Introduction-Counting vs. Measuring a.san ge pingguo three - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Mandarin Children's Acquisition of

Numeral Container Classifier Phrases

Yuan Xiaohe Institute of linguistics Chinese Acadmey of Social Sciences

Introduction-Counting vs. Measuring

a.san ge pingguo three Clge apple three apples

• b. san jin pingguo

three Clkilo apple three kilos of apples

Container classifiers

a.There are two glasses of wine on the

• table. (counting)
• b. He poured two glasses of wine into

the water. (measure)

Theoretical basis

There are two glasses of wine on the table. (counting) He poured two glasses of wine into the water. (measure)

Counting Measure

Rothstein (2009, 2010, 2017)

Li (2013)

Semantics for classifiers in counting reading (Li,2013) ［DP [D NumP[Num NP[N NP］]］］

Semantics for classifiers in measure reading (Li,2013)

a.‖ping‖ = λnλx. MEAS(x) = <n,BOTTLE>
 b.‖pingcl‖ =λnλkλx. ∪k(x) ∧ MEAS(x) = <n, BOTTLE>
 c.‖san ping‖ =λkλx. x∈∪k ∧ MEAS(x) = <3,BOTTLE>
 d.‖san ping shui‖=λx.x ∈∪∩WATER ∧ MEAS(x) = <3,BOTTLE> [DP [MeasP [Num NMeas] N］］

Two standards distinguishing counting and measure (Li, 2013)

• 1. Pre-classifier adjectives appear before

classifiers in counting contexts: yi da zhang zhi count classifiers

• ne big CLpiece paper

‘a big piece of paper’ ta he le yi da ping kele massifiers he drink PFV one big CLbottle coke ‘He drank a big bottle of coke.’

Two standards (Li, 2013)

• 2. classifiers that can be interpreted with a

measure reading can be followed by de, in which case the measure reading is obligatory wo zou le san gongli (de) lu I walk PFV three kilometer DE road ‘I walked three kilometers of road’

Literature Review

• Piaget (1952)
• Lima (2014, 2015, 2016)

Piaget-conservation experiments (1952)

• liquid task

Two glasses with an equal amount of liquid The liquid from one of the short glass has been poured into a taller, skinnier glass. A child that cannot conserve would assume the taller glass has more liquid than the shorter glass.

• number task: Marbles are placed into two

parallel lines that are the same length. Then the marbles in one line are spread, longer than the other.

• solid quantity task: Two balls made of clay,
• ne ball is stretched out to be a long oblong

shape.

• Result: Children (2-6) are bad at amounts,

but favor counting individual pieces.

Lima (2014,2016)

Yudja: locative context, verb categories four types of verbs (pour, drink, bring water, bring rice) four critical conditions: (a) full and identical containers; (b) full containers of different sizes; (c) containers of the same size, but with different amounts including both full and not full sizes; (d) containers

• f the same size, but all not full.

Result: counting bias

Lima (2015)

37 English-speaking adults; 3-5-year-olds; 6 individuation and measure contexts

Research question 1

Could children differ counting and measure in container classifier phrases ? Are they better at counting or measuring?

Container classifier phrases with de

• a. wo kai le san ping jiu. [Counting]

I open PFV three CLbottle wine ‘I opened three bottles of wine.’

• b. wo-de wei neng zhuangxia san ping

de jiu. [Measure] my stomach can hold three CLbottle DE wine ‘My stomach can hold three bottles of wine.’

Rothstein (2010,2017); Li (2013)

‘zhuoshang you san wan de tang “There is a quantity

• f soup equal to three bowlfuls on the

table”’(Rothstein, 2010:699); ‘we use the English-based gloss BOTTLE-FUL to express the measure interpretation of the expression’ (Rothstein, 2010: 725); ‘bei “glass” is followed by de, and merely expresses that the quantity of the wine consumed was three glass-units’ (Li, 2013:207); ‘In the measure reading, I drank the quantity of a bottle, i.e. 750 ml of red wine. In this case, the event is a telic event. It doesn’t mean that I drank some of 750 ml, but the full amount’ (Li, 2013:149).

