On the relation between the acquisition of singular-plural morpho-syntax and the conceptual distinction between one and more than one.
We investigated the relationship between the acquisition of singular-plural morpho-syntax and children's representation of the distinction between singular and plural sets. Experiment 1 tested 18-month-olds using the manual-search paradigm and found that, like 14-month-olds (Feigenson & Carey, 2005), they distinguished three objects from one but not four objects from one. Thus, they failed to represent four objects as 'plural' or 'more than one'. Experiment 2 found that children continued to fail at the 1 vs. 4 manual-search task at 20 months of age, even when told, via explicit morpho-syntactic singular-plural cues, that one or many balls are being hidden. However, 22- and 24-month-olds succeeded both with and without verbal cues. Parental report data indicated that most 22- and 24-month-olds, but few 20-month-olds, had begun producing plural nouns in their speech. Also, the success among the older children was due to those children who had reportedly begun producing plural nouns. We discuss a possible role for language acquisition in children's deployment of set-based quantification and the distinction between singular and plural sets.
Barner
David
D
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. david.barner@utoronto.ca
Thalwitz
Dora
D
Wood
Justin
J
Yang
Shu-Ju
SJ
Carey
Susan
S
D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D012660:Semantics; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology*