Scope assignment in child language : evidence from the acquisition of Chinese | Macquarie University ResearchOnline

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Title: Scope assignment in child language : evidence from the acquisition of Chinese
Related: Lingua, Vol. 119, Issue 7, p.973-988
DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2009.01.001
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: 2009
Author/Creator: Zhou, Peng
Author/Creator: Crain, Stephen
Description: In this paper, we investigated how Mandarin-speaking children and adults understand the scope relation between the universal quantifier and negation in sentences like Mei-pi ma dou meiyou tiaoguo liba ‘Every horse didn’t jump over the fence’ and Bushi mei-pi ma dou tiaoguo-le liba ‘Not every horse jumped over fence’. We found that Mandarin-speaking children accepted these two types of sentences in both the surface scope and the inverse scope scenarios, whereas Mandarin-speaking adults only permitted them in the surface scope scenarios. The findings of this study, combined with previous research with English-speaking children, invite the conclusion that children start off with a flexible scope relation between the universal quantifier and negation. Children's grammar allows flexibility in the mappings between syntax and semantics.
Description: 16 page(s)
Subject Keyword: scope assignment
Subject Keyword: surface scope
Subject Keyword: inverse scope
Subject Keyword: flexibility
Resource Type: journal article
Organisation: Macquarie University. Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science

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