-tive and perceptual systems and cultural practices that shape it. Substantially less is known about the acquisition of quantifiers. Here we consider the extent to which systems and practices that support number word acquisition can be applied to quantifier acquisition and conclude that the two domains are largely distinct in this respect. Consequently, we hypothesize that the acquisition of quantifiers is constrained by a set of factors related to each quantifier's specific meaning. We investigate competence with the expressions for 'all', 'none', 'some', 'some…not' and 'most' in 31 languages, representing 11 language types, by testing 768 5-year-old children and 536 adults. We found a cross-linguistically similar order of acquisition of quantifiers, explicable in terms of four factors relating to their meaning and use. In addition, exploratory analyses reveal that language-and learner-specific factors, such as negative concord and gender, are significant predictors of variation. language acquisition | universals | quantifiers | semantics | prag-matics
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016
Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words and the cognitive and perceptual systems and cultural practices that shape it. Substantially less is known about the acquisition of quantifiers. Here we consider systems and practices that support number word acquisition in order to determine that their relevance to quantifiers is limited. Instead, we propose that a major constraint in the acquisition of quantifiers comes from their rich and varied meaning. We investigate competence with the expressions for 'all', 'none', 'some', 'some…not' and 'most' in 31 languages, representing 11 language types, by testing 768 5-year-old children and 536 adults. The findings reveal four dimensions of the meaning and use of quantifiers that constrain the order of acquisition in similar ways across languages in our sample. In addition, exploratory analyses reveal that language-and learner-specific factors, such as negative concord and gender, are significant predictors of variation. language acquisition | universals | meaning | quantification
Language and Language Teaching, 2021
It is a matter of great wonder how children can link words with grammar and make appropriate sentences. Achieving this in a second language is equally remarkable. For example, words or phrases used to express quantification—every, all, some, none—refer to some numbers or sets of individuals/objects that do not have ready referents in the real world, unlike the referents of lexical noun phrases (NPs) such as “Rita”, “the blue book”. So, learning the meaning of quantification noun phrases (QNPs) or their scope in sentences is a complex task. In this paper, we will report a study conducted on thirty 5 to 7-year-old ESL learners' understanding of the scope of “every”. The implications of the findings for ESL teaching are briefly discussed.
Preschool logic: truth and felicity in the acquisition of quantification
2002
In this article we present two sets of experiments designed to investigate the acquisition of scalar implicatures. Scalar implicatures arise in examples like Some professors are famous where the speaker's use of some typically indicates that s/he had reasons not to use a more informative term, e.g. all. Some professors are famous therefore gives rise to the implicature that not all professors are famous. Recent studies on the development of pragmatics suggest that preschool children are often insensitive to such implicatures when they interpret scalar terms (
Differential Patterns of Children's Knowledge of Quantifier Meaning Revealed Under Different Tasks
Frontiers in Communication
This study examines children's comprehension of quantifiers in Hebrew using several tasks. We focused on a linguistic ambiguity related to universal quantifiers that express a distinction between collectivity and distributivity: all can be assigned with both a collective reading and a distributive reading ("a flower for all fairies" can be interpreted as an event with one flower or an event with multiple flowers), whereas each has a distributive reading only ("a flower for each fairy" is an event with multiple flowers). Unlike English, Hebrew has a single universal quantifier and thus, it expresses the collectivity/distributivity distinction using two morphosyntactic forms: one form (kol+ definite plural noun) is equivalent to all and has the two readings, and the other form (kol+ indefinite singular noun) is equivalent to each and has only one reading. We examined how Hebrewspeaking preschoolers (4-6 years) understand sentences in the two forms, and how they resolve the ambiguity of the ambiguous form, while focusing on the type and presence of contrast in three preference tasks. Experiment 1 used a conventional picturematching task where the collective and distributive meanings were contrasted using two pictures (meaning contrast); Experiment 2 used a sentence-matching task where the two morphosyntactic forms were contrasted using two sentences (linguistic contrast); and Experiment 3 used a novel drawing task including instructions in one form (no contrast). In all tasks, adults showed a consistent response pattern, matching the ambiguous form (equivalent to all) to the collective reading and the distributive form (equivalent to each) to the distributive reading. Children, on the other hand, were affected by the task, showing adult-like performance pattern in the picture-matching task, but not in the other tasks. This suggests that children can distinguish between the two morphosyntactic forms, but they do not fully attain adults' preference pattern. The differences between the tasks can be attributed to the salience of the contrast, task experience, or working memory. The results highlight the need for a careful selection of language tasks, both in basic research and in clinical assessment.
Children's ambiguous understanding of weak and strong quantifiers
Nordlyd, 2008
Despite suggestions in the literature that the semantics of many might be the key for understanding children's non-adult-like interpretations of quantified sentences (cf. Drozd 2001, Geurts 2003), experimental data on the acquisition of weak quantifiers like many is rare. This ...
Children's Interpretation of Sentences Containing Multiple Scalar Terms
J. Semant., 2022
Sentences containing the scalar term “some”, such as “The pig carried some of his rocks”, are usually interpreted as conveying the scalar inference that the pig did not carry all of his rocks. Previous research has reported that when interpreting such sentences, children tend to derive fewer of these scalar inferences than adults (Noveck 2001; Papafragou and Musolino 2003; Guasti et al. 2005, among others). One approach to explaining these results contends that children have difficulties accessing the alternative sentences involved in the derivation of such scalar inferences. This ‘Alternatives-based’ approach raises the possibility that children’s performance may improve if certain scalar terms are presented together in the same sentence, for example, if a sentence contains both an existential quantifier and a universal quantifier, as in “Every pig carried some of his rocks”. Such ‘EverySome’ sentences have been associated with the inference that not every pig carried all of his ro...