Grammatical morphology as a source of early number word meanings
How does cross-linguistic variation in linguistic structure affect children’s acquisition of early number word meanings? We tested this question by investigating number word learning in two unrelated languages that feature a tripartite singular-dual-plural distinction: Slovenian and Saudi Arabic. We...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)
2014
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/89109 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5711-977X |
| _version_ | 1811076059680997376 |
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| author | Almoammer, Alhanouf Sullivan, Jessica Donlan, Chris Marusic, Franc Zaucer, Rok O'Donnell, Timothy John Barner, David |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Almoammer, Alhanouf Sullivan, Jessica Donlan, Chris Marusic, Franc Zaucer, Rok O'Donnell, Timothy John Barner, David |
| author_sort | Almoammer, Alhanouf |
| collection | MIT |
| description | How does cross-linguistic variation in linguistic structure affect children’s acquisition of early number word meanings? We tested this question by investigating number word learning in two unrelated languages that feature a tripartite singular-dual-plural distinction: Slovenian and Saudi Arabic. We found that learning dual morphology affects children’s acquisition of the number word two in both languages, relative to English. Children who knew the meaning of two were surprisingly frequent in the dual languages, relative to English. Furthermore, Slovenian children were faster to learn two than children learning English, despite being less-competent counters. Finally, in both Slovenian and Saudi Arabic, comprehension of the dual was correlated with knowledge of two and higher number words. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:15:27Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/89109 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:15:27Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/891092022-09-26T16:46:43Z Grammatical morphology as a source of early number word meanings Almoammer, Alhanouf Sullivan, Jessica Donlan, Chris Marusic, Franc Zaucer, Rok O'Donnell, Timothy John Barner, David Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences O'Donnell, Timothy John How does cross-linguistic variation in linguistic structure affect children’s acquisition of early number word meanings? We tested this question by investigating number word learning in two unrelated languages that feature a tripartite singular-dual-plural distinction: Slovenian and Saudi Arabic. We found that learning dual morphology affects children’s acquisition of the number word two in both languages, relative to English. Children who knew the meaning of two were surprisingly frequent in the dual languages, relative to English. Furthermore, Slovenian children were faster to learn two than children learning English, despite being less-competent counters. Finally, in both Slovenian and Saudi Arabic, comprehension of the dual was correlated with knowledge of two and higher number words. 2014-08-29T14:10:59Z 2014-08-29T14:10:59Z 2013-11 2013-07 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0027-8424 1091-6490 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/89109 Almoammer, A., J. Sullivan, C. Donlan, F. Marusic, R. Zaucer, T. O’Donnell, and D. Barner. “Grammatical Morphology as a Source of Early Number Word Meanings.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, no. 46 (October 28, 2013): 18448–18453. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5711-977X en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1313652110 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) PNAS |
| spellingShingle | Almoammer, Alhanouf Sullivan, Jessica Donlan, Chris Marusic, Franc Zaucer, Rok O'Donnell, Timothy John Barner, David Grammatical morphology as a source of early number word meanings |
| title | Grammatical morphology as a source of early number word meanings |
| title_full | Grammatical morphology as a source of early number word meanings |
| title_fullStr | Grammatical morphology as a source of early number word meanings |
| title_full_unstemmed | Grammatical morphology as a source of early number word meanings |
| title_short | Grammatical morphology as a source of early number word meanings |
| title_sort | grammatical morphology as a source of early number word meanings |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/89109 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5711-977X |
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