Academic Paper |
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| Title: | Scope Assignment in Child Language: Evidence from the acquisition of Chinese |
| Author: | Peng Zhou |
| Email: | click here to access email |
| Homepage: | http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/members/profile.html?memberID=222 |
| Institution: | Macquarie University |
| Linguistic Field: | Language Acquisition |
| Subject Language: |
Chinese, Mandarin
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| Abstract: | 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 the 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. |
| Type: | Individual Paper |
| Status: | Completed |
| Publication Info: | Lingua, in press. |
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