On the acquisition of the mass-count distinction
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On the acquisition of the mass-count distinction in Dutch Merel van Witteloostuijn
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Transcript of On the acquisition of the mass-count distinction
On the acquisition of the mass-count distinction in Dutch
Merel van Witteloostuijn
Introduction
¢ Topic: Acquisition of the syntactic mass-count distinction by Dutch-acquiring typically developing (TD) children, and a comparison of Dutch to English and Hebrew
¢ Main claims: £ Acquisition of the mass-count distinction is driven by
morphosyntax £ There are cross-linguistic differences between the
available cues in the input £ Difference in age of acquisition: English < Dutch < Hebrew
On the acquisition of the mass-count distinction in Dutch
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On the acquisition of the mass-count distinction in Dutch 3
¢ Substance: water, dough ¢ Object: spoon, doll
(Quine, 1960; Cheng, 1973)
Background – Conceptual
Background - Syntactic
As opposed to count nouns, mass nouns:
• cannot be preceded by an indefinite arDcle
• cannot be preceded by numerals
• need measure phrases to be quanDzed
• cannot be pluralized (Chierchia, 1998)
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Background – One-to-one mapping?
(Bloom, 1999)
¢ Flexible nouns
rope(s), stone(s) ¢ Syntactically mass, but conceptually individual
furniture, mail
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Conceptual Syntactic Individual (object) Count Non-individual (substance) Mass
Background – Noun types
1. Substance mass – water, dough 2. Object mass – furniture, mail 3. Flexible mass – rope, stone 4. Flexible count – rope(s), stone(s) 5. Classical count – spoon(s), doll(s)
(Barner & Snedeker, 2005)
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Background - View
¢ Conceptual properties cannot account for all different noun types.
¢ Grammatical properties are needed as is best demonstrated by flexible nouns (rope/ropes)
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Background - View
¢ [+ individual] feature triggering conceptual object interpretation, available:
£ Structurally for nouns in count syntax
£ Lexically for object mass nouns
(Barner & Snedeker, 2005)
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Background – Acquisition in English
Barner & Snedeker (2005) ¢ 16 adults ¢ 16 children aged 4;0–4;6
¢ English-acquiring 4-year-olds are aware of the mass-count distinction and perform accordingly.
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Background – Acquisition in Hebrew
Hacohen and Schaeffer (submitted) ¢ 6 Hebrew speaking adults ¢ 44 Hebrew speaking children aged 4;0–17;11
¢ Children show some sensitivity to the mass-count distinction only around age 8 and are not adultlike even by age 17.
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Background – Syntactic cues
Mass-count distinguishing cues in the input: 1. Pluralization 2. Numerals 3. Indefinite article 4. Quantifiers
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Syntactic cue 1 – Pluralization
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Language Pluralization? English doll – dolls
dough – *doughs ü
Hebrew bgadim clothes *bigudim clothing-plm
ü
Dutch lepel – lepels deeg - *degen
ü
Syntactic cue 2 – Numerals
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Language Numerals? English three dolls
* three doughs ü
Hebrew shalosh na’ alaim three shoes *shalosh han’a lot three footwear
ü
Dutch drie lepels *drie degen
ü
Syntactic cue 3 – Indefinite article
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Language Indefinite article? English an apple
*a rice ü
Hebrew orez rice Ø tapuax (an) apple
-
Dutch een appel *een rijst
ü
Syntactic cue 4 – Quantifiers
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Mass Plural Count Both Quantifiers?
English Much Little Less Least
Many Few Fewer Fewest
A lot of More
ü
Hebrew Harbe (much/many) Ktsat (a little/few)
-
Dutch Een beetje (little)
Een paar (a few)
Veel (much/many) Weinig (little/few) Minder (less/fewer) Minste (least/fewest)
±
Background – Syntactic cues
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English Hebrew Dutch
Pluralization ü ü ü
Numerals ü ü ü
Indefinite article ü - ü
Quantifiers ü - ±
Hypotheses (I)
¢ The acquisition of the mass-count distinction is driven by the number of morphosyntactic cues in the input
¢ Dutch has more morphosyntactic cues that encode the mass-count distinction than Hebrew, but fewer than English
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Hypotheses (II)
¢ [+ individual feature]
£ Available structurally for classical and
flexible count nouns
£ Available lexically only for object-mass
nouns (Barner and Snedeker, 2005)
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Predictions
¢ Dutch children will acquire the mass-count distinction at a later age than English children, but earlier than Hebrew children.
¢ There are no cross-linguistic differences for object-mass nouns
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Methods
q 88 Dutch TD children aged 4;1 – 12;6 q 10 Dutch adults aged 19;7 – 26;10
Quantity Judgment Task: participants were presented with two characters (cowboy and horsebackrider) and asked to choose: “Who has more X?”
(Barner & Snedeker, 2005; Hacohen and Schaeffer, in press)
On the acquisition of the mass-count distinction in Dutch 20
Methods
¢ Materials:
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Condition Number of items Classical count (doll, spoon) 4 Flexible count (ropes, stones) 12 Object mass (furniture, mail) 4 Substance mass (dough, water) 4 Flexible mass (rope, stone) 12 Filler 8
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Wie heeft er meer touw(en)? (flexible noun)
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Wie heeft er meer potloden? (classical count)
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Wie heeft er meer meel? (substance mass)
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Wie heeft er meer bestek? (object mass)
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Wie heeft er meer bananen? (filler)
Results – Flexible nouns (rope/ropes)
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58
82
95 94 99
54
23
14 10.0
2 0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
4;1 - 5;10 6;2 - 7;11 8;0 - 9;11 10;0 - 12;6 adults
% o
f jud
gmen
ts b
ased
on
num
ber
Flexible count
Flexible mass
Results – Classical nouns (water/dough)
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81
93
100 100 100
52
21
8 4
0 0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
4;1 - 5;10 6;2 - 7;11 8;0 - 9;11 10;0 - 12;6 adults
% ju
dgm
ents
bas
ed o
n nu
mbe
r
Classical count
Substance mass
Results – Object mass nouns (furniture/mail)
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81 85
94 97 98
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
4;1 - 5;10 6;2 - 7;11 8;0 - 9;11 10;0 - 12;6 adults
% ju
dgm
ents
bas
ed o
n nu
mbe
r
Object mass
Summary of findings and discussion
¢ Generally, results indicate that the more children have to rely on syntax, the more difficulty they have.
¢ Indeed, Dutch children acquire the mass-count
distinction later than English, but earlier than Hebrew-acquiring children à syntactic cues in input matter. (prediction 1)
¢ No cross-linguistic differences for object mass nouns. (prediction 2)
On the acquisition of the mass-count distinction in Dutch 30
Acknowledgements
¢ Jeannette Schaeffer and Peter Coopmans ¢ Iris Duinmeijer ¢ Doatske de Haan, Sybren Spit and Kim Schoof
¢ All participating children and their parents
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