ERIC Number: EJ743013
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006
Pages: 30
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1048-9223
EISSN: N/A
On the Quantificational Status of Indefinites: The View from Child Language
Lidz, Jeffrey; Musolino, Julien
Language Acquisition, v13 n2 p73-102 2005-2006
Theories of indefinites vary with respect to whether these noun phrases can be treated as quantificational. Although everyone seems to be in agreement that indefinites do not always introduce their own quantificational force, there is widespread disagreement as to whether they ever do. In this article, we present experimental evidence from children learning English and Kannada demonstrating that children's indefinites show scopal restrictions parallel to the restrictions they show with other unambiguously quantificational expressions. Children, unlike adults, show a strong preference to assign quantificational expressions surface scope. This is true for both strong and weak quantifiers, which would be surprising on a theory of indefinites that treated these expressions as uniformly nonquantificational. Consequently, we argue that in adult grammars indefinites must have a quantificational representation at least some of the time.
Descriptors: Child Language, Children, Dravidian Languages, English, Theories, Nouns, Grammar, Phrase Structure
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 10 Industrial Avenue, Mahwah, NJ 07430. Tel: 800-926-6579; Tel: 201-258-2200; Fax: 201-236-0072; e-mail: journals@erlbaum.com; Web site: https://www.erlbaum.com.
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A