Cover not available
Part of
Interfaces in Grammar
Edited by Jianhua Hu and Haihua Pan
[Language Faculty and Beyond 15] 2019
► pp. 301–340

Chapter 11
The acquisition of nominal structure, word order and referentiality in Chinese

Corpus and experimental findings on the numeral phrase

| Tianjin Normal University and The Chinese University of Hong Kong
| Guangdong University of Foreign Studies

The mapping between nominal structure, word order and referentiality in Mandarin Chinese is examined from an acquisition perspective. Two aspects of the syntax-semantics interface are investigated based on early naturalistic data and experiments with preschool children: the Subject Specificity Constraint, which prohibits non-specific individual-denoting numeral phrases in subject position, and the referential difference between two types of noun phrases containing a modifier: inner modifier nominals (IMN) and outer modifier nominals (OWN) . Our findings reveal adult-like distribution of nominal types and an early sensitivity to the Subject Specificity Constraint. Given the poverty of the stimulus, the semantic difference between the two types of modified nominals, reflected in interactions with stress and focus, appears to be a late acquired interface property in child grammar.

Article outline
  • 1.The Subject Specificity Constraint in Chinese: An alternative view
  • 2.The mapping of specificity to word order within the numeral phrase: Inner Modifier Nominal (IMN) vs. Outer Modifier Nominal (OMN)
  • 3.Numeral phrases used by Mandarin-speaking children and adults
    • 3.1Numeral phrases in the naturalistic speech of two Mandarin children
      • Numeral-Classifier
      • Numeral-Classifier-Noun
      • Inner modifier nominal (IMN)
      • Classifier-Noun
    • 3.2Numeral phrases in child-directed adult speech
      • Numeral-Classifier
      • Numeral-Classifier-Noun
      • Inner modifier nominal (IMN)
      • Outer modifier nominal (OMN)
      • Classifier-Noun
    • 3.3Comparison of numeral phrases used in children and adults
  • 4.An experimental study on Mandarin-speaking children’s comprehension of the IMN /OMN distinction
    • 4.1Method
      • Test materials
      • Procedure
    • 4.2Results
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 April 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.15.11lee
References
Allan, Keith
1986 Linguistic meaning. Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Avrutin, Sergey
1994 Psycholinguistic investigations in the theory of reference. Doctoral dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Barwise, Jon
1981 Scenes and other situations. The Journal of Philosophy 78(7), 369–397. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Roger
1973 A First Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, Ping
1987 Xi Hanyu zhong yu mingcixing chengfen xiangguan de sizu gainian [‘On four sets of notions related to nominals in Chinese’]. Zhongguo Yuwen 1987(2), 81–92.Google Scholar
Chao, Yuen-Ren
1968 A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cheng, L.-S. Lisa
1991 On the typology of wh questions. Ph.D.diss., MIT.Google Scholar
Cheng, L.-S. Lisa and Rint Sybesma
1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP. Linguistic Inquiry 30(4), 509–542. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cormack, Annabel. and Ruth Kempson
1991 On specificity. In Jay Garfield and Murray Kiteley eds., Meaning and truth: Essential readings in modern semantics, 546–581. New York: Paragon House.Google Scholar
De Cat, C.
2013 Egocentric definiteness errors and perspective evaluation in preschool children. Journal of Pragmatics 56, 58–69. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Del Gobbo, Francesca
2003 Appositives at the interface. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Irvine.Google Scholar
Diesing, Molly
1992 Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ding, Shengshu et al.
1961 Xiandai Hanyu Yufa Jianghua [‘Lectures on Modern Chinese Grammar’]. Beijing: Commercial Press.Google Scholar
Emslie, Hazel and Rosemary Stevenson
1981 Preschool children’s use of the articles in definite and indefinite referring expressions. Journal of Child Language 8, 313–328. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Enç, Murvet
1991 The semantics of specificity. Linguistic Inquiry 22, 1–25.Google Scholar
Erbaugh, Mary S.
2001 The Chinese Pear Stories: Narratives across seven dialects, [URL]. Retrieved on December 1, 2012. [URL]
Fan, Jiyan
1985 Wuding NP Zhuyuju [‘Sentences with indefinite subjects’]. Zhongguo Yuwen 1985(5), 321–328.Google Scholar
Fodor, Janet Dean
1970 The linguistic description of opaque contexts. Doctoral dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. and Ivan A. Sag
1982 Referential and quantificational indefinites. Linguistics and Philosophy 5, 355–398. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Givón, Talmy
1984 Syntax: A functional approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, John A.
1978 Definiteness and indefiniteness: A study in reference and grammaticality predication. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Heim, Irene
1982 The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases. Doctoral dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Von Heusinger, Klaus
2008 Referentially anchored indefinites. In I. Comorovski and K. von Heusinger eds., Existence: Semantics and syntax, . 273–292.Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hickmann, Maya and H. Hendriks
1999 Cohesion and anaphora in children’s narratives: A comparison of English, French, German, and Mandarin Chinese. Journal of Child Language 26, 419–452. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hickman, Maya and J. C.-P. Liang
1990 Clause structure variation in Chinese narrative discourse: A developmental analysis. Linguistics 28, 1167–1200. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Higginbotham, James
1983 The logic of perceptual reports: An existential alternative to situation semantics. The Journal of Philosophy 80, 100–127.Google Scholar
Huang, Cheng-Teh James
1982 Logical relations in Chinese and the theory of grammar. Doctoral dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
1987 Existential sentences in Chinese and (in)definiteness. In Eric Reuland and Alice ter Meulen eds., The Representation of (In)definiteness, 226–253. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Huang, Shizhe