Container classifier phrases with de would force the full size meaning

Research question 2: Would Chinese container classifier phrases with de induce the full size meaning?

Two research questions/experiments

• Could children differ counting and measure in

numeral classifier phrases? Are they better at counting than measuring?

• Would Chinese numeral classifier phrases with

de induce the full size meaning?

measure de test experiment

Participants: 4 groups of adults from Ocean University of China (17, 21, 18, 21) Methodology: Picture selection task

measure de test experiment

6 controls: 3 empty, 3 full 9 targets: 6 half full, 3 little Two contexts: neutral context, recipe context

Experiment 1/2-neutral context (de/no de)

Here are two boys. Only one boy has san guan de guozhi 'three cans of juice'. Tell me which boy? empty control

neutral context

note: san guan de guozhi three can DE juice 'three cans of juice'

Here are two boys. Only one boy has san bei de cha 'three cups of tea'. Tell me which boy? full control

neutral context

note: san bei de cha three cup DE juice 'three cups of tea'

Here are two boys. Only one boy has san bei de guozhi 'three glasses of juice'. Tell me which boy? half full target

neutral context

note: san bei de guozhi three cup DE juice 'three cups of juice'

Here are two boys. Only one boy has san ping de tang 'three bottles of soup'. Tell me which boy? little target

neutral context

note: san ping de tang three bottle DE soup 'three bottles of soup'

Here are two boys. Both of them want to make a special dissert, but only one boy is able to make such a dissert because according to the recipe san guan de guozhi 'three cans of juice' is needed and only one boy has three cans of juice. Tell me which boy?

Experiment 3/4-recipe context ( de/no de)

empty control

note: san guan de guozhi three can DE soup 'three cans of soup'

Result

Adults’ responses

recipe de/no de: F=0.12 (1,31) , p=.912 neutral de/no de: F=.786 (1, 34), p=.382 neutral de/ recipe de: F=.001 (1, 31), p=.979 recipe no de/ neutral no de: F=1.942 (1, 34), p=.172

Children’s result

20 younger children (4;07-5;07, m=4;10) 18 elder children (6;00-7;06, m= 6;08) little targets: p=0.004, z=2.972 (Younger children vs. Adults); p=0.401, z=0.908 (Elder children vs. Adults)

Discussion

• The result from experiments 1&3 with de and 2&4

without de doesn’t have significant difference showing that the numeral container classifier phrases without de is ambiguous-either counting or measure interpretation.

• Chinese numeral container classifier phrases with de

don’t necessarily induce the full size meaning even in the strong recipe context but at least induce the half size meaning.

• The recipe context doesn’t help, which means that

participants prefer the counting reading of numeral classifier de phrases even in the strong measure context as long as it satisfies the purpose.

Conclusion

Both Chinese adults and children prefer counting instead of measuring or have a very strong bias for counting in comprehension. it is not until 6 that children could better distinguish counting and measuring.

Selected references

Cheng, L. S. & Sybesma, R. (1998). Yi-wan tang, yi-ge tang: classifiers and massifiers. Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, New Series 28(3): 385–412. Donaldson, M , (1978). Children's Minds. Fontana, Glasgow Donaldson, M . (1982). Conservation: what is the question? Br.J. Psychoi. 73, 199-20. Chierchia, G. (1998). Pluraity of mass nouns and the notion

• f ‘semantic parameter’. In S. Rothstein (ed.), Events and

Grammar, 53–103. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Li, X. (2013). Numeral Classifiers in Chinese: The Syntax- Semantics Interface. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Piaget, J. & Szeminska, A. (1952). The Child's Conception of

• Number. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Rothstein, S. (2009). Individuating and measure readings of classifier constructions: Evidence from modern Hebrew. Brill Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 1 (1): 106–145. Rothstein, S. (2010). Counting and the mass-count

• distinction. Journal of Semantics 27 (3): 343–397.

Rothstein, S. (2012). Measure readings of mandarin classifier phrases and the particle de. Language and linguistics 13(4): 693–741. Rothstein, S. (2017). Semantics for counting and

• measuring. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


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