2004 Wuding Mingci Zhuyu tong Shijian Lunyuan de Guanxi (‘Indefinite subject nominals and their relationship with the event argument’). In Zhongguo Yuyanxue Luncong, Issue No. (3), 93–110. Beijing: Beijing Language and Culture University.Google Scholar
Hurford, James R. and Bredan Heasley
1983 Semantics: A course book. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ioup, Georgette
1977 Specificity and the interpretation of quantifiers. Linguistics and Philosophy 1, 233–245.Google Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A.
1979 A functional approach to child language: A study of determiners and reference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1985 Language and cognitive processes from a developmental perspective. Language and Cognitive Processes 1(1), 61–85. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karttunen, Lauri
1976 Discourse referents. In J. D. McCawley (ed.), Syntax and Semantics 7: Notes from the linguistic underground, 263–285. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kuroda, S.-Y.
1972 The categorical and the thetic judgment. Foundations of Language 9, 153–185. Reprinted in S.-Y. Kuroda 1979 The (W)hole of the doughnut: Syntax and its boundaries. Ghent, Brussels: E. Story-Scientia P.V.B.A.Google Scholar
Lee, Thomas H.-T.
1986 Studies on quantification in Chinese. Doctoral dissertation, UCLA.Google Scholar
2010 Nominal structure in early child Mandarin. In Chris Wilder and Tor Åfarli eds., Chinese matters: From grammar to first and second language acquisition, 75–109. Trondheim, Norway: Tapir Academic Press.Google Scholar
2012 Quantificational structures in three-year-old Chinese-speaking children. In Dan Xu ed., Plurality and classifiers across languages of China, 243–282. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Lee, Thomas H.-T. and Zhuang Wu
2011 A corpus-based analysis of the subject specificity constraint in Mandarin Chinese. Paper presented at the 19th Annual Conference of the International Association of Chinese Linguistics, June 11–13, Nankai University.
2012 Children’s knowledge of the mapping between nominal structure and specificity in Mandarin. Paper presented at Graduate Institute of Linguistics, April 9, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan.
Li, Charles and S. Thompson
1981 Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Li, Yen-Hui Audrey
1998 Argument determiner phrases and number phrases. Linguistic Inquiry 29, 693–702. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lu, Bingfu
1998 Left-right asymmetries of word order variation: A function explanation. Doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Lu, Shuo and Haihua Pan
2009 Hanyu Wuding Zhuyu de Yuyi Yunzhun Fenxi [‘An analysis of semantic licensing for indefinite subjects in Chinese’]. Zhongguo Yuwen 2009(6), 528–537.Google Scholar
Maratsos, M.
1974 Preschool children’s use of definite and indefinite articles. Child Development 45, 446–455. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1976 The use of definite and indefinite reference in young children: An experimental study in semantic acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Min, Ruifang
1994 The acquisition of referring expressions by young Chinese children. Ph.D.diss., University of Nijmegen.Google Scholar
Ming, Tao and Liang Chen
2010 A discourse-pragmatic study of the word order variation in Chinese relative clauses. Journal of Pragmatics 42, 168–189. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schafer, R. and J. de Villiers
2000 Imagining articles: What a and the can tell us about the emergence of DP? In S. Catherine Howell et al. eds., BUCLD 24 Proceedings, 609–620. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Shyu, Shu-ying
1995 The syntax of focus and topic in Mandarin Chinese. Ph.D.diss., University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Tsai, Wei-tien Dylan
1994 On economizing the theory of A-bar dependencies. Doctoral dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
2001 On subject specificity and theory of syntax-semantics interface. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 10,129–168. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Hout, A., Harrigan, K., & de Villiers, J.
2010 Asymmetries in the acquisition of definite and indefinite NPs. Lingua 120, 1973–1990. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Warden, David A.
1976 The influence of context on children’s use of identifying expressions and references. British Journal of Psychology 67, 101–112. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1981 Learning to identify referents. British Journal of Psychology 72(1), 93–99. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wexler, Kenneth
2011 Cues don’t explain learning: Maximal trouble in the determiner system. In Edward Gibson and Neal Pearlmutter eds., The processing and acquisition of reference, 15-42. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wu, Zhuang, Rong Huang and Zhenghao Zhang
2015 Hanyu (bu) dingzhi biaoji ertong xide yanjiu [‘Acquisition of (in)definiteness markers in child Mandarin’]. Foreign Language Teaching and Research 47(2), 176–189.Google Scholar
Xu, Liejiong
1997 Limitations on subjecthood of numerically quantified noun phrases: A pragmatic approach. In Liejiong Xu ed., The referential properties of Chinese noun phrases, 23–44. Paris: EHESS.Google Scholar
Yang, Xiaolu
2006 Syntactic complexity and productivity: A study of early verbs in L1 acquisition of Mandarin Chinese. Poster Presentation at the 30th Boston Conference on Language Development, Nov. 4–6, Boston University, MA, USA.
Zhang, Bojiang
2009 Cong shishou guanxi dao jushi yuyi [‘From agent-patient relations to constructional meaning’]. Beijing: Commercial Press.Google Scholar
Zhang, Ning
2006 Representing specificity by the internal order of indefinites. Linguistics 44(1), 1–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 Nominal-internal phrasal movement in Mandarin Chinese. The Linguistic Review 32(2), 375–425. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhu, Dexi
1982 Yufa Jiangyi [‘Lectures on grammar’]. Beijing: Commercial Press.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Wang, Changsong & Mingming Zheng
2020. A Morphosyntactic Analysis of Patient-Subject Constructions in Chinese. Studies in Chinese Linguistics 41:1 ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 10 may 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